Waters of Life

Presentation Location

VSU University Center, Magnolia Room 1

Document Type

Event

Start Date

11-3-2023 10:00 AM

End Date

11-3-2023 11:30 AM

Description

Waters of Life (Celeste Ray, Session Chair)

Pre-existing and required for all known forms of life, water uncoincidentally symbolizes life cross-culturally. Less than 3% of the earth’s water is fresh, only 30% of that is liquid (not locked in ice caps and glaciers), and 97% of earth’s liquid water flows beneath the land surface as groundwater, so that lakes, rivers and spring-fed ponds are a very small percentage of the water composing our blue planet. For those now accustomed to water derived from a tap, the comparative rarity of fresh, liquid surface water may have little impact on daily life, yet the search for water sources and their protection and ritual celebration has shaped all societies since the origins of humanity. This panel examines water sources as the central nodes of Local Ecological Knowledge, as therapeutic and healing sites across time periods, and as compromised by human use in a moment when human overpopulation conflates with water-intensive medical practices. Individual contributors consider how viewing water sources as biocultural resources can foster socio-ecological resilience in the face of water insecurity and how understanding particular sites deemed culturally significant can help monitor local water supplies more generally.

  • Celeste Ray. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Sacred Waters as Biocultural Resources.
    Aquatic Sacred Natural Sites and their associated traditions have many striking similarities around the world. As sites of biocultural diversity, sacred springs and holy wells are places where cultural beliefs and practices are both shaped by local biota and also help protect and maintain stocks of particular flora and fauna (because these are perceived as curative, numinous, or as totems). Rituals at watery sites that encode Local Ecological Knowledge and perpetuate biodiversity conservation deserve our attention. This paper identifies patterns in panhuman hydrolatry and asks how cultural perceptions of water’s sacrality can be employed to foster resilient human-environmental relationships in the growing water crises of the twenty-first century.
  • Emma Hollifield. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Taking the Waters at Spring Resorts of the American Southeast.
    Vital for the sustenance of life, water has become the focus of religious understanding and ritual performance across time and place. Water has also been an integral part of recreation, sociability, and therapeutic practices. Roman bathhouses were often built over previously sacred springs, as were early modern European spas. Emulating European, but more specifically English, practices of “Taking the Waters,” spring resorts developed in their thousands across the American Southeast. While many doctors prescribed a stay at such resorts for the health of their patients, other guests came for what can be viewed as the proto-vacation for music, balls, fresh air and good food. This paper considers the economic and cultural context of spring resorts in the South with a focus on the prescriptive rituals and social expectations of Tennessee spas where the ill mingled with the bored.
  • Nicholas Clate. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Pure water as a Limited Medical Resource.
    From folk traditions to the ancient Galen, and from early modern spa prescriptions for “Taking the Waters” to contemporary science, medical treatment have always relied on water as a central curative element. Modern medical practitioners require water evaluated at the microbial level— purified and/or having a specific mineral quality—which is called “pure water.” With increasing water scarcity and insecurity around the world, developing new and improved medicines and treatment paths that also employ less water should be a priority. An undergraduate and faculty research team at Sewanee is working to minimize the water footprint in treating tumorigenic cancers. Chemotherapy requires water-based solutions and IV fluid treatments requiring considerable quantities of pure water. It is hoped that in utilizing a fast-acting localized treatment, the requirement for water as an integral portion of treatment will be lessened. This paper explores how we culturally consider both water and medical treatments, and how innovation in medicine requires an evolved cultural model of pure water as a limited resource.
  • William Johnson. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Sacred Water Sites in Tamang Culture.
    In the Tibetan Culture Area, many aspects of Buddhist practice relate to a syncretic veneration of water. From restorative sacred hot springs, and water-powered prayer wheels, to high-altitude sacred lakes, water possesses many different qualities and many genii loci from Bon-po shamans to Buddhist gurus. This paper focuses on sacred water practices of the Tamangs of Rasuwa in Northern Nepal whose identity is closely linked to sacred watery sites. At the foothills of the Himalayas, nestled between Ganesh Himal (China/Tibet) and Langtang Lirung (Nepal), is the Rasuwa District. There, pilgrimage-attracting waters which have long been significant to the Tamang across shamanic, Hindu and Buddhist eras include multiple hot springs and a sacred lake; ritual practices at each still reveal a layered sacrality.
  • J. T. Michel. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Exploring Drivers of Preferential Spring Use: The Sewanee Spring Community.
    Though effortless water acquisition is now common in affluent portions of Appalachia, some groups and individuals continue to gather their water from alternative sources. These water gatherers have access to convenient water, deemed safe by government standards, but choose to spend time seeking drinking water from roadside springs (which can be contaminated). In prior studies, motivations for collecting spring water were superficially related to the taste, quality, or presumed health of the water, but this paper demonstrates how such water collection correlates strongly to personal beliefs about spring water. Interviews with locals who utilize one particular water source on the Cumberland Plateau in Sewanee, TN document either a familial, or long-term individual, practice of drinking spring waters, or spiritual beliefs about the water's benefits that position water as the blood or vital life force of nature and as a source of cures. This paper considers how water-gatherers form a community around their shared source and beliefs. Awareness of these personal drivers for spring water preference is necessary to promote “safe water,” and also for the stewardship of roadside springs for public health and as biocultural resources which can be indicative of the health of local water tables more generally.

