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Systems of Religious and Spiritual
Belief
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Animism is the belief in innumerable
spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming
men's interests. Animistic beliefs were first competently surveyed by Sir
Edward Burnett Tylor in a work, Primitive
Culture(1871), to which is owed the continued currency of the term. While
none of the "great" religions of the world is animistic (though they
may contain some animistic elements), most of the "little" religions,
those of the tribal (or "primitive") peoples, are. For this reason an ethnographic
understanding of animism, based on field studies of the tribal peoples, is no
less important than a theoretical one, concerned with the nature or origin of
religion. |
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The term animism denotes not a single
creed or doctrine but a view of the world consistent with a certain range of
religious beliefs and practices, many of which may survive in more complex and
hierarchical religions. Modern scholarship's concern with animism is coeval with
the problem of rational or scientific understanding of religion itself. After
the age of exploration, Europe's best information on the newly discovered
peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania often came from Christian
missionaries. While generally unsympathetic to what was regarded as
"primitive superstition," some missionaries in the 19th century
developed a scholarly interest in beliefs that seemed to represent an early type
of religious creed, inferior but ancestral to their own. It is this interest
that was crystallized by Tylor in Primitive
Culture, the greater part of which is given over to the description of
exotic religious behaviour. To the intellectuals of that time, profoundly
affected by Darwin's new biology, animism seemed a key to the primitive
mind--man's intellect at the earliest knowable stage of cultural
evolution. Present-day thinkers consider this view to be rooted in a
profoundly mistaken premise. All contemporary cultures and religions are
regarded as comparable in the sense of reflecting a fully evolved human
intelligence capable of learning the arts of the most advanced society. The
religious ideas of the "stone-age" hunters interviewed in this century
have been far from simple. |
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Since the "great" religions of
the world have all evolved in historic times, it may be assumed that animistic
emphases dominated the globe in the prehistoric era. In societies lacking any
doctrinal establishment, a closed system of beliefs was less likely to flourish
than an open one. There is, however, no ground for supposing that polytheistic
and monotheistic ideas were excluded. But what is plain today--that no
historically given creed has an inevitable appeal to the educated mind--had
scarcely gained a place in scholarly argument 100 years ago. |
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For Tylor the concept of animism was an
answer to the question, "What is the most rudimentary form of religion
which may yet bear that name?" He had learned to doubt scattered reports of
peoples "so low in culture as to have no religious conceptions
whatever"--he thought religion was present in all cultures, properly
observed, and might turn out to be present everywhere. Far from supposing
religion of some kind to be a cornerstone of all culture, however, he
entertained the idea of a pre-religious stage in the evolution of cultures and
believed that a tribe in that stage might be found. To proceed in a systematic
study of the problem, he required a "minimum definition of religion"
and found it in "the Belief in Spiritual Beings." If it could be shown
that no people was devoid of such minimal belief, then it would be known that
all of mankind already had passed the threshold into "the religious state
of culture." |
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But, if animism was ushered in as a
"minimum definition," it became the springboard for a broad survey.
Although anthropology in Tylor's day was mainly an "armchair" science,
through wide and critical reading he had developed a good sense for what was
credible in the ethnographic sources of his day. He assembled an array of cases
and arranged them in series from what seemed to him the simplest or earliest to
the most complex or recent. In this way he taught that religion had evolved from
a "doctrine of souls"
arising from spontaneous reflection upon death, dreams, and apparitions to a
wider "doctrine of spirits," which eventually expanded to embrace
powerful demons and gods. A fundamental premise was "that the idea of
souls, demons, deities, and any other classes of spiritual beings, are
conceptions of similar nature throughout, the conceptions of souls being the
original ones of the series." Tylor asserted that men everywhere would be
impressed by the vividness of dream
images and would reason that dreams of dead kin or of distant friends were proof
of the existence of souls. The simple belief in these spiritual beings
independent of natural bodies would, he thought, expand to include more
elaborate religious doctrines, accompanied by rites designed to influence
powerful spirits and so control important natural events. |
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While Tylor offered no special theory
for this expansion and so avoided most of the traps of early social
evolutionism, he taught that cultures moved, though not along any single path,
from simpler to more complex forms. The direction of movement was shown by the
survival of animism in muted but recognizable forms (including most " superstitions"
and many expressions such as "a spirit of disobedience" or common
words like "genius") in the advanced civilization of his own day. This
"development theory" he championed against the so-called degradation
theory, which held that the religion of remote peoples could only have spread to
them from centres of high culture, such as early Egypt, becoming
"degraded" in the process of transfer. Tylor showed that animistic
beliefs exhibit great variety and often are uniquely suited to the cultures and
natural settings in which they are found. |
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In retrospect, Tylor seems more balanced
in his judgments than later writers who constructed the problem of "minimal
religion" in a narrower frame. Tylor's greatest limitation was
self-imposed, since he narrowed his attention to what may be called the
cognitive aspects of animism, leaving aside "the religion of vision and
passion." Tylor took animism in its simplest manifestation to be a
"crude childlike natural philosophy" that led men to a "doctrine
of universal vitality" whereby "sun and stars, trees and rivers, winds
and clouds, become personal animate creatures." But his cognitive emphasis
led him to understate the urgent practicality of the believer's concern with the
supernatural. Tylor's men are "armchair primitives" (the creatures of
"armchair anthropologists"), not real men caught in the toils of
discord, disease, and fear of perdition. |
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Tylor thought the idea of the human soul
must have been the elementary religious idea and the model for all other
supernatural beings. Later scholars, responding to evidence of simpler beliefs
that yet entailed a properly religious awe toward the sacred, began to debate
the probability of a "pre-animistic stage" of theological evolution.
