• Museums

    Seeking the Divine: Ritual, Prayer and Celebration

    Seeking the Divine: Ritual, Prayer and Celebration Image gallery

    BYU Museum of Peoples and Cultures

    January 16, 2008-January 16, 2009

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    This exhibition explores rituals and ceremonies that empower people to seek the divine, especially during crucial life events such as birth, coming-of-age, marriage, and death. The instruments of humanity's spiritual quest are myriad. African fertility figurines calm the anxieties of barrenness, while Polynesian tapas celebrate the joys of birth. Native American wedding jars and baskets commemorate the ultimate coming-of-age, while accoutrements of death from Mesoamerica immortalize life's culminating moment. Statuettes of saints adorning the household shrines of Mexico assist personal worship, while masked dances publicly re-enact stories that reinforce community values and extol the independency of life. Ritual smoke and Tibetan prayer wheels send prayers heavenward, and African divination vessels summon the invisible forces and solicit their intervention. Globally, a sense of divinity drives people to seek spiritual guidance and celebrate life's blessings. Understanding this universality helps Earth's many peoples cross cultural and religious barriers and discover our common humanity.

    • Ticket Info

      Tickets: Free Admission

    • Dates & Times

      Dates:
      January 16, 2008-January 16, 2009

      Times:
      Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm

    • Venue Info

      BYU Museum of Peoples and Cultures

      700 North 100 East Provo, UT 84606

      Full map and directions

    • Locations

      Greater Salt Lake

    • Accessibility Info

    • NOTE: We do our best to ensure all information is accurate, however it's a good idea to visit the website or call the venue to verify the information.