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• 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/asia-southern/laos_luangprobang.html

Shamans• 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:

– 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.• Right: A Shaman of the Sami people (Noaidi) with his drum. Woodcut,

1767.• Sami today: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/culture-

places/local-life/sweden_sami.html• Ex: Korean Shamanism

– 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/culture-places/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)

• 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

• A right of passage ceremony may be analytically divided into three stages, _____________, transition, and incorporation.

A. inculcationB. separationC. revitalizationD. intensificationE. initiation

Answer: B

• 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• 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

• 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• 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.• 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 ReligionReview

• 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 CultLate 19th century-end of WWII in Melanesia

• 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=qmlYe2KS0-

Y&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