Corresponding to this turn in religious studies was a shift in anthropology
toward a concern with "primitive thought" and, in particular, the
explanation of religion as intellectual error. Émile
Durkheim, a French sociologist, in his Elementary
Forms of the Religious Life(1915), held that religion originated in totemism,
conceiving that identification with a totem animal could result from an
irrational projection of men's expectations of security in the bosom of society.
He thought such collective projections were more solidly based in the human
condition than the "hallucinations" (dreams) that Tylor had supposed
must lead to the ideas of soul and supernatural being. Durkheim has been
criticized for not seeing totemism as only one animistic cult among many, with
special implications as an organizational schema but not "elementary."
(See below, Totemism
.) |
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English and German theorists conceived
the invention of religion in more pragmatic terms: attempting to extend his
control of nature beyond the limits his crude science imposed, man had invented
supernatural power-- magic.
The most prolific scholar of this persuasion was Sir
James G. Frazer, who argued in his massive work The
Golden Bough(1890-1915) that "the magic art" had arisen as a
pseudo-science, probably had achieved universality before the emergence of
religion, and was more firmly rooted than religion in men's beliefs. He thought
intelligent men had become disillusioned with earthly magicians and had invented
infallible ones--gods. Frazer's work ranged over classical mythology
and savage custom without distinction. Finding parallel traditions everywhere,
he compiled a massive testament to the psychic unity of mankind. The myriad
structures of both magic and religion that he surveyed all could be reduced to
transparent intellectual error. The apparent mystery of religion was virtually
explained away, for, if magic had become man-centred religion and religion
god-centred magic, there was little to choose between them. |
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Since Frazer accepted the common notion
that the sign of religion is man's humility before the gods and held that magic
put man in the ascendancy, it followed that wherever the supernatural beings
could be tricked, bribed, or otherwise mastered the system of beliefs was
magical. This obscured Tylor's clear "minimum definition of religion"
and threw an odd light on what he had called "lower animism," the
belief in spirits that men with ritual knowledge can master. Any self-confident
ritual act--for example, the Eskimo hunter's ritual control of game spirits or
the shaman's cure of a grave affliction--had become magical and so transparently
egoistic. The result for an ensuing generation of anthropologists was loss of
focus upon the religions encountered in the field. Tylor had found animistic
beliefs generally devoid of ethical content even when centred in men's urgent
needs. Frazer, interjecting the image of the primitive magician with illusions
of unlimited power, made it difficult to grant animistic religion even Tylor's
minimum of dignity. (see also "Rite of
Spring, The," ) |
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Frazer had identified Melanesia
as an area in which, by his terms, magic dominated over religion. An admirer, Bronislaw
Malinowski, was able to accomplish a thorough ethnographic study of the Trobriand
Islanders in Melanesia during World War I, and it was Malinowski who dominated
European ideas about the intimate life of "primitive man" in the
following decades. Viewing his islanders within the frame of ideas Frazer had
provided, Malinowski pictured them as secular in outlook. In numerous works on
the Trobriand Islanders, published through the 1920s and 1930s, there was to be
scarcely a mention of religion as such. The belief in spirits appeared only as
mythical background to magical practices connected with gardening and seafaring
and with a ceremonial cycle in which the competition for prestige was dominant.
