Talk:Ex-voto

Merge variant names

The article Tama (votive) discusses Greek ex-votos and the article Milagro (votive) discusses Mexican votives, and the content of those articles and this one is almost identical. In fact, those articles explicitly mention the near-identity: "They correspond almost exactly to the tamata used in the Eastern Orthodox Churches."; "Tamata may be compared to many forms of Roman Catholic votive offerings, such as the Milagros...".

Since WP is an encyclopedia, and not a dictionary, closely related objects and concepts should be covered in the same article. Morover, article titles should be the most common English name. Since "ex voto" is about 300x more common than the Greek and Spanish names together, it seems obvious that it is the English name (though of course it is a Latin expression...).

I trust there are no objections, but I will leave the merge hatnote on those articles for another week. --Macrakis (talk) 22:49, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not so sure - the most sensible merge might be of this to votive offering, which has a deal of information on Christian offerings not here. I don't really agree that the content is "almost identical". There is also Votive paintings of Mexico to consider, though that should probably be left. None of these articles are especially well developed, except the last. Johnbod (talk) 00:35, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I hadn't seen the votive offering article; thanks for pointing it out. Votive paintings of Mexico seems to have enough unique content to be work keeping as a separate article. I agree that Tama and Milagro aren't very well developed, but they seem to be very closely parallel, even up to the wording. It seems to me that Christian practice (Catholic and Orthodox) is specific enough to warrant its own article, ex-voto, but perhaps not. Why not start by merging ex-voto, tama (votive), and milagro (votive), then see whether it is distinct enough from votive offering?

By the way, it is rather strange that Mexican practice -- which is very close to Spanish, Italian, French, and other Catholic practice -- is treated separately. I suspect that this is simply because our editors' experience of folk Catholicism is strongest for Mexican Catholicism. This is different from the case of the Mexican Dia de Muertos, which has many differences (based on pre-Columbian practices) from other Catholic celebrations of All Saints' Day. --Macrakis (talk) 01:39, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

@Macrakis:Text from Ex-voto article should be merged with Votive offering and the Milagro (votive) article should be renamed to what it originally had as part of it's name religious charms, because I don't find anything like it right now on English wikipedia. The book called Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power is one that details about how the ancient Christians were using spells, recipes, amulets, curses. Why isn't there an article called religious charms? It kind of did exist under Milagros (religious charms). Charms are not ex-votos or votives asking for healing.. they're different. I'm sure there are tons of instances when people have used religious charms over the ages. Your response and ideas are appreciated.--the eloquent peasant Never mind about renaming the Milagros (votive) to religious charms - I found the article on amulet. Are you sure the Ex-voto s and Milagros (votives) are the same thing? One seems to be before the fact, one seems to be after the fact. So maybe the Milagros (votives) contents should be merged into the Amulets article? --the eloquent peasant (talk) 12:55, 12 March 2019 (UTC)