Agenda
 Recap
 A Brief Overview of the History of the
Anthropology of Religion
 19th Century setting
 Tylor and Animism
 RR Marett and Animatism
 George Frazer and Magic
Anthropological Perspectives on Religion
• Holistically
• Objectively
• Relativistically
• Comparatively
• Interdisciplinary
• Focus on Ethnography
• Methodologically and theoretically diverse.
Explanations for the Universality of Religion
Functional
Psychological
Intellectual
Interpretative
Sociological
Emotional
History of the Anthropology of
Religion
1) The study origin
– Evolutionism
2) The study of function
– Functionalism (psychological and sociological)
3) The study of meaning
– Phenomenology,
approach
interpretative,
symbolist
1850 inventions/discoveries
•first cast iron bridge
•2nd law of thermodynamics
•first submarine
formulated
•First electronic (telegraphic)
•theory of primary numbers
transmission of an image (FAX)
formulated
•measurement of speed of light to •speed
of
nervous
impulses
within 1% of true speed
determined
•Theory of continental drift first
•refrigeration to -30C
proposed
•first cast iron railway bridge
•first delivery of piped water
•first submarine telegraph cable
under pressure
•first flash photograph
•first description of ion exchange •first typewriter with a ribbon and
•first use of a thermometer to
keyboard
measure a patients temperature
•first daily weather maps (in USA)
discovery that anthrax caused by a •first rubber hoses
bacterium
•steam hammer invented
first public health organization (in •first photographic paper (replacing
USA)
Charles Darwin
–The Origin of Species
(1859
"Much light will be shed
on the origin of man and
his history. p. 459"
(1809-1882)
Led to the interest in
social evolution
There is in England at this moment
an intellectual interest in religion, a
craving for real theological
knowledge, such as seldom has been
known before...the more educated
part of the religious world are
becoming less and less satisfied with
old opinions' (Tylor 1868).
• Second half of the 19th century
• Are there peoples without religion?
• Religion often treated as
– an illusion
– an absurd
– an intellectual aberration
– used against Christianity
E. B. Tylor
1832-1917
•a Quaker
by religion,
and deeply
antiCatholic
•Primitive
Culture
(1871)
“ancient savage “philosophers” - impressed by
two groups of biological problems:
1. “what is it that makes the difference
between a living body and a dead one and
what causes sleep, trance, disease, death?”
2. “what are
these human
shapes
which
appear in
dreams and
visions?”
a spirit or soul, derived from the experience of
human souls or spirits in `dreams and waking
hallucinations' is thought to `animate' lifeless
objects such as sticks or stones, trees, mountains,
rivers, etc.
Tylor’s minimal definition of religion
“belief in spiritual beings” = animism
primitive
man was a rationalist and a scientific
philosopher
the
notion of spirits was not the outcome of irrational
thinking
preliterate
religious beliefs and practices were not
“ridiculous” or a “rubbish heap of miscellaneous folly”
they
were essentially consistent and logical, based on
rational thinking and empirical knowledge.
Evolutionary scheme
• 1) animism
– in preliterate cultures - animals, plants, and
inanimate objects are endowed with “souls”
• 2) polytheism
– the idea of multiple spiritual beings to
explain natural events and phenomena
• 3) monotheism
– “animism of civilized man”
continuance doctrine of life after death replaced
by the retribution doctrine
Critiques
The idea of “primitive monotheism”
• Andrew Lang The Making of Religion (1898
– the conception of “high God” evident in many
tribal communities. Eg. Great Manitou
• Father Wilhelm Schmidt
– The Origin and Growth of Religion (1912)
– monotheism evident among the most “archaic”
peoples (the Tasmanian and the Andaman
Islanders)
– such beliefs had later become overlaid with
polytheistic conceptions
Rev. R.R. Marett (1866-1943) by Heather Pesanti
Robert Marett
 the notion of animism was not the most basic
religious conception
 the origins of religion were to be found in the idea
of an impersonal supernatural force or a magicoreligious conception of sacred power
– orenda among the Iroquois
– mana in Melanesia
– = preanimistic stage of religion.
 Savage religion was `something not so much
thought out as danced out'
This member of the
Iban tribe of Malaysia
believes that the skull
held here possesses
mana.
Sir James Frazer (1854-1951)
THE GOLDEN BOUGH: A
STUDY IN COMPARATIVE
RELIGION traced the evolution
of human behavior, ancient and
primitive myth, magic, religion,
ritual, and taboo. The study
appeared first in two volumes in
1890 and finally in 12 volumes in
1911-15. It was named after the
golden bough in the sacred grove
at Nemi, near Rome.
Frazer
• Magic > religion > science
• Magic is logically more primitive than
religion because
– the conception of personal agents
(religion) is more complex than the
similarity or contiguity of ideas (magic).
