Transcript Third Edition

Window on Humanity
Conrad Phillip Kottak
Third Edition
Chapter 15
Religion
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
Overview
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Expressions of religion
Religion and social control
Kinds of religion
Religion and change
Secular rituals
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Anthropology of religion
– Wallace’s definition of religion – belief and ritual
concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces
– Anthropologists have stressed the collective, shared,
and enacted nature of religion, the emotions it
generates, and the meanings it embodies
• Durkheim – religious effervescence – collective emotional
intensity generated by worship
• Turner’s notion of communitas – an intense community spirit;
a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Anthropology of religion
– Like ethnicity and language, religion is
associated with social divisions within and
between societies and nations
– Religion is a cultural universal, but societies
conceptualize divinity, supernatural entities,
and ultimate realities very differently
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– E. B. Tylor
• First anthropologist to study religion
• Proposed that religion evolved through three stages: animism,
then polytheism, and finally monotheism
– Spiritual beings
• According to Tylor, animism originated from peoples’ attempts
to explain dreams and trances
– Polytheism – belief in multiple gods
– Monotheism – belief in a single, all-powerful deity
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Mana – a sacred impersonal force that can reside in
people, animals, plants, and objects
– Belief in mana was especially prominent in Melanesia
– Melanesian mana:
• Similar to our notion of efficacy or luck
• Could be acquired by chance or through hard work, and
manipulated in different ways (e.g., magic)
• Success was attributed to mana, and failure to a lack of mana –
thus, notion of mana provided an explanation for differential
success that people could not understand in ordinary, natural
terms
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Polynesian mana:
• Mana was attached to political offices
• Chiefs and nobles had more mana than ordinary
people did
• Chiefs had so much mana that contact with them, or
with things they touched, was considered dangerous
to commoners
• Thus, the bodies and possessions of high chiefs were
taboo – set apart as sacred and off-limits to ordinary
people
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Magic and religion
• Magic – supernatural techniques intended to
accomplish specific aims
• Imitative magic – magicians produce a desired effect
by imitating it (e.g., use of “voodoo dolls”)
• Contagious magic – whatever is done to an object is
believed to affect a person who once had contact
with it
• Magic can be associated with animism, mana,
polytheism, or monotheism
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Uncertainty, anxiety, and solace
• Religion and magic can help reduce anxiety
• Malinowski argued that people turn to magic as a
means of control when they face uncertainty and
danger
– Trobriand Islanders used magic only in situations (e.g.,
sailing) that they could not control – that is, times of
psychological stress
– In contemporary societies, magic persists as a means of
reducing psychological anxiety in situations of uncertainty
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Rituals:
• Behavior that is formal (stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped)
and performed in sacred places at set times
• Include liturgical orders – sequences of words and actions
invented prior to the current performance of the ritual in which
they occur
• Convey information about the participants and their traditions
• Translate enduring messages, values, and sentiments into
action
• Inherently social – by participating in rituals, performers signal
that they accept a common social and moral order
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Rites of passage:
• Customs associated with the transition from one
place or stage of life to another
• Three phases:
– Separation – participants withdraw from the group and
begin moving from one place or status to another
– Liminality – period between states, during which the
participants have left one place or state but have not yet
entered or joined the next
– Incorporation – participants reenter society with a new
status, having completed the rite
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Rites of passage:
• Liminality involves the temporary suspension and even
reversal of ordinary social distinctions, behaviors, and
expectations
• Communitas – an intense community spirit, a feeling of great
social solidarity, equality, and togetherness during collective
liminality
• “Permanent liminal groups” (e.g., sects, brotherhoods, cults)
exist in certain societies, particularly nation-states
– Not all collective rites are rites of passage – some may
be rites of intensification, which enhance social
solidarity
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Totemism
• Important in Native Australian societies, as well as
Native American groups of the North Pacific coast
• Each descent group had a totem (an animal, plant, or
geographical feature) from which they claimed
descent
• Members of a totemic group did not kill or eat their
