Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 The anthropological study of religion
The anthropological perspective
The holistic approach
The study of human societies
The Fore of New Guinea: an ethnographic example
Two ways of viewing culture
Cultural relativism
Box 1.1 Karen McCarthy Brown and Vodou
The concept of culture
The study of religion
Attempts at defining religion
The domain of religion
Theoretical approaches to the study of religion
Box 1.2 Malinowski and the Trobriand Islands
Box 1.3 Evans-Pritchard and the Azande
The biological basis of religious behavior
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
2 Mythology
The nature of myths
Worldview
Stories of the supernatural
The nature of oral texts
Box 2.1 Genesis
Box 2.2 The gender-neutral Christian Bible
Understanding myths
Approaches to the analysis of myths
Box 2.3 The Gururumba creation story
Common themes in myths
Box 2.4 The power of storytelling
Box 2.5 The Navaho creation story: Diné Bahane’
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
3 Religious symbols
What is a symbol?
Religious symbols
Box 3.1 Religious toys and games
Sacred art
The sarcophagus of Lord Pakal
The meaning of color
Sacred time and sacred space
The meaning of time
Box 3.2 The end of time
Sacred time and space in Australia
The symbolism of music and dance
The symbolism of music
The symbolism of dance
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
4 Ritual
The basics of ritual performance
Prescriptive and situational rituals
Periodic and occasional rituals
A classification of rituals
A survey of rituals
Technological rituals
Social rites of intensification
Therapy rituals and healing
Revitalization rituals
Rites of passage
Alterations of the human body
Pilgrimages
Box 4.1 The Hajj
The Huichol pilgrimage
Religious obligations
Tabu
Jewish food laws
Box 4.2 Menstrual tabus
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
5 Altered states of consciousness
The nature of altered states of consciousness
Entering an altered state of consciousness
The biological basis of altered states of consciousness
Box 5.1 Altered states in Upper Paleolithic art
Ethnographic examples of altered states of consciousness
San healing rituals
The Sun Dance of the Cheyenne
The Holiness Churches
Drug-induced altered states of consciousness
Hallucinogenic snuff among the Yanomamö
Tobacco in South America
Peyote in the Native American Church
Marijuana among the Rastafarians
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
6 Religious specialists
Shamans
Defining shamanism
Siberian shamanism
Korean shamanism
Pentecostal healers as shamans
Box 6.1 Clown doctors as shamans
Neoshamanism
Priests
Zuni priests
Okinawan priestesses
Eastern Orthodox priests
Other specialists
Healers and diviners
Box 6.2 African healers meet Western medicine
Prophets
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
7 Magic and divination
The nature of magic
Magic and religion
Rules of magic
Magic in society
Magic in the Trobriand Islands
Magic among the Azande
Sorcery among the Fore
Wiccan magic
Divination
Forms of divination
A survey of divination techniques
Box 7.1 I Ching: The Book of Changes
Box 7.2 Spiritualism and séances
Astrology
Fore divination
Oracles of the Azande
Divination in Ancient Greece: the oracle at Delphi
Magical behavior and the human mind
Magical thinking
Why magic works
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
8 Souls, ghosts, and death
Souls and ancestors
Variation in the concept of the soul
Box 8.1 How do you get to heaven?
Souls, death, and the afterlife
Examples of concepts of the soul
Ancestors
Box 8.2 Determining death
Bodies and souls
Ghosts
The living dead: vampires and zombies
Death rituals
Funeral rituals
Disposal of the body
U.S. death rituals in the nineteenth century
U.S. funeral rituals today
Days of death
Box 8.3 Roadside memorials
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
9 Gods and spirits
Spirits
The Dani view of the supernatural
Guardian spirits and the Native American vision quest
Jinn
Christian angels and demons
Box 9.1 Christian demonic exorcism in the United States
Gods
Types of gods
Gods and society
Box 9.2 Games and gods
The gods of the Yoruba
The origins of revitalization movements
Types of revitalization movements
Cargo cults
Box 11.1 The John Frum cult
The Ghost Dance of 1890
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism)
Neo-Paganism and revival
The Wiccan movement
High demand religions
The “cult” question
Characteristics of high demand religions
Examples of high demand religions
UFO religions
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
12 Religion, conflict, and peace
Religion and conflict
Role of religion in conflict and violence
Box 12.1 Nationalism as religion
Fundamentalism
Characteristics of fundamentalist groups
Case studies of religion and conflict
The Iranian Revolution
Box 12.2 The veil in Islam
The Arab Spring
The Hobby Lobby case in the United States
Religion, terrorism, and peace
Religious conflict and terrorism
Religion and peace
Conclusion
Summary
Study questions
Suggested readings
Suggested websites
Notes
Glossary
Index
Chapter 1 The anthropological study of religion
Human beings pose questions about nearly everything in the world, including themselves. The most fundamental of these questions are answered by a people’s religious beliefs and practices, which are the subject of this book. We will examine the religious lives of a broad range of human communities from an anthropological perspective. The term anthropological perspective means many things. It is a theoretical orientation that will be discussed later in the chapter. It is also an approach that compares human societies throughout the world—contemporary and historical, industrial and tribal. Many college courses and textbooks focus on the best-known religions, those that are practiced by millions upon millions of people and are often referred to as the “world’s great religions”—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, among others. This book will expand the subject matter to include and focus on lesserknown religious systems, especially those that are found in small-scale, traditional communities. As we do this, we want to look for commonalities as well as to celebrate diversity. This book will not simply
describe a series of religious systems. We will approach the study of religion by looking at particular topics that are usually included in the anthropological definition of religion and providing examples to illustrate these topics from the anthropological literature. We obviously are unable to present the thousands of religious systems that exist or have existed in the world, but we can provide a sample.
