Deep Histories: the ground-waters of serpentine treasure guardians
Veronica Strang
Wednesday 6 November, 5-6pm
Zoominar
Abstract
Drawing examples from a major comparative study of water deities in diverse cultural and historical contexts (Strang 2023), this paper explores how and why these serpentine beings have a historically recurrent role as the guardians of cultural treasures. Appearing ubiquitously in early human histories, water deities are supernatural personifications of the powers of water and its generative capacities. They surface in cosmic origin stories as world creators; they act as hydro-theological generators of human life and consciousness; they bring hydrological cycles of life surging through ecosystems, and they are authoritative sources of social and material order. Water beings are therefore essential figures in all processes of production and reproduction and in the generation of wealth and health. This central generative role leads to a consistent relationship with materials and objects similarly valorised as representing wealth and generative capacity, and therefore defined as treasure.
About the speaker
Professor Veronica Strang (ISCA, Oxford) is a cultural anthropologist of human-environmental relations, materiality, cultural landscapes, and societies’ engagements with water. From 2013-2017 she was Chair of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth. More details here.
