What Can Anthropology Tell us About Religion and Worldivew?

What is a worldview?
 Worldview: Encompassing pictures of reality created by members of
societies
o Culture is bunch of related elements
o Multiple worldviews may coexist in society
o Allows them to make sense of their lives and their lives make sense to
other members of society
How do anthropologists study worldviews
 Symbols signal presence of meaningful domains of experience
o Summarizing symbols
 Represent whole semantic domain and invite us to consider
various elements within it
o Elaborating symbols
 Represent only one element of domain and invite us to place
that element in wider semantic context
 Ex: US flag
 Stands for American way
 But American way is mix of things (see textbook)
o Patriotism, democracy, apple pie, national
superiority etc
o Racism too
 Symbol: Something that stands for something else.
What are Some Key Metaphors for Constructing Worldviews?
 Key metaphors: Metaphors that serve as foundation of worldview and
can help us make sense of unfamiliar worldviews
o Look at areas of life that are associated with order, regularity and
predictability
o Look at new emerging worldviews too
 Societal metaphors: Worldview metaphors whose model for the world is
the social order
o Human social relations provide order, regularity and
predictability
o Small scale societies organized on kinship may relate to powerful
cosmic forces
o Complex societies stratified according to differences in wealth,
power
 Organic metaphors: Worldview metaphors that apply the image of the
body to social structures and institutions
o Based on understanding of living organisms
 Functionalism
o A social scientific perspective in which a society is likened to a
living organism in which different systems carry out specialized
tasks; functionalists identity social subsystems into which a
society can be divided, identify the tasks each is supposed to
 perform, and describe a healthy society as one in which all the
subsystems are functioning harmoniously.
o In harmony, healthy
o Essentially personifies society
 Technological metaphors: A worldview metaphor that employs objects
made by human beings as metaphorical predicates
o Came from rise of Euro science
o Euro science brought on tech changes, and machine metaphors
replaced one another
What is religion?
 Religion: ideas and practices that postulate reality beyond that which is
immediately available to the senses
o Began as a domain talking about Western culture
o Became difficult for anthros to settle on definition of religion that
applies to all humans
o Religion differs from other worldviews because there is supernatural
domain that exists
 Problematic
 Distinction between natural and supernatural was
originally made by nonreligious western observers
o Many anthropologists who study this belive that it is better to start
with informants’ statements about what exists and what doesn’t
instead of assuming
o Categories of religious behavior
 Prayer
 Speaking or chanting out loud to contact the
supernatural/personified forces
 Physiological exercise
 Many systems have methods to manipulate
psychological states to induce an ecstatic effect
o Drugs
o Sensory deprivation
o Mortification of flesh by pain, sleeplessness and
fatigue
o Deprivation of food, water or air
 Exhortation
 Certain people believed to be more spiritual than others
o Expected to use those relationships in spiritual
interest
o Give order, heal, threaten, comfort and interpret
 Mana
 Refers to impersonal superhuman power that is
sometimes believed to be transferable from object that
contains it
 Laying on of hands—transferring of “power”
  Taboo
 Objects or people that may not be touched
 Some believe that cosmic power in such objects or
people may drain away if touched and may injure
person who touched
o Ex: don’t look at god, will blind you etc
 Feasts: Eating and drinking in religious context
 Holy Communion
 Passover seder
 Sacrifice: Giving something of value to invisible forces or their
agents
 Like money offerings etc
How do People communicate in Religion?
 Most powerful effects for ecstasy or trance can be experienced only by
individual who undergoes them personally
 Search for metaphors based on experiences already well known to
experience connection/concretize human to deity relationship
 Research suggests that members of many religious traditions conceive of
structure of universe as being same as societal structure
o Members of radition will likely conceive of force or forces as
personified beings with many attributes of human agents at work
o Societies can be very different from one another, so way they
characterize universe will be different
o Anthropologists noted that societies organized in strong groups based
on kinship usually conceive of universe peopled with spirits of
powerful ancestor figures
o Members of societies run by vast, complex bureacracies picture
universe run by hierarchy of gods and spirits
o
 Organic metaphors
o Human heart is metaphor for Bwiti devotees
 Technological metaphors
o Descartes popularized notion that human is machine, inhabited by
immortal soul
o Julien La Mettrie argues that concept of human soul was superfluous
because machines do not have souls
o Starting from Renaissance, machines began transforming world
o Increased complexity of machines and builders’ extensive knowledge
made technological metaphors work
How are religion and social organization related?
