Earth-Oriented and Animistic Beliefs in Folk Religions, Study notes of World Religions

Download Earth-Oriented and Animistic Beliefs in Folk Religions and more Study notes World Religions in PDF only on Docsity! REL 100 Lecture 11 1 As we being this section of the course that’s on various world religions, we’ll spend generally one session and then probably a film or a video on each of the major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But before we get into that, I want us to take a few minutes — or take a session, at least, to look at more of a class of religions. This isn’t a denomination, this is not a group, this is not a world religion, so to speak, and yet it has a large number of adherents to this class of religions throughout the world. This class of religions has several different names. Sometimes they’re called primitive religions, but that gives a little bit of judgment that it’s only from primitive times and wouldn’t fit today. That really doesn’t apply that much anymore because some of these religions exist in cultures that are not primitive cultures. So we’ll start out and initially we’ll call them folk religions. But as we go, we’ll add to our list of names that are given to this class, this type of religious expression. But folk religions would imply religious expression or spirituality that’s tightly hooked to the history of the culture in which it exists. And so it would be religions that you would think of as older religions, religions that would be very connected to the earth and to ancestors. And so you’d have some examples of folk religions or this class of religions that could be everything from witchcraft, the witchcraft that’s the more scary, negative kind of witchcraft, to a witchcraft that is more of what’s sometimes called white witchcraft or just an earth oriented religion like, say, Wicca. Satanism. You could put that under this category of religions. Various earth religions, goddess religions, what some of you may be familiar with as far as New Age religions. Now, those could all go REL 100 Lecture 11 2 under this category that we initially can call folk religions. But again, we’ll give it other names. Now, again, I’m not equating Satanism to Wicca when I say this. But just in the sense that they’re in the same class of religion that is very tied to a certain subculture or cultural group that tends to be very earth oriented and creates a spirituality out of that. So some basic characteristics of this class of religion. Again, because of the diversity that you find, whether it’s middle and upper middle-class women practicing Wicca here in the United States or Aboriginal tribes in Australia, or Haitian Voodoo — you know, all those would fit under that. So it’s hard to say that there’s some definite, absolute threads between these different expressions, but some general threads that you would find. First of all, that these religions in their origin were usually from less civilized cultures. That in their origin, they were usually from less civilized cultures. Cultures in which technology was not significant. Cultures that were more agrarian, more earth oriented. But again, they can exist in technological cultures. And maybe that’s some sort of expression of how with all of our technology, with all the high tech, there’s still this need for a spiritual component, something that’s more fundamental and more rooted than where technology may take us. So again, you can find these within technological cultures as well. And typically these groups — one thing that characterizes them is that they’re fairly isolated. They maintain themselves largely within isolation. Some of that isolation is geographical. They’re on some little island somewhere where nobody ever goes or they’re nestled in-between two mountains or up on top of a mountain where nobody REL 100 Lecture 11 5 move you to this other land. And in the mind of the government it’s more land, it may even be better land that they are moving these tribes to. But the tribes had burial grounds here and they believe that the spirits stay, you know, in the area of where those bodies are. That the spirits move with the bodies. And so to leave behind those burial grounds is to leave behind, to abandon, part of the tribe. And actually again, possibly one of the most vital parts of their tribe because they operate within the spiritual realm. So to give better land and more land but leave behind the burial grounds is not worth it to these tribes because they need to keep the contact and keep the relationship with those spirits. Because the spirits and the body stay intact with one another. They also believe — third characteristic — in animism. This is where you get more spirits. Animism is the belief that all of life has a spirit quality about it. Again, animism is the belief that all of life has a spirit quality about it. Every person has a spirit, every animal, every rock, every tree, everything has a spirit. Well, this brings a lot more spirits to be in contact with, to honor, to request from. So again, it can be an animal, it can be an object, it can be a nature, but that these religions teach this idea of a spirit quality in all things. That’s why there tends to be a great reverence of nature, a great reverence of animals. This is one of the reasons in honoring the spirit quality that, say, before Native American tribes go for buffalo hunts, they have a ritual, a ceremony, where they appeal to the spirits of the buffalo to respond to them and meet the needs that they have for food for that next year, for that winter. So because of this animistic belief, some of these groups are called animistic religions. It’s a common phrase that’s used to talk about groups that believe in the spirit REL 100 Lecture 11 6 quality of all of life. Also because they believe that this spirit quality is in all of nature, sometimes these are called earth religions because the focus is so much on — yeah, there may be a spiritual transcendent realm, but there’s also this realm that’s very much here. That the earth is very alive. That everything that’s connected to the earth is very alive. And so sometimes they’re called earth religions. Now, in talking about this animism, this animistic belief, again the idea is that everything has a spirit quality about it. But then there’s also understanding that within that spirit quality, that different objects or different people or different animals may contain more power in that spiritual quality than others do. That spiritual power is called mana. Not like the manna of the Hebrew Bible with two n’s but one n. Mana is the personal power that collects in people and in