Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

1

• Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
• Religion Culture the Supernatural

2
Culture and the Supernatural

• What is religion?
• - Anthropological / sociological perspectives
• What are religions identifying features?
• What functions does religion serve?

3
Defining RELIGION

• Sociologist Peter Bergers definition of religion
  as a cultural system of commonly shared beliefs
  and rituals that provides a sense of ultimate
  meaning and purpose by creating an idea of
  reality that is sacred, all-encompassing, and
  supernatural,

• Anthropologist Wallaces definition (1966)
• a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which
  mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of
  achieving or preventing transformations of state
  in man and nature.

4
What is religion?

• Organized beliefs in the supernatural that guide
  humans in their attempts to make sense of the
  world and deal with problems they as important
  but defy solution through application of known
  technology or techniques of organization.
• To overcome these limitations, people appeal to,
  or seek to influence and even manipulate
  supernatural beings and powers.
• - Part of all cultures (cultural universal)

5
Problem with the anthropological/ sociological
definition of religion (from a Euro-centric
perspective)

• There is no mention of God.
• Sociologists / anthropologists are not concerned
  with whether religion is true or false but with
  the social organization of religion.
• Religion/superstition dichotomy
• Religious economy religions can be best
  understood as organizations in competition with
  one another for followers.

6
How sociologists think about religion

• Sociologist are NOT concerned with whether
  religious beliefs are true or false
• Sociologists are esp. concerned with the social
  organization of religion.
• Sociologists often view religions as a major
  source of social solidarity.
• Sociologists tend to explain the appeal of
  religion in terms of social forces rather than
  personal, spiritual, or psychological factors.

7
The sociological significance of religion

• Marx Religion and IEQUALITY
• Marx argued that religion is the opium of the
  people. In this sense, he posited that happiness
  is deferred to the afterlife and therefore people
  become accustomed to a sort of resigned
  acceptance of conditions in the here and now.
  Attention is diverted from inequalities and
  injustices of everyday life in favor of rewards
  after death.
• Religion contains a strong ideological element
  the religious beliefs can provide justification
  for those in power.

8

• Weber The World Religions and Social Change
• Weber contended that religiously inspired social
  movements produced dramatic social
  transformation.
• Focus on the relationship between Protestantism
  and capitalism.

9

• Durkheim Religion and Functionalism
• Durkheim argued that religion had the function
  of coalescing society by ensuring that people
  regularly to affirm common and values.
• Distinction between the sacred (actions, images,
  and symbols associated with religion that are
  held to be divine) and profane the profane (which
  represents the routine aspects of everyday life)
• Ex. Totems as sacred objects.

10
Totemism ??

• 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

11
Totems and Modernity
12
2014?1?4???,???????????????????????.
13
(No Transcript)
14
????????????????
15
Identifying features of religion

• Various beliefs and rituals prayers, songs,
  dances, offerings, and sacrifices people use to
  interpret, appeal to, and manipulate supernatural
  beings and powers (gods and goddesses, ancestral
  and other spirits or impersonal powers) to their
  advantage.
• Certain individuals are especially skilled at
  dealing with supernatural beings and powers and
  assist other members of society in their ritual
  activities.
• A body of myths rationalize or explains the
  system in a manner consistent with peoples
  experience in the world in which they live.

16
The PRACTICE of Religion

• Supernatural Beings and Powers
• Gods Goddesses
• Ancestral Spirits
• Animism (Tylor)
• Religious Specialists
• Priests Priestesses
• Shaman
• Rituals and Ceremonies
• Rites of Passage
• Rites of Intensification
• Magic Witchcraft

17
Gods Goddesses

• The patriarchal nature of Western society is
  expressed in its theology, in which a masculine
  God gives life to the first man. The first woman
  is created from the first man.

• How men and women relate to one another in
  everyday life. Societies that subordinate women
  to men define the god godhead in exclusive
  masculine terms.
• Goddess are apt to be most prominent in societies
  where women make a major contribution to economy
  and enjoy relative equality with men.

18
Ancestral Spirits

• Consistent with the wide-spread notion that human
  beings are made up of two parts, a body and a
  some kind of vital spirit (the idea that the
  spirit being free from the body by death and have
  an existence seems logical).
• Ancestral spirits resemble living human beings in
  their appetites, feelings, emotions, and
  behavior.
• Belief in Ancestral spirits is found in societies
  with unilineal descent systems.
• The vital importance of deceased ancestors in the
  patrilineal society of pre-revolutionary China.