 People seeking to influence those forces must handle them as they would
handle humans
o Communication is most natural
 Maintaining contact with invisible cosmic powers is complex
 o Religion can become institutionalized when complex social practices
have to be regulated and monitored
 Two categories of religious specialists: Shamans and priests
o Shaman: part time religious practitioner who is believed to have the
power to travel to or contact supernatural forces directly on behalf of
individual or groups
 Ju hoansi ex
 Training for shaman is long, demanding and permanent
 Repeatedly enters altered states of consciousness
 Shamans may be viewed with suspicion or fear by
others in the society
 Originates from Siberia, Tungus
 Protect people
 Poses healing, fertility, protection and aggression power
 Idea that illness caused by soul loss
o Healing through recovery of soul
 Shaman could go to alternate world to heal someone
and find missing soul that has been stolen by spirits
 Shamans could be viewed as dangerous too
 Shamanic activity takes place in trance séance
 Can be shaman and patient relationship, or major public
ritual
 It is said shamans had no choice but to accept their roles
o Priests: A religious practitioner skilled in practice of religious rituals,
which he or she carries out for the benefit of group
 May not have direct contact with cosmic forces
 Act as mediator between people and force
 Supervises ritual activity
 Often found in hierarchical societies, their power comes as
result of hierarchy
 Unequal relationship between priest and laity
Worldviews in practice: Two Case Studies
Coping with Misfortunes, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande
 Azande use witchcraft beliefs to explain unfortunate things that happened to
them and how they employ oracles and magic to exert measure of control
over actions of others
 Witchcraft: The performance of evil by human beings believed to possess an
innate, nonhuman power to do evil, whether or not it is intentional or self-
aware
 Beliefs
o Substance in body of witches is called mangu (literally translated as
witchcraft)
o Located under sternum
o Witchcraft substance grows as body grows
o Men and women may become witches
 o Men practice witchcraft against other men, women against other
women
o Witchcraft works when its soul removes soul of certain organ in
victim’s body (usually at night)
 Cases slow, wasting disease
o Shapes their experiences of adversity
o All deaths are due to magic
 Deaths must be avenged by magic too
 Other misfortunes commonly attributed to witchcraft unless
victim has broken taboo or failed to observe a moral rule or is
believed to be responsible for his own problems
 No one is surprised or awestruck when they encounter
witchcraft
 Witchcraft is natural explanation of events
 Magic: Set of beliefs and practices designed to control the
visible or invisible world for specific purposes
 Deal with witches
o Oracles: Invisible forces to which people address questions and
whose responses they believe to be truthful
 A way to expose witch (why would you even say that)
 Poison oracle
 Poison is a strychnine-like substance imported into
Azandeland
 Oracle speaks through effect poison has on chickens
 When witchcraft suspected, relative of afflicted person
will take some chickens into the bush along with a
specialist in administering the poison oracle
 Person will feed poison to one chicken and ask oracle to
kill the chicken if this person is witch
 If the chicken dies, then second chicken will be fed
poison
 Oracle will be asked to spare chicken if suspect just
named is the witch
 People need only consider those who might wish them or their
families ill as witches
 No one thinks of themselves as a witch
 Only perceive themselves as righteous
o If oracle says that this person is witch, then that person must be one
Are there patterns of witchcraft accusation?
