RELIGION
Anthropologist Anthony
F.C. Wallace defined “religion as a set of rituals, rationalized by myths which
mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing
transformation of state in man and nature”.
Since no known culture,
including those of modern societies has achieved complete certainty in
controlling existing or future conditions and circumstances, spirituality and
/or religion play a role in all known cultures.
At one end of the
spectrum are food foraging peoples, whose technological ability to manipulate
their environment is limited, who tend to see themselves as part of rather than
masters of nature. This may be referred to as naturalistic worldview. Among
food foragers religion is likely to be inseparable from the rest of daily life.
At the other end of the
spectrum is Western civilization, with its ideological commitment to overcoming
problems through technological and organizational skills. Here religion is less
a part of daily activities and is restricted to more specific occasions.
PRACTICE
OF RELIGION
A hallmark of religion
is belief in supernatural beings and forces. In attempting to control by religious
means what cannot be controlled in other ways human turn to prayer, sacrifice
and other religious activities. Beginning with spiritual beings we can divide
them into three categories :
MAJOR
DIETIES (GODS AND GODDESSES)
Gods and goddesses are
the great and more remote beings
POLYTHEISM
Belief in several gods
and goddesses (as contrasted with monotheism –belief in one god or goddesses).
In ancient Greece Zeus was lord of
sky. Poseidon was ruler of sea and Hades was lord of underwater and ruler
of dead.
PANTHEON
The several gods and
goddesses of a people. Whether or not people recognize gods and goddesses has
to do with how men and women relate to each other in everyday life.
Generally speaking
societies subordinate women to men define the supreme masculine terms. For
instance in traditional Christian religious believers speak of God as a ‘father’
who had a divine son but do not entertain thoughts of god as mother nor of a
divine daughter. Such male privileging religious idea developed in traditional societies
with economies based upon the herding of animals or intensive agriculture carried
out or controlled by men.
Goddesses by contrast
are likely to be most prominent in societies where women play a significant
role in the economy where women enjoy relative equality with men, where men are
less controlling figures to their wives and children. Such societies are most
often those that depend upon crop cultivation carried out solely or mostly by
women.
The early Israelites
like other pastoral nomadic group of the Middle East described their god in
masculine, authoritarian terms by contrast goddesses played central roles in
religious rituals. Associated with these goddesses were concept of light
fertility and procreation.
ANCESTRAL
SPIRITS
A belief in ancestral
spirits in consistent with the widespread notion that human beings are made up
of two closely intertwined part a physical body and some mental component of
spiritual self.
Penobscot Indians in
Maine holds that each person has a vital spirit capable of travelling apart
from the body.
Wape
Papuans in New Guinea believe that ancestral spirit act to
provide or withhold meat from their living descendants.
In several such African
societies belief that ancestral spirit behave just like humans. they are able
to feel hot, cold and pain and they may be capable of dying a second death.
People collectively worshipped all lineage ancestors periodically throughout
the year.
SACRED
PLACES
Some religious
traditions consider certain geographic places to be spiritually significant or
even sacred.
Typically such sites
are rivers, lakes, waterfalls, islands, forests, caves and especially
mountains.
They are revered as
dwelling places for the spirits of the dead, heights where prophets received
their divine directions or retreats for prayer mediation and vision quests.
Three sacred Mountains
are shared by Jewish, Christian and
Muslim traditions – Mount Ararat,
Mount Horeb (where prophet received the stone tablets) Mount Zion (Jerusalem)
Japanese view the snow
capped perfect volcanic cone of Mount
Fuji (ever lasting life) as a sacred place
Greeks considered Mount
Olympus to be the mythological abode of Zeus the king of all gods.
ANIMISM
A belief that nature is
animated by distinct personalized spirit beings separable from bodies. Spirits
such as souls and ghosts are thought to dwell in humans and animals but also in
human made artifacts, plants stones, mountains, wells and other natural
features.
Taylor
says primitive man must have thought there must be two souls in human beings; a
free soul which could go out of him and have experiences and a body soul which
if it left the body resulted in its death.
Primitive man must have
come to the conclusion that the body soul left the body permanently the person
died; and his soul became a ghost or spirit. The uncertainty whether the soul
has left the body temporarily or permanently may be the reason for the practice of double funeral.
Green
funeral: takes place immediately after death
Dry
funeral: after the lapse of some day when all hopes of the
return of the soul are given up. The Ho
call it the Jangtopa. Among the Kota
the green funeral called Pasdau and
the dry funeral called Varidau.
ANIMATISM/
MANAISM
A belief that nature is
enlivened or energized by an impersonal spiritual power or supernatural
potency.
This concept of
impersonal potency or energy was widespread among North American Indians. The Algonquins called it Manitou to the Mohawk it was Orenda to
the Lakota Wakonda.
Bear
Butte in the Black Hills, mentioned earlier is a mountain
where Lakota believers feel a strong
presence of spirit power or Wakonda
which makes it a sacred site.
Marett evolved a
special form of animatist theory which he called Manaism. Marett said that entire religious life of the primitive is
born out of their belief in a certain understandable, impersonal, non-material
and undindividualized supernatural power which takes abode in all the objects
animate and inanimate that exists in the world.
Majumdar’s description
and analysis of the conception of Bonga
among the Ho falls in the line with
Marett’s theory of primitive religion.
