www.UsHumans.net: Chapter 10
Origin and development of religion, government and civilization
The religion of gatherer-hunter peoples: the power in the bush
We all experience the feeling of awe as we ponder those parts of the world that seem larger than ourselves. We are awed by such things as the weather, the starry sky, the process of birth, the relations between the plants and animals of the Earth, and by our own group and its ways and origins. This feeling of awe forms the basis of our oldest religions.
Religion forms a large part of what it is that makes us human. This book contains just a taste of our religious thought. At some times and in some places, religion consists of the deities of nature. Sometimes a group of us humans attach human characteristics and personalities onto these deities, as often occurred when a people first began to farm (see Chapter 12). The religions of today's big cities mainly involves instructions concerning our attempt to live in a moral and ethical manner.
For those of us humans living a gatherer-hunter way of life, religion is a collection of explanations of the ways and origins of animals, tools, society, and people given in terms of the deities of nature. These deities represent the "power" contained in those things. Ethics and morals do not form the main point of the religions of deities because those small groups of persons following them hold the behavior of group members in close check.
The purpose of religion is described in the forward and the first chapter of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural Edited by Arthur C. Lehmann and James E. Myers. A summary of their presentation is given in this chapter. The meaning of myth and deity is well presented by Thorkild Jacobsen in The Treasures of Darkness, A History of Mesopotamian Religion. Before I read his book, I mistakenly thought that myths were nothing more than soap operas. He made me realize that myths discuss the powers of nature.
Each of us humans knows that we are born, live, and die and are subject to death, famine, disease, and malice from others. Many of us believe that we share the world with invisible, superhuman, spiritual beings. Religion's most important function is to explain cause and effect relationships between these beings and humans and to explain natural phenomena, illness, and the mysterious things that seem to be not-of-this-world or seem to be unexplainable in ordinary terms. It satisfies the human desire for food, rain, victory, gathering and hunting success, and provides comforting explanations.
The form of religious expression is seen to be as diverse as the number of peoples. All humans share the same feelings, emotions, needs, desires, appetites, satisfactions, and mental states. These are evident in each of the belief systems. Religion is universal because these experiences are universal. Humans around the world have identical bodies and minds.
Those of us humans who live gatherer-hunter lifestyles are identical to those of us humans who live in the city, and both groups have identical religious appetites. This is important: it is the reason that all persons should take the religion of others to be a serious and sacred part of life. No group should view another group as "toy people." A newborn baby would become equally at home with any group of people, anywhere on the Earth, past or present. The religious activities of gatherer-hunters are similar to the religious activities of the ancestors of those of us who live in a big city today.
Deities and the power in the bush
Gatherer-hunters believe that the world includes many nonhuman spirits, and this belief plays a major role in their religious practices. Some spirits are believed to be helpful while others are harmful. We hope to have the presence of the beneficial deities and try to avoid those that are harmful. None of these spirits are involved in moral behavior, which is the main concern of our modern religions. However, modern monotheistic religions retain many aspects of the earlier religious forms, including the belief in spirits, angels, and demons.
The gatherer-hunter peoples–and maybe you, too–are awe-struck when pondering the "power in the bush." This "power" is the answer to the question: what is it that enables a bush to just grow out of the ground? Before the bush was there, there was just empty ground. They see many other powers, including those in fire, the thunderstorm, the hunt, the house, and in the sun, rain, and wind. Seeing the "power in the bush" helps us to understand how our gatherer-hunter cultures view the world. In Mink's book about Cahokia (see Chapter 15), he explains that the Mescalero Apache understand that the Sun is the physical representation of the Great Spirit God that is the power in the universe. (Visit http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/apache for Chiricahua and Mescalero texts.)
A deity is a name that represents a particular power. Consider a hunting bow. There is "something" that enables it to function: there is a "power" in the bow. When you hear a particular group of people say that "Blog is the god of the bow," then you should think to yourself that Blog is the power of the bow and that Blog is the name for the thing that makes the bow function.
Thorkild Jacobsen explains that people do not worship these deities or devote their lives to them. The deities are not creators, providers, or parents. They never ask, order, or demand anything of anyone. They have little to do with the moral rules of behavior. People try either to influence the favor of a god or deity, or to keep that god away. We hope to receive the blessings of the beneficial deities, such as the sun, rain, and earth gods. We want health to stay with us and we want this hunting trip to be successful. We hope the harmful deities stay away because we want to keep disease and death away from us.
To help today's big-city reader see the idea of a deity, here are some examples. You might be so grateful for the plate that feeds you every day that you believe that there is a life-giving deity that resides in the plate. In the same way you can see a power in the home that protects you from the elements. There might be a power or deity representing the machine you operate while at work each day and that results in your paycheck. Are there powers, each of which can be represented by a deity, in the car that moves you around, in the school that gives you knowledge, in the stadium that is home to your favorite sports team, in the bed that keeps you warm at night, in the alarm that wakes you, in the refrigerator that keeps your food fresh or in the stove that cooks it, in the bus that takes you to work, in the washer that cleans your clothes, in the newspaper that informs you, in the beer you drink, or in the machine that plays the music?
