Religion

Introduction

A. Religion is defined, following Wallace, as belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces.

B. So defined, religion is a cultural universal.

II. Expressions of Religion

A. Neanderthal mortuary remains provide the earliest evidence of what probably was religious activity.

B. Animism

1. Tylor first studied religion anthropologically, and developed a taxonomy of religions.

2. Animism was seen as the most primitive, and is defined as a belief in souls that derives from the first attempt to explain dreams and like phenomena.

C. Mana and Taboo

1. Mana is defined as belief in an immanent supernatural domain or lifeforce, potentially subject to human manipulation.

2. The Polynesian and Melanesian concepts of mana are contrasted.

a. Melanesian mana is defined as a sacred impersonal force that is much like the Western concept of luck.

b. Polynesian mana and the related concept of taboo are related to the more hierarchical nature of Polynesian society.

3. Things that are considered taboo are set apart as sacred and off-limits to ordinary people.

D. Magic and Religion

1. Magic refers to supernatural techniques intended to accomplish specific aims.

2. Magic may be imitative (as with voodoo dolls) or contagious (accomplished through contact).

E. Uncertainty, Anxiety, Solace

1. Magic is an instrument of control, but religion serves to provide stability when no control or understanding is possible.

2. Malinowski saw tribal religions as being focused on life crises.

F. Rituals

1. Rituals are formal, performed in sacred contexts.

2. Rituals convey information about the culture of the participants and, hence, the participants themselves.

3. Rituals are inherently social, and participation in them necessarily implies social commitment.

G. Rites of Passage

1. Rites of passage are religious rituals that mark and facilitate a persons movement from one (social) state of being to another (e.g. Plains Indians’ vision quests).

2. Rites of passage have three phases:

a. Separation – the participant(s) withdraws from the group and begins moving from one place to another.

b. Liminality – the period between states, during which the participant(s) has left one place but has not yet entered the next.

c. Incorporation – the participant(s) reenters society with a new status having completed the rite.

3. Liminality is part of every rite of passage, and involves the temporary suspension and even reversal of everyday social distinctions.

4. Communitas refers to collective liminality, characterized by enhanced feelings of social solidarity and minimized distinctions.

H. Totemism

1. Rituals play an important role in creating and maintaining group solidarity.

2. In totemic societies, each descent group has an animal, plant, of geographical feature from which they claim descent.

a. Totems are the apical ancestor of clans.

b. The members of a clan did not kill or eat their totem, except once a year when the members of the clan gathered for ceremonies dedicated to the totem.

3. Totemism is a religion in which elements of nature act as sacred templates for society by means of symbolic association.

4. Totemism uses nature as a model for society.

a. Each descent group has a totem, which occupies a specific niche in nature.

b. Social differences mirror the natural order of the environment.

c. The unity of the human social order is enhanced by symbolic association with and imitation of the natural order.

III. Social Control

A. The power of religion affects action.

B. Religion can be used to mobilize large segments of society through systems of real and perceived rewards and punishments.

C. Witch hunts play an important role in limiting social deviancy in addition to functioning as leveling mechanisms to reduce differences in wealth and status between members of society.

D. Many religions have a formal code of ethics that prohibit certain behavior while promoting other kinds of behavior.

E. Religions also maintain social control by stressing the fleeting nature of life.

IV. Kinds of Religion

A. Religious forms vary from culture to culture but there are correlations between political organization and religious type.

B. Religious Practitioners and Types

1. Wallace defined religion as consisting of all a society’s cult institutions (rituals and associated beliefs), and developed four categories from this.

2. Shamanic religions shamans are part-time religious intermediaries who may act as curers--these religions are most characteristic of foragers.

3. Communal religions have shamans, community rituals, multiple nature gods, and are more characteristic of food producers than foragers.

4. Olympian religions first appeared with states, have full-time religious specialists whose organization may mimic the states, and have potent anthropomorphic gods who may exist as a pantheon.

5. Monotheistic religions have all the attributes of Olympian religions, except that the pantheon of gods is subsumed under a single eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being.

V. World Religions

A. Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world.

B. More than a billion people in the world either claim no religion or say they are atheists.

VI. Religion and Change

A. Revitalization Movements

1. Religious movements that act as mediums for social change are called revitalization movements.

2. The colonial-era Iroquois reformation led by Handsome Lake is an example of a revitalization movement.

B. Cargo Cults

1. Cargo cults are revitalization movements that emerge when traditional communities have regular contact with industrial societies.

a. Native communities attempt to explain European domination and wealth and achieve similar success magically by mimicking European behavior and manipulating symbols of the desired life style.

b. The cargo cults of Melanesia and Papua New Guinea blend Christian doctrine with aboriginal beliefs and practices.

2. They take their name from their focus on cargo—European goods that have been brought to the region by cargo planes and ships.

3. Cargo cults paved the way for unified political action through which indigenous communities eventually regained their autonomy.

C. A New Age

1. Since the 1960s, there has been a decline in formal organized religions.

2. New Age religions have appropriated ideas, themes, symbols, and ways of life from the religious practices of Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, east Asian religions.

VII. Secular Rituals

A. It is difficult to distinguish between sacred and secular rituals as behavior can simultaneously have sacred and secular aspects.

B. Americans try to maintain a strict division between the sacred and the profane, but many other societies like the Betsileo do not.

VIII. Box: Islam in Africa

A. Islam and Christianity are competing in Africa for new members.

B. Islam is spreading faster than Christianity.

1. Islamic values have much more in common with traditional life.

a. Emphasis on communal living

b. Clear roles for men and women

c. Tolerance of polygamy

2. Greater amounts of funding from outside Africa (Saudi Arabia).