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Primal Religious Traditions
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES
AFRICAN TRADITIONS
NORTH AMERICAN PLAINS INDIANS
MESOAMERICAN RELIGION
Primal Religions
Unique forms of religions practiced since prehistoric
times. Some are still practiced at present.
Religious traditions of non literate peoples who rely
on oral tradition rather than scriptures
Tend to be the traditions of tribal peoples, small
groups that reside in villages rather than large city
populations
Why investigate Primal Religious Traditions?
Primal:
Prehistoric,
Non-literate, oral tradition
Provide insight into mythic and ritual dimensions of
religion that are essential sources of knowledge and
power for important aspects of life
All religions stem from or are rooted in primal
worship
Australian Aborigines
Native people of Australia
Foundation
Dreaming
Period of the ANCESTORS
Still remains in the symbols left behind
Rituals reenact the mythic events
Ancestors
Supernatural beings that gave shape to the formless world
Organized humans into tribes
Allocated land
Left symbols of their presence
Spirit of ancestors left behind
Ritual
Spiritual essences left behind by the ancestors in symbols
Charged with sacred power
Take the same paths originally taken by the ancestors
reenacting the mythic events of the dreaming
Cosmology takes a key place in Aboriginal religionmythic geography
Spiritual essence in humans also. Unborn child is
animated by an Ancestor when the mother makes contact
with a sacred site.
Totem: the natural form of the ancestor in the dreaming
Totemism: a system of belief and ritual based on totems
Animation
Ancestors continually nourish the natural world, sources of all kinds of
life
Human beings associated with a particular ancestor perform rituals to
cause the power to flow into the natural world
Reenactment of the myth
Reenacting of the myth recreates the original action
Maintaining the social structure of society
Taboo: things and activities set aside for certain members and
forbidden to others
Gender
Training
Maturity
Initiation
Awakens spiritual identity
Death of childhood- birth of adulthood
African Traditions
Several hundred religions
among the 400,000,000
inhabitants of the second
largest continent, Africa.
Yoruba Religion
Consists of 10,000,000 people and
has endured 1,000 years.
Produced artwork that is famous
and admired
Resides in Western regions of
central Africa
Favor city living
Ife is the center of Yoruba religion
Orishna-nla began world creation
here
http://www.genuineafrica.com/yoru
ba.htm#.TynstWd8Mxc.email
Cosmology
Reality is in two separate worlds
Heaven, the invisible home of the gods and ancestors
Earth, the world of normal experience, visible home of
humans; also populated by a deviant form of human beings,
witches and sorcerers, who can cause disastrous harm if not
controlled
Purpose of the religion
Maintain balance between the human beings of earth and the
gods and ancestors of heaven while guarding against the evil
deeds of the sorcerers and witches
Heaven
Home of
Supreme god- Olorun
Primary, original source of power in the universe
Distant and remote- not involved in human affairs
People do not worship Olorun; other gods serve as mediators
Other deities- orishas
Lesser than Olorun but truly significant
Are appeased by the rituals carried out by humans
Hundreds of orishas exist
Orisha-nla, created earth
Ogun, god of iron, originally a human, inhabits border between
ancestors and orishas
Esu, most complex, contains both good and evil properties,
worshipped with all other gods- Trickster figure (can disrupt
the normal course of life)
Cont’d
Ancestors:
Deceased humans who have acquired supernatural powers
They can help or harm the living
Worshipped through rituals at sacred shrines
Earned a good reputation, lived to an old age, worshipped only by
their own family
Deified ancestors known throughout Yoruba society and
worshipped by large numbers of people
Connecting Heaven and Earth
Head of a family:
Worships the family’s ancestors in the home at the family shrine
King or chief of a city:
In charge of annual festivals and performs other religious functions
Priests
Oversee the various rituals carried out at the shrines of each orisha
Diviners
Tells the future since this is important in determining how to proceed with ones
life
Mediator
Becomes a living representation of an ancestor by dancing at festivals
Imitates a dead person and delivers a message from the dead
Importance:
Maintains a balance between heaven and earth, boundaries are thin and can be
crossed over
North American Plains Indians
Peoples who inhabited the middle section of what is now
the USA.