objects. It’s the personal power that collects in people and in objects. And so as various people, for instance, perform rituals or do things that bring about healing, that bring about things that they see as miraculous, that bring about things that seem like the spirit world has looked at them with favor and responded to their requests, then people will perceive that there’s more of this power in them. Or if there’s certain objects that seem to have brought favor from the spiritual realm to the human realm, then those objects begin to take on this power, this mana. And so those people and those objects become sacred, set apart, unique, because they contain the spiritual power. You know, maybe it’s kinda like — often in class I’ll ask if there are athletes in the class and then I’ll ask if any of them or any of their teammates have any lucky objects, REL 100 Lecture 11 7 lucky articles of clothing, or kind of like their lucky rituals that they always do before a game or the night before a game, or certain meals that they ritualistically eat. Many athletes have those rituals or those objects. And in a sense, the way that athletes or any of us that have, you know, a lucky pen or a lucky rabbit’s foot, or whatever — in a sense, every time there is success as a result of that object, or what’s believed to be as a result of that object, that ritual, then it gives it more power. It gives it really kind of more oomph to us as far as being something that we don’t want to do without. And so you get to where you always want to make sure you’re wearing those socks or you get to where you always eat this meal the night before your game. Or you get to where you always walk through this doorway when you go into the locker room before a game. You know, there comes to be these rituals that people they need to perform. Now, does that mean they win every game? Well, probably not. Eventually they’re gonna lose. But if they’ve established that there’s a lot of power in this ritual or this object, then if they lose a game it’s not the object’s fault. It’s something else. You know, they’re not generally — they’re not gonna throw away, you know, the lucky socks or the lucky jersey, or they’re not gonna go wash the practice jerseys that they’ve not washed all season yet. Because they would still perceive that there was a certain amount of power in that thing, even though this one time something didn’t come through. Well, that’s how these groups are. That there are people who are perceived to possess a lot of power, spiritual power. There are objects that are perceived to possess a lot of power, these sacred things. And even if there’s a time here and there that it REL 100 Lecture 11 10 there’s something in the pipe that’s hallucinogenic and they would acknowledge that. But what they would say is that frees them from the inhibitions that keep them from being able to really connect with the spirit realm as far as what they need to do. And so these magical rituals are important to receive these revelations. They’re also important to receive these blessings. When they do a Native American rain dance, they want the blessing of dance — excuse me — they want the blessing of rain. When they do a buffalo dance the night before a buffalo hunt or in the days before a buffalo hunt, they want the blessing of buffalo when they go hunting. There’s a group that illustrates well a lot of these characteristics that we’ve talked about. It’s actually spoken of in this book by Malanoski called — it’s a book called Magic, Science and Religion. There’s a group of people called the Trobrianders. They are a group that lives on a small island off the coast of East New Guinea and they are very connected to the ancestors, their spiritual leaders, and ultimately for the blessings that they want to receive. This is largely an agrarian culture. They do some fishing, but primarily they farm. One of their main products is sweet potatoes. But they have a lot of magical rituals that center around the building of their canoes when they go out fishing. They believe that in performing these rituals as they build the canoes, that they gain certain blessings to be able to catch fish. They have certain rituals that revolve around their potatoes, sweet potato harvest. Each year when they are having the sweet potato harvest, they have kind of the equivalent of what we would call a Thanksgiving festival only it lasts many days. And at this festival what they do is they make sure that they include the ancestors, that they communicate with the REL 100 Lecture 11 11 ancestors. And what this tribe believes is that — you know, the Trobrianders who live on their island — and there’s another smaller island that is in the distance. They can see it, but nobody goes over there because it’s a sacred island. You don’t touch that island. It’s sacred territory. It’s sacred because they believe that’s where the spirits of the ancestors live, is on that other island. And they believe really that everything that happens on this main island is a result of those ancestors. They believe that women are impregnated by the spirits of those ancestors when they’re in the water, bathing, between the two islands. That that’s where babies come from. And they don’t want to acknowledge any other idea about that, even though they might see that there is some correspondence between certain physical acts and then the birth of children later. But they would still give the ultimate credit to those ancestors because they want to continue to receive the blessings of children from them. And every year when they have the sweet potato harvest they issue an invitation to the ancestors to come over from their island and come to this island that they live on. And they set up a table, a banquet table, with food on it that’s offered to the ancestors. They even set up an area for the ancestors to sit in, to observe everything that they do during the Thanksgiving festival, Thanksgiving feast. And everything about that is to say thank you to the ancestors for the sweet potato harvest because they believe that if the ancestors aren’t sufficiently thanked for this year’s harvest, there might be no sweet potatoes next year. So these magical rituals of inviting the ancestors over, the magical rituals of REL 100 Lecture 11 12 acknowledging them as seated there as part of the festival, the magical rituals of offering them food and the magical rituals of doing various dances and sort of shows, as we would call them, to say to the ancestors, “Thanks for the sweet potatoes.” Those are important magical rituals to receive blessings in the future, to communicate to the spiritual