Religion How is religion defined? What is religious practice and experience? Some definitions: What if we said that religion was whatever involves a stated belief in spirits, gods, or mystical entities of some sort? With this definition, however, there are two problems 1)The first is that the anthropologist Rodney Needham of oxford tried to apply and translate the word"belief"into the religious language of the people in Indonesia with whom he lived for som time. Needham claimed that there was no equivalent in their language for our concept of religious belief. 2)The second problem deals with what may be viewed as entities of a existence which is not part of this everyday world What is called"religion"may therefore look very different from one society to another. There may be an emphasis on religious belief, on religious practices such as certain kinds of rituals,or an emphasis on shared emotions. For our purposes we will consider religion as"an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings This definition was originally given, in part by E B. Tylor a Oxford 100 years ago; and it has been reiterated by current scholars such as Jack Goody, Robin Horton and Mel Spiro Pollution and Purity Many religions stipulate not just things people should do, such as sacrifice and ritual, but also things they should not do: eating certain foods, wearing certain clothes, coming into contact with people of other religions or of lower status, etc. Prohibitions and"taboos"are some of the most persons of different religions. They bring religious life into everyday social existence bys fundamental aspects of religion, in part because they distinguish and often socially separ restricting, sanctioning and prohibiting social interactions and behaviors Proscriptions and taboos regarding food and clothing are common aspects of many religions They often served to keep distinct and apart people and things deemed to be importantly different:men and women, impure people(menstruating women, unclean men) and pure people, high and low-status people, meat and milk products, etc. Rules about food-what to eat, when to eat it, with whom to eat it-are of central importance in many religions In the religions of the Middle East(Islam, Judaism, Christianity), meals serve as key symbols of religious affiliation and as a means through which religious acts are carried out. During the Passover Seder, the house must be cleansed of all leaven; throughout Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, Muslims may not partake of food from sun-up to sun-down; and the importance 3777602
of the last Supper of Jesus is conveyed over and over in the tokens of his body and blood taken in forms of communion or sacrament in many Christian religions. Often, the individual forsakes food for a period in order to obtain a higher level of religious purity. Eating together is a primary means of achieving peace everywhere. Comensality implies harmony and unity. One does not eat with unequals or with whom there is social discord. On the other hand, feasts in New Guinea people"fight with food, "seeking to outdo each other in the ability to host a big feast or moka The Abominations of Leviticus: Mary Douglas has argued that prohibiting certain foods was a way of carving up the natural world into the pure and the impure, and thereby creating a model for thinking about the purity of the Divine. In fact, many Biblical prohibitions are of things that are partial, maimed, or blemished. Animals being sacrificed must not have a blemish; no one who has a physical defect may become a priest; even fields should be sown with only one kind of eed, etc. Prohibitions on food thus represent a means of creating order within the theology of the times. Certain animals served as models of the divine order Cattle and sheep were most familiar; and the law stated that these animals represented orderliness. Beasts lacking the characteristics of these animals were considered disorderly. Thus, pigs, camels and other animals were impure. Other prohibitions also have to do with species that fall outside of three main categories of animals: those that fly in the air with wings, those that swim in the water with fins and scales, and those that walk or hop on the land with four legs. A comprehensive reading is given in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy Douglas claims that the Biblical focus on order, makes the dietary rules"like signs which at every turn inspired meditation on the oneness, purity, and completeness of( thus a means of figuring out man's place within nature. To understand pollution ideas and taboos is to comprehend the cultural notions of dirt. Dirt is a"by-product of the systematic ordering and classification of matter. Thus, Douglas claims that taboos -"ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating, and punishing transgressions'-have as their primary function to impose order on an inherently untidy world Ritual and Rites of Passage In all societies people mark transitions or life stages by carrying out certain"transition rituals"or rites of passage. " These rituals often contain a religious dimension; and they usually center on critical points in a persons life birth, puberty, marriage, and death. Passage into adulthood often involves endowing a person with a new identity or social status(passing out of moran as noted for Maasai and Samburu). Death rituals are meant to transfer the non-material remains of the person to another kind of existence in a supernatural realm. Thus, at the end of thefuneral mass for Princess Diana, the clergy spoke to the spirit by declaring it to"leave this world peacefully, and to"depart "into an eternal world The word ritual, and its synonym"rites, "has been used by a variety of scholars in a variety of cooperation of individuals, directed by leaders. Rules define which individuals shoulo nized ways. Here, ritual may be considered as social action; its performance requires the org
articipate and on what occasions. Ritual performance also is social in that it must follow proscribed patterns, including bodily movements, words, the use of colors, singing, prayer, and so forth. While changes in ritual do occur, there is a general consideration that the structure of ritual is fixed. Also, where ritual is performed, it is considered morally and socially necessary that it must take place Ritual performances, or rites, are directed toward achieving some result. It may be general, such as peace and tranquility, or specific, such as the healing of a sick child. The relation between ends and means in ritual is usually described by contrasting it with what has been called rational or technical action The first phase is characterized by the stripping away of the initial state, a kind of separation of the person from the ordinary social environment. It may involve rites to purify the body, seclusion, cutting hair, or acting as if dead. This phase often recognizes a natural event such as death or puberty. It may create a peer group and define a geographic space, such as the moran village among Samburu young men. This phase also often involves an exchange of clothing and the assignment of a new identity as with a name Then comes a stage of marginality, the transitional or liminal("threshold)stage during which he person is outside of normal social life. The liminal person may have to observe certain taboos, or be isolated, or be subjected to beatings and insults, or be elevated to temporary high statu 1. Radical transformation: (in manhood rituals in New Guinea, the young initiate is beaten by older boys; he comes out of the ritual with a new social and psychological identity) 2. Rebellion: (during liminality initiates experience a time of"anti-status "or"anti-structure"in which the normal distinctions of society are turned on their head, sometimes mocked and ridiculed, and even threatened to be destroyed. Outside of ritual this is witnessed in such events as Halloween or Carnival.) 