• Australian aborigines > the most primitive
- only magic
Sympathetic
Magic
Contagious
Magic
Contagious Magic, proceeds upon the notion that things
which have once been conjoined must remain ever
afterwards, even when quite dissevered from each other, in
such a sympathetic relation that whatever is done to the
one must similarly affect the other. Thus the logical basis
of Contagious Magic,…is a mistaken association of ideas;
its physical basis, if we may speak of such a thing, … is
assumed to unite distant objects and to convey impressions
from one to the other. The most familiar example of
Contagious Magic is the magical sympathy which is
supposed to exist between a man and any severed portion
of his person, as his hair or nails; so that whoever gets
possession of human hair or nails may work his will, at any
distance, upon the person from whom they were cut. This
superstition is world-wide;
"If religion has given birth to all
that is essential in society, it is
because the idea of society is the
soul of religion."(Durkheim
1912: Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life)
Emile Durkheim
1858 - 1917
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
 Primary purpose: to describe and explain the
most primitive religion known.
 Secondary purpose: to understand how things
are categorized and how are these ideas related to
religion .
Defining Religion
Religion can be divided into two parts:
1. Beliefs
 All religious beliefs presuppose a classification of all the
things, real and ideal, into two classes or opposed
groups: the sacred and the profane
2. Rites
 rules of conduct which prescribe how one should behave
in the presence of sacred things
A religion. Constitutes the union of beliefs and rites
Problem: this definition includes a body of facts ordinarily
distinguished from religion -- i.e., magic
Any definition of religion must therefore exclude magic
For Durkheim
Religion
o was a public, social, beneficent institution
o The really religious beliefs are always common to a determined
group or `Church'
o Church makes a profession of adhering to beliefs and
practicing the rites connected with them
o The individuals which compose it feel themselves united to each
other by the simple fact that they have a common faith
Magic
oIs private, selfish, and at least potentially maleficent
oThe belief in magic does not result in binding together those
who adhere to it, nor in uniting them into a group leading a
common life..
" A religion is a unified system of beliefs
and practices relative to sacred things,
that is to say, things set apart and
forbidden -- beliefs and practices which
unite into one single moral community
called a Church, all those who adhere to
them."
Totemism and the Australian Aborigines
Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen's Native Tribes of Central Australia
(1899) -- a study of totemic clans
their type of societal organization was the most rudimentary known
Therefore Durkheim assumed their religion was the simplest
 members of each clan consider themselves bound together by a
special kind of kinship, based not on blood, but on the mere fact that
they share the same name.
 name, however is taken from an animal (usually) – the totem with which the clan members are assumed to enjoy the same
relations of kinship.
 But this "totem" is not simply a name; it is also an emblem
Clanspeople of the
crow believe they are
descended form the
Dreamtime's crow
spirit who became a
man.
Durkheim’s Explanation of Totemic Beliefs
 Images, animals, and clan members are all sacred in the
same way;
 Thus, their sacred character is not due to the special
properties of one or the other, but rather is derived from
some common principle shared by all.
 Totemism, is really about an anonymous, impersonal
force, immanent in the world and diffused among its
various material objects.
 I.e. Society
 Society Divinized
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
Spencer (I)
• Principles of Sociology (1876-96)
– A large section devoted to a discussion of religion
and religious beliefs of preliterate people
• assumption of the cultural and intellectual
inferiority of preliterate people
• essential arguments
– “primitive” people are not irrational
– they make inferences that are in their own context
valid and reasonable
Spencer
• the genesis of supernatural beliefs
• Observation of the phenomena of nature, e.g.
–
–
–
–
death and dream experiences
temporary insensibility
ecstatic states
reflections in the water
• Led to the idea of duality - distinction between the
body and the soul or spirit
Spencer
• “belief in ghosts” the basis of the earliest
supernatural ideas.
• The idea of ghosts developed into that of gods
– the ghosts of important ancestors => divinities
• “ancestor worship is the root of every religion.”
– a belief in the spirit of the dead was universal
– totemic beliefs are an aberrant form of ancestor
worship.
• polytheism => monotheism
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion
• Auguste Comte - positivist sociology
• three stages in the development of human thought
• 1) Theological stage
– explanations took form of myths concerning spirits and
supernatural beings
• 2) Metaphysical stage
– explanations of the world in terms of and “essences”, in the
manner of Greek idealist philosophers (transitional stage);
• 3) Positivist stage
– understanding through observation and experiment.
• Roots of evolutionary approach to religion
– Darwin, Comte, Hegel, Engels
•
•
•
•
•
Friedrich Max Müller
Herbert Spencer
Sir Edward B. Tylor
Sir James Frazer
Emile Durkheim
In the pre-Buddhist religion such as animism, tree worship
was widespread among indigenous races of Myanmar. Tree
god was revered as benefactor friend. Other natural
phenomena such as mountain, lake, river, rain etc were also
respected and paid homage not only because of their utility
for human beings, but also because of their sacredness as
they were believed to be the abodes of benevolent spirits.
 These
Spirits
spirits can be communicated with.
“feel” and therefore, can be harmed, flattered,
offended and can also hurt or help.