mcgraw-hill © 2005 the mcgraw-hill companies, inc. 1 21 religion anthropology: the exploration of...

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

121

Religion

Anthropology:The Exploration of Human Diversity

11th Edition

Conrad Phillip Kottak


2 ReligionReligion

• What Is Religion?

• Origins, Functions, and Expressions of Religion

• Religion and Cultural Ecology

• Social Control


3 ReligionReligion

• Kinds of Religion

• Religion in States

• World Religion

• Religion and Change

• Secular Rituals


4 What Is Religion?What Is Religion?

• Religion—belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces (Wallace)

Religion is a cultural universal


5Origins, Functions, and Origins, Functions, and Expressions of ReligionExpressions of Religion

– Tylor first studied religion anthropologically and developed a taxonomy of religions

– Animism—seen as most primitive; belief in souls that derives from the first attempt to explain dreams and like phenomena

• Animism



– Mana—belief in immanent supernatural domain or life-force, potentially subject to human manipulation

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

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

• Mana and Taboo



– Magic refers to supernatural techniques intended to accomplish specific aims

• May be imitative (as with voodoo dolls) or contagious (accomplished through contact)

• Magic and Religion



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

• Anxiety, Control, Solace

Malinowski saw tribal religions as being focused on life crises



– Rituals convey information about culture of participants and, hence, participants themselves

– Rituals inherently social, and participation in them necessarily implies social commitment

• Rituals—formal social acts, performed in sacred contexts


10Origins, Functions, and Origins, Functions, and Expressions of ReligionExpressions of Religion• Rites of Passage—religious rituals that

mark and facilitate person’s movement from one (social) state of being to another (e.g., Plains Indians’ vision quests)



• Separation—participant(s) withdraws from group and begins moving from one place to another

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

• Incorporation—participant(s) reenters society with a new status having completed the rite

– Rites of passage have three phases:



– Liminality part of every rite of passage and involves temporary suspension and even reversal of everyday social distinctions

Communitas—collective liminality, characterized by enhanced feelings of social solidarity and minimized distinctions



– Rituals play an important role in creating and maintaining group solidarity

• Totemism



• Totems are apical ancestor of clans• Members of 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

• Totemism– In totemic societies, each descent group

has an animal, plant, or geographical feature from which they claim descent


15Origins, Functions, and Origins, Functions, and Expressions of ReligionExpressions of Religion• Totemism

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



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

• Social differences mirror the natural order of the environment

Unity of human social order enhanced by symbolic association with and imitation of natural order

• Totemism– Totemism uses nature as model for society


17 Religion and Cultural EcologyReligion and Cultural Ecology

– Ahimsa is Hindu doctrine of nonviolence that forbids the killing of animals

– Western economic development experts often use this principle as example of how religion can stand in the way of development

Hindus seem to irrationally ignore valuable food source (beef)

Hindus also raise scraggly and thin cows, unlike the bigger cattle of Europe and the U.S.

• Sacred Cattle in India


18 Religion and Cultural EcologyReligion and Cultural Ecology

• Cattle play important adaptive role in Indian ecosystem that evolved over thousands of years

• Hindus use cattle for transportation, traction, and manure

• Bigger cattle eat more, making them more expensive to keep

• Sacred Cattle in India– Views of experts are ethnocentric and

wrong


19 Social ControlSocial Control

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

• The power of religion affects action



• Many religions have formal code of ethics that prohibit certain behavior while promoting other kinds of behavior

• 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



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



– Historically migrant tribe

Although Ghana’s biomedical system bears fundamental likeness to Britain’s, it incorporates traditional etiological beliefs

• Ewe Traditional and Biomedial Healing Practices in Ghana’s Volta Region



• Ewe Traditional and Biomedial Healing Practices in Ghana’s Volta Region– Due to linguistic disparity, healthcare

system is inefficient

Native treatment ranges from preventative to curative and revolves around belief in patients’ physical or spiritual unrest


24 Kinds of ReligionKinds of Religion

• Religious forms vary from culture to culture, but correlations exist between political organization and religious type



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

– In Shamanic religions, shamans are part-time religious intermediaries who may act as curers—these religions are most characteristic of foragers

• Religious Practitioners and Types



– 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

• Religious Practitioners and Types– Communal religions have shamans,

community rituals, multiple nature gods, and are more characteristic of food producers than foragers



• Religious Practitioners and Types– 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



• Anthony F. C. Wallace’s Typology of Religions– Insert Table 21.2



• Location of Chukchee in Siberia– Insert Figure 21.2


30 Religion in StatesReligion in States

– Weber linked spread of capitalism to values central to the Protestant faith:

• Independent• Entrepreneurial• Hard working• Future-oriented• Free thinking

• Christian Values


31 Religion in StatesReligion in States

• Christian Values– The emphasis Catholics placed on

immediate happiness and security, and notion that salvation was attainable only when priest mediated on one’s behalf, did not fit well with capitalism


32 World ReligionWorld Religion

• Religious affiliation in North America varies with ethnic background, age, and geography

• In the U.S. Protestants outnumber Catholics, but in Canada the reverse is true


33 World ReligionWorld Religion

• Religious Composition (in Percentages) of the Populations of the United States, 1990 and 2001, and Canada, 1991 and 2001– Insert Table 21.5


34 Religion and ChangeReligion and Change

– Religious movements that act as mediums for social change

– The colonial-era Iroquois reformation led by Handsome Lake is example of revitalization movement

• Revitalization Movements



– Cultural mix, including religious blends, that emerge when two or more cultural traditions come into contact

• Examples include voodoo, santeria, and candomlé

The cargo cults of Melanesia and Papua New Guinea are syncretisms of Christian doctrine with aboriginal beliefs

• Syncretisms



• Syncretisms– Often emerge when traditional, non-

Western societies have regular contact with industrialized societies

Attempt to explain European domination and wealth and to achieve similar success magically by mimicking European behavior and symbols



• Location of Melanesia– Insert Figure 21.3



– Antimodernism—rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived as an earlier, purer, and better way of life

• Barber contends that tribalism and globalism are two key—and opposed—principles of our age

• Argues that Jihad and McWorld operate with equal force in opposite directions

• Antimodernism and Fundamentalism



• Assert an identity separate from the larger religious group from which they arose

• Seek to rescue religion from absorption into modern, Western culture

• Antimodernism and Fundamentalism– Fundamentalism—antimodernist

movements in various religions



• Also refers to belief that religious texts are infallible and historically accurate

• Many fundamentalists are politically aware citizens of nation-states

• Antimodernism and Fundamentalism– Fundamentalism

• Strive to protect distinctive doctrine and way of life and of salvations



• A New Age– In U.S., official recognition of religion

entitles it to modicum of respect and certain benefits

U.S. recognizes Scientology as religion; Germany does not


42 Secular RitualsSecular Rituals

• Include formal, invariant, stereotyped, earnest, repetitive behavior and rites of passage that take place in nonreligious settings


43 Secular RitualsSecular Rituals

– Many Americans seek in such apparently secular contexts as amusement parks, rock concerts, and sporting events what other people find in religious rites, beliefs, and ceremonies

• Belief that recreation and religion are separate domains is ethnocentric and false

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