Introduction -- Memoryscapes: collapsing memory into language -- Being-somewhere: mythic memoryscapes of the Wachagga -- Choreographies of religious experience -- Physicality of Kibo -- Mountain bounty: the landscape as provider -- Respecting the past: elders and ancestors -- Inscribing the land: language, place and ownership -- Specific features of some memoryscapes in Uchagga -- Concluding remarks: memoryscapes and archaeology
"This book considers the relationships between memory, experience and landscape from insights gained conducting ethnographic research; its primary focus is the Wachagga of Kilimanjaro, East Africa. In so doing this investigation into the memoryscape might be labelled an 'archaeological ethnography' for not only is it an ethnography produced by an archaeologist, it was conducted with archaeological applications in mind. The motivation of this ethnographical research was the theorisation of some issues involved in landscape archaeology. There has been considerable attention given to the religious dimensions of archaeological landscapes. The purpose of this study is to augment such appreciations by theorising the complex environmental relations of a contemporary culture. Such theorisation enables recognition of the wealth of human experience that is archaeologically unknowable."--Publisher's web site