Chapter 11

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Religion - The means by which human society and culture is extended to include the nonhuman

• Marcel Mauss - religion and magic were two opposite poles on a spectrum of spiritual beliefs
  • Magic - practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one's personal control.
• Functional (Malinowski) - Religion is born out of the problems of human life
• Social (Durkheim) - Difference between sacred and profane objects
  • Collective effervescence - Celebrating the sacred can create an intense emotional experience
  • Profane - objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or contempt
• Power (Marx) - Religion helps justify inequalities in power and status
• Psychological (Freud) - Keeps us from acting on our worst instinct
• Economic (Harris) - Belief develop to aid in peoples’ survival in their environment
• Symbolic (Geertz) - Symbols represent cultural ideal and reinforce values

Elements of Religion

• Cosmology - An explanation for the origin or history of the world

• Belief in the supernatural - Realm beyond direct human experience

  • Animatism - Belief in an impersonal supernatural force (Mana)
  • Animism - Belief in supernatural beings, spirits, or aspects of humans (Soul)
  • Gods - Powerful non-human spirits
  • Anthropomorphic - An object or being that has human characteristics

• Rules governing behavior - Proper conduct, morality

  • Karma - Guide behavior with the goal of reincarnation in Buddhism

• Ritual - Practices or ceremonies that serve a religious purpose

  • Rites of Passage - A ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages

  • Stages

    1. Separation - The first stage of a rite of passage in which individuals are removed from their current social identity and begin preparations to enter the next stage of life.
    2. Liminality - A time in which individuals often undergo tests, trials, or activities designed to prepare them for their new social roles.
    3. (Re)Incorporation - The final stage of a rite of passage in which individuals return to the community with a new socially recognized status

  • Xhosa Communities - A community in South Africa that practices a rite of passage to transition teenage boys into manhood.

  • Isolation - A liminal phase during which individuals do not talk to anyone other than boys who are also undergoing the rite of passage.

  • Rites of Intensification - Actions designed to bring a community together (communitas)

  • Nagol Land Diving Ceremony - This is a dramatic example of a Rite of Intensification held on the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Men from the community construct wooden towers 60 to 80 feet high, tie ropes made from tree vines around their ankles, and jump head-first toward the ground to impress the spirits and ensure a good harvest.

  • Revitalization rituals - Solving serious problems through supernatural intervention

  • Cargo Cult - describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity, like the John Frum ritual, but the term is not preferred by anthropologists because it oversimplifies the complex motivations involved in the ritual.

  • Practitioners - specialist practitioners charged with responsibility for supervising the details of religious rituals, and they have a high social status and are treated with great respect.

  • Three Categorizes

    • Priests - Full-time religious practitioners
    • Have authority to set rules and control access to religious rites
    • Shaman - Part-time religious practitioner
    • Calling for those who have abnormal traits in the context of the community
    • Prophet - Person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm
    • David Koresh, Branch Davidians (millenarians)

• Filial piety - a tradition requiring that the young provide care for the elderly and in some cases ancestral spirits

• Sorcerer - an individual who seeks to use magic for his or her own purposes

• Zoomorphic - an object or being that has animal characteristics

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