Learning Objectives

-       reasons for the development of supernatural belief systems

-       what the earliest evidence is for supernatural beliefs

-       what functions religious belief serves in society

-       about the roles of deities, ancestor spirits, and spirits of nature

-       the different roles that religious practitioners play in society

-       how people resist the imposition of a new set of beliefs

-       about the intersections of religious beliefs and other forms of cultural expression

Review Questions

1.     What does it mean to say that human culture is founded on symbolic systems?

2.     What kinds of political systems tend to correlate with the veneration of deities, ancestors, and spirits in nature?

3.     What are the functions of religious belief in society, both on an individual and a social level?

4.     What are some differences between the roles of priests and shamans?

5.     What are the goals of a revitalization movement?

6.     How do religion and cultural expression overlap?

Discussion Questions

1.     Use the five functions of religion stated here to describe the functions of your own belief system. If you do not subscribe to a formal religion, then describe your system of morals and values.

2.     Do you practice any daily rituals or use charms for protection or luck?

3.     What origin myths are you familiar with that account for the creation of the world or of humanity? Do you consider scientific knowledge an origin myth?

Chapter Outline and Key Points

Introduction: Religion as a Symbolic System

 Faith and other value-based systems serve many functions in society, both for individuals and for the social group.

Defining Religion

Religious or supernatural belief systems share an interest in the supernatural (beings, forces, states, or places), use ritual, are guided by myths, and are symbolic.

Reasons for Supernatural Belief Systems

The earliest evidence for supernatural beliefs is tied to burial sites, due to their connection to ideas of an afterlife. The five main functions of supernatural belief systems are the following: creating community, instilling values, renewing faith, providing reasons, and solving problems.

Sacred Roles

Supernatural beings exist in many forms in different belief systems. They include deities (gods and goddesses), ancestral spirits, and spirits of nature. Supernatural forces may include magical power, luck, or protection, such as that bestowed by a talisman.

Religious Practitioners

Priests/priestesses and shamans are religious practitioners with different types of roles and duties.

Religious Resistance

Communities who are subject to colonialism or conquest exert their agency in order to resist the loss of their cherished cultural and religious symbols. Religious revitalization movements are created to attempt to resist these kinds of changes.

Supernatural Beliefs and Cultural Expression

Beliefs are embodied in many ways by worshippers, such as physically painful ordeals or sacred tattooing.

Glossary

ancestor veneration: worship of one’s ancestors

ancestral spirits: the essence of one’s family ancestors who have remained in contact with the mortal world

animatism: the belief that spiritual forces inhabit natural objects

animism: the belief that spiritual beings inhabit natural objects

cargo cult: a religious revitalization movement in Melanesia that uses ritual to seek help and material wealth

cultural materialism: an anthropological theory guided by the idea that the external pressures of the environment dictate cultural practices

deities: see gods and goddesses

divination: the art of reading the future

emic: an insider’s view; the perspective of the subject

etic: an outsider’s view; an objective explanation

fetish: charm; object of devotion thought to have magical powers

Ghost Dance: a religious revitalization movement started among the Northern Paiute that used a five-day circle dance to seek help from the supernatural realm

gods and goddesses: distant and powerful supernatural beings

ideology: a system of beliefs that guides and justifies the actions of an individual or group

imitative magic: a form of magic in which a practitioner creates something to represent real life, then manipulates it in a way that imitates the desired effect; the magical idea that like produces like

Islamophobia: fear of and prejudice toward people perceived to be of the Islamic faith (Muslims)

magic: the use of powers to contact and control supernatural forces or beings

menses: menstruation

metaphor: an application of a word or phrase to something to which it is not generally applicable; a comparison to things without using the words “like” or “as”

monotheism: a religious belief system worshipping a single god or goddess

myth: a sacred story that explains the origins of the world or people in it

neurodiverse: describes people with neurological differences that arguably do not need to be pathologized, such as Asperger’s, autism, ADHD, Tourette’s, and dyslexia

pantheon: a set of gods and goddesses in a religious belief system

polytheistic: a religious belief system worshipping multiple gods and goddesses

priest (priestess): a full-time religious practitioner

religion: a set of beliefs and behaviors that pertain to supernatural forces or beings, which transcend the observable world

religious revitalization movement: a process by which an oppressed group seeks supernatural aid through the creation of new ritual behaviors

rites of passage: rituals marking life’s important transitions from one social or biological role to another

ritual: a symbolic practice that is ordered and regularly repeated

shaman: a part-time religious practitioner

spirits of nature: unobservable beings and forces that inhabit the natural world

supernatural beings: personified or embodied beings that exist beyond the observable world, such as deities or spirits

supernatural forces: disembodied powers that exist beyond the observable world, such as luck

supernaturalism: belief in aspects of life outside of a scientific understanding that we cannot measure or test; religious belief

syncretism/syncretic: a synthesis of two or more religious belief systems

taboo: prohibition of a practice; forbidding one to engage in that practice

talisman: an object thought to bring protection or luck to the owner, especially to ward off illness or evil

trance: an altered state of consciousness in which a person lacks conscious control of their speech or actions

Weblinks

Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR)

https://sar.americananthro.org/  

SAR’s Contemporary Anthropology of Religion Book Series list

https://sar.americananthro.org/pubs/book-series/  

Royal Anthropological Institute—Discover Anthropology, Religion Page

http://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/about-anthropology/specialist-areas/anthropology-of-religion.html

List of World Religions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions  

Cultural Anthropology—Ritual and Religion (open-access wikibook)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cultural_Anthropology/Ritual_and_Religion

Academia.edu—Anthropology of Shamanism

https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Anthropology_of_Shamanism

Further Reading

Eller, J.D. (2022). Introducing Anthropology of Religion. 3^rd ed. Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge.

Geertz, C. (1973). Religion as a cultural system. In C. Geertz, The interpretation of cultures (pp. 87-125). New York: Basic Books.

Gmelch, G. (1978). Baseball magic. Human Nature, 1(8), 32–40.

Harris, M. (1985). The Riddle of the Sacred Cow. In M. Harris, Good to eat: Riddles of food and culture (pp. 47-66). Long Grove: Waveland Press.

Kopenawa, D., & Albert, B. (2013). The falling sky: Words of a Yanomami shaman. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Stein, R. & Stein, P. (2017). The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft. Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge.

Warms, R., Garber, J., & McGee, R.J. (2009). Sacred realms: Readings in the anthropology of religion (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Religion-Centered Ethnographies

Brown, K.M. (2001). Mama Lola: A vodou priestess in Brooklyn. Oakland: University of California Press.

Luhrmann, T. (1989). Persuasions of the witch’s craft: Ritual magic in contemporary England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Luhrmann, T. (2012). When god talks back: Understanding the American evangelical relationship with god. New York: Vintage Books.

Sarfati, L. (2021) Contemporary Korean Shamanism: From Ritual to Digital. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Stoller, P., & Oakes, C. (1987). In sorcery’s shadow: A memoir of apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Vitebski, P. (2005). The reindeer people: Living with animals and spirits in Siberia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.