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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
How to mourn a forest | Aeon
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Anthropology

How to mourn a forest

The Marind people of West Papua deploy mourning not only to grieve their animal and plant kin but as political resistance

Sophie Chao

Disorient yourself | Aeon
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History of ideas

Disorient yourself

Now associated with childhood fun, the swing has a near-universal history of ritual transgression and transformation

Javier Moscoso

Nalujuk Night | Aeon
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Rituals and celebrations

Beware the Nalujuit! A rare glimpse into a chilling Labrador Inuit tradition

13 minutes

Party poster | Aeon
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Politics and government

‘Without a poster, you don’t exist!’ – on the curious political banners of Mumbai

20 minutes

Elephant food is for the strongest teeth | Aeon
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Sports and games

The brutality and beauty of the West African martial art of ‘dambe’

15 minutes

The pharaoh’s trumpet | Aeon
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Archaeology

The pharaoh’s trumpet

The truly wondrous treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb are not made of gold. They are the mundane things of everyday life

Toby Wilkinson

Keeping the score | Aeon
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Anthropology

Keeping the score

The gifts we exchange are both generous and yet fraught with social rules and obligations. Marcel Mauss explained why

Gili Kliger

Market | Aeon
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Food and drink

From set-up to close, a day at the farmers market is a whirlwind sensory feast

10 minutes

60 cycles | Aeon
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video

Sports and games

Bodies, bikes and groovy music propel this stylish classic film from 1965

17 minutes

In fragments: phase change | Aeon
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video

Rituals and celebrations

From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual

13 minutes

The meaning of Purgatory | Aeon
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Religion

The meaning of Purgatory

Think less of a holding pen for Heaven and more as a flow of love from the living, and the weirdness starts making sense

Magnus Course

Tengri | Aeon
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video

Rituals and celebrations

In a Mongolian wind burial, a body falls on land before getting swept up to the heavens

6 minutes

Setapa | Aeon
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Dance and theatre

Absorb the infectious rhythms of Setapa – a joyous dance from southern Africa

7 minutes

Kapaemahu | Aeon
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Gender

The nearly forgotten origin myth of Hawaii’s third-gender healers, as told by one

9 minutes

Is grandad on the moon? | Aeon
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Death

Is grandad on the moon?

We no longer have a clear sense of how to introduce our children to death. But their questions can help us face up to it

Pragya Agarwal

EXCLUSIVETarikat | Aeon
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video

Rituals and celebrations

Dissolve into the immersive, entrancing rhythms of a Sufi chant

17 minutes

Phantasia | Aeon
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Dance and theatre

Phantasia

Imagination is a powerful tool, a sixth sense, a weapon. We must be careful how we use it, in life as on stage or screen

Paul Giamatti & Stephen T Asma

Myth and the mind | Aeon
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Neuroscience

Myth and the mind

Saturated with rites and symbols, psychology feeds a deep human need once nourished by mythology

Rami Gabriel

Longhouse lockdown | Aeon
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Anthropology

Longhouse lockdown

On a regular cycle, the Nias islanders of Indonesia would retreat into enforced seclusion. What can we learn from them?

Andrew Beatty

Maria’s way | Aeon
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Meaning and the good life

Maria’s life work is counting the pilgrims passing by on Spain’s Camino de Santiago

16 minutes

Broomstick weddings | Aeon
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Rituals and celebrations

Broomstick weddings

From Kentucky to Wales and all across the Atlantic, the enslaved and downtrodden got married – by leaping over a broom. Why?

Tyler D Parry

Acadiana | Aeon
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video

Anthropology

The uncanny allure of the annual Cajun crawfish festival in Louisiana

10 minutes

The Fayum portraits | Aeon
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The ancient world

Haunting dispatches from the edge of the Roman Empire, just before its collapse

15 minutes

Now is the time | Aeon
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Rituals and celebrations

How a village’s first totem pole ceremony in a century sparked a spiritual awakening

16 minutes