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morfe M
morfe Jan 12, 2006 17:06:58
Replying to gyrus

I'm trying to understand what you are implying by stating:

"Orginally it was a psychospatial opposition, referring to inside and outside "sacred spaces", temples. "Sacred"

But 'originally' is pretty non-specific, what source are you citing?

For instance, Chief Seattle used the word 'sacred' on in this speech, yet I find no inference or evidence of 'psychospatial opposition'.

"Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people"

So would 'sacred' as a word (as you claim) 'originally' have meant something different than this? And if indeed it is a movable, 'living' word, which of it's origins are you specifying when you identify the word with 'psychospatial opposition'?

Of course, translated speeches may be wrongly presented, and also tribal land is called 'land', so the whole Earth may or may not be considered 'sacred' by Native American tradition.

It would be interesting to find out though, as an inight into the past meaning of 'sacred'? There is another option, that it may have originally meant many things, depending upon how it was used. For instance, the Cherokee, I have heard, consider 'all water' to be sacred, yet they would also have a tool, or pipe, which would also be considered 'sacred', in a subtly different way.

Just some thoughts.

G gyrus
gyrus Jan 13, 2006 19:31:36
Replying to morfe

>> "Orginally it was a psychospatial opposition, referring to inside and outside "sacred spaces", temples. "Sacred"
>> But 'originally' is pretty non-specific, what source are you citing?

'The Etymological Dictionary of the English Language' by Walter Skeat. It's about the origin of the word "profane", which is now habitually opposed to "sacred" - thus, some of the sense of the word "sacred" has absorbed through contrast connotations of this word. It's not really referring specifically to the roots of "sacred" per se.

You quote Chief Seattle, but, as you say, what language did he give his speech in? For what Wikipedia is worth, it's stated there that:

"While Smith [the reporter who firstpublished the speech] is known to have been present on the occasion of the speech, he did not speak Chief Seattle's native coastal Salish, and there is some question as to how much of a translation even into Chinook jargon was done at the time."

I'm specifically talking about English etymology here, and digging up meanings from the roots in our language will have little if any bearing on what Chief Seattle actually said.

There's an interesting discussion of the word 'sacrifice' in Alan Watts' 'Nature, Man & Woman'. Of course it just means "to make sacred" (sacer-facere), and Watts argues that the destruction of the object of sacrifice is merely the inheritance of the practice of burning things to send them into the sky, to the gods. I think he's saying that this concept of 'sacrifice' is only necessarily relevant for cultures who believe all the sacred shit is up there in the heavens, and we don't need to perpetuate it if that isn't our conception of "sacred".