Transcript schaefers.2A13(4)

Religious Specialists
• All human societies include individuals who guide
and supplement the religious practices of others.
• Such individuals are seen to be highly skilled at
contacting and influencing supernatural beings
and manipulating supernatural forces.
• They may have undergone special training and
may display certain distinctive personality traits
that make them particularly well suited to
perform these tasks.
Priests and Priestesses
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A priest or priestess will have the role of guiding religious practices and influencing the
supernatural.
He or she is the socially initiated, ceremonially inducted member of a religious
organization.
Ex: Buddhist monks in Luang Pra Bong (Laos):
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/regions-places/asiasouthern/laos_luangprobang.html
Shamans
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Skilled at contacting and manipulating supernatural beings and
powers through altered states of consciousness.
Provides a focal point of attention for society and can help
maintain social control.
Benefits for the shaman are prestige, wealth, and an outlet for
artistic self-expression.
“Shaman” origins:
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Tungus language of Central Siberia. Originally denoting a religious
specialist who heals the sick, divines the future and secures success
in the hunt with help of spirits and a drum.
Few left of this group today. Witch hunts in 1600s, Stalin and
persecution.
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Right: A Shaman of the Sami people (Noaidi) with his drum.
Woodcut, 1767.
Sami today:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/cultureplaces/local-life/sweden_sami.html
Ex: Korean Shamanism
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Today, most are women. Called upon to guide the dead to the
underworld, to cure illness, for divination and to ensure good
fortune. Shamans are chosen by spirits who are attracted to those
whose maǔm or soul has been hurt by some sort of illness. The
individual will become possessed until she accepts the call of the
spirits and becomes a Shaman. Shamans in Korean society are
sometimes seen as social deviants, so this may be a role not willingly
taken.
“Knife Dancing”:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/cultureplaces/beliefs-and-traditions/southkorea_knifedancing.html
Religious Rituals
– Involves religious paraphernalia/symbols like
prayers, offerings, sacred literature recitations,
etc.
– If Myths provide the basis for a society’s morals
and values. Rituals are the vehicle with which
these values are imparted to the group.
Rituals: Rite of Passage
Purpose is to change the status of an individual within a community and to imprint
this new status to collective memory.
• Review:
– Status: refers to social position (i.e. brother, mother, husband, Instructor,
student, policeman) not to rank
– Rank: Hierarchical placement of an individual within society (i.e. Employee,
Supervisor, Middle Manager, Vice President, President, CEO)
• Rite of Passage stages:
– Separation: an individual is separated from previous status
– Transition: undergoes rituals (can involve initiation and/or pain ceremonies)
• Often a time of mystery and metamorphosis. An individual is in a state of
Liminality: ambiguous social marginality occurring in this transition phase.
– Incorporation: Individual reenters society w/ new status
Rituals: Rites of Intensification
(also called Social Rights of Intensification)
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Rituals to mark occasions of crisis in the life of the
group.
Functions:
– Unite people.
– Allay fear of the crisis.
– Prompt collective action.
Ex: “Ghost Dance”
– Associated with the Massacre at Wounded Knee in
1890 where 153 Lakota Sioux were killed during its
performance. Started by Jack Wilson (Wovoka), a
Paiute Native American who received a message
from God that if this dance was performed,
impending doom from the “Manifest Destiny” of
settlers could be avoided, and harmony and peace
would prevail.
Question
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A right of passage ceremony may be analytically divided
into three stages, _____________, transition, and
incorporation.
A. inculcation
B. separation
C. revitalization
D. intensification
E. initiation
Answer: B
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The anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep analyzed
ceremonies that help individuals through crucial stages of
their life cycles. He said that each ceremony may be
analytically divided into three stages, separation,
transition, and incorporation.
Magic
• The belief that supernatural powers can be
compelled to act in certain ways for good or
evil purposes by recourse to certain
specified formulas.
• Many societies have magical rituals to
ensure good crops, the replenishment of
game, the fertility of domestic animals, and
the avoidance or healing of illness in
humans.
Magic
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Imitative magic
– Magic based on the principle that like
produces like. Sometimes called
sympathetic magic.
• Ex: Red Cloverhead & sap of the Bloodroot
used to treat problems of the blood.
• Ex: Ancient Egypt & Rome: Bes Jars
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Contagious magic
– Magic based on the principle that things
once in contact can influence one another
after separation.
• Ex: The Fore, Sorcery & Kuru. Food
remnants, hair, nail clippings, excrement of
victim mixed with leaves/stones bundle
placed into the cold, muddy ground,
symbolizing deep chill of Kuru. Bundle
beaten with a stick, symbolizing
breaking/weakening of bones.
Witchcraft
• An explanation of events based on the
belief that certain individuals possess an
innate psychic power capable of causing
harm, including sickness and death.
• Divination
– A magical procedure for determining the cause
of a particular event, such as illness, or
foretelling the future.
– Ex: Magic 8 ball, Ouija board, Tarot, etc…
Witchcraft and Revival
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In North America, interest in and practice of witchcraft have grown over the
past thirty years, often among highly educated segments of society.
Contrary to popular belief, witchcraft is not concerned exclusively, or even
primarily, with working evil.
Neopaganism: pre-Christian religious traditions that have been revived and
are practiced in contemporary times. A revivalistic movement.
– Wicca: Popularized by Gerald Gardner in the1950s. An amateur anthropologist
who found and joined a coven of witches who he believed to be one of the last
from a line of pre-Christian movements.
• Wicca is a polytheistic religion with varying gods and goddesses. Gender equality is
stressed. Rituals and holidays often Celtic in nature.
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http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/culture-places/beliefs-and-traditions/uk_wicca.html
• An Athame (ritual knife) and a Chalice are used in ceremonies to represent the balance
of male/female.
• Magic is used, but only for good, unlike in Satanism.
Functions of Witchcraft
• Effective way for people to give a cause to
misfortunes without having to shoulder
blame.
• Provides an outlet for feelings of hostility
and frustration without disturbing the
norms of the larger group.
• Functions of Witchcraft mirror the
functions of religion as a whole…
Functions of Religion
Review
• Sanctions a wide range of conduct by
providing notions of right and wrong.
• Sets standards for acceptable behavior and
helps perpetuate an existing social order.
• Lifts burden of decision making from
individuals and places responsibility with
god.
• Plays a role in maintaining social solidarity.
Revitalization Movements
• Social movements, often of a religious
nature, with the purpose of totally
reforming a society.
• Ex: The Amish
Cargo Cult
Late 19th century-end of WWII in Melanesia
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We saw a glimpse of this in “Guns, Germs and Steel” i.e. “Why you white men
have so much cargo and we have so little?”
“Cargo” in Melanesia, was seen to be made by ancestors. The U.S. military
had somehow intercepted the goods meant for the Melanesians. Cults
emerged based on prophets who had foreseen how to control the cargo.
Rituals were developed that mimicked activities of the soldiers (marching
with sticks over their shoulder, marking on paper, wearing European clothes.)
When these rituals failed, groups went so far as to destroy sacred objects,
crops and food sources, thinking that cargo would not arrive for them as long
as they had these items. Results were tragic.
– 50 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmlYe2KS0Y&feature=related
– Present day: acculturation has occurred, still keep rituals of original cult, but the
mood is no longer desperate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfSC6RDyVA0&feature=related