 Azande witchcraft different from European witchcraft
o Witchcraft accusation can keep societies together
 2 types of worldwide witchcraft accusations
o Witch is an evil outsider
 Strengthens in-group ties
o Other cases, witch is internal enemy
  Accusations can weaken in-group ties
 Communities may split, factions may reform
 Social hierarchy may be reformed
 If witch is dangerous deviant, accusation of witchcraft can be seen as attempt
to control deviant in defense of wider values of community
 Different patterns perform different functions in society
 How people understand witchcraft is based on social relations in society
Coping with Misfortune: Listening for God among Contemporary Evangelicals in the
United States
 Vineyard movement came out of turmoil and spiritual ferment of 1960s and
70s
o When people prayed, expected an answer
 Congregants expected to experience God immediately, directly and
personally
o God friend who knows everything about them
o Relationship with God—cultivated through praying
o Hardest part of prayer was hearing God’s part of communication
 God is all good, all powerful, all knowing
 God will care for those who seek him and who learn to pray to him
o Loves them unconditionally and answers prayer
 Why does god let bad things happen? 3 responses from theologians
o Evil is lack of God’s goodness+humans created it when they did not
choose God
o World will be good in end, even if it isn’t now
o Although it may not look like it to people, it is the best for us
 Vineyard Church’s explanation of suffering
o Ignore suffering
o Turn pain into learning opportunity
 Religious beliefs offer no cause for misfortune, but offer a solution to it
Maintaining and Changing a Worldview
 How do people cope with change?
o Drastic changes in experience lead people to create new
interpretations that will help them to cope with changes
 Ex: Protestant Reformation
 Protestant reformation adapted Christian traition to
changing social circumstances
o Broke ties with pope
o Turned church lands over to secular authorities
o Allowed clergy to marry etc etc
 Protestants redefined christianity, still called themselves
Christian
o Syncretism: The synthesis of old religious practices with new
religious practices outside, often by force
  Under pressure of missionizing, indigenous people of Central
America identified some of own pre Christian beings with
particular Catholic saints
 Anthropologists debated nature of syncristicpractidces
 Some may be viewed as way of resisting new ideas,
others may be introduced by more powers
o Revitalization: A conscious, elibrerate and oratnized attempt by some
members of society to create a more satisfying culture in a time of
crisis
 Engage in politics of religious synthesis that produces range of
outcomes
 Sometimes new ways created, other times, revert back
to old ways
o Milleniarian or messianism or revitalism: Some nativistic movements
expect a messiah or prophet who will bring back a lost golden age of
peace, prosperity or harmony
o Example
 Ghost Dance movement on Great Plains in 1890s
 When buffalo exterminated, Plains dweller lost
independence and were herded onto reservations
 Wovoka emerged from crisis
 Prophet who taught that all existing world would soon
be destroyed and that new crust would form on earth
 All indigenous people and settlers who followed
settlers’ way would become burried
 Indigenous people who did not assimilate would be
saved and dance Ghost dance
 All would lead to lives of virtue and joy
The Bwiti Religion
 Revitalization movement
 Fang in Central Africa
o Faced three important challenges in worldview
 French colonialism
 Christian missionaries
 Pluralism of colonial life was double standard in which
colonized treated differently from colonizers
o Used drugs and things to cope with the pressures
o Cope with exploitation
o Old metaphors reanimated
o Bwiti eventually represented an escape from pressure of outside
world
The Kwaio Religion
 Nativistic movements may represent resistance to outside world
 Anti-syncretic group
 o Removing or avoiding any cultural practices associated with those
who seek to dominate
o This group refused to follow Christian practices
o Traditional ways lived in modern context
o Anticolonial
 Becoming symbol of autonomy and identity
How Are Worldviews Used as Instruments of Power?
 Coexistence of worldviews gives way to hierarchy
 Symbol can be used to refer to self evident truths when people in power seek
to eliminate or impose certain forms of conduct
 Symbol can be under direct control of a person wishing to affect behavior of
others
 Ideology: A worldview that justifies the social arrangements under which
people live
 Secularism: The separation of religion and state, including notion of secular
citizenship that owes much to the notion ofindivudla agency developed in
Protestant theology