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Mar 11th, 10:00 AM Mar 11th, 11:30 AM

Waters of Life

VSU University Center, Magnolia Room 1

Waters of Life (Celeste Ray, Session Chair)

Pre-existing and required for all known forms of life, water uncoincidentally symbolizes life cross-culturally. Less than 3% of the earth’s water is fresh, only 30% of that is liquid (not locked in ice caps and glaciers), and 97% of earth’s liquid water flows beneath the land surface as groundwater, so that lakes, rivers and spring-fed ponds are a very small percentage of the water composing our blue planet. For those now accustomed to water derived from a tap, the comparative rarity of fresh, liquid surface water may have little impact on daily life, yet the search for water sources and their protection and ritual celebration has shaped all societies since the origins of humanity. This panel examines water sources as the central nodes of Local Ecological Knowledge, as therapeutic and healing sites across time periods, and as compromised by human use in a moment when human overpopulation conflates with water-intensive medical practices. Individual contributors consider how viewing water sources as biocultural resources can foster socio-ecological resilience in the face of water insecurity and how understanding particular sites deemed culturally significant can help monitor local water supplies more generally.

  • Celeste Ray. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Sacred Waters as Biocultural Resources.
    Aquatic Sacred Natural Sites and their associated traditions have many striking similarities around the world. As sites of biocultural diversity, sacred springs and holy wells are places where cultural beliefs and practices are both shaped by local biota and also help protect and maintain stocks of particular flora and fauna (because these are perceived as curative, numinous, or as totems). Rituals at watery sites that encode Local Ecological Knowledge and perpetuate biodiversity conservation deserve our attention. This paper identifies patterns in panhuman hydrolatry and asks how cultural perceptions of water’s sacrality can be employed to foster resilient human-environmental relationships in the growing water crises of the twenty-first century.
  • Emma Hollifield. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Taking the Waters at Spring Resorts of the American Southeast.
    Vital for the sustenance of life, water has become the focus of religious understanding and ritual performance across time and place. Water has also been an integral part of recreation, sociability, and therapeutic practices. Roman bathhouses were often built over previously sacred springs, as were early modern European spas. Emulating European, but more specifically English, practices of “Taking the Waters,” spring resorts developed in their thousands across the American Southeast. While many doctors prescribed a stay at such resorts for the health of their patients, other guests came for what can be viewed as the proto-vacation for music, balls, fresh air and good food. This paper considers the economic and cultural context of spring resorts in the South with a focus on the prescriptive rituals and social expectations of Tennessee spas where the ill mingled with the bored.
  • Nicholas Clate. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Pure water as a Limited Medical Resource.
    From folk traditions to the ancient Galen, and from early modern spa prescriptions for “Taking the Waters” to contemporary science, medical treatment have always relied on water as a central curative element. Modern medical practitioners require water evaluated at the microbial level— purified and/or having a specific mineral quality—which is called “pure water.” With increasing water scarcity and insecurity around the world, developing new and improved medicines and treatment paths that also employ less water should be a priority. An undergraduate and faculty research team at Sewanee is working to minimize the water footprint in treating tumorigenic cancers. Chemotherapy requires water-based solutions and IV fluid treatments requiring considerable quantities of pure water. It is hoped that in utilizing a fast-acting localized treatment, the requirement for water as an integral portion of treatment will be lessened. This paper explores how we culturally consider both water and medical treatments, and how innovation in medicine requires an evolved cultural model of pure water as a limited resource.
  • William Johnson. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Sacred Water Sites in Tamang Culture.
    In the Tibetan Culture Area, many aspects of Buddhist practice relate to a syncretic veneration of water. From restorative sacred hot springs, and water-powered prayer wheels, to high-altitude sacred lakes, water possesses many different qualities and many genii loci from Bon-po shamans to Buddhist gurus. This paper focuses on sacred water practices of the Tamangs of Rasuwa in Northern Nepal whose identity is closely linked to sacred watery sites. At the foothills of the Himalayas, nestled between Ganesh Himal (China/Tibet) and Langtang Lirung (Nepal), is the Rasuwa District. There, pilgrimage-attracting waters which have long been significant to the Tamang across shamanic, Hindu and Buddhist eras include multiple hot springs and a sacred lake; ritual practices at each still reveal a layered sacrality.
  • J. T. Michel. (Sewanee: The University of the South) Exploring Drivers of Preferential Spring Use: The Sewanee Spring Community.
    Though effortless water acquisition is now common in affluent portions of Appalachia, some groups and individuals continue to gather their water from alternative sources. These water gatherers have access to convenient water, deemed safe by government standards, but choose to spend time seeking drinking water from roadside springs (which can be contaminated). In prior studies, motivations for collecting spring water were superficially related to the taste, quality, or presumed health of the water, but this paper demonstrates how such water collection correlates strongly to personal beliefs about spring water. Interviews with locals who utilize one particular water source on the Cumberland Plateau in Sewanee, TN document either a familial, or long-term individual, practice of drinking spring waters, or spiritual beliefs about the water's benefits that position water as the blood or vital life force of nature and as a source of cures. This paper considers how water-gatherers form a community around their shared source and beliefs. Awareness of these personal drivers for spring water preference is necessary to promote “safe water,” and also for the stewardship of roadside springs for public health and as biocultural resources which can be indicative of the health of local water tables more generally.