| Using written histories and actual ethnographies of the old Scandinavian farm culture, this work describes patterns of spatial symbolism at several scales--dwellings, farm buildings, farm territories, and larger natural landscapes. At all of these scales, a common set of directional meanings occurs for north, south, east, west, and sw, ne, se, nw. North, for example, has a similar semantic whether at the scale of dwelling or farm as a whole. At any one scale, all directions and their meanings form the traditional, universal concept of "center" alluded to by Eliade. Real or imaginary "axes" create spatially and semantically opposed "domains" between the directions. The separation between northern and southern hemispheres, as horizontal domains, is but one set of several domain oppositions of the total center construct. In addition to the horizontal axes and domains formed by cardinal and solstice directions, a vertical "axis mundi" is cognized at the vertex of the directional axes.; Time is integral, given the ancient relationship between center directions and solstice time-keeping. Center is like the face of a clock attached to a dwelling or the landscape at large. All spatially opposite domains have parallel oppositions in time: summer (n) - winter (s), night (n) - day (s). Even the week is spatialized. The element of time in this abstract, cognitive, spatial structure provides an automatic alternation of domain importance. When the "hands" point north during summer, for example, the meaning attached to that domain becomes effective. Emotions of fear and pleasure attached to opposite domains effect the dominance of one place over the other. Different actors appear to be symbolically and politically defined by the occupation of particular spaces at particular times. Normally the dominance of one set of actors over another is only potential. Even though the fearsome gods occupy a superior place and time, for example, center structure effectively maintains a separation from subordinate humans. When the gods occupy the northern domain at night, humans must retreat to a physically separate domain. Dominant spaces and times, defined symbolically as the "spiritual", can be associated with the actual territorial community of farms. Subordinate domains belong to the individual farms and families. Normally the dominant community is kept separate from the subordinate family.; The primary ritual aspect of center is the periodic breakdown of the separation between domains and occupants. At certain, critical, "liminal" times--when time and space are axial--powerful spirits invade, occupy, and control the hierarchical family domain. Thus the Scandinavian center concept provides for the symbolic control of hierarchical tendencies within the relatively autonomous farm families. It maintains the sensitive equality among the territorial community of farms.; The dissertation establishes for the first time the presence of the center concept in old Scandinavian expression. Furthermore, it provides an insight into the cognitive, ritualistic role of the spatio-temporal construct of center--perhaps a universal in primitive and traditional societies. Other questions are posed: (1)the comparative role of "participatory" ritual and "non-participatory" architecture in the development, maintenance, and affect of center; (2)the role of space in the anthropological notion of ritual process; (3)the socio-political/territorial basis of spatial, symbolic structures; and (4)the relationship between spatial and mythic structuralism. |