There are many larger ideas that are easy to represent as a deity. It is easy to envision a deity to represent the power of motherhood. We feel that there is some sort of power that connects mother and child. Many of us feel there is a power that represents good and another that represents bad.
There can be a deity for each aspect of society and one for each tool and procedure. For a list of deities from the world’s cultures, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deities. The Ifugao people believe that there is a deity for every step of every activity. One anthropologist counted 1,250 Ifugao deities. For example, while hunting there is a deity for the level spot where one looks for the game, another deity for avoiding the snakes that lie along the path, and another deity for the moment of sicking the dogs.
Our relationship with those deities comes in many forms. Before Mayans plant corn in a field, they build an altar and pray. They believe that the god will receive nourishment from the prayer and ritual and reward the Mayans with corn. It is a reciprocal arrangement between the Mayan and the god. The Hopi people of the southwestern United States believe that the crops want to grow and are happy only when they are growing, but are unable to grow unless people perform the right rituals. It is the role and the duty of the people to perform the rituals so that corn can grow.
Religion involves our sense of awe and our sense of the sacred. When we hold a small statue of our religious founder, we have the feeling that the statue is sacred. We feel as if something terrible would happen if the statue became damaged. You may feel that a certain flag or book is sacred. Religion also involves our spiritual experiences. Sometimes religion guides every detail of daily-life. For example, it may tell its followers how to adjust their clothes, how many gulps of water to drink, and how to cut meat. These material items then become religious items as well.
Many cultures–but not all–believe that humans have a soul. The soul is "another you." It is your soul that travels to another place or talks with deceased persons while you are dreaming. They feel that shadows and reflections are evidence of souls. When death arrives it means that your soul has left the body. Some cultures believe that humans have two or more souls. For example, Ancient Egyptians and West Africans say we have two souls. The Jivaro of Ecuador, see www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~eschniter/AMAZONIA/EJ.HTM, say there are three: one for life, one for visions, and one that revenges the dying warrior. (Surely, the idea of the revenger-soul started when one dead warrior was believed to have avenged his death because it was soon followed by the death of his enemy.)
If you want to travel back in time and talk to your ancestors to find out their views of the world, all you have to do is speak with your children. Ask your child if rocks, trees, cars, and shovels are alive. Does the wind make the trees move or is it the trees that make the wind move? What is the sun, the moon, and those little stars we see at night? Every child knows that the sun and moon follow them around; when they walk clear down the street they can look up and it is still right there with them. Ask them about the powers within these things.
Where does the sun go at night? One group of people answers that there is a big plate in the sky. During the day the sun is on this side of the plate but at night the sun moves back to the west by traveling on the other side of that plate. They know the plate is there because it has a lot of little holes in it and you can see little pieces of the sun through all of them. This makes sense. This explanation may have originated by a fireplace one night as a person walked in front of it while holding up a piece of cloth. The cloth was full of holes letting light through. The sight of the light-filled holes made a woman stand and shout that she now realized the sun's "true" motion. The group members may then have stood in awe, looking upward at the lights shining through the plate in the sky. (For another example, visit www.ethnomath.org/resources/best1922.pdf for a discussion of the astronomical knowledge of the Maori.)
Life’s largest moments are birth, puberty, marriage, and death. Each religion and each culture has its own, unique way of celebrating these moments. Any cultural variation that you can think of has probably occurred somewhere in the world. Everybody's view of the world is limited by their own imagination. Our own view of the world is increased when we come to understand the views of other peoples. You might like to list many aspects of life and then learn how several religions and cultures view that same aspect.
Each group of people is unique in many interesting ways. For example, some Australian tribes believe that the spirit of the people resides in the land, while the Arapesh feel they belong to the land just as do the flora and fauna. Each group has their own views of the divine. The Sioux's relationship with the divine is intense and personal, see http://faculty.normandale.edu/~physics/Hollabaugh/Lakota/Schwatk.htm or http://www.spiritwalk.org/nativeamerican.htm. They appeal to the divine for the strength to overcome pain and fear. They seek ordeals to overcome. Each boy stays without food or water in the cold wilderness for a few days and nights until a particular manifestation of the universal force takes him under his wing and serves as his guardian.
Death is an important part of life. How does your culture view death? The peoples of the world deal with death in many different ways. Here are just a few examples. The Nevada Washo burn a dead person's house and belongings, and then sneak away by moving the camp. They hope that the dead person will not find them. Surely this started when one dead person was believed to have done something bad to the living members of the group.
The Dusun of Borneo curse the dead person and tell it to stay away. In contrast, the more-ancient dead are not mistrusted. It is believed that they look out for the people but also watch to punish anyone who breaks a taboo. Before beginning an important activity, the Dusun hold a feast in honor of the ancestors because it is believed that a well-fed ancestor is a happy ancestor. It is supposed that the ancestor enjoys eating a certain food just as much as the person who actually eats it. (It is the act of providing food that is important. It is not important that after having provided the food, a living person will eat it.)