The effect was to reduce religion to its pragmatic and social aspects, thus
de-emphasizing the very peculiarities of human belief and experience that first
attracted men such as Tylor to the study of "primitives." |
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While it is futile to seek cases of
animism in "pure," "minimal," or "elementary"
form, some social contexts are undeniably simpler than others, and it may be
tempting to suppose that the religions found in those contexts would follow
suit. On that principle, however, nomads such as the Australian
Aborigines might be supposed (as they were supposed by Durkheim) to enjoy
an uncomplicated religious life, but this is emphatically not the case. What
complicates Australian religions is an elaborate ceremonialism not usually found
in nomadic societies. Ceremonialism
generally can be treated as an emphasis in the area of expressive behaviour,
usually consistent with the animistic world view and unlikely to displace it.
While it is an emphasis most common among agriculturists, its presence among
nomads is by no means confined to Australia. Though there is no reason to
suppose that ceremony is of any more recent origin than any other way of
expressing man's relation to the spirit world, animistic religions (religious
systems in which animism plays an essential role) can be sorted into those with
and those without a ceremonial emphasis, and, in this formal sense, the latter
are the simpler. The salient characteristic of all animistic religions is their particularism,
a quality opposite to the universalism of the "great religions," which
conceive man as subject to global powers and personal destiny. |
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Particularism is evident in the number
and variety of spirits recognized and in the peculiar scope attributed to each.
The pre-Christian Sami of Scandinavia have sometimes been called fetishists
because they propitiated nature spirits as well as personally named gods and
demons. The nature spirits were generally benevolent and always localized. They
could be addressed in particular objects, such as stones or posts, which men
would set up in likely places. The few personally venerated spirits (gods) were
identified with thunder, sun, moon, hunting, childbirth, and the winds. Evil
spirits might be incarnate in animal or monstrous forms and could cause disease
or other misfortune. In Minnesota-Ontario the Ojibwa
world was animated by a great number of eternal spirits (manitous),
all of about equal rank, represented in trees, food plants, birds, animals,
celestial bodies, winds, and wonders of every description. Besides these
esteemed spirits were other categories, which were dreaded: ghosts, monsters,
and the windigo (a crazed
man-eating ogre), who brought madness (a cannibalistic psychosis). The list of
creatures, places, attributes, and events that could be treated as totems in
Australia would be quite similar. The Buryat
of Lake Baikal in Siberia, living on the fringes of empire (Mongolian and
Chinese), developed an elaborate social order and viewed the spirit world as the
twin of their own, organized in the same way into noble, commoner, and slave
ranks. At death a man passed over to the other world, assuming his proper rank
and acquiring fresh power over men, which he might exercise well or ill in
accordance with his character in life. Evil men, as it were, became devils and
great men gods. (see also rite, afterlife) |
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In particularistic religions there is a
range of spirits, from sojourning ghosts and mortal witches to perennial beings,
whose natures and dispositions to man are attributed by categories (e.g.,
mermaids and leprechauns are both usually pictured as irresponsible), but in
action individual spirits are independent of one another. If some spirits may be
called gods, they do not constitute a ruling pantheon, for men do not conceive
that any supernaturals enjoy comprehensive control of events. In animism,
spirits represent particularistic powers and must be handled accordingly.
Typically, men's primary emphasis is on avoidance of trouble, and this is the
meaning of the many taboos and
propitiatory observances, of
an almost mechanical nature, that abound in some societies. When trouble is at
last encountered, the responsible witch, demon, or disgruntled spirit must be
identified, and this is the task of the diviner. The cure may rely upon ritual
cleansing, propitiation, or even the overpowering of the malevolent force
through supernatural counteragency--the specialty of the shaman.
Judging that an animal will not mind being killed if it is not offended
ritually, Eskimos take various
precautions before, during, and after the hunt. The rationale lies in the belief
that animal spirits exist independent of bodies and are reborn: an offended
animal will later lead his companions away so that the hunter may starve. If, in
spite of their precautions, men are left without game, a shaman may be called to
discover the transgression that has offended an animal spirit--or perhaps he may
find that he must do battle with a malevolent being controlled by a rival shaman
willing the community harm. (see also divination, hunting
and gathering society) |
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Ceremonialism, when its emphasis is upon
feasting, exchange, and display, may be secular in its emphasis, as is the case
in much of Melanesia and New Guinea;
or if religious, it may be associated with totemic or ancestral cults, as in
Australia or Africa, the expressive emphasis of which is on social ties rather
than on the quality of relations between men and the supernaturals. Finally,
ceremony may be used directly to dramatize the role of the spirits in men's
lives, as it is by the Pueblo peoples of Arizona-New Mexico. At their height,
the Pueblo ceremonial cycles were as rich as any in the world. Supernaturals
were elaborately impersonated by the dancers, and the human condition was
portrayed as one of dependency. But, for all this, particularism was not greatly
compromised. The supernaturals were many and were represented in a realistic
manner emphasizing their differences from ordinary men. The style was that of
mummery and conjuring, consciously put on by grown-ups as a sort of morality
play. There was no sense of incongruity in the fact that neighbouring pueblos
cultivated other sets of spirits. In some pueblos, separate clan societies had
complete charge of the ceremonial calendar and formally controlled communication
with the supernatural, even to selecting the member who might be curer in case
of an illness. But such a step toward ecclesiasticism in a very small community
could not greatly affect its animistic premises, and witchcraft
prevailed without the blessing of the ceremonial societies. (see also Pueblo Indians, clericalism) |
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When the fullness and versatility of all
these religions is considered, without any need to press them into simplified
categories or evolutionary stages, it can be seen that openness, not narrowness,
of doctrine is a general feature of animism. Wherever it is found, it is a
grass-roots religion, not a doctrinaire one imposed from above. Ecclesiasticism
may coexist with animism, as in China or Burma, where there are no pre-eminent
gods whose universal claims presuppose mastery of the whole supernatural world.
