Download Week 8 - Wolverton Mountain

1
Introduction
• Religion is defined, following Wallace, as belief and
ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and
forces.
• So defined, religion is a cultural universal.
• Neanderthal mortuary remains provide the earliest
evidence of what probably was religious activity.
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Animism
• Tylor first studied religion anthropologically and
developed a taxonomy of religions.
• Animism was seen as the most primitive and is defined
as a belief in souls that derives from the first attempt to
explain dreams and like phenomena.
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Mana and Taboo
• Mana is defined as belief in an immanent supernatural
domain or life-force, potentially subject to human
manipulation.
• The Polynesian and Melanesian concepts of mana are
contrasted.
– Melanesian mana is defined as a sacred impersonal
force that is much like the Western concept of luck.
– Polynesian mana and the related concept of taboo
are related to the more hierarchical nature of
Polynesian society.
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Magic and Religion
• Magic refers to supernatural techniques intended to
accomplish specific aims.
• Magic may be imitative (as with voodoo dolls) or
contagious (accomplished through contact).
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Anxiety, Control, Solace
• Magic is an instrument of control, but religion serves to
provide stability when no control or understanding is
possible.
• Malinowski saw tribal religions as being focused on life
crises.
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Rituals
• Rituals are formal, performed in sacred contexts.
• Rituals convey information about the culture of the
participants and, hence, the participants themselves.
• Rituals are inherently social, and participation in them
necessarily implies social commitment.
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Rites of Passage
• Rites of passage are religious rituals which mark and
facilitate a person's movement from one (social) state of
being to another (e.g., Plains Indians’ vision quests).
• Rites of passage have three phases:
– Separation – the participant(s) withdraws from the
group and begins moving from one place to another.
– Liminality – the period between states, during which
the participant(s) has left one place but has not yet
entered the next.
– Incorporation – the participant(s) reenters society
with a new status having completed the rite.
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• Liminality is part of every rite of passage and involves
the temporary suspension and even reversal of
everyday social distinctions.
• Communitas refers to collective liminality,
characterized by enhanced feelings of social solidarity
and minimized distinctions.
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Totemism
• Rituals play an important role in creating and
maintaining group solidarity.
• In totemic societies, each descent group has an animal,
plant, or geographical feature from which they claim
descent.
– Totems are the apical ancestor of clans.
– The members of a 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.
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• Totemism is a religion in which elements of nature act
as sacred templates for society by means of symbolic
association.
• Totemism uses nature as a model for society.
– Each descent group has a totem, which occupies a
specific niche in nature.
– Social differences mirror the natural order of the
environment.
– The unity of the human social order is enhanced by
symbolic association with and imitation of the
natural order.
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Religion and Cultural Ecology:
Sacred Cattle in India
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• Ahimsa is the Hindu doctrine of nonviolence that forbids the
killing of animals.
• Western economic development experts often use this
principle as an example of how religion can stand in the way
of development.
– Hindus seem to irrationally ignore a valuable food source
(beef).
– Hindus also raise scraggly and thin cows, unlike the
bigger cattle of Europe and the U.S.
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• These views are
ethnocentric and wrong as
cattle play an important
adaptive role in an Indian
ecosystem that has evolved
over thousands of years
– Hindus use cattle for
transportation, traction,
and manure.
– Bigger cattle eat more,
making them more
expensive to keep.
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Social Control
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• The power of religion affects action.
• Religion can be used to mobilize large segments of society
through systems of real and perceived rewards and
punishments.
• 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.
• Many religions have a formal code of ethics that prohibit
certain behavior while promoting other kinds of behavior.
• Religions also maintain social control by stressing the
fleeting nature of life.
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Religion and Social Control in
Afghanistan
• This article describes the social conditions in
Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
• The Taliban are invoking a very strict interpretation of
the Koran as the basis for social behavior.
• Women are required to wear veils, remain indoors, and
are not allowed to be with males who are not blood
relatives.
• Men are required to grow bushy beards and are barred
from playing cards, flying kites, and keeping pigeons.
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Kinds of Religion
• Religious forms
vary from
culture to
culture, but
there are
correlations
between
political
organization
and religious
type.
