Coming up…

1. Coming up… • Final exam…Saturday, Dec. 8th 2 pm. Sports Centre…Chapters 11, 12, 15 • Projects due on last class…email or bring a memory stick to class. • Meeting (almost) Prince Phillip • Meeting Prince Phillip

2. Cultural Anthropology Chapter Twelve: Religion and the Supernatural The Real Avatar

3. Chapter Preview • What is Religion? • What Are Religion’s Identifying Features? • What Functions Does Religion Serve?

4. The Anthropological Approach to Religion • A set of rituals, rationalized by myth • Universal • From permeating daily life to specific occasions • Reduces anxiety and keeps confidence high • Not replaced by science

5. The Practice of Religion • Participation in religious ceremonies • Brings a sense of personal transcendence • Reassurance, security, or ecstasy • Kecak (Ramayana monkey chant) • Buddhist monk • Creates a feeling of closeness to fellow participants

6. Supernatural Beings and Powers • Gods and Goddesses • Monotheism • Polytheism • Pantheon

7. Gods and Goddesses • Relation to everyday life • Gods found in societies that subordinate women to men • Goddesses most prominent in societies where women make a major contribution to the economy, are equal to men, and men are engaged in raising children

8. Ancestral Spirits • Spirit is freed at death • Retains an active interest in society after death • Reborn into society • Found in societies with descent-based groups

9. The Asmat of New Guinea The Asmat are a Melanesian people who live within the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. They are widely known for the quality of their wood sculptures. They are also notorious for their traditional practices of headhunting and cannibalism. These Asmat practices have been linked to the unsolved 1961 disappearance of the twenty-three-year-old son of former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, who was touring the region to collect native artwork.

10. The Asmat's first European contact was with the Dutch in 1623. For many years the group had few outside visitors due to their fearsome reputation. The Dutch began to settle the Asmat area in the 1920s, bringing in the first Catholic missionaries. Contact with the West has expanded steadily since the 1950s, and traditional Asmat warfare and cannibalistic practices have declined.

11. Animism • Belief in spirit beings (Tylor) • Belief in many spirits often found among peoples who see themselves as part of nature

12. The Asmat of New Guinea • Spirit entities are thought to inhabit trees, earth, and water. The spirits of deceased ancestors mingle among the living, at times aiding or hindering activities and bringing sickness. Cyclical rituals—such as those involving the carving of elaborate ancestor ( bis ) poles—and rituals that accompanied headhunting raids, the death of great warriors, and ceremonies of peace and reconciliation can be related to the appeasement of the ancestral spirits.

13. Animatism • Belief in impersonal supernatural powers • Mana

14. Religious Specialists • Priests and Priestesses • Full-time religious specialists • Members of a recognized religious organization • Source of power is the institution • Shamans • Part-time religious specialists with exceptional abilities for dealing with the supernatural • Acquire power individually • Act on the behalf of clients

15. Rituals and Ceremonies • Religion in action • Means by which persons relate to the sacred • Serve several functions • Two major types of rituals • Rites of Passage • Rites of Intensification

16. Rites of Passage • Rituals marking important transitions of life • Birth, marriage, etc. • Three stages • Separation • Transition • Incorporation

17. Rites of Transition…from one state of existence to another • Separation----transition---reincorporation • Stage 1----transitional stage----stage 2 • Childhood-------------------------adulthood • liminal phase

18. Liminality…from the Latin word “limen” meaning “threshold” • …is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different planes of existence (a "liminal state“). Popularized in anthropological theory by the work of Victor Turner and Arnold VanGennep • The liminal phase of a ritual is often called the ‘betwixt and between’ phase…the participants are between the old phase and the new.

19. Liminality in ethnographic research… …the researcher is...in a liminal state, separated from his own culture yet not incorporated into the host culture - when he or she is both participating in the culture and observing the culture.

20. Rites of Intensification • Mark group occasions • Functions • Expression and affirmation of common values • Unification of group • Prevention of disruption of society

21. Religion, Magic, And Witchcraft • Magic • Attempts to control the supernatural • Sir James Frazer’s Golden Bough • Religion is propitiation or conciliation of the supernatural • Magic a false science • Imitative magic • Contagious magic • Frazer’s distinction between magic and religion no longer accepted by anthropologists

22. Imitative magic…Cargo Cults

23. Contagious magic… • magic that attempts to affect a person through something once connected with him or her, as a hair or nail clipping.

24. Witchcraft • Belief that individuals may possess psychic powers • Ibibio Witchcraft • - Misfortune due to witches • - Substance provides power • - May be used unintentionally • - Antisocial behaviour

25. The Functions of Witchcraft • Provides explanations • Serves as a mechanism of social control • Witchcraft Among the Navajo • Channels anxieties, tensions, and frustrations • Permits direct expression of hostile feelings • Divination • Magical procedure to determine causes or to foretell the future

26. Divination Magical procedure to determine causes or the future

27. The Functions of Religion • Provides an orderly model of the universe • Sanctions a wide range of conduct • Lifts burden of responsibility from individuals • Provides education

28. Religion and Cultural Change • Revitalization Movements • Deliberate efforts to construct a more satisfying culture • Four phases • Normal state of society • Period of increased individual stress • Period of cultural distortion • Period of revitalization