For my final blog post, I wanted to get a little personal, and ending the semester's class (and this blog) with memory is the perfect route to go. I recently read Wilson's "Community, Identity, and Social Memory at Moundville" (2010), and what really caught my attention were the descriptions of Inscribed memory and Incorporated memory:
Inscribed Memory: explicit acts of memory depiction and
transmission (ie. monuments, cemeteries, museums, etc.)
Incorporated Memory: embodied in and transmitted through routinized
bodily practices (ie. watching and mimicking actions/mannerisms)
Wilson goes on to explain how a society's alteration of a landscape or place can act as inscribed memory as monuments and places of memoriam are constructed. These places of memory can aid in forming communities and developing personal identities, crucial to resource allocation in certain societies, as well as linking the community to its past as a whole.
I tried to think of what forms the ideas of Inscribed memory and Incorporated memory take in my own life, and how I consciously and subconsciously continue those memories and traditions, possibly for my descendants too. But first for the backstory... A lot of my personal interest in this class comes from my having to deal with a great deal of death (I suppose for a western-world white girl) at a young age. In the year 2003, my grandmother, father, and eleven other family friends and friends of friends passed away (all unrelated). I was still a young girl, and so of course this was all very confusing to me. I attended only one funeral, my father's, as my grandmother's was in Germany, and I couldn't take MORE time off to mourn and travel. The death of a family member is always difficult (that is a severe understatement), but growth can comes from all wounds as they heal, and memories can bring you smiles once more.
My father's wake was held on the shuswap lake at sundown, on the top of a forested mountain plateau, covered in sunflowers. We danced, sang, and shared stories, as his friend's band played all night. The next day, at sundown, we walked down to his favourite fishing spot and spread his ashes with rose petals down a river embellished with forget-me-nots. These are the memories that I carry and represent both Inscribed and Incorporated memories: every spring, I buy forget-me-not seeds and attempt to grow my very own patch in honor of my father (and I do mean 'attempt'.. I am not a very good gardener), and his photograph on my wall both represent my own personal Inscribed memories; tangible forms of memorial I can pass down and which link me to my father. As for Incorporated memories, these are the little sayings and sassy quips of his that I have carried on, and hope to pass on to my future children too.
As archaeologists, or future archaeologists, it is important to remain objective while we interpret and theorize what we find. However, there is equal importance in remaining human, and allowing ourselves to truly understand what is left behind, and why, both those who chose to remember, or be remembered.
Thank you for reading my blog this semester! Happy schooling!
(Both images from flickr.com)
