© Tori M Saneda 2005-2008

Religion

IV. Religious practitioners

Individuals who specialize in use of spiritual power to influence others

  • shamans – most common
  • term taken from nomadic people called Chuckchee (Siberia)
  • = person w/access to supernatural power that can be used for benefit of specific clients
  • may only be part-time specialist
  • trance state used to communicate w/supernatural
  • often innovative in practices
  • priests
  • practitioners trained to perform rituals for benefit of group
  • may be full-time specialists
  • ritual is the thing – innovation and creativity not prized among priests
  • sorcerers
  • uses supernatural power to harm humans (illness, misfortune, death)
  • often role is similar to our law enforcement – used by people to punish someone who has violated rule
  • uses magic rituals
  • witches
  • person believed to have innate supernatural power to harm others w/out use of ritual
  • may not even intend harm, but b/c power is innate can inadvertently harm people
  • very few societies tolerate presence of witches b/c often associated w/ acts outside social norm

Patterns of belief

Pattern of belief focused on one or more god of extrahuman origin = theism

May be a reflection of way society organized

- more centralized and stratified = fewer and fewer gods

  • Monotheistic: belief in one god (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
  • Henotheistic: worship of only one god, while acknowledging that other gods exist. Henotheists do not necessarily view other gods as legitimate objects of worship, even while acknowledging they exist (Hinduism)
  • Polytheistic: belief in many gods (Aztec, ancient Greeks, Egyptians)
  • Atheism = positive belief there is no god; or absence of belief that there is a god
  • have personal moral code
  • agnosticism = concept; idea that existence of God cannot be proved or disproved based on existing evidence

Religious Change

Religion beliefs and rituals can be catalysts/vehicles of social change

  • syncretism = borrowing of beliefs, practices and organizational characteristics from other religions
  • e.g., Voodoo borrowed heavily from Catholicism
  • one god = Bondye
  • St. Patrick = Dambella – rainbow serpent diety
  • Catholic feast day – St James the Elder (1st martyred apostle) = voodoo patron of soldiers
  • e.g., Zuni art and Catholicism
  • Catholicism adopted by many Zuni
  • Christ often picture clothed in Zuni cloth and jewelry
  • Kachinas = remind people to be attentive during services (mediators b/t humans and divine)
  • revitalization = conscious efforts to build an ideology that will be relevant to changing cultural NN
  • often occur in disorganized societies (war, revolutions, acculturation, etc.)
  • often radically destructive of existing institutions
  • revitalization movements provide way to resolve conflict and promote stabilization thru reorganization
  • adaptation to external forces that threaten to overwhelm society
  • e.g., Ghost Dance – 1880s
  • begun by Pauite – Wovoka
  • during eclipse, brought before God and given message for people of earth: peace and right living
  • circle dance – represent movement of harmony around sun
  • prohesized that dead Indian forebears would return soon to take possession of technology of whites, who would be simultaneously exterminated in huge explosion = renewal of earth
  • many Indian nations rallied to the Ghost Dance; e.g., Lakota, Ute, Washoe, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Mandan, Comanche
  • some practitioners changed meaning and intent
  • Lakota (Sioux) suffered greatly at hands of US Army
  • lands taken away by miners; RR given rights to build thru reservation, etc.
  • Lakota warrior, Kicking Bear, visited Wovoka, came back w/message but injected militancy into it
  • wear special costume for dance (eagle feathers) = impervious to bullets
  • made US govt nervous; Nov 1890 – thousands of troops sent into Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations – Sitting Bull (peace chief) arrested and murdered
  • Another leader, Big Foot, went to negotiate over right to practice religion and get increased rations for winter
  • camp along Wounded Knee creek attacked by soldiers on Dec. 29, 1890
  • 153 Lakota and 39 soldiers died

Why Are People Religious? Function of religion

psychological reasons:

  • by answering existential questions, help people cope
  • why do we die/suffer, etc.
  • provides clear cut way to deal w/frightening uncertainties
  • Trobriand Islanders = excellent mariners yet perform elaborate rituals before set sail
  • what happened after 9/11? – many people went to church

social reasons

  • mediate tension b/t social roles and relationships
  • husbands/wives, etc.
  • way to achieve consensus
  • provides guidelines for how should live and what values to hold
  • motivates compliance of customs
  • gives us social rules to maintain order
  • supernatural punishment
  • e.g., Viking warriors promised Valhalla for valor