Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20559
Title: Women's ritual competence and domestic dough: Celebrating the Thesmophoria, Haloa, and Dionysian rites in ancient Attica
Contributor(s): Dillon, Matthew P  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2017
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20559
Abstract: Introduction: "Women's business" Males who ventured into the domain of women-only rites in ancient Greece and intruded into the secret and arcane religious world of women did so at their own risk. Amongst the indigenous Koori people of Australia - known to Europeans as "Aborigines" - the situation was a similar one. Contemporary Koori women refer to their secret women-only ceremonies as "women's business," rituals of which the men of the tribe are not to have knowledge under any circumstances. As with many tribal women in Australia, those of the Ngaan-yat-jarra, Pit-jant-jat-jara, Yan-kun-yt-jat-jara and other "tribes" (more correctly, "nations," in the Latin sense of 'natio') celebrate rites that are "women's business." One such rite in central Australia is the ritual called Awelye: it is "women's business," and cannot be performed with men of the nation present (Barwick et al. 2013, 197). In much the same way, women in ancient Greece had numerous women-only festivals, focused largely on agrarian rites honoring the goddess Demeter (such as the Thesmophoria and Haloa), as well as secret viticultural rites for Dionysos. But whereas rituals for Dionysos were intended to ensure the production of wine, the Demeter rites were involved with agriculture, the product of which - grain - was one of the intimate concerns of women and one of their main domestic duties: the production of loaves, bread, bread cakes, and porridge from barley and wheat. From Demeter's gift of grain, women produced flour through the laborious process of grinding (Hom. Od. 20.105-21 ), transforming it into dough, and then in her honor manipulating the product of their domestic skills into bread. Two particular festivals were involved with this aspect of women's business: the major festival of the Athenian Thesmophoria celebrated in the city and in the demes, and the less significant Haloa festival, celebrated parochially at nearby Eleusis.
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Source of Publication: Women's Ritual Competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, p. 165-181
Publisher: Routledge
Place of Publication: London, United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781315546506
9781472478900
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 210306 Classical Greek and Roman History
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 430305 Classical Greek and roman history
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 970121 Expanding Knowledge in History and Archaeology
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 280113 Expanding knowledge in history, heritage and archaeology
280114 Expanding knowledge in Indigenous studies
HERDC Category Description: B1 Chapter in a Scholarly Book
Publisher/associated links: http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/240176285
Series Name: Routledge monographs in classical studies
Editor: Editor(s): Matthew P Dillon, Ester Eidinow & Lisa Maurizio
Appears in Collections:Book Chapter

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