Religion (2)

An adult helps a child perform the ritual for souls of the ancestors in modern China

What is religion? Your text gives you several similar definitions. My own definition is on the simple side, and similar to some in the text: religion is the belief in supernatural beings (animism) and/or supernatural forces (animatism or mana).

Supernatural Beings

Supernatural beings include gods, spirits, devils, demons, and above all, the soul. The discredited theory of cultural evolutionism had some interesting things to say about the origin of the belief in supernatural beings. Cultural evolutionism, remember, said that since all humans think alike, they will always respond in the same way to a particular stimulus or factor in their environment. Men like Tylor and Morgan noted that basically all humans had the notion of a human soul, some kind of spiritual essence which permanently separated from the body at death. Why, they asked, should a fairly specific belief such as this be universal?

The answer, for cultural evolutionists, lay in sleep and dreaming. All humans dream, according to modern science, almost every time they sleep (even if we don't always remember these dreams!). When people sleep, their bodies are relatively still and stay in one place, while in their dreams they can travel far, do all kinds of extraordinary things, and interact will all sorts of people, even people who have died. According to cultural evolutionism, dreaming convinced people that there was something separate from the physical body, a soul. When a person was dreaming, the soul itself was literally having all the adventures even though the body stayed in one place. As cultural evolutionists discovered, many cultures did indeed believe that the soul left the body during sleep and had its own experiences. And since sleep and death had some superficial resemblance's, death must be the permanent separation of the soul from the body. Indeed, cultural evolutionists found many cultures who defined death in exactly this way.

Since sleep and death were both characterized by the absence of the soul from the body, it is not surprising that in some New Guinea cultures, it was considered dangerous to wake a sleeper quickly. If the person's soul was a long way off, it might not have enough time to get back into the body, and the person would die. (When startled awake by my alarm clock each morning, I sometimes wish our culture had this belief!) Cultural evolutionists noted that in pre-Christian Europe, many believed that if a person sneezed violently, this could expel the soul and the person would die. Eventually in Christian Europe, this developed into the custom of saying "God bless you" when a person sneezes, with the original intent of keeping their soul in their body.

Certainly many cultures view sleep as a kind of "little death." In American culture, sleep is often used as a euphemism for death. A parent might tell a small child that "grandmother has gone to sleep forever", or say that a pet must be "put to sleep." If a person's soul permanently leaves the body at death, then it is not at all odd to think that illness is a kind of temporary soul loss. Many many cultures (not just the Hmong and the Yanomamo) believe that illness is soul loss, and the cure, as in Lia's epilepsy, is to coax the soul back.

Cultural evolutionists stated that the soul concept was the first supernatural, arrived at by all people due to the experience of dreaming. As a next "stage" of "cultural evolution", people would decide that if humans could have souls, so could animals, or natural forces such as fire or thunder. This would lead to a full-blown animism, again simply a belief in various supernatural beings. In egalitarian cultures (foraging bands and horticultural or pastoral tribes) , these various supernaturals would also be egalitarian, and humans could interact with them almost as equals. As chiefdoms developed, with their notions of ranked individuals, people would apply their secular reality to the supernatural world: some supernaturals (gods, we might say) would be more important than others. This type of religion represents the "evolution" of polytheism, according to cultural evolutionists. As states developed, with their near monopoly of power and authority, people would once again assume that their secular reality also applied to the supernatural world, and would assume that one all-powerful god or deity was in charge. This of course is monotheism, which cultural evolutionists said was the "highest" form of religion.

Remember, I said the cultural evolutionist approach was interesting, not true. In point of fact, it seems like an almost overly logical and rational sequence, but people are rarely logical or rational about their religious beliefs. Rephrased in terms of cultural materialism, it does make sense that the political power of the state and its ruling elite could be more easily justified by the belief in an all-powerful, supreme being, particularly if that supreme being "supported" the secular political system. Once again, this simply indicates that religious beliefs are adaptive; it is not implying that one belief is necessarily better or more valid than another.

Anthropomorphism and Supernatural Beings

Supernatural beings, whether gods, spirits, souls, or demons, tend to be very anthropomorphic. Anthropomorphism means that the god or spirit or soul has human attributes, either in terms of physical form or in terms of cognitive or other traits. The Christian God is an anthropomorphic deity in terms of physical form. Even though not normally visible, we are told that God created humans in His own image, so that we know at least vaguely, the form of God. In addition, many attributes of the Christian God are things we first know from humans: love, mercy, and anger come to mind, though the Christian God is also all-knowing and all-powerful, unlike any human!

Most cultures have anthropomorphic deities, that is, believe in gods or spirits that have some human traits. The soul also often has anthropomorphic traits. Souls, after death, can usually do only one of three things:

• they can depart totally from the earth and never interact with the living;
• they can stay on earth (or return from time to time) and effect the living (in which case they are technically known as ghosts in anthropology);
• or souls can be reborn into other humans (or even other life forms).

Various combinations or the above are also possible, and of course some cultures believe that an individual has more than one soul. Many cultures believe that appropriate funeral ceremonies are necessary to prevent the souls of the dead from bothering the living, or in order to be sure the soul departs the earth. In addition, many cultures believe that souls must be symbolically presented with food (see picture at the beginning of the lesson), or with a dwelling place (see picture below), or with other things that living humans would need or want. (Remember ghost marriage in the Nuer.)

Ancestral Hall in modern China: originally, a home for the souls of the clan.

Supernatural Forces

Supernatural forces are not beings, and the term does not refer to the power of a god or spirit. Many cultures assume the existence of positive and negative forces in the world, that as the text says, "simply surround us the way air does." In anthropology this is often called animatism, or mana, since these beliefs were common in many religions throughout Polynesia (as well as other places). These forces may also be an attribute of certain objects or even people, and while people may be able to manipulate these forces, they must be used with care.

Christianity does not emphasize the existence of nebulous supernatural forces, but they are an important part of the non-Christian belief system of many Americans. They often are termed "superstitions", which of course is a very negative term in English because it carries with it the implication that such beliefs are not true, and perhaps only rather silly people could possibly believe them. Therefore it is quite ethnocentric to speak of someone's religious beliefs as "superstitions." As noted, in the U.S. usage of the word, superstitions are not true, and most Americans feel it is silly to believe in them. Therefore to refer to Hmong beliefs or those of any other culture as superstitious is to literally say they are not true, and that the people are silly to believe they are true. (And you will lose points if I ever catch you making such a reference.)

In American culture, American "superstitions" are not usually viewed as religion (except of course, by anthropologists). There are many such beliefs in the U.S. that actually influence peoples' behavior, and are hence good examples of religion--like all religious beliefs, some people at least belief they are true, or at least might be true, and modify their behavior accordingly. In Honolulu highrises (as well as many other American cities) there is a startling lack of floors labeled 13 on the elevator buttons: floors tend to jump from the 12th to the 14th floor. This is because realtors and rental agents have learned that many people view 13 as a very unlucky number (one that attracts the negative forces of the world) and that they prefer not to buy or rent on a floor labeled thirteen. I am sure you can think of many such beliefs that most Americans would call "superstitions" (in the U.S. such beliefs often have very different origins). Whether or not people say they believe in them, these beliefs and practices do represent religion in our definition. Doing things or carrying objects for "good luck" or avoiding things or objects that might bring "bad luck" clearly are related to a major positive function of religion: relieving anxiety. [Click here for lists of various American "superstitions", related to hair, food, cats, Friday the 13th, weddings,etc. You might also be interested in reading "Good Luck Charms for Entrance Exams" in Japan.]