The anthropological perspective
The subject of this book is religion as seen from an anthropological perspective. What does this mean?
The term anthropology refers to the study of humanity. However, anthropology shares this subject matter with many other disciplines—sociology, psychology, history, and political science, to name a few. So how is anthropology different from these other disciplines?
One way in which anthropology differs from other subjects is that anthropology is an integrated study of humanity. Anthropologists study human societies as systematic sums of their parts, as integrated wholes. We call this approach holism. For example, many
disciplines study marriage. The anthropologist believes that a true understanding of marriage requires an understanding of all aspects of the society. Marriage is profoundly influenced by politics and law, economics, ethics, and theology; in turn, marriage influences history, literature, art, and music. The same is true of religious practices and beliefs. The holistic nature of anthropology is seen in the various divisions of the field. Traditional anthropologists speak of four-fields anthropology. These four fields are physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Today, with the rapid increase and complexity of anthropological studies, anthropologists are becoming more and more specialized and focused on particular topics. The often-simplistic concept of anthropology as being composed of the integrated study of these four fields is rapidly breaking down, but a review of these four fields will acquaint those who are studying anthropology for the first time with the essential nature of the discipline. Physical anthropology is the study of human biology and evolution. Physical
anthropologists are interested in genetics and genomics; evolutionary theory; the biology and behavior of the primates, the group of animals that includes monkeys, apes, and humans; and paleontology, the study of the fossil record. Anthropologists with a biological orientation discuss the evolutionary origins and the neurobiology of religious experience. Archaeology is the study of people who are known only from their physical and cultural remains; it gives us insight into the lives of now extinct societies. Evidence of religious expression can be seen in the ruins of ancient temples and in the art and writings of people who lived in societies that have faded into history. The field of linguistic anthropology is devoted to the study of language, which, according to many anthropologists, is a unique feature of humans. Much of religious practice is linguistic in nature, involving the recitation of words, and the religious beliefs of a people are expressed in their myths and literature. Cultural anthropology is the study of contemporary human societies and makes up the largest area of anthropological study. Cultural
anthropologists study a people’s social organization, economics and technology, political organization, marriage and family life, child-rearing practices, and so forth. The study of religion is a subject within the general field of cultural anthropology. However, we will be drawing on all four subfields in our examination of religion.
The
holistic approach
Studying a society holistically is a very daunting task. It requires a great deal of time—time to observe human behavior and time to interview members of a society. Because of the necessity of having to limit the scope of a research project, anthropologists are noted for their long-term studies of small, remote communities. However, as isolated small communities become increasingly incorporated into larger political units, anthropologists are turning more and more to the study of larger, more complex societies. Yet even within a more complex society, anthropologists maintain a limited focus. For example, within an urban setting, anthropologists study specific companies,
hospitals, neighborhoods, gangs, clubs, and churches. Anthropological studies take place over long periods of time and usually require the anthropologist to live within the community and to participate to a degree in the lives of the people under study, while at the same time making objective observations. This technique of study is referred to as participant observation. Students of anthropology are initially introduced to small communities such as foraging bands, small horticultural villages, and groups of pastoral nomads. They become familiar with the lives of the Trobriand Islanders off the coast of New Guinea, the Navaho of the American Southwest, the Yanomamö of northern South America, the Murngin of northern Australia, and the San of southern Africa. Some people refer to these societies as being “primitive,” but primitive is a pejorative term, one laden with negative connotations such as inferior and “less than.” A better term is small-scale. When we say small-scale, we refer to relatively small communities, villages, and bands that practice foraging, herding, or technologically simple horticulture. We will also be
examining aspects of what are often referred to as the “world’s great religions.” Like the term primitive, the term great involves a value judgment. These familiar religions include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. They are similar in that the origins of these religions are based on the lives of a particular individual or founder, such as Moses, Christ, Mohammad, and the Buddha. These religions have spread into thousands of different societies, and their adherents number in the millions. The small-scale societies that are more traditionally studied by anthropologists, by contrast, are usually not based on the lives of particular prophets or founders. They tend to be limited to one or a few societies, and their adherents might number only a few hundred or a few thousand. If they involve only a very small number of people, then why study these small-scale religions? Among the many questions that anthropologists ask about humanity are the following: Are there characteristics that are found in all human societies, what we might call human universals? And when we look at universals, or at least at very widespread
features, what are the ranges of variation? Returning to the example of marriage, we could ask the following questions: Is marriage found in all human societies? And what are the various forms that marriage takes? We might ask similar questions about religion. To answer these questions, anthropologists go out into the field, study particular communities, and write reports describing these communities. Questions of universality and variability can be answered on the basis of descriptions of hundreds of human societies. In addition, the goal of anthropology is to study the broad range of human beliefs and behaviors, to discover what it means to be human. This is best accomplished by examining religious and other cultural phenomena in a wide variety of cultures of different sizes and structures, including our own. It is often said that the aim of anthropology is to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Only through cross-cultural comparisons is this possible.
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