19
Ancestor Worship and Food Exchange

• For the gift of life, one is forever indebted to
  his/her parents, owing them obedience, deference,
  and a comfortable old age provide for their in
  the spiritual world after death. Offering food,
  money and incense on the anniversaries of their
  births and deaths.

20
Ancestor Worship and Food Exchange in Hong Kong
(research by Harvard anthropologist Watson in the
1970s)

• Descendants of Man lineage ???? are gathered at
  tomb of their ancestor. Roast pigs are presented
  at the tomb. The local school master is reading
  a annual report to the ancestor (in classical
  Chinese) detailing the accounts of the founders
  estate.

• Major lineages in the HK New Territories share
  pork among the male descendants of key ancestors.
  Elders of the Man lineage carefully weigh and
  divide shares of meat paid for by the ancestor
  himself (who was alive socially through the
  mechanism of his ancestral estate).

21
Animism

• Sir E. B. Tylors original contribution to the
  anthropological study of religion. 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. A
  belief in spirit beings thought to animate
  nature.
• EX Trees, plants, rocks, and mountains have a
  life of their own.

22
Orthodoxy vs. orthopraxy(James Watson)

• Orthodoxy (correct belief)
• Ex. Hindus, Orthodox Jews, and Taliban
• Orthopraxy (correct practice)
• Confucianism in practice (EX. Man lineage members
  participating in ancestor worship)

23
Priests Priestesses

• Societies with the resources to support full-time
  occupational specialists give the role of guiding
  religious practices and influencing the
  supernatural to the priests or priestess.

24
Shaman

• Part-time religious specialist whose special
  power to contact and manipulate supernatural
  beings are forces in an altered state of
  consciousness comes to him or her thorough some
  personal experience.
• Religious entrepreneur acting on behalf of some
  human client.

25
Religious Specialists

• Shamans are essentially religious entrepreneurs
  acting on behalf of some human client, often to
  bring about a cure or foretell some future event.
  Shamans tell supernaturals what to do.
• May collect a fee.

• Deities are the clients of the Priests and
  Priestesses who tell people what to do.
• Accept donations.

26
Functions and Expressions of Religion

• Rituals are
• - formal, performed in sacred contexts.
• - convey information about the culture of the
  participants and, hence, the participants
  themselves.
• - inherently social, and participation in them
  necessarily implies social commitment. (DURKHEIM)
  
• NOTE this is where you see the anthropological
  contribution to the study of religion!

27
Functions of ritual the Durkheimian perspective

• Collective consciousness
• Group solidarity
• Collective identity
• Sense of community
• Relationship
• Collective representation

28
(No Transcript)
29
Rituals and Ceremonies

• Rites of Passage
• Rituals that mark important stages in the lives
  of individuals, such as birth, marriage, and
  death.
• Rites of Intensification
• Religious rituals enacted during a groups real
  of potential crisis.

30
Rites of Passage

• religious rituals which mark and facilitate a
  person's movement from one (social) state of
  being to another.
• 1) Separation the participant(s) withdraws from
  the group and begins moving from one place to
  another.
• 2) Transition (Liminality) the period between
  states, during which the participant(s) has left
  one place but has not yet entered the next.
• 3) Incorporation the participant(s) reenters
  society with a new status having completed the
  rite.
• Transition / Liminality is part of every rite of
  passage involving the temporary suspension and
  even reversal of everyday social distinctions.

31
Wedding as rite of passage in pre-revolutionary
China

• Ethnographic Example the transfer of bride
• Separation the bride withdraws from the group
  she belongs (natal home) and begins moving from
  one place to another (wife-takers) .
• Transition/Liminality the period between
  states (transfer), during which the bride has
  left one place but has not yet entered the next
  (Note bride is considered to be dangerous and
  has the potential to pollute if not properly
  protected.
• Incorporation the bride reenters society with a
  new status The death of the daughter (for the
  wife-givers) and the birth of the daughter (for
  the wife-takers)!

