Anthropological debates on origin

1
Anthropological debates on origin

• 02.10.2003

2
Readings

• Durkheim, E. 1995 1912. The Elementary Forms of
  the Religious Life. New York The Free Press, pp.
  1-12, 34-44, 419-22. (Abridged versions reprinted
  in Lessa and Vogt Lambek)
• Tylor, E.B. 1873. Primitive Culture. London John
  Murray, Chapter 11. (Reprinted in abridged form
  as Animism in Lessa and Vogt)

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Theory

• 1) The study of origin
• 2) The study of function
• 3) The study of meaning

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Discussion topics

• Roots of evolutionary approach to religion
• Darwin, Comte, Hegel, Engels
• Friedrich Max Müller
• Herbert Spencer
• Sir Edward B. Tylor
• Sir James Frazer
• Emile Durkheim

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Roots of evolutionary approach to religion (I)

• Charles Darwin
• The Origin of Species (1859)
• theory of biological evolution
• Led to the interest in social evolution

6
Roots of evolutionary approach to religion (II)

• 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.

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Roots of evolutionary approach to religion (III)

• Hegel Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
  (1821-31)
• No religious belief and rite should be rejected
  as superstition, error, and deceit
• One should get to know what is rational in
  them.
• three phases of religious consciousness
• 1) The religion of nature (Die Naturreligion).
• 2) The religions of spiritual individuality
• 3) Christianity

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Hegel (I)

• Die Naturreligion
• Spirit is not distinct from nature
• Magic is the most immediate form of this phase
  of religion.
• Chinese religion, Hinduism and Buddhism
• more developed forms of this phase
• In Zoroastrianism - first signs of the emergence
  of the spiritual element of subjectivity out of
  nature

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Hegel (II)

• The religions of spiritual individuality
• spirit a personal deity independent of the
  natural world
• Jewish, Greek, and Roman religions
• religions of sublimity, beauty, and utility
• God as a transcendental being above the finite
  world of humans and nature

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Hegel (III)

• Christianity
• the separation between God and finite world is
  both annulled and preserved
• aufgehoben

11
Engels (I)

• Anti-Dühring (1878)
• All religion is nothing but the fantastic
  reflection in mens minds of those external
  forces which control their daily life
• 1) Personification of the forces of nature
• 2) Personification of social forces
• 3) One almighty god monotheism

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Engels (II)

• links religion to social conditions
• E.g. Christianity
• originally a movement of oppressed people
• arose in the subjected communities of the Roman
  Empire
• religion will disappear when social conditions
  that give rise to it have ceased to exist ( when
  communism is achieved).

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Evolutionary approach to religion

• Second half of the 19th century
• Are there peoples without religion?
• Sir Samuel Baker (1866)
• the Nilotic peoples
• Religion often treated as
• an illusion
• an absurd
• an intellectual aberration
• used against Christianity

14
Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900)
15
Müller (I)

• Regarded as the father of comparative religion
• a linguist and a leading Sanskrit scholar
• famous for his translations of the Vedic
  scriptures
• the Sacred Books of the East (fifty volumes)
• Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873)

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Müller (II)

• belief in divinity is universal
• there is truth in all religions, even in the
  lowest.
• Heathen religion - not the work of the devil
  but rather undeveloped conceptions of god
• However childish a religion may be, it always
  places the human soul in the presence of god
• Müllers views were taken up in a modified former
  by later Catholic anthropologists of the
  Kulturkreis school
• argued that the earlier forms of religion were
  monotheistic

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Müller (III)

• focus on religion of the Vedic scriptures - the
  earliest form
• We see in the Vedic hymns the first revelation
  of Deity, the first expressions of surprise and
  suspicion, the first discovery that behind this
  visible and perishable world there must be
  something invisible, eternal or divine. No one
  who has read the hymns of the Rig-Veda can doubt
  any longer as to what was the origin of the
  earliest Aryan religion and mythologyThe
  deities very names tell us that they were all
  in the beginning names of the great phenomenon of
  nature, of fire, water, rain and storm, of sun
  and moon, of heaven and earth.
• The idea of the divine the infinite is
  derived from sensory experience
• experience of awe in the face of mighty forces of
  nature
• first religious conceptions were derived from the
  personification of natural phenomena.
• naturism