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• Religious Practitioners and Types
– 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.
– Communal religions have shamans, community rituals,
multiple nature gods, and are more characteristic of food
producers than foragers.
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– 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.
– 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.
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Christian Values
• Max Weber linked the spread of capitalism to the
values central to the Protestant faith: independent,
entrepreneurial, hard working, future-oriented, and
free thinking.
• The emphasis Catholics placed on immediate happiness
and security, and the notion that salvation was
attainable only when a priest mediated on one’s behalf,
did not fit well with capitalism.
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World Religions
• In the U.S. Protestants outnumber Catholics, but in
Canada the reverse is true.
• Religious affiliation in North America varies with
ethnic background, age, and geography.
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Revitalization Movements
• Religious movements that act as mediums for social
change are called revitalization movements.
• The colonial-era Iroquois reformation led by
Handsome Lake is an example of a revitalization
movement.
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Syncretisms
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• A syncretism is a 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 often emerge when traditional, non-Western
societies have regular contact with industrialized societies.
• Syncretisms attempt to explain European domination and
wealth and to achieve similar success magically by
mimicking European behavior and symbols.
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A New Age
• Since the 1960s, there has been a decline in formal
organized religions.
• New Age religions have appropriated ideas, themes,
symbols, and ways of life from the religious practices of
Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, and east
Asian religions.
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A Pilgrimage to Walt Disney World
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• Walt Disney World functions much like a sacred shrine that
is a major pilgrimage destination
– It has an inner, sacred center surrounded by an outer
more secular domain.
– Parking lot designations are distinguished with totemlike
images of the Disney cast of characters.
• The monorail provides travelers with a brief liminal period
as they cross between the outer, secular world into the inner,
sacred center of the Magic Kingdom.
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• Within the Magic Kingdom
– Spending time in the Magic Kingdom reaffirms,
maintains, and solidifies the world of Disney as all of
the pilgrims share a common status as visitors while
experiencing the same adventures.
– Most of the structures and attractions at the Magic
Kingdom are designed to reaffirm and recall a
traditional set of American values.
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Recognizing Religion
• It is difficult to distinguish between sacred and secular
rituals as behavior can simultaneously have sacred and
secular aspects.
• Americans try to maintain a strict division between the
sacred and the profane, but many other societies like
the Betsileo do not.
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What is Art?
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What Is Art?
• Art is very difficult to define, but it generally refers to
the manifestations of human creativity through which
people express themselves in dance, music, song,
painting, sculpture, pottery, cloth, storytelling, verse,
prose, drama, and comedy.
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© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Art and Religion
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• Definitions of both art and religion focus on the more than
ordinary aspects of each with regard to how they are
different from the ordinary and profane/secular.
• A lot of Western and non-Western art has been done in
association with religion, but it is important to remember
that not all non-Western art has ritual or religious
importance.
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35
• Art and religion both have formal (museums and
churches, temples) and informal (parks, homes, and
regular gathering places) venues of expression.
– State-level societies have permanent structures for
religion and art.
– Non-state-level societies lack permanent structures
for religion and art.
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Locating Art
• In states, art is housed in special buildings like
museums, concert halls, and theaters.
• In nonstates, artistic expression takes place in public
spaces that have been set aside for art.
• In states, critics, judges, and experts determine what is
art and what is not.
• The Kalabari example demonstrates that not all
sculpture is art because wooden carvings are
manufactured exclusively for religious reasons.
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Art and Individuality
• Some anthropologists have criticized that the study of
non-Western art ignores the individual and focuses too
much on the group.
• However, in many non-Western societies, there is more
collective production of art than in Western cultures.
• Bohannan argued that among the Tiv, the emphasis
should be on the critics rather than the artists because
the Tiv do not recognize the same connection between
artists and their art.
• The degree to which artists can be separated from their
work varies cross-culturally.
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The Work of Art
• In all societies art is work.
– In nonstate societies, artists cannot work on their art
all of the time as they still must hunt, gather, fish,
herd, or farm to eat.
– In states, artists are full-time specialists whose
career is their work.
• Artistic completeness or mastery is determined and
maintained by both formal and informal standards.