32
Ritual cannibalism in Christianity

• Its SYMBOLIC rather than actual, although some
  Christians believe that the communion water
  actually becomes the body of the Christ (the
  Eucharist meal).

33
Functions and Expressions of Religion

• Magic
• Magic refers to supernatural techniques intended
  to accomplish specific aims.
• Magic may be imitative or contagious
  (accomplished through contact).
• Witchcraft
• 1. Explanation of events based on the belief that
  certain individuals possess an innate psychic
  power capable of causing harm, including sickness
  and death.
• EX the practice of fengshui the strategy
  employed by the Boxers (???)

34
Functions of Magic and Witchcraft

• Although many westerners seek to objectify and
  de-mytholgize their world try to suppress the
  existence of magic mysteries in their own
  consciousness, they continue to be fascinated by
  them.
• Ex. Abraham Lincolns wife Nancy Reagan

35
Functions and Expressions of Religion

• Anxiety, Control, Solace
• Magic/witchcraft 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.

36
Functions of Religion

• Psychological Social
• Reduce anxiety by explaining the unknown and
  making it understandable
• Provide comfort with the belief supernatural aid
  is available in times of crisis
• Sanction human conduct by providing notions of
  right and wrong and transfer the burden of
  decision making from individuals to supernatural
  powers.
• Maintain social solidarity.

37

• Religion and Cultural Ecology
• Western economic development experts erroneously
  cite the Indian cattle taboo to illustrate the
  idea that religious beliefs stand in the way of
  rational economic decisions.
• Hindus seem to be ignoring a valuable food
  (beef)?
• Dont Indians even know how to raise proper
  cattle?

38
Sacred Cow

• Gau Mata (cow) as the central symbol of Hindu
  veneration
• Indians revere zebu cattle protected by the Hindu
  doctrine of ahimsa (principle of nonviolence
  which forbids the killing of animals)
• Divine Mother

39
Sacred Cow

• Hindus use cattle for transportation, traction,
  and manure.
• Bigger cattle eat more, making them more
  expensive to keep.
• Lesson the material and spiritual are
  inseparable!
• Note we may explain the Kosher rules in the same
  line of analysis

40
Mosaic Food Restrictions

• Summary
• Orthodox Jewish rules prohibit eating meat and
  dairy products at the same meal proscribe eating
  meat which has not been drained of blood, or made
  kosher
• Ban on pork eating
• Food laws were important in Jesus time. Each
  Jewish sects interpreted Gods gastronomic
  intentions in its own way. Food rules stand for
  the whole of their law.

41

• KOSHER DIETARY RESTRICTIONS
• Kosher Treyf
• (clean/fit) (unclean/torn)
• Separation of Milk and Meat
• Thou shalt not seeth a kid in its mothers
  milk.
• Exodus 2319 3426 Deuteronomy 1421.
• Kashrut/Kashruth (Fit, Appropriate,
• suitable)
• Kasher/Kosher (Clean, Fit)

42
More Consumers Ask Is It Kosher (Hunter 1997)

• Kosher foods, formerly sought by devout Jews, are
  now purchased by Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims,
  Buddhists, vegetarians, individuals with milk
  allergies, and health-conscious people
  Currently, more than 75 if certified kosher
  foods are purchased by non-Jews, who favor them
  because of a perception that such foods are of
  good quality due to high standards and strict
  supervision (p. 10)

43

• Kosher dining at Mont Holyoke College

• Kosher kitchen at Smith College

44
(No Transcript)
45
(No Transcript)
46
(No Transcript)
47
Halal The pig as haram

• Islamic rejection of pig and pork was commonly
  accompanied by strong feelings of revulsion and
  scrupulous avoidance of both pigs and their
  flesh. The writings of western travelers contain
  abundant references to Muslims ridiculing
  Christian pork eating. At the close of the 15th
  century, Venetian merchants had to pay a
  substantial sum for the right to keep pig at
  their establishment in Alexandra. Christian
  minorities living in Muslim lands were special
  targets too. Some of them gave up raising pigs
  and denied they ate pork. The Armenians who
  lived in Turkey prior to WWI would capture young
  wild swine to raise for their flesh.
• The contrast between Muslim and Christian
  practices has made the present-day pattern of pig
  keeping in the Mediterranean and Near East fairly
  simple. Christians on the north shores of the
  Mediterranean generally keep pigs and eat pork
  though Muslims of the Balkans do not. In North
  Africa, pork has been eaten by European Christian
  settlers in various places. And to the east of
  Mediterranean pork is rejected by Orthodox Jews
  and Muslims.

