Another such consolidation of sacred materials was Cēkkiḻār's 12th-century Toṇṭar Purāṇam, or Periyapurāṇam, narrating in epic style the lives of the 63 great Śaiva saints and creating a tradition for all Śaivas, even in the Kannada and Telugu areas.
Smudging is performed more frequently under certain circumstances, such as in places where other ceremonies take place, or sometimes during archaeological excavations of native remains and sacred materials.
For me, the point about sacred material is that it's not something that happened 2,000 years ago.
"My view on this is that blood is obviously a sacred material; it's a life force that has energy but is no longer living," he said.
"Whether dealing with sacred material, local politics, culture heroes or folklore in general, the perspective these artists offer is something really special and wonderful," Dr. Oettinger said.
The Pueblo people of the Southwest, devoted to clay as an almost sacred material, have for centuries produced pottery whose design motifs — stylized rain clouds, feathers, mountains, bird beaks — offer prayers for rain in the dry desert habitat.
In inviting close tribal cooperation, the museum board sought to ease long-running grievances by adopting a repatriation policy in 1991 so human remains and sacred material could be returned to the tribes, as well as objects illegally obtained in the Indian wars.
His first LP of sacred material, His Hand in Mine, followed two months later.
Working from slightly less sacred source material, that's very much what Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Fox, 12) would like to be.
Religious reliquaries, holding bits of sacred flesh or materials that have touched such flesh, are genuine sizzlers: physically seductive, spiritually radioactive.
The popular numbers, some in mildly soupy arrangements, went on a little too long for a listener still craving more sacred or folk material.