The ancient Hittites would place their dead out in an open field far from home. After the bones had become naturally cleansed, the Hittites would bury them underneath their home. In this way the deceased relatives can then remain nearby. Visit www.nanations.com/burialcustoms/ossuaries.htm for descriptions of the similar practices of the Choctaw and Natchez.
The children of the South Pacific Dobuans will clean the skull of their deceased father, keep it at home, and provide it with food. Again, it is the act of providing food that is important; whether or not the object eats the food is not important. They solicit its protection from disease and misfortune. It is evident that this skull is no longer supplying protection when its food provider has died. The children of this newly-dead person then replace the skull of their grandparent with that of their parent.
The ancestors of all of us used to live as gatherer-hunters. At that time in our past we believed the stories–our myths–that the ancestors of our society had made to explain the origin of our people, customs, techniques, and tools and of the plants and animals within our surroundings. Our religions emphasized our sense of awe and amazement of the powers of nature and of society. We had a deity to represent the power in each aspect of nature and society, including the sun, sky, earth, wind, thunderstorm, birth, puberty, marriage, death, the origins of ourselves and our ways, and the power that enables a bush to just grow out of the ground where before there was nothing. This was the general form of religion among those of us who lived the gatherer-hunter lifestyle–on every continent–before adopting the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Confucian religions. It is the religion of the Kalapalo and of the Cahokians, Yorubans, ancient Mesopotamians, and Classical Greeks described later in this book.
These deities were not worshiped nor did people devote their life to them. Instead, they were just representations of the powers of nature and of society. We hoped to receive the favors of the beneficial powers and to avoid the presence of the others. For example, before we went to collect a particular type of food we would speak to that food deity, ask for its cooperation, and then pay respect for its life-giving gift.
Each of us knows that religion forms a large part of what it is that makes us human. We all experience awe when we ponder things that seem larger than human existence. Religion is universal because all humans share the same feelings, emotions, needs, desires, appetites, satisfactions, and mental states. Humans around the world have nearly identical bodies and minds because they have nearly identical DNA–but vastly different experiencs. Our religions are those aspects of our culture that are our answers to questions involving the most awe inspiring elements in our lives and surroundings.
Questions
1. List some items or phenomenon that seem to you to have a greater-than-human power.
2. What is the purpose of religion in your life?
3. Does any other animal experience the feeling of awe? How can we measure this?
4. Compare respect for, or awe of, nature, parents, your group, your leaders, and god or gods. Is the feeling of respect just a lesser version of awe? Is the feeling of awe 10,000 times more intensive than the feeling we call respect? Are these two variations in quantity or quality, or are they unrelated?
5. How is the form of a group's religion related to their culture?
6. Do you get a sense of awe when you ponder human civilization and our accomplishments?
7. Does your religion say anything about the powers of nature and society?
8. Humans are curious about the world and require answers to their questions. Do our religions provide answers to our questions? Why do we have religion? Which human need is being satisfied by our religion?
9. Create a piece of art that communicates the idea of a particular deity or of our relationship with it.
10. Describe similar deities from a variety of cultures. For example, most every culture has a wind deity.
Primary source for the chapter
Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural 4th Edition Edited by Arthur C. Lehmann and James E. Myers, 1997, Mayfield Publishing, Mountain View, CA.
Suggestions for further reading
The Treasures of Darkness, A History of Mesopotamian Religion, Thorkild Jacobsen, 1976, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Reader in Comparative Religion, An Anthropological Approach 3rd Edition, William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, 1972, Harper and Row Publishers, New York.
Religion: An Anthropological View, Anthony F.C. Wallace, 1966, Random House, New York.
Religion and Society, Elizabeth K. Nottingham, 1954, Random House, New York.
Primitive Religion, Robert H Lowie, 1948, Grosset and Dunlap, New York.
The Sociology of Religion, Thomas F. O'dea, 1966, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey.
The Sacred, Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life, Peggy V. Beck and Anna L. Walters, 1977, Navajo Community College Press, Tsaile (Navajo Nation), AZ.
Nuer Religion, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1956, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Religion in Primitive Culture, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, 1958, Harper Torchbooks, Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York.
Religion in Primitive Society, Edward Norbeck, 1961, Harper and Row Publishers, New York.
The Sociology of Religion 4th edition, Max Weber, 1956, Beacon Press, Boston, MA.
Theories of Primitive Religion, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 1965, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
The Dawn of Belief, Religion in the Upper Paleolithic of Southwestern Europe, D. Bruce Dickson, 1990, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson and London.
The Elemental Forms of the Religious Life, Emile Durkheim, 1915, Reprinted 1965 by The Free Press of Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
Mystery Religions in the Ancient World, Joscelyn Godwin, 1981, Harper and Row Publishers, San Francisco.
Religion Explained, The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Pascal Boyer, 2001, Basic Books, New York, New York.
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