48
Ramadan ? ?

• Keeping the fast during Ramadan, the month-long
  period set aside for that purpose, distinguishes
  pious Muslims from those who casually follow
  Islams precepts. No one in the Muslim community
  publicly admits to breaking the fast.
  Accordingly accusing anyone of failing to fast
  constitutes a serious charge that can lead to
  fighting, bloodshed, and even murder.
• Fasting has simple, unambiguous rules during
  Ramadan nothing should pass ones lips during the
  time between the calls to morning and evening
  prayers. Muslims should not eat, drink, smoke,
  and take snuff. Nor should Muslims reorganize
  their daily activities to escape feeling the
  uncomfortable effects of the fast. One should
  not sleep excessive amounts of time during the
  day but, to the contrary, should fully experience
  fasting so that one can contemplates, and most
  importantly, wholly embraces Islamic faith.
  Keeping the fast continually reinvigorates the
  power of Muslim identity to dominate self.

49
Religion as a control mechanism

• 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.

50
Ex Religion and Social Control in Afghanistan

• 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.

51
Religion and the development of capitalism

• 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 ones behalf, did not fit well with
  capitalism.

52
England vs. France

• The Industrial Revolution began in England but
  not in France.
• The French did not have to transform their
  domestic manufacturing system in order to
  increase production because it could draw on a
  larger labor force.
• England was already operating at maximum
  production so that in order to increase yields
  innovation was necessary.
• Weber argued that the pervasiveness of Protestant
  beliefs in values contributed to the spread and
  success of industrialization in England, while
  Catholicism inhibited industrialization in
  France.

53
Religion and Change

• Revitalization Movements
• Religious movements that act as mediums for
  social change are called revitalization
  movements.
• Examples Mormanism, Unification Church of Sun
  Myung Moon, the Branch Davidians (David Koresh)

54
Revitalization movement in the US
55
New Age Religions

• 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
  (Buddhism, Daoism, Fengshui /geomancy).

56
Globalization New Age Movement

57
Explaining the popularity of NAM

• New Agers deny that there is much value in
  clinging to well-defined religions traditions
  (which have become too ritualistic and devoid of
  spiritual meaning)
• Individuals possess unparalleled degrees
  autonomy/freedom to chart their own lives one
  should pick and choose spiritual beliefs and
  practices that suit him/her best listen to ones
  intuition or inner voice
• Response to the rise of scientism

58
NAM Philosophy

• Relativism- it is absolutely true that no
  absolute truth exists and there is no absolute
  Creator God
• Tolerance
• Monism all reality is one (? ? ? )
• Pantheism god is the universe (? ? ? )
• Humanity is God - human sin is only an illusion
  brought about by ignorance of ones own divinity
• A change in consciousness - through alteration of
  consciousness we are opened up to a salvation
  through knowledge of deeper truths, reality, and
  the escape from ignorance and illusion
• Syncretism - all religions are one
• A Cosmic Evolutionary Optimism -- giving voice to
  a hope in a coming universal order of peace and
  tranquility

59
Christian Responses to NAM

• Dialogue / Bridging / Addressing issues of mutual
  concern
• "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you
  in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are
  ferocious wolves"

60
Sociological perspectives on NAM

• Differing from traditional forms of religiosity
  not a unified, traditional cult system of beliefs
  and practices no official leader, headquarters,
  nor membership list
• a network of groups seeking out and developing
  alternative ways of life in order to coping with
  challenges of modernity
• EX. the popularity of holistic healing practices

61
Sociological Perspectives

• Compared to a serious religious commitment,
  participation in NAM appears little more than a
  hobby or lifestyle choice (acquiring
  cultural/symbolic capital)
• -- the appeals of fengshui /geomancy
• -- celebrities who are involved in NAM
• Shirley MacLaine, ex-Beatle George Harrison, Tom
  Cruise and Tina Turner.

62
Hare Krishna
63
(No Transcript)
64
(No Transcript)
65
New Age Movement and Popular Culture