Ceremonial pole
stake or stick used in ritual practice
A ceremonial pole is a stake or post utilised or venerated as part of a ceremony or religious ritual. Ceremonial poles may symbolize a variety of concepts in different ceremonies and rituals practiced by a variety of cultures around the world.
In many cultures, ceremonial poles represent memorials and gravemarkers. In The Evolution of the Idea of God, Grant Allen notes that Samoyeds of Siberia, and Damara of South Africa plant stakes at the graves of ancestors. Ceremonial poles may also be raised during celebrations and festivals, as with Gudi Padwa in Indian State of Maharashtra and the maypole dance in Europe. In some cultures they may represent sacred trees or tools wielded by deities. They may also symbolise the axis mundi or world tree. In religious ceremonies, they may be venerated as idols or representations of tutelary deities.
Africa
In the African diasporic religions such as Voodoo, a central pole may exist in a ritual space. In Haitian Vodou, ounfòs (temples) have pillars that hold up the roof.
“Ceremonial pole” enters the record as stake or stick used in ritual practice. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ceremonial, pole and stake can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ceremonial pole” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.