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Müller (IV)

• Criticised by many (eg. folklorist Andrew Lang
  and Durkheim)
• never had the influence comparable to Spencers
  and Tylors

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Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
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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

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Spencer (II)

• 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

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Spencer (III)

• 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

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Sir Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917)
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Tylor (I)

• Müller and Spencer armchair scholars
• Tylor traveled, especially in Mexico
• a Quaker by religion, and deeply anti-Catholic

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Tylor (II)

• Primitive Culture (1872)
• minimal definition of religion
• belief in spiritual beings animism
• 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?
• the notion of a human soul or spirit is universal
  
• frequent linguistic connection between certain
  ideas - for example, shadow, life, breath and
  the religious concepts of soul and spirit

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Tylor (III)

• 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

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Tylor (IV) - conclusions

• 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.

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Tylor (V) - criticism

• The idea of primitive monotheism
• Andrew Lang
• the conception of high God evident in many
  tribal communities.
• Father Wilhelm Schmidt
• The Origin and Growth of Religion (1912)
• Urmonotheismus argument
• monotheism evident among the most archaic
  peoples (the Tasmanian and the Andaman Islanders)
  
• such beliefs had later become overlaid with
  polytheistic conceptions

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Tylor (VI) - criticism

• 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
  magico-religious conception of sacred power
• orenda among the Iroquois
• mana in Melanesia
• preanimistic stage of religion.

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Sir James Frazer (1854-1951)
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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
• This view is wrong according to many contemporary
  anthropologists)

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Rationalism vs functionalism in debates on origin

• Müller, Spencer, Tylor and Frazer rationalistic
  explanation of the origins of religion
• the idea of religion sprang from rational
  inferences based on individual human experiences
  of oneself or the world
• Durkheim functionalist explanation of the
  origins of religion

33
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
34
Durkheim general (I)

• evolutionary approach to social life in general
• dichotomy between mechanical and organic
  solidarity
• i.e. Traditional and modern societies
• traditional societies
• low division of labor,
• the social structure consisted of a system of
  homogeneous segments
• integration achieved by a common value system
  (identical beliefs and sentiments)
• collective norms maintained by repressive
  sanctions

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Durkheim general (II)

• Modern societies
• high division of labor
• social groups and institutions are heterogeneous
• solidarity is the outcome not of shared beliefs
  but of mutual interdependence
• legal sanctions are restitutive rather than
  repressive

36
Durkheim general (III)

• In his theory of religion, Durkheim influenced by
• Fustel de Coulanges
• W. Robertson Smith

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Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889)
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Fustel de Coulanges

• French historian
• The Ancient City
• on the relationship between religion and social
  life in classical antiquity
• Early ancient society
• organized around the joint family or patrilineage
  
• Held together by ancestral cult
• head of the family acted as a priest
• ancient city, rather than the family, became the
  primary social institution Deification of
  nature

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William Robertson Smith (1846-1894)
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W. Robertson Smith (I)

• The Religion of the Semites (1889)
• Semitic societies of ancient Arabia
• consisted of matrilineal clans
• each had a relationship to a species of animal
  (totem)
• clan totemism - the earliest form of religion
• act of sacrifice as the main ritual
• an attempt to establish communion with the deity
• communication between the god and his worshipers
  by joint participation in eating sacramental meal
  expression of unity and solidarity, binding
  clan members to each other and to their god.

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W. Robertson Smith (II)

• Important conclusions for Durkheim
• Emphasis on religion in terms of the social group
  rather than as a form of speculative thought
• In primitive religion, ritual has primacy over
  beliefs
• Interpretation of rituals primarily with respect
  to their social function in binding people
  together in the community.
• religion did not exist for saving of souls but
  for the preservation and welfare of society.

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Durkheim (I)

• The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
• It is necessary to study religion in its most
  primitive and simple form
• followed McLennan and Robertson-Smith -
  totemism as the earliest form of religion.
• although an atheist, unwilling to believe that so
  widespread human institution as religion was
  based on pure illusion.
• felt that even the most barbaric and fantastic
  religious rites and myths must be based on some
  human need.