realm. Now, again, the Shaman is the primary person or the spiritual leader of the tribe - - the chief, the priestess, the priest — is the main person who knows the magical rituals and communicates those as far as how they’re to be carried out. And so again, the Shaman is very central in that. But these characteristics. They tend to have one high god, they tend to believe in many spirits, they believe in animism, that all of life has a spirit quality, and they believe that the practice of, the speaking of various magical rituals, magical words, are what enable them to communicate with the spirit realm. Those are vital in most all of the religions of this class of religion, those characteristics. Now, certainly there are things that these groups don’t have, that they don’t possess, alongside possessing God and the spirits and this magic. Primarily what they don’t possess is sacred writings. Yes, here in the technological cultures like the U.S. or in Europe, these groups would have writings that they would consider important and some people might even consider them sacred. But even within those groups, there’s not one book or one text that is uniformly the sacred text of that religion. It’s still largely dependent upon the priestess or the priest, the Shaman, to let people know what the source — to be the source of authority for people and even to say, “So this book is REL 100 Lecture 11 15 communities of people. So even though they don’t have sacred writings, through oral tradition, through the Shamans and the chiefs and the priests of the tribes that are especially taught the traditions, they’re able to maintain that. Now, also because they don’t have sacred writings, they also do not tend to have an organized system of thought. For most of these tribes their spirituality is very linked in life. It’s very linked to just day-to-day, year-to-year survival, crops, childbirth, fish from the sea. It’s very linked to that. And so these rituals are taught to them as important for getting fish or having children or having good crops. They believe that these are important to follow. And so they don’t really think about whether it makes sense, whether it’s a systematic line of thinking. They don’t even think about whether this seems exclusive to this thought or this seems in some way to be antagonistic towards this practice. That doesn’t matter to them. It’s not an organized system of thought. Because the rituals are so linked to this is what you do to achieve this. And that blessing, that result, is what’s important. So they’re gonna do this, whether it makes sense or not. So there doesn’t tend to be an organized system of thought because there’s not the sacred writings, because everything is so linked to their day-to-day survival. So again, they maintain themselves through oral tradition. They maintain themselves through the teachings of the Shamans or the leaders of the tribe. They maintain themselves through isolation by keep — as we said earlier, by keeping themselves separate from a broader culture or a different culture that could taint, that could alter what they do. REL 100 Lecture 11 16 And they also maintain themselves through ritual. You know, every year when those Trobrianders have their Thanksgiving festival and sweet potato harvest, and they invite the spirits over and they thank them, they have all these rituals that they do for several days — you know, 8, 10 days. And as they tell the stories that go with those rituals, the children are learning the stories. So that as those children become adults, they know the rituals to perform and they know when to perform them and why and how. And so those rituals give them ways to carry on their beliefs, their practices, their traditions. So through oral traditions, through leadership of the Shamans, through isolation, through ritual, they’re able to preserve a body of teaching and a body of practice — again, from generation to generation. Because so much of this is centered around the group carrying these on, sometimes these groups are called tribal religions because the tribe, the group, the community is so important in the maintaining of the practices and the teaching. So we’re looking at a class of religion here — what we’ve looked at is a class of religion — that might be called primitive religions. But again, that’s less rightly so because you find them so much in technological cultures today. But they might be called Shamanistic religions, animistic religions, earth religions, tribal religions. All those are this class of religion that generally believes there’s this one supreme god, that there are many spirits, that those spirits — the primary spirits are the spirits of ancestors, but they also believe in animism that puts spirits in all of life or understands that there’s a spirit quality in all of life, and they believe in the importance of magical rituals and REL 100 Lecture 11 17 magical dances and magical incantations to coerce that spirit realm to respond to them in this human realm, to help them out in their day-to-day living. Throughout this World Religions unit I have an assignment that I want you to be working on. Certainly there’s the potential to procrastinate it all till the night before, but you may at least want to keep your eyes and ears open and be able to put some of this together. So this will be an assignment that you will bring when you come to take your second exam. And when you come to take that exam, you’ll turn this assignment in to the person proctoring that exam. And what this relates to is finding current news articles related to these religions — these five major world religions that we’ll be studying. So I call this assignment Old Religions, Current Events. And so the old religions are the five major world religions that we’re about to study — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And what I want you to do, for each of the five religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam — find two current news articles that in some way relate to each of those religions. They can be about two different events. As a matter of fact, that would be better. But find two current news articles related to each of the five religions. So that would be 10 articles total. They need to be current articles, so articles that are dated within — no earlier than a month ago, okay? So we’ll let you go back a month and still call it current. So no articles that are previous to a month ago. So anything from a month ago to now or to the end of this unit would be considered current. It needs to come from a credible news source. That could be a hard copy source, a newspaper, a news magazine like Time,