Cultures & Traditions

Demeter is the Ancient Greek goddess of the harvest. Beyond controlling the Greek's main source of food, she also was believed to oversee the cycle of life and fertility. Demeter is commonly known as the mother of Persephone, whose abduction is the start of the mythical origins of seasons. Persephone, was stolen by Hades, lord of the underworld. When Demeter mourned her daughter, the land withered and died.

Decorated incense burners, sometimes referred to as braziers or incensarios, were used throughout Mesoamerica. Those used exclusively for the burning of incense are known as a censers.  In Mesoamerica, censers were often used to burn rubber or copal (tree resin) as an offering to the gods and possibly to evoke rain clouds. The smoke from the incense would rise into the sky, creating billowing columns of scented black smoke.

Sacrifice and bloodletting were essential ritual events that served various ideological and cultural functions within Mesoamerican cultures, particularly the Maya. Human sacrifice usually involved the taking of captives during warfare for the purpose of sacrifice or bloodletting. Bloodletting was the ritual autosacrifice or puncturing of a part of the body (either oneself or another person), generally the tongue or cheek for women and the penis for men, often collecting the blood on paper w

Traditional African art addresses an essential human concern, that of well-being or the state of feeling content. Feeling secure in a peaceful and orderly environment, being mentally and physically healthy, having a family of one’s own, prospering in one’s occupation, and dying in old age of natural causes contribute to this sense of well-being and contentment.

Teotihuacan has been called the first true city of the New World. This planned urban complex flourished in a pocket of the Valley of Mexico, some 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, during the period 150 BCE-750 CE. At its peak, around 600 CE, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of perhaps 200,000 people. The city occupied almost nine square miles and had 5,000 structures, of which 2,000 were residences.

The ball game (Olamaliztli in Classical Nahuatl, pitz in Classical Maya) was centrally important in Mesoamerican ideology, most notably that in the Maya area. Every major city of the Classic period had at least one ball court, and many larger centers had several. The ball courts were a replica of Creation Mountain, placed at the base of the mountain, as the clefted abyss was at the base of the first true Creation Mounta

Throughout Africa, in traditional societies and among many cosmopolitan inhabitants, the belief is held that death is but a transition to another stage in the cycle of life.  The Yoruba proverb "Earth is a marketplace we visit; heaven [or the afterlife], home" underscores this notion. The dead may be reborn.