NATURISM
German theory of
natursim associated with Max Muller.
According to him the earliest form of religion must have been the worship of
objects of nature ; and evidence in support of such a view has come in from
archaeological excavations conducted in Egypt and elsewhere.
APPROACHES
TO RELIGION
EVOLUTIONARY
APPROACH
E.B
Taylor : Primitive Culture (1871) – animism is the earliest and
most basic religious form. Out of this evolved fetishism, belief in demons,
polytheism and finally monotheism is derived from the exaltation of a great god
such as the sky god in a polytheistic context.
R.
Marett (1909) on the other hand regarded animatism as
the beginning of religious ideas. His derivation is from ideas as Mana (power), mulungu (supreme creator),
Orenda (magical power) concepts found in the Pacific, Africa and America
respectively referring to a supernatural power.
Sir
James Frazer human thought is best understood as a
progression from magic to religion.
Durkheim,
evolutionary advancement consists in the emergence of specific, analytic,
profane ideas about the cause or category or relationship from diffuse, global,
sacred images. These collective representations as he calls them of the social
order and its moral force included such as Mana, Totem and God
FUNCTIONALIST
APPROACH
Anthropologists like Malinowski, E.E. Evans Pritchard, Radcliffe
Brown etc who approached religion from functionalist perspective provide
explanation that satisfies human needs and solidarity of the group.
B.
Malinowski in his work on the Trobriand Islanders emphasizes on the close relationship between
myth and ritual. he puts forward the idea of psychological functionalism,
religious acts fulfilling the psychological needs and satisfaction. A mortuary
ritual for instance is intended to release the soul and prevent it from
returning to haunt the living.
Radcliffe
Brown (1922) provides an account of Andamanese religious beliefs and
ceremonies. He asserts that the Andaman Islanders’ main supernatural beings are
spirits of the dead, associated with the sky, forest, sea and nature spirits
which are thought of as personification of natural phenomena. Applying
Durkhemian analysis he presents an organic picture of society; religion
integrates society and rituals bring in solidarity of the group.
SYMBOLIC
APPROACH
E.E.Evans
Pritchard (1956) first
recognized the symbolic aspect of religion and this has inspired several
anthropologists to approach religion through symbols, the meaning given by the
participants to the elements of religion and rituals and interpretation that
anthropologists can offer.
MAGIC
SHAMAN
The word Shaman
originally referred to medical religious specialists or spiritual guides among
the Tungus and other Siberian pastoral nomads with animist belief.
As defined by U.S.
Anthropologist Michael Harner famous
for his participant observation among Shuar
(or Jivaro) Indian Shaman in Amazon rainforest.
A Shaman is a man or
woman who enters an altered state of consciousness at will to contact and
utilize an ordinary hidden reality in order to acquire knowledge, power and to
help other persons. The Shaman has at least one and usually more spirits in his
or her personal service.
IMITATIVE
MAGIC
In 19th
century Scottish anthropologist Sir
James Frazer made a useful distinction between two fundamental principles
of magic.
The first principle
that LIKE
PRODUCE LIKE he named imitative magic (sometimes called sympathetic
magic). In Burma (Myanmar) in South East Asia for example a rejected lover
might engage a sorcerer to make an image of his would be love. If this image
were tossed into water to the accompaniment of certain charms it was expected
that the hapless girl would go mad.
CONTAGIOUS
MAGIC
Magic based on the
principle that things of person once contact can influence each other after the
contact is broken. The most common example of this magic is the permanent
relation between an individual and any part of his or her body such as finger
nails, teeth, hair etc. Frazer cited that people of Lesotho in South Africa
who were careful to conceal their extracted teeth because these might go into
the hands of certain mythical hands who could do harm to the owners of the
teeth by working magic on them
MAGIC
CAN BE OF TWO TYPES
WHITE
MAGIC
White magic refers to
magic, which is never used to harm any individual especially within magician’s
society. It is generally done for the good of the individual, the family, the
group, the community or the society. It is mostly used for a good agricultural
crops for better game in hunting for success in warfare and for dealing with
diseases and natural calamities.
BLACK
MAGIC
Black magic is done
with the intention of harming others. One aspect of black magic is sorcery. It
consists of different rites, rituals and spells when performed correctly will
result in harm for the person whom it is aimed against. Another aspect of black
is witchcraft which is performed by magician who have certain extraordinary or
supernatural powers to perform magic intended to harm those against whom it is
being performed
BONGAISM
Belief in mana,
according to some anthropologists is the beginning of religion. It is
supernatural power and exists as a quality or attribute of objects. Such a
religious complex of beliefs has been found among the Munda, the Ho and other
cognate tribes of Chota Nagpur. They use the term Bonga to designate this power
and quality.
Among the Ho the Bonga
are vaguely understood as powers indefinite and impersonal; they do not seem to
have any objective appearance or existence. The overall supremacy of the Bonga
over Munda life shows only the extent of anthropomorphism. The impersonal Bonga
use the medium of dream to foretell, day-dreams being used for fore-warning
about bad things. Bonga is the manifestation of a vague supernatural power, one
that is the cause of all energy. the cycle has of late become a bonga, the
powerful steam engine is a bonga, and the airplane is a greater bonga than any
of the above.
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