Mary I. O'Connor

Until quite recently, anthropologists have not regarded pilgrimages as objects
of research despite clear indications of their importance, historically and in the
present, in both simple and complex societies ( Bowman, in Jha 1985: 1-3;
Morinis 1984: 3-4). This lack of interest stemmed at least in part from the post-
Boasian emphasis on economic and political elements as the independent vari-
ables controlling belief systems in general and religion in particular ( O'Connor
1989a: 34; Bowman, in Jha 1985: 2-3).

The study of pilgrimages has also suffered from the constraints of ordinary
academic life, which tend to influence dramatically the scope of scholarly re-
search ( Bourdieu 1981). By their very nature as transitory, if regularly occurring,
cultural phenomena, pilgrimages are difficult to study extensively in the one- or
two-year period that characterizes the bulk of anthropological field research.
Because pilgrimages tend to be short in duration, it is not possible to study them
intensively over a long stretch of time. The necessity to observe a pilgrimage
several times over a period of years makes it almost impossible to study within
the ordinary academic frame of reference.

The result of these forces at work has been that anthropologists study aspects
of pilgrimages but never a pilgrimage in its entirety. The number and variety
of pilgrimage traditions, each with its own religious, social, political, and eco-
nomic contexts, make anything approaching cross-cultural analysis hazardous at
best. The process of sorting out the global whole is just beginning ( Morinis
1992). The pilgrimage to Magdalena provides a basis for analyzing existing
theoretical and methodological constructs. This analysis also contributes to the
growing store of case studies.

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