43
Durkheim (II)

• focused on the religion of the Australian
  aborigines (totemism)
• the studies by Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillin.
• unwilling to define religion specifically in
  terms of the supernatural or the extraordinary
• dissatisfied with Tylors minimal definition of
  religion as a belief in spiritual beings.
• E.g. Buddhism a religion, but the idea of gods
  and spirits are absent.
• There is a need for a broader definition of
  religion

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Durkheim (III)

• the sacred is essential to religion
• All known religious beliefs, whether simple or
  complex, present one common characteristic they
  presuppose a classification of all the things,
  real or ideal, of which men think into two
  classes generally designated by two distinct
  terms which are translated well enough by the
  words profane and sacred.
• Sacred ? divine
• Not just gods and spirits but also rocks, trees
  etc.
• What makes something sacred is not connection to
  the divine but prohibitions setting it apart
  from the profane

45
Durkheim (IV)

• Durkheims classic definition of religion
• a unified set of beliefs and practices relative
  to sacred things, that is to say, things set
  apart and forbidden, - beliefs and practices
  which unite one single moral community all
  those who adhere to them.
• religion is essentially a collective thing,
• religion is inseparable from the idea of cult or
  moral community
• Contrary to magic that is an individualistic
  enterprise

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Durkheim (V)

• criticizes the two leading theories of religion
• animism of Spencer and Tylor
• naturism of Müller
• both attempt to derive the idea of the sacred out
  of sensations aroused by natural phenomena,
  either physical or biological.
• animists - the origin of religion is derived from
  dream experiences
• naturists - experience of awe in the face of
  mighty forces of nature
• Durkheim is highly critical of such empiricism
• gives religious notions an illusory status.
• ancestral cults take a developed form only in
  China, Egypt and the Greek and Latin cities
• the elementary form of religous life is
  totemism

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Durkheim (VI)

• totemism among the aborigines a complex of
  beliefs, taboos and rituals with certain
  underlying features
• cult groups (initiated men), that meet to perform
  rituals at totemic sites that are deemed sacred
  (associated with certain ancestral spirits or
  mythical beings).
• Each group is associated with a specific totem
  (usually an animal species)
• there are dietary restrictions associated with
  such species
• Each totemic group has a collection of ritual
  objects (eg. churingas)

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Durkheim (VII)

• sources of the sacred
• 1) totemic emblem essential to totemic belief
• a design that represents the clans totemic
  entity
• confers sacredness to whatever it is marked on
• marks the sacred away from the profane (cannot be
  touched etc)
• 2) totemic entity animal or plant species
• dietary prohibitions
• 3) human clan members
• use of blood and bodily parts in the rituals

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Durkheim (IX)

• totemism not essentially about the totemic entity
  or the emblem but about the clan itself
• the experience of the social group alone can
  generate in people intense feelings that sustain
  religion
• totemic religion arose from collective tribal
  life style

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Durkheim (X)

• Discussion of ritual / mass gatherings
• ritual events - generate a heightened emotional
  state - delirium or collective effervescence
  
• The function of rituals
• to strengthen the bonds attaching the believer to
  god
• to strengthen the bonds attaching the individual
  to the social group
• Through ritual, the group becomes conscious of
  itself.

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Durkheim (XI)

• Some major critical objections to Durkheim
• Too rigid separation between the sacred and the
  profane
• many hunter-gatheres like the Andamanese lack
  corporate kin groups and totems but do have
  religion (Goldenweiser)
• religion establishes and reaffirms group
  solidarity and has symbolic significance for a
  society.
• But society is not a homogeneous entity but
  divided into social categories based on sex,
  class, ethnic affiliation etc.
• religious beliefs may have an ideological
  function legitimating the domination of one group
  or class over another (Giddens)

52
Weber

• A unifying theme of Webers sociology is the
  notion of the progressive rationalization of life
  as the main directional trend of Western society.
  Like Marx, Spencer and Durkheim, Weber was
  essentially an evolutionary thinker and was
  preoccupied with the dissolution of traditional
  European culture and society, the rise of modern
  science and industrial capitalism, and the
  increasing bureaucratization and political
  centralization.

53
Weber

• Webers writings on the sociology of religion,
  leaving aside the essays on the Protestant ethic,
  fall into two categories
• First there are Collected Essays in the Sociology
  of Religion which, includes Webers most
  important discussions of the religions of China,
  India and ancient Palestine
• Second there is an important section entitled The
  Sociology of Religion that forms a part of
  Webers vast systematic treatise Economy and
  Society.