totem, except once a year when people gathered for
ceremonies dedicated to the totem
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Expressions of religion
– Totemism
• Totemism uses nature as a model for society
– People relate to nature through their totemic association
with natural species
– Each group has a different totem, so natural diversity
becomes a model for social diversity
– At the same time, unity of the social order is enhanced by
symbolic association with totems, all of which are part of
nature
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Social control
– Religions help ensure proper behavior:
• Offer rewards and punishments
• Many prescribe a code of ethics and morality
– Throughout history, political leaders have used
religion to promote and justify their views and
policies
– Leaders may mobilize people either by
persuasion or by instilling hatred or fear
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Social control
– Witch hunts
• Powerful means of social control – create a climate of danger
and insecurity
• Witchcraft accusations are often directed at socially marginal
or anomalous individuals – people who can be accused and
punished with least chance of retaliation
• Accusations may serve as a leveling mechanism
– Leveling mechanism – a custom or social action that operates to
reduce status differences and thus to bring standouts in line with
community norms
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Kinds of religion
– Religion is a cultural universal, but religious
beliefs and practices vary cross-culturally
– Wallace identified four types of religion:
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Shamanic
Communal
Olympian
Monotheistic
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Kinds of religion
– Shamanic religion
• Most characteristic of foraging societies
• Shamans:
– Part-time religious figures who mediate between people
and supernatural beings and forces
– Examples: curers, mediums, spiritualists, astrologers,
palm readers, diviners
• Shamans sometimes assume a different or
ambiguous sex or gender role – sets them off
symbolically from ordinary people
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Kinds of religion
– Communal religion
• Found among some foragers, but more typical of
farming societies
• Both shamans and community rituals (e.g., harvest
ceremonies, collective rites of passage)
• Communal religions are polytheistic – their
adherents believe in several deities who control
aspects of nature
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Kinds of religion
– Olympian religion
• First appeared in states
• Full-time, professional priesthoods that are
hierarchically and bureaucratically organized, like
the state itself
• Olympian religions are polytheistic – pantheons of
powerful anthropomorphic gods with specialized
functions
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Kinds of religion
– Monotheistic religion
• Priesthoods
• All supernatural phenomena are manifestations of,
or are under the control of, a single eternal,
omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent supreme
being
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• World religions
– Largest religions:
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Christianity – more than 2 billion practitioners
Islam – 1.3 billion practitioners
Hinduism – 900 million practitioners
Buddhism – 376 million practitioners
– More than a billion people claim no official
religion
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Religion and change
– Revitalization movements:
• Social movements that occur in times of change
• Religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or
revitalize a society
• Examples:
– Beginnings of Christianity
– Colonial-era Iroquois reformation led by Handsome Lake
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Religion and change
– Cargo cults:
• Revitalization movements that emerge when traditional
communities have regular contact with industrial societies but
lack their wealth, technology, and living standards
• Name is derived from a focus on European cargo
• Indigenous communities attempt to:
– Explain European domination and wealth
– Achieve similar success magically – by mimicking European
behavior and manipulating symbols of the desired lifestyle
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Religion and change
– Cargo cults in Melanesia and Papua New Guinea:
• Blended Christian doctrine with aboriginal beliefs and
practices
• Melanesians believed that all wealthy people eventually had to
give their wealth away—like big men
• Europeans refused to distribute their wealth or let natives know
the secret of its production and distribution
• Cargo cults emerged as a means of magically leveling
Europeans
• Paved the way for unified political action – indigenous
communities eventually regained their autonomy
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.
CHAPTER 15
Religion
• Secular rituals
– Ritual-like behavior can occur in secular
contexts
– The supernatural and the natural may not be
distinguished consistently in a society
• Can be difficult to define what constitutes religion
and what does not
– Behavior considered appropriate for religious
occasions varies cross-culturally
© 2008 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All right reserved.