1 Introduction The emergence of cognitive science over the past thirty years has stimulated new approaches to traditional problems and materials in well-established disciplines. Those approaches have generated new insights and reinvigorated aspirations for theories in the sciences of the socio-cultural (about the structures and uses of symbols and the cognitive processes underlying them) that a...

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This paper explores how the dongba as the ritual practitioner perceives his authenticity during the marriage ceremony in the Naxi Wedding Courtyard in Lijiang, China. Through the dongba’s life story, the paper indicates that, the power of his making judgment is not entirely related to the toured objects, socially constructed reality or the existential feeling, but also has to do with what happe...

Deciphering recently discovered cave paintings by the Astracinca, an egalitarian leaderless society flourishing in the 3rd millennium BCE, we present and analyze their shamanic ritual for forming new colonies. This ritual can actually be used by systems of anonymous mobile finite-state computational entities located and operating in a grid to solve the line recovery problem, a task that has bot...

The patient has a general sense that something terrible may occur if a particular ritual is not performed, and the failure to perform a ritual may lead immediately to severe anxiety or a very uncomfortable, nagging feeling of incompleteness. In addition to checking and washing rituals, patients with OCD often present with persistent intrusive thoughts, extreme slowness or thoroughness, or doubt...

Isa bey tekke does not exist any more in Sarajevo. This valuable cultural heritage object was completely destroyed and a gasoline station was built in its place. Virtual reconstruction has recovered the appearance of the building, but not what was happening inside. The Mevlevi dervish ritual was presented using interactive computer animation. The goal of this paper is to explore the perception ...

Malay intangible heritage went through numerous stages in its evolution and shaped by an amalgamation of various influences; one of which was the Malay-Polynesian belief system with a strong animistic base. The later emergence of Islam introduced new customs and practices where old manteras or incantations are sprinkled with Islamic names and supplications to Islamize, so as to legitimize the r...

Indigenous knowledge around the world is based on prevailing cultures, worldviews and paradigms. Initially assessments involved simple collection and inventory with little attention paid to the environment or to interrelationships between differe nt components of the system. Especially when undertaken in areas where access was difficult, such assessments more often than not resulted in loss and...

Although much effort has gone into promoting early skin-to-skin contact and parental involvement at vaginal birth, caesarean birth remains entrenched in surgical and resuscitative rituals, which delay parental contact, impair maternal satisfaction and reduce breastfeeding. We describe a 'natural' approach that mimics the situation at vaginal birth by allowing (i) the parents to watch the birth ...