Resumen

MORENO GONZALES, Leonardo. AN APPROACH TO RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY OF PRE-HISPANIC GUANE: DEATH AND FUNERARY PRACTICES. Anu.hist.reg.front. [online]. 2012, vol.17, n.1, pp.13-25. ISSN 0122-2066.

Traditionally the scientific treatment used to understand the different modes of thought and human life has taken into account the economic, political, cultural and religious spheres. In scientific practice, social phenomena present throughout human history have been studied focusing in the culture, and in this specific context, the death associated with the religious phenomenon has gained relevance. As a consequence, the death in the religious context can be posed as a point of reference to the other fields since it is marked by a symbolic character which is linked to the human project and leads to consider each individual as a concrete, social and cultural human being. This framework has precisely inspired this article about the funerary practices of pre-Hispanic Guane society, settled in the Santander region in eastern Colombia, near the border with Venezuela, between the 10th and the 16th centuries. From the data collected from archaeological excavations, we will make some observations about possible cultural practices embodied in myths and rites which material and spiritual expression elucidate several aspects about human activity, including symbolic dialogues about the life and death represented in the funerary architecture, the management of funerary spaces, burials, funerary offerings and the position of the corpse which cultural manage as a whole set the limits between the sacred and the profane realms in the context of their cosmovision or religious life.

Palabras clave : Religion; Guane; pre-Hispanic society; death.

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