RELIGION: Concepts and Approaches to the Study of Religion

The subject matter of religion is dealt with in anthropology differently from the other disciplines, such as philosophy, theology, comparative religion, religious studies, and so on. It tries to explain not what religion is but why is religion important in the lives of the people. It basically takes people’s perspective and seeks to find out how it is important to the people. There is no society that is known so far without any religious idea. 

Some intellectuals thought that religion will have no place where science and technology flourish, but the reality is to the contrary. Even today in the age of computers, robots and inter-planetary travel religion plays important roles in the lives of people. Anthropologists are trying to know the relevance of religion in human societies whether they are technologically advanced or primitive hunters and gatherers. 

Each culture is unique in its own way and each culture can be studied and described. The recent thinking is that the world can be viewed in multiple ways and, therefore, the representation of culture cannot be monological, authoritative, and bounded. Thus, the anthropological perspective of religion is the way its practitioners see the world, interpret and see themselves different from others.

CONCEPTS OF RELIGION:

The important concepts that appear in the study of religion include supernatural beings - of polytheistic and monotheistic beliefs, forms of religion - animism, animatism, totemism, ritual, myth, religious symbolism, ancestor worship, magic, witchcraft, and sorcery. Each of these concepts is briefly explained below:

=> Supernatural Beings: the supernatural world cannot be explained in causal relations alone. Gods, goddesses, god-lings, dead ancestors, spirits who may be benevolent or malevolent; ghosts, demons, and other forms, which are usually malevolent, and are powerful than human beings in their movements and actions that constitute the world of the supernatural beings. The supernatural beings may be visible at a particular point of time, not for all but for a few, or remain invisible. When society holds a belief in multiple supernatural beings it is called a polytheistic religion. Hinduism is the best example of having a number of gods and goddesses in its pantheon. Monotheistic religions are those having belief in one supreme supernatural being that may be called God or Yahweh or Allah as in the case of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

=> Animism: The term is coined by E. B. Tylor (1871) to describe the belief in soul or life force and personality existing in animate and inanimate objects as well as human beings. Several of the tribal religions hold such beliefs. His theory is that human beings are rational beings, and attempt to interpret mysterious phenomena like sleeping, dreams, and death with the idea of the soul.

=> Animatism: R. R. Marett (1866-1943) considered that humans believed in impersonal forces in nature and certain objects. This sort of belief had created in humans religious feelings of awe, fear, wonder, respect, admiration, and other psychical effects. He believed that primitive man could not distinguish between the natural and supernatural and also between living and dead. This condition that prevailed before the development of the idea of a soul is called animatism, which Marrett named after mana which means power in Polynesia.

=> Naturism: Max Muller contended that since the gods in various societies were originally from natural phenomena, such as sun, thunder, trees, animals, mountains, forests, lakes, rivers, oceans and so on, the human perception of nature must have had very powerful agencies for the origin of religion. Nature was the greatest surprise, a terror, a marvel, a miracle which has also been permanent, constant, and regular occurrences, and these could not be explained with the known facts. 

=> Totemism: It is a system of belief in which certain objects, plants, or animals have kinship relationships with social groups. Such animate and inanimate objects stand as emblems giving identity to the groups and form representations of the groups. They create religious feelings among the members and form the objects of worship, reverence, and sacredness. According to Durkheim, totemism is the earliest form of religion and it is quite prominently found among the Australian tribes, and such phenomena are also noted among the American tribes as well.

=> Taboo: Taboo a Polynesian concept (tabu/tapu) but widely used in anthropological literature. It refers to something, use of which is collected and strictly forbidden in a religious context. The violation of a taboo has different consequences of temporary defilement, crime to be punished, and attracts the sanctions of supernatural beings and so on. 

=> Ritual: Ritual, like religion, is difficult to define due to diverse forms and complexity of the phenomenon. However, one may understand it as a set of formalized actions performed with symbolic value in a socially relevant context or worshiping a deity or cult. It is also a customary observance involving stereotyped behavior.  They involve the participation of one or more individuals, physical movements or actions, verbal and non-verbal, or symbolic modes of communication-based on certain shared knowledge.

=> Myth: Believed to be truthful accounts of the past, the narrative that gives religious sanctity and sacred character to the account, and is often associated with ritual is called myth. Well, all myths may not actually depend on the past and necessarily do not deal with sacred, yet they refer to or hinge upon such putative factors providing social credibility and acceptability of the account.  Myth is different from legend as the characters in the myth are usually not humans. They may be supernatural beings or animals or other animate and inanimate objects and sometimes they are ambiguous characters. Myths generally offer explanations for customs and practices. There is a strong relationship between myth and ritual, and there was a debate as to which came first. It is so because some argued that ritual is the enactment of myth whereas others had argued that myth arises out of rites. The contemporary studies on myths find no strict correspondence between the two.