3. Communitas: (liminality is a period in which all initiates have all things in common-a sort of shared existence. It is said that they are "betwixt and between"the normal rungs and statuses of society. Outside of ritual communitas is experienced in the Islamic Haj or pilgrimage to Mecca. During this time of pilgrimage, Sunnis and Shi Muslims-otherwise unable to sit in the same cafe together without quarreling or fighting-and men and women(otherwise highly stratified) are found parading together, wearing the same clothing and circling the great Ka'ba A third phase, aggregation or integration, ends the ritual. It represents the reintegration of the person back into social life. A girl may have become a woman, or a boy a man; a candidate is now a king the loose soul of a dead man takes up its place in heaven Ritual removes the person from everyday life and provides time for people to define the event and its consequences; to transform the person in body, mind, and status, and then to define the new state- as fertile woman, or a soul proceeding to the world of the dead. moreover, in the
sequences or changes in life which are expected, the liminal stage provides the setting for a dramatization of the individuals recasting into a new form, a statement that the old has passed and the new is born An elaborate example of rites of passage performed for an anticipated event is chisungu, a female initiation ceremony done publicly among the Bemba of Zambia. The expressed purpose of chisungu is to change girls into women, not merely by teaching them songs and dances, and showing them sacred emblems, but by transforming them in the course of the ritual experience Overt emphasis of the rites is placed on marriage, a woman's responsibilities, her subservience to her husband, to senior women and all others in authority The rituals are opened by the headman of the village but men play only a minor role. Audrey Richards noted that the full ritual is long, taking four weeks to complete in 1931. She was told that formerly it lasted several months, the rites intermingling with visits from kin, feasts and dancing. During this time, the girls remained as ritual initiates, learning about marriage, motherhood, and other features of socialization such as the power of men within the matrilineage, the role of chiefly authority in village life and some aspects of cosmology of mystical importance. A particular rite, called"begging for parenthood displays these associations An important stage in the ceremony had now been reached-the lighting of the new fire This might be described as the first of the rites of aggregation. The senior"father's then lay down on her back. Nangoshye picked up the firestick and started twirling y sister""of one of the girls, wrinkled and bent with rheumatism, danced to the company and round in the groove on the old woman's thigh, telling the two girl novices to copy her afterwards. Then the two old women set out to make fire in earnest. Women do not commonly make fire among the Bemba. The work needs skill and practice as well as considerable strength. The two old women rubbed the firestick in turns, sweating and groaning with the effort. The company swayed to and fro, moaning the chisungu fire ongs We have come to get fire Lion we beg it of you Scratch scratch(the grating of the fire How many children have you bom?sticks) When at last the tinder caught fire it was greeted with relieved clapping. The father's sister plays the leading part in the ceremony and it is she who by tradition influences the fertility of the girl The interpretation of the songs was given as follows: the sticks are rubbed on the back of the girl's father's sister who can give or withhold parenthood(she represents the fathers clan);the girl is told that she owes fire to the older woman whose hands ache from the rubbing; she must take over now. She must take her turn at the bearing of the children now; the lion is the bridegroom, the chief or the male principal throughout the ceremony; the bridegroom is begged
for fire. The whole rite is called"begging for parenthood Bemba marriage is exogamous outside the clan. These statements of marriage thus also reenforce inter-clan alliances established through the exchange of sisters as marriageable women The concern of girl's initiation rites with marriage and maternity is thus not only a concern with reproduction. It is also a dramatic enactment of the moral order of society Symbolism Religions involve actions, ideas, and rules, but they also provide images and symbols around which religious activity centers and coalesces. Objects and images have great power when endowed with mystical forces. For example, the Asmat of Irian Jaya, the western half of New Guinea, taking the heads of victims in war recreates mystical powers of the cosmos. Taking a head reenacts a sacrifice made at the beginning of time. In a widely told story, a being who was both god and man killed his brother and cut off his head, and when he did so he immediatel caused the universe to come into existence, and all of culture along with it. Taking a head thus caused life to emerge because it is regarded that the skulls of the dead help bring about new birth Men would often sleep on or near the skulls of wartime enemies claiming that they absorb something of the deceaseds power at night Witchcraft: Witchcraft involves people who by their very bodily or spiritual composition seek to harm others Witches are people within the community; often they harm only persons who are immediate kin, such as in Asante only within the matrilineage. They typically attack out of envy, spit, or greed but also, in recent times, witches are persons whose financial and material success is known to outdo others persons of the lineage or community. Thus, recent studies have linked witchcraft in Africa to money, commodities, financial well-being and, earlier in this century, to the rise of a middle class where persons consumed European goods on a conspicuous level. In fact, Apter has recently argued that the rise of the Atinga witch-finding cult in Yoruba was financed mostly by men who intended to direct accusations of witchcraft toward those women who were competing gainst them in the cocoa business in the 1940s Navajo trace the appearance of witchcraft to the first Man and First Woman. Those beings leveloped poisons and spells which inflict illness and death. Witchcraft has been a part of traditional Navajo religion; and Kluckholm's description takes a psychological approach stating that few overt hostilities are allowed in Navajo society. But openly hating a witch is approved behavior and provides an emotional outlet The classic study of witchcraft is Oracles. Magic and Witchcraft among the azande by E-P. In E-P's study of witchcraft in Azande, he made note of the fact that Zande were aware of the physical and biological causes of their daily world. Biological and physical processes were familiar to them, he claimed, as they are to us in the western world. They may not comprehend