Describing sacred waters and their associated traditions in over thirty countries and across multiple time periods, this book identifies patterns in panhuman hydrolatry. Supplying life’s most basic daily need, freshwater sources were most likely the earliest sacred sites, and the first protected and contested resource. Guarded by taboos, rites and supermundane forces, freshwater sources have also been considered thresholds to otherworlds. Often associated with also venerated stones, trees and healing flora, sacred water sources are sites of biocultural diversity. Addressing themes that will shape future water research, this volume examines cultural perceptions of water’s sacrality that can be employed to foster resilient human-environmental relationships in the growing water crises of the twenty-first century. The work combines perspectives from anthropology, religious studies, sociology, geography, archaeology, history and folklore.
Holy Wells and Sacred Springs
Celeste Ray
Part 1: Ancient Influences
Chapter 1: Fons et Origo: Observations on Sacred Springs in Classical Antiquity and Traditions
Christopher M. McDonough
Chapter 2: Water Sources and the Sacred in Modern and Ancient Greece
Evy Johanne Håland
Chapter 3: Life and Death from the Watery Underworld: Ancient Maya Interaction with Caves and Cenotes
Nicholas Dunning
Part 2: Stewarding Curative Waters and Caring for Pilgrims
Chapter 4: "Go Drink from the Spring and Wash There": The Healing Waters of Lourdes
Michael Agnew
Chapter 5: The Well of Zamzam: A Pilgrimage Site and Curative Water in Islam
Ahmad Ghabin
Chapter 6: Sacrality, Waterfront Sacred Places in India: Myths and the Making of Place
Rana P.B. Singh
Part 3: Genii Loci and Ancestors
Chapter 7: Freshwater Sources and their Relational Contexts in Indigenous Australia: Views from the Past and Present
Liam Brady
Chapter 8: Inca Shrines: Deities in Stone and Water
Marco Curatola Petrocchi
Chapter 9: Dragon Wells and Sacred Springs in China
Jean DeBernardi, Yan Jie and Ma Junhong
Chapter 10: The Sacred Springs of the Tewa Pueblos, New Mexico
Richard Ford
Part 4: Temporal Powers, Social Identity and Sacred Geography
Chapter 11: Divine waters in Ethiopia: The Source from Heaven and Indigenous Water-Worlds in the Lake Tana Region
Terje Oestigaard and Gedef Abawa Firew
Chapter 12 : Ori Aiye: A Holy Well among the Ondo in Southeastern Yorubaland, Nigeria
Raheem Oluwafunminiyi and Ajisola Omojeje
Chapter 13: Sacred Wells of Banaras: Glorifications, Ritual Practices and Healing
Vera Lazzaretti
Chapter 14: Yaksutŏ: Korean Sacred Mineral Spring Water
Hong-key Yoon
Chapter 15: Sacred Hierarchy, Festival Cycles and Water Veneration at Chalma in Central Mexico
Ramiro Gómez Arzapalo Dorantes
Part 5: Medieval Europe
Chapter 16: Between Fons and Foundation: Managing a French Holy Well in the Miracula Sancti Theoderici
Kate M. Craig
Chapter 17: Finnaun y Doudec Seint: A Holy Spring in Early Medieval Brycheiniog, Wales
Andy Seaman
Chapter 18: Gvendarbrunnur of Medieval Iceland
Margaret Cormack
Part 6: Contested and Shared Sites
Chapter 19: A Higher Level of Immersion: A Contemporary Freshwater Mikvah Pool in Israel
Robert Phillips
Chapter 20: Waters at the Edge: Sacred Springs and Spatiality in Southwest Finnish Village Landscapes
John Björkman
Chapter 21: Memory and Martyrs: Holy Springs in Western Siberia
Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby
Chapter 22: Sacred and Healing Springs in the Republic of Macedonia
Snežana Filipova
Chapter 23: Water Sanctuaries of Hatay, Turkey
Jens Kreinath
Part 7: Sacred Waterfalls
Chapter 24: Sacred Waters of Haitian Vodou: The Pilgrimage of Sodo
Elizabeth McAlister
Chapter 25: The Olympic Mountains and the Sacrality of Water in the Klallam World
Cailín Murray
Chapter 26: Back into the Light: Water and the Indigenous Uncanny in Northeastern Japan
Ellen Schattschneider
Part 8: Popular Pieties
Chapter 27: With Sacred Springs, without Holy Wells: the Case of Estonia
Heiki Valk
Chapter 28: Holy Wells of Wychwood Forest, England
Martin Haigh
Chapter 29: Holy Wells and Trees in Poland as an Element of Local and National Identity
Wojciech Bedyński
Chapter 30: Visiting Holy Wells in Seventeenth-Century Sweden:
The Case of St. Ingemo’s Well in Dala
Terese Zachrisson
Chapter 31: The Buddha’s Thumb, Nāga Legends, and Blessings of Health: Sacred Water and Religious Practice in Thailand
Rachelle M. Scott
Part 9: Hydrology, Stewardship and Biocultural Heritage
Chapter 32: At the End of the Field, a Pot of Nemunai is Boiling: A Study of Lithuanian Springs
Vykintas Vaitkevičius□
Chapter 33: Hydrogeological Characteristics of Irish Holy Wells
Bruce Misstear, Laurence Gill, Cora McKenna and Ronan Foley
Chapter 34: The Holy Springs of Russia’s Orel Region: Traditions of Place and Environmental Care
Jane Costlow
Chapter 35: Sentient Springs and Sources of Life: Water, Climate Change and World-Making Practices in the Andes
Astrid B. Stensrud
Chapter 36: Cures, Flora and Fauna: Ireland’s Holy Wells as Sites of Biocultural Diversity
Celeste Ray
