Interaction between figurine and participant

Posted at Mar 03/2007 07:48PM:
Interaction between figurine and participant

What I became most interested in about these prehistoric figurines found in areas like Catalhouk, Gobekli, and Nevali Cori was, what was the interaction between figurine and participant?

Bailey proposes that the interaction between figurine and participant is a ritual to communicate with ancestors. A time which the participant alters their states of consciousness. He believes that the figurines were parts of the rituals that engaged both the living and the spiritual world. Bailey says it perfectly, “by physically engaging the figurines, women entered another world, the one in which the ancestors dwelt, or at least ones which both ancestors and living humans could occupy together.” I believe that he could be correct, that the figurines were used as ritual because there have been facts about who makes these figurines. It is believed that only a few were able to make figurines and ceramic pottery. Bailey writes, “Creating a permanent medium from an impermanent one and making the perishable durable are significant material and spiritual transitions.” The people who are believed to have been able to handle the material and had the knowledge of its properties would have been magicians, shamans, and respected of feared possessors of special knowledge. Therefore, because these privileged leaders were the ones who produced them, it is not far to infer that the figurines they made were used in rituals to communicate or contact their ancestors.

The picture in Prehistoric Figurines on page 21, shows a woman with four figurines in front of her. This picture is similar to what a child looks like playing with dolls. Is the interaction between the figurine and participant a form of “play” similar to that of a child? The article “The Anthropological study of Children’s Play” by Helen Schwartzman, gives theories of children’s play and their interaction with each other and other objects. What she found out was that the most common form of play was an imitation of and/or preparation for adult life. Therefore, another possibility of interaction between figurine and participant is a form of socialization, a way for the participant to learn and act out an ordinary day. It is also a way for the participant to act out histories and narratives that had happened to their ancestors. I know this article on play is about children but I do believe that it could be associated with adults as well. Adults could be using these figurines to act out certain traditional ceremonies that their past ancestors have done and told their families about. In Bailey’s article he emphasizes the importance of ancestors, therefore it would not be odd for an adult to use a figurine like a child.

Schwartzman also says, “play can include variations on traditional or possibly innovative games created in response to new physical and/or social environments.” This quote screamed out to me because of what was happening social during the time period of these prehistoric Neolithic communities. These communities were changing. All of a sudden groups were settled in enclosed spaces, creating new “social environments.” And as we have already seen in Bailey’s article, it is believed that once people started to settle and make architectural structures other aspects of society started to change, including technology, materials, identity and other aspects of society.

Bailey, Douglass; 2005. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and corporeality in the Neolithic. Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

Schwartzman, Helen. “The Anthropological study of children’s play.” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 5, 1967, pp. 289-328