McGraw-Hill
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40
Art, Society, and Culture
• Art is usually a public phenomenon that is exhibited,
performed, evaluated, and appreciated in society.
• Ethnomusicology is the comparative study of the
musics of the world and of music as an aspect of culture
and society.
• Folk art, music, and lore refer to the expressive culture
of ordinary people.
• Art is a form of social communication.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
41
The Cultural Transmission of the Arts
• Art is a part of culture, and as a result, appreciation for
the arts is internalized during enculturation.
• The appreciation of different art forms varies crossculturally.
• In nonindustrialized societies, artistic traditions are
generally transmitted through families and kin groups.
• The art of storytelling plays a critical role in the
transmission, preservation, and expression of cultural
traditions.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
42
The Artistic Career
• In many non-Western societies children born into
certain lineages are destined for a particular artistic
career (e.g., leather working, wood carving, and
making pottery).
• Full craft specialists find support through their kin ties
in non-Western societies or through patrons in Western
societies.
• The arts rely on individual talent that is shaped
through socially approved directions.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
43
Continuity and Change
• The arts are always changing.
• The arts incorporate a wide variety of media.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
44
What Is Art?
• Art is very difficult to define, but it generally refers to
the manifestations of human creativity through which
people express themselves in dance, music, song,
painting, sculpture, pottery, cloth, storytelling, verse,
prose, drama, and comedy.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Art and Religion
45
• Definitions of both art and religion focus on the more than
ordinary aspects of each with regard to how they are different
from the ordinary and profane/secular.
• A lot of Western and non-Western art has been done in
association with religion, but it is important to remember that
not all non-Western art has ritual or religious importance.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
46
• Art and religion both have formal (museums and
churches, temples) and informal (parks, homes, and
regular gathering places) venues of expression.
– State-level societies have permanent structures for
religion and art.
– Non-state-level societies lack permanent structures
for religion and art.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Locating Art
47
• In states, art is housed in special buildings like museums,
concert halls, and theaters.
• In nonstates, artistic expression takes place in public
spaces that have been set aside for art.
• In states, critics, judges, and experts determine what is
art and what is not.
• The Kalabari example demonstrates that not all
sculpture is art because wooden carvings are
manufactured exclusively for religious reasons.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
48
Art and Individuality
• Some anthropologists have criticized that the study of
non-Western art ignores the individual and focuses too
much on the group.
• However, in many non-Western societies, there is more
collective production of art than in Western cultures.
• Bohannan argued that among the Tiv, the emphasis
should be on the critics rather than the artists because
the Tiv do not recognize the same connection between
artists and their art.
• The degree to which artists can be separated from their
work varies cross-culturally.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
49
The Work of Art
• In all societies art is work.
– In nonstate societies, artists cannot work on their art
all of the time as they still must hunt, gather, fish,
herd, or farm to eat.
– In states, artists are full-time specialists whose
career is their work.
• Artistic completeness or mastery is determined and
maintained by both formal and informal standards.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
50
Art, Society, and Culture
• Art is usually a public phenomenon that is exhibited,
performed, evaluated, and appreciated in society.
• Ethnomusicology is the comparative study of the
musics of the world and of music as an aspect of culture
and society.
• Folk art, music, and lore refer to the expressive culture
of ordinary people.
• Art is a form of social communication.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
51
The Cultural Transmission of the Arts
• Art is a part of culture, and as a result, appreciation for
the arts is internalized during enculturation.
• The appreciation of different art forms varies crossculturally.
• In nonindustrialized societies, artistic traditions are
generally transmitted through families and kin groups.
• The art of storytelling plays a critical role in the
transmission, preservation, and expression of cultural
traditions.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
52
The Artistic Career
• In many non-Western societies children born into
certain lineages are destined for a particular artistic
career (e.g., leather working, wood carving, and
making pottery).
• Full craft specialists find support through their kin ties
in non-Western societies or through patrons in Western
societies.
• The arts rely on individual talent that is shaped
through socially approved directions.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
53
Continuity and Change
• The arts are always changing.
• The arts incorporate a wide variety of media.
McGraw-Hill
© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.