But the most likely context of animism is an uncentralized social order in which
secular power is not developed and each local settlement is at the focus of its
own world. |
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Part of the conceptual difficulty
experienced both in anthropology and in the history of religions, when animism
is to be placed among other systems of belief, springs not from the early
association of animism with a speculative theory of religious evolution but
directly from the huge variety of animistic cults. As a category, Tylor's
concept is more general than either polytheism or monotheism, and its meaning is
harder to delimit--the word applies broadly to most of the "little
religions" but suggests nothing of their varieties. For this reason, much
use is made of subordinate labels, such as shamanism, totemism, or ancestor
propitiation. These cults do not, in any case, constitute the whole religion of
a people. They are, however, institutions that are not bound to one culture
area--an Australian totemic cult does bear a "family resemblance" to
an African one, though their differences also are many. Shamanism, with its
reliance on ecstasy, is found from Greenland to Mysore, and the propitiation of
ancestors is not restricted to Africa and the Far East. It has long been
recognized that the frequent recurrence of institutions fitting a certain
pattern implies that there is a radically limited number of possible patterns,
and, in this case, the premises of animism evidently have imposed the
limitation. Animism attributes importance to categories of supernatural being
whose individual members are attached to particular places and persons or
resident in particular creatures and are autonomous in their dealings. In such a
system, each human encounter with the supernatural must work itself out as a
distinct episode. Even where ceremonialism emphasizes an enduring moral
relationship to certain supernaturals, men are likely to conceive of alternative
powers to which they might seek at need. In a crisis, loyalties may shift: in
West Africa, gods have been sold to neighbouring villages, and, in Melanesia, a
vision of European trade goods has inspired a series of new millenarian cults.
The quality of openness lends itself to change and eclecticism,
hardly ever to religious chauvinism. (see also ancestor
worship) |
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Animistic creeds have in common an
undertaking on the part of men to communicate with supernatural beings, not
about metaphysics or the dilemmas of the moral life but about urgent
practicalities: about securing food, curing illness, and averting danger. It is
characteristic that genuine worship of a supernatural hardly is found. Creator
gods often appear in myth but not in cult. In ancestor cults the most recently
dead are the most vividly conceived--the original clan ancestor, for all his
symbolic importance, is remote both from men and from godhead. If animistic
spirits anywhere exercise authority, they do so in particularistic, even
egoistic fashion, sanctioning men for ritual neglect or breaking taboos, not for
acts of moral neglect or secular offense. Animistic religions do not readily
coalesce with systems of political authority and probably do not favour their
development. When it is asked whether the association of animism with smaller
and simpler societies proves it the natural (original) religion, the answer can
only be that it is not known (and perhaps not knowable) what a prehuman or
panhuman religion would be like. The problem is as difficult as reconstructing
protohuman speech. If religion is taken as a pattern of serious relations
between men and supernaturals, then societies devoid of religion have not been
found, and it may perhaps be concluded that religion is usually close to the
vital centre of a culture, where the credibility of institutions is determined.
The view of all nature as animated by invisible spirits--be it shades, demons,
fairies, or fates--with which men could cope in meaningful ways may belong to
the past, but philosophies that attribute powers of initiative and
responsiveness to nature have not gone out of currency. The lesson of the study
of animism is perhaps that religion did not arise, as some of Tylor's successors
believed, out of Urdummheit ("primal
ignorance") or delusions of magical power but out of men's ironic awareness
of a good life that they are unable, by earthly means, to grasp and hold.
Animistic beliefs have everywhere engaged men's susceptibility to private vision
and enabled them to cope with it at the level of accepted meaning. (G.K.P.) |
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