Cult: 

The concept of the cult is derived from French Culte meaning worship or a particular form of worship. It has been used in both neutral and negative sense. In the neutral sense of the term it means ‘care’, ‘cultivation’, and ‘tended’, it is a deity or idol or image of a saint who is venerated and it is concerned with devotion. However, in the negative sense, it refers to the practice of a deviant religious group or new religious dogma arising out of syncretism, cultural mix of ideas and practices of different religions. The Cargo cults of Melanesia and Papua New Guinea weave Christian doctrine with native beliefs, in which it is believed that the spirits of the dead would bring the manufactured European goods in ships and airplanes.

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM:

In a general sense of the term, a symbol may be an object, picture, written word, sound, idea, and color that represent something else in the association, resemblance, or convention. The religious symbolism refers to the idea of how symbols are employed in a religious context. Cross or Swastika or Crescent Moon are religious symbols found in Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, respectively. Symbols are communicative, convey meanings shared by the community. They are associated with human interests, purposes, ends, and means. The symbols are dynamic as they evoke moods and emotions and create complex philosophical contexts in mind. Sacred art, pictures, drawings, and designs used in ritual and religious contexts convey religious meanings. 

Turner identifies three properties of these religious or ritual symbols: condensation, the unification of disparate significant, and polarised meanings. Condensation means representing many ideas, actions, and meanings into a single symbol. For example, the Shiva Ling is a representation of Lord Shiva, divine destruction, male potency, creation, and so on. The unification of disparate significate means unifying diverse elements as in the case of Ndembu ritual the milk tree representing women’s breasts, motherhood, and the principle of Matriliny, learning, and unity of society. Polarization refers to two distinguishing poles of meanings as Matriliny and Patriliny in the case of the Ndembu puberty ritual.

RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE:

Religious knowledge in most of the cases is institutionalized. It is developed and contained in the form of doctrines and practices which anthropologists categorize as little traditions and great traditions.  Different institutions are developed in these traditions; in the former case

there is shamanism, spirit possession, oracle or prophecy, and in the latter case, there are institutions of formal learning of religious matters, the priesthood of various orders, monasteries, and so on. In little traditions, the knowledge is passed on orally and by subjective experience, whereas in great tradition the literature and sacred texts contain spiritual knowledge.

=> Ancestor Worship: Worship of deities through rituals is though common practice, the ancestor worship is more often associated with the little tradition. The great tradition generally includes the worship of single or multiple deities. However, in Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world, there is the common practice of venerating ancestors; it is believed that the ancestors continue to hold power over their progeny and affect the society. In many of the religious practices, only a few become ancestors and receive ritual attention. Where descent is through males, the ancestors would be male-only. In Matriliny, as in the case of Nayar in India or Ashanti in Africa, the ancestor hood is bestowed upon the mother’s brother who holds jurisdiction over lineage as lineage head. The ancestor worship is an extension of authority over successive generations; it is the supernatural idiom of supportive relationship manifested in religious ideology.

=> Magic and Magician: Often religious practices include or is supplemented by magic. Magic refers to certain activities or methods by which the supernatural is believed to interfere in the affairs of humans and bring about particular outcomes. Magic and religion are closely related to each other, though both can be distinguished. There are similarities between the two as both are related to supernatural, rich in symbolism, and involve in rituals, and yet there are differences.  In Contagious magic, a body part of an animal or anything that belongs to a person under the magical spell affects the animal or the person. In some societies, the claw of tiger when worn as garland makes a man skilled hunter or an amulet having the image of god keeps away the bad spirits or demons.

=> Witchcraft and Sorcery: Magic is mostly used for the public good, witchcraft and sorcery are used for harming the individuals, and seen as anti-social. Black magic is equated with witchcraft and sorcery, and these have the negative sanction of the society and individuals on whom it is practiced. The witch is distinguished from the sorcerer by the fact that the source of supernatural in the case of a witch remains in the body of the witch that is often inherited also. The sorcerer acquires the art and does not necessarily pass on to the next generation. The witch generally wills in death and destruction, whereas the sorcerer performs magical rites to achieve evil ends. These religious phenomena are found in many parts of the world, including the scientifically and technologically developed countries. 

=> Evil Eye: The belief in an evil eye states that some individuals with an evil eye cause illness or some misfortune by simply looking at others. This explanation is mostly offered when children become sick in several societies. It is not only by looking but also by praise or any complimentary comments. The victims of the evil eye are mostly children. In some cases when a prosperous individual or household suddenly encounters misfortunes, people attribute it to the evil eye. Dundes (1981:266-267) identifies some structural principles that operate in the concept of an evil eye. Life depends on nonrenewable resources like semen, milk, blood, saliva, etc. which are liquid, and drying them up cause illness, which is due to the evil eye.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION:

After introducing various concepts found in religious discourses, we draw your attention to the anthropological theories about religion. These include evolutionary, psychological, functional, Marxist, and symbolic perspectives.

