The power of ritual in prehistory : secret societies and origins of social complexity / Brian Hayden, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The secret -- The new world -- The complex hunter/gatherers of the American Northwest -- California -- The American Southwest and Mesoamerica -- Plains secret societies -- The eastern woodlands and others -- The old world -- Oceania -- Chiefdoms in central Africa -- West Africa -- Implications for prehistory -- Archaeological applications.

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory' is the first book in nearly a century to deal with traditional secret societies from a comparative perspective and the first from an archaeological viewpoint. Providing a clear definition, as well as the material signatures, of ethnographic secret societies, Brian Hayden demonstrates how they worked, what motivated their organizers, and what tactics they used to obtain what they wanted. He shows that far from working for the welfare of their communities, traditional secret societies emerged as predatory organizations operated for the benefit of their own members. Moreover, and contrary to the prevailing ideas that prehistoric rituals were used to integrate communities, Hayden demonstrates how traditional secret societies created divisiveness and inequalities. They were one of the key tools for increasing political control leading to chiefdoms, states, and world religions. Hayden's conclusions will be eye-opening, not only for archaeologists, but also for anthropologists, political scientists, and scholars of religion.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed August 30, 2018).

WorldCat record variable field(s) change: 650