Part of the sacred work of the procession is to transport the sacred items—the sacra or hallows—from the place where they are kept to the place of ritual.

That's why, whenever possible, they're carried on the head.

Why carry the hallows on the head? Well, I can think of a number of reasons.

Tradition. That's how the ancestors did it. Why?

Focus. When someone is carrying something in front of them—a jar, say—you see the person first, the jar second. Carry the jar on your head, though, and those watching see the jar first: i.e. the focus is on the hallow and thus, by extension, the holy act that is to be performed with it.

Archaism. Unlike traditional cultures virtually everywhere, here in the United States, it's not typical behavior to carry things on one's head. To carry something on your head in public therefore evokes a sense of the primal, the archaic, which is exactly what ritual should do.

Non-Normativity. Precisely because carrying things on the head is not typical behavior, the action says: Pay heed. Something non-normative—indeed, something sacred—is happening.

Wholism. If you carry something heavy for a long distance on one side, or in front of you, you throw your whole spine out of whack. (I did this myself a few months ago, and was laid up for almost a week afterward.) Carry, instead, on your head, and you have the entire spine to support the sacred weight. It also means that you're bearing the weight of the burden with your entire self. You stand up straighter; you walk more purposively. It also means that you're not turning your head to meet the eyes of onlookers: instead, you're gazing—and thus directing the onlooker's gaze—toward where you're going, and its sacred purpose.

I think of Agotime in Judith Gleason's historical novel of the same name, a West African hereditary priestess who, in the early 19^th century, was enslaved and taken to Brazil in the Middle Passage.

Did she leave her gods behind her east-of-sea? She did not.

She bore the gods with her to the New World on her head in an invisible calabash.

Those gods are worshiped in Brazil to this day.

I recently solved (to my own satisfaction, at least) a mystery that has haunted the study of ancient Near Eastern religion for years. Throughout the ancient Semitic-speaking world, priests—for no obvious reason—were wont to wear flat caps. The flat cap became the identifying mark of the priesthood, but no one knew why.

Now we do.

It so happened recently that, in my role as priest, I found myself wearing the traditional flat cap at a ritual. Bearing away the basket with the sacred divinitory knucklebones afterward, I learned the cap's sacred purpose.

It makes it easier to balance what you're carrying on your head.