=> Evolutionary Perspective: Like so much else in anthropology, the study of the religious notions of primitive people arose within the context of evolutionary theory. Besides their evolutionary assumption about religion, the followers of evolutionary theory show overwhelming Eurocentric biases. But it is true that they made valuable contributions to the study of religion. For Durkheim, evolutionary advancement consists of the emergence of specific, analytic, profane ideas about the ‘cause’ or ‘category’ or ‘relationship’ from diffuse, global, sacred images. These ‘collective representations,’ as he calls them, of the social order and its moral force included such sacra as ‘mana’, ‘totem’, and ‘god’ (Sills, 1968). The above postulates on religion come from intellectual theorization made from the existing reports, travelogues, and Christian missionary works. 

Anthropologists like Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Alfred Kroeber discredit the speculative evolutionary perspective and seek explanations for similarities of rituals, myths, and symbols found in different cultures through culture contact. For them, cultural dispersion, instead of independent evolution of religious thoughts and actions, is the reason for such similarities. They emphasize the need for understanding culture as an integrated whole and interpreting the cultural elements in that pattern, including the religious activities, in a meaningful way.

=> Psychological Approach: Few years before World War I, there was the rise of systematic psychologism of psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. His thesis is that religious rituals and beliefs are homologous with neurotic symptoms (Eriksen, 1950). According to him, a deep subconscious psychological conflict within social groups is responsible for the development of religion. The psychological approach has been superseded by the functionalist approach but recently the significance of psychology once again came to light in a different route as symbolic anthropology. The context is that there has been a considerable discussion on ‘primitive thought’ which is different from that of the ‘modern rational thought’. 

=> Functionalist Approach: Various forms of functionalism in anthropology—which focus on social patterns and institutions with reference to their functions in the larger cultural context— have proved to illuminate for a wider understanding of religion. This has helped to discover interrelations between differing aspects of religion as it connects various institutions. Functionalism emphasizes on the interrelations between the various elements of a social system, and, therefore, pays less attention to evolutionary origins and the notion of “survivals” – the continuation of primitive elements in a culture. Society is seen as a self-regulating system in which religion, economic organization, and kinship form parts of an organic whole.

=> Structuralist Approach: Rejecting functionalist, sociological, and psychological approaches as being too light in interpreting mythology, Levi-Strauss’ (1958) new “structuralism” posited a universal logical pattern to the human mind and in this perspective religion is of a totally different phenomenon in nature. He points out that although anthropologists have tried studying mythology it has not been successful as myths are still widely interpreted in conflicting ways: as collective dreams, as the outcome of a kind of esthetical play, or as the basis of ritual. Mythological figures are considered as personified abstractions, divinized heroes, or fallen gods. 

=> Marxist Approach: Karl Marx has been an influential theorist who was very critical of religion, and his approach depicts religion and religious belief as fictions that support the status quo and that maintained class differences. Religion reflects the false consciousness of people that diverts their attention from the miseries of their lives. It is the outcome of human distress that may have been the consequence of humanity’s struggle with nature in the past, but now it is a way to get along with the capitalist culture. He said, “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.” 

=> Symbolic Approach: Evans-Pritchard (1956) first recognized the symbolic aspect of religion, and this has inspired several anthropologists to approach religion through symbols, the meanings given by the participants to the elements of religion and rituals, and interpretations that anthropologists can offer. Victor Turner (1967), Mary Douglas (1970), and Clifford Geertz (1973) are the important anthropologists that have contributed to our understanding of religion from a symbolic perspective.

The functional and symbolic approaches have dominated the anthropological study of religion in the late twentieth century as researchers have become increasingly concerned with the concept of meaning. Biological, neurological, and cognitive approaches, which have not been dealt with here, are gradually gaining popularity and may dominate future studies in the anthropology of religion.

Conclusion

The anthropology of religion has been concerned with the significance of religion and its role in the lives of people in belief and practice, whether they are technologically less or more advanced. Given its complexity informs, variations, and practices no precise definition could be given, and as such the anthropologists have developed new concepts and used some known terms with specific meanings in the discourse of comprehending religion. In order to explain this universal phenomenon, the anthropologists offered various theoretical perspectives, and some of them considered include evolutionary, psychological, functional, structural, Marxist, and symbolism. While all these frameworks attempt to explain religion in their own terms and tried to grasp the reality, no single framework explains everything.