Download The Anthropology of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion

The Anthropology of
Magic, Witchcraft,
and Religion
Anthropology
and
The Study of Religion
anthropology
• ánthrōpos (Greek)
= human
=
• lógos (Greek)
= word
the “word about humans”,
the study of humans,
the organized and systemized
body of knowledge about humans
The “Study of Human Cultures”
• As interesting in their own right
• For purposes of comparison
• Ethnography = a description of a
specific culture
• Ethnology = the comparative
study of different cultures
Herodotus
• Born in Halicarnassus, then a
part of the Persian Empire
• Traveled to Egypt, Babylon,
Athens, and other locales
• Wrote “The History”
Herodotus (?)
c. 484 - c. 425 B.C.
Herodotus’ Work
• Accounts not always accurate
• Appears to have had “an agenda”
• “Father of History”
• “Father of Ethnology”
Herodotus
by Jean-Guillaume Moitte,
1806. Louvre palace, Paris
The Age of Discovery
And the desire to understand the “other”
“first contact”
• Missionaries
• Soldiers
• Politicians and bureaucrats
Whose agenda was to dominate rather than understand
Genesis 11
1 And the whole earth was of one
language, and of one speech. … 4 And they
said, Go to, let us build us a city and a
tower, whose top may reach unto heaven;
and let us make us a name, lest we be
scattered abroad upon the face of the
whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down
to see the city and the tower, which the
children built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold,
the people is one, and they have all one
language; and this they begin to do; and
now nothing will be restrained from them,
which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to,
let us go down, and there confound their
language, that they may not understand
one another's speech. 8 So the Lord
scattered them abroad from thence upon
the face of all the earth…
The Confusion of Tongues
(by Gustave Doré 1865)
“Degenerationist” Ideas
• An attempt to understand newly discovered peoples in light of the
Bible and other European sources of knowledge
• Non –Europeans had “fallen” or degenerated from an earlier, more
perfect state
Lewis Henry Morgan
Ancient Society,
or Researches in the
Lines of Human Progress
from Savagery through
Barbarism to Civilization
(1877)
Lewis Henry Morgan
1818-1881
Morgan’s Model
Civilization
Barbarism
Savagery
posits that human societies evolve in a “unilineal” fashion
The Beginnings of Ethnology
• The comparative study of societies
• But based upon inadequate and/or biased data
• Posited that one’s own culture was the standard
which others should try to attain
Edward Burnett Tylor
Culture, or civilization,
taken in its broad,
ethnographic sense, is
that complex whole
which includes
knowledge, belief, art,
morals, law, custom, and
any other capabilities
and habits acquired by
man as a member of
society.
Edward Burnett Tylor
1832-1917
Tylor’s Model
monotheism
polytheism
animism
human religions similarly evolve in a “unilineal” fashion
Franz Boas
• Physicist and geographer by
training
• Encountered the Inuit in Baffinland
• Became interested in establishing a
“science of humankind”
Franz Boas
1858-1942
The Study of Cultures
• Should proceed on an “objective” (=
scientific) basis
• Avoid ethnocentrism
• Use the methodology of cultural
relativism
• “salvage” anthropology
Franz Boas
c. 1915
four field approach
•cultural anthropology
•linguistic anthropology
•archaeology
•biological anthropology
•plus: applied anthropology
cultural anthropology
studies “culture”
•learned by individual as part of a group
•passed on from generation to generation
•three components
• material (artifacts)
• behavioral (actions)
• ideational (cognitive, affective elements)
cultural manifestations of “religion”
• objects
• activities
• beliefs and emotions
His Holiness Vazgen I
Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians
(1955-1994)
cultural anthropology
and the study of religious systems
•investigates the functions of religion, both
for the individual and for the group
•looks at how religions change through
time, and why
linguistic anthropology
studies the role of language in culture
•Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• does language mirror reality? OR
• does language shape reality?
•language as a human universal
deep (biological) meanings  surface (social) structures
linguistic anthropology
historical linguistics
•evolution of languages
•relationships between languages
•how has “religious” language changed over
time and why are their linguistic similarities
in different cultures?
archaeology
the study of humans of the past
•based on evidence preserved in the
ground (and elsewhere)
•emphasizes material aspect of culture,
but also looks to behavior and ideation
archaeology
•aims at reconstructing
the past,
both as an end in itself
and
as a way to understand
the present
archaeology
and the study of religious systems
Chauvet Cave, France
(app. 30,000 yBP ?)
biological anthropology
a.k.a. physical anthropology
• considers humans as animals
• how do modern humans differ? = variation
• how did humans arise? = evolution
biological anthropology
•studies behaviors in non-human species
•what is the relationship between biology
and culture?
• how does our biology shape us?
• how does our culture affect our biology?
biological anthropology
looks for genetic bases
• of belief (“gullibility gene”)
• of “trance” and other altered
states
• of human need to be in a
group
• “neurotheology”
four field approach
• cultural studies
•cultural anthropology
•anthropological linguistics
•archaeology
• biological studies
•biological anthropology (aka physical
anthropology)
 anthropology is a biocultural discipline
Applied Anthropology
the “fifth field”
Using anthropological insights to improve people’s lives
• Promoting understanding between members of different
religions
• Bridging differences in healing traditions to increase
health and well-being
• Drawing upon basic insights about the human brain and
mind to minimize negative consequences and maximize
positive outcomes of different states of consciousness
anthropology
• is “holistic” in its approach
• views its phenomena as interrelated and integrated
• views societies both in their own rights and from a comparative
perspective
anthropology
• eschews ethnocentrism
(the practice of using one culture as the standard to evaluate
another)
• based upon cultural relativism
(the idea that cultures can only be evaluated and understood on their
own terms)
Anthropology views Religiosity
• as a function of “hard-wired” components of our mental hardware
• whose products are interpreted within cultural systems
 religious systems are (or once were) adaptive mechanisms
Key Terms
Religiosity: an inclusive term for all aspects of
concepts and experiences of the supernatural – a
biological capacity of Homo sapiens
Religion: a group phenomenon – social and cultural
beliefs and practices about spirits and the supernatural
Spirituality: an individual phenomenon – a person’s
experiences of spirit entities and supernatural realities
“Religion is a fact in nature and, to be
understood, must be seen as a product of the
same laws of nature that determine other
natural phenomena”
Anthony F.C. Wallace 1966