Migrated from Asia over the Bering Strait and spread out
over north and south America
Stretched from Canadian Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico,
between Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River.
More than 30 tribes, speaking different languages and
forming many cultural groups
Representative of Native American religion in general
Shared some basic beliefs such as the vision quest and
the Sun Dance.
Lakota
Inhabited Eastern
Montana & Wyoming
and the western part of
the Dakotas and parts of
Nebraska
Reknown for
Custer’s defeat
Massacre at Wounded knee
About 70,000 live on
reservations in
Manitoba, Montana, and
the Dakotas.
Beliefs
Supreme Reality- Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit or Great
Mysterious
16 different deities (4x4)
Creation of the world and the arrival of the first human
beings are explained in various myths that talk about
several supernatural beings
Inktomi, Lakota trickster figure, taught humans their ways and
customs. His mistakes and errors of judgment are used to teach
children what not to do.
Death & Afterlife
4 souls depart from body, one journeys on a spirit path encounters
an old woman who judges it and directs it to the world of the
ancestors or back to earth as a ghost. Others are reborn in unborn
children or others new bodies.
Ritual
Vision Quest
Common primal tradition
To gain access to spiritual power that will insure success in different
undertakings
Both genders can participate
Supervised by a medicine man or woman
Begins with purification in a sweat lodge
Goes off alone to endure the elements, lack of food and water
Performance of certain rituals
Near the end the quester receives a vision in the form of an animal,
object or force of nature. Vision gives a message.
Message is interpreted by medicine man or woman, that
interpretation influences the rest of the life of the quester.
Occasionally the quester receives a guardian spirit
Ritual
Sun Dance:
Common to all Plains’ tribes
Benefits the tribe rather than the individual
Part of the New Year celebration
Overseen by a sacred leader (medicine man or a woman of outstanding
character), both an honor and a responsibility
Held in a lodge that is carefully constructed and prepared for the
celebration
Cotton tree is set upright in a chosen spot as the axis mundi
Connects heaven and earth- represents the supreme being
Around the tree, 28 poles to represent the 28days of the lunar month
Dancing in the direction of the sun accompanied by music and
drumbeats
Body mutilation as sacrifice
Populating the Americas
Crossing at Beringia
Mesoamerican Religion
Area includes present day
Mexico and extended south
to Honduras, Nicaragua,
and Costa Rica
Natives arrived about
20,000 years ago?
From about 2000 BC to
1500 AD home to Olmecs,
Maya, Toltec and Aztec
civilizations
Aztecs
Defies the common or general description of primal
religions- it was a highly civilized population of about
15,000,000.
Urban dwellers in lieu of rural. Lived in
Tenochtitlahn, now Mexico City
Like other primal religions it intertwines ritual and
myth, practices of human sacrifice
Pre dated Catholicism of 16th c. Aztec influence can be
seen in some modern Mexican religious practices
Toltec Foundation
Toltec god “Quetzalcoatl” the feathered serpent
presided over a golden age of brilliance
Prince Topiltzin, a priest-king of the Toltecs, was the
role model for Aztec authority figures
Toltec myths and tradition influenced Aztecs
Aztecs believed that Quetzalcoatl created and
ordered the world. City of Teotihuancan was origin
of the cosmos. “Who will be the sun and bring on the
dawn?”
Time and Space
The dawn of the sun was a new
age and its destruction the end of
that age. The only ;way to delay
this destruction was to feed the
sun, nourishing it through human
sacrifices.
They believed that there had
already been 4 suns and theirs
was the last one. (center, west,
north, south)
Time and space were interrelated.
4 quadrants with the axis mundi
in center. Center connects earthly
world with heavenly world.
Human Role
Human condition linked to cosmology
Human is a sort of axis mundi
Human sacrifice was performed about every 20 days. Self
sacrifice of the warrior would allow him to enter the highest
heaven at his death
Two divine forces
Heart
Was cut out of the chest on a sacrificial altar
Head
Was severed from the body and strung on a skull rack
Many human sacrifices were captive prisoners
Language
Religious power was conveyed through the mastery
of language
Spoke Nahuatl, an expressive language with high
achievements in poetry
Knowers of things could communicate with the gods
and make offerings rather than sacrifice.
Being adept at making or solving riddles meant you
came from a good family