Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper deals with some ‘natural objects’ (earth mound, stones, river) in the ritual landscape of Joria Praja villages in South Odisha. The paper show that the concerned objects act as spatial metaphors for the social world, as well as for some human experiences.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper deals with some 'natural objects' composing the ritual landscape of a Joria Praja village in South Odisha. The Joria Praja people are a social group classified as Scheduled Tribe according to the Indian administration, speaking the local dialect of Oriya (Desia).

Far to be evidences of a worship of 'Nature' in its various manifestations (« stock and stones » according to the old formula), or only of a fertility cult, the paper intends to show that the concerned objects (a small earth mound, rows of standing stones, the local river and a local hillock) act mostly as spatial metaphors for the social world, as well as for some human experiences.

At the collective level, such local environment features are used as ritual devices to express and support socio-political experiences. At the individual one, the same features can be used during therapeutic or death rituals in respect with some analogies they offer to human existence experiences. Concerning the river case, some comparisons can be traced with the data published by Prof. A. Feldhaus.

The data presented were collected mostly during my PhD fieldwork, between 2000 and 2004.