54
Weber

• Unlike Durkheim, Weber refused to define
  religion. Definition of such a complex phenomenon
  as religion can be attempted, Weber suggests,
  only at the conclusion of a study. But he implies
  that a belief in the supernatural is universal
  and found in all early forms of society. Tribal
  religion, however, although relatively rational
  Weber considered to be essentially magical and
  ritualistic and oriented toward this world.
  Elementary forms of religion, he suggests are
  focused on mundane, worldly concerns health,
  rain making, prosperity. Thus, he writes
• religious or magical behavior or thinking must
  not be set apart from the range of everyday
  purposive conduct, particularly since even the
  ends of religious and magical acts are
  predominately economic.
• The distinction, therefore, between natural
  causation and magic is a modern one that is not
  applicable to preliterate thought, which implies
  a different kind of distinction, namely the
  degree to which objects and persons are endowed
  with extraordinary powers. Weber used the term
  charisma to refer to such powers. Folk concepts
  such as orenda and mana refer to this
  natural endowment. Weber suggests, then that
  preliterate thought is essentially naturalistic
  and preanimistic.

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Weber

• The oldest of all vocations, therefore, Weber
  suggests, is that of the diviner, the magician or
  shaman who is permanently endowed with charisma
  and who, though the induction of narcotics and
  other procedures, is able to experience ecstatic
  states. The concept of soul, Weber argues, is by
  no means universal and is denied even by
  religions of salvation like Buddhism. Rather, the
  ideas such as the soul and spiritual concepts
  such as gods and demons develop as part of a
  process whereby magic is transformed from a
  direct manipulation of forces into a symbolic
  activity.

56
Weber

• Weber therefore saw a preanimistic naturalism
  as being transformed into mythological
  thinking, a pattern of thought that is the
  basis of the fully developed circle of symbolic
  concepts. The importance of analogy is stressed
  in this substantive evolution of culture, which
  implies an unalterable cosmic order. Analogical
  thinking originated in the region of magic, which
  is based completely on analogy, rationalized into
  symbolism.
• With the development of culture, this implied, as
  in Roman religion, that each spirit had a
  specialized function, although Weber did not see
  any simple relationship between religious
  concepts and social patterns. It could not be
  argued, he suggests, that the development of
  Mother Earth as a goddess simply reflects the
  development of a matriarchal clan organization.
  But he notes that the belief that earth
  divinities are inferior to celestial personal
  gods often follows the development of feudalism
  and that there is a close relationship between
  ancestral cults and the patriarchal structure of
  the economy.

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Weber

• Like Durkheim, Weber argues that religion acts as
  a cohesive force, unifying members of a
  household, clan, or tribal confederation. The
  primary bond of the household or kin group in
  tribal societies is the relationship to the
  spirits of the ancestors. Likewise the Greek
  polis, as well as decentralized patrimonial
  states and such early theocratic sates as Egypt
  and China were essentially religious and cult
  associations. In China, for example, the emperor
  was also the high priest who monopolized the cult
  of the spirits of nature.
• With the development of religion, the primacy of
  local deities or even of a simple transcendental
  god come crystallized, but this in no way
  eliminated the ancient magical notions. Instead
  it produced a dual relationship between humans
  and the supernatural domain. Thus a dichotomy
  arises between the shaman/magician ad the priest,
  and between magic and religion.

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Weber

• The unity of the primitive image of the world, in
  which everything was concrete magic, tends to
  split, Weber writes, into rational cognition and
  mastery of nature, on the one hand, and into
  mystic experiences, on the other. Whereas
  magical rites have an essentially manipulative or
  coercive character, religious development implies
  an increasing predominance of non-magical
  motives. Weber uses the terms magic and religion
  as ideal types, noting that religion, practically
  everywhere, contains numerous magical components.

59
Weber

• With respect to this systematization of sacred
  ordinances, particularly as indicated in the
  religious systems of India, Egypt, China, and
  Babylonia, Weber writes
• The process of rationalization favored the
  primacy of universal gods and every consistent
  crystallization of a pantheon followed systematic
  rational principles to some degree, since it was
  always influenced by professional sacerdotal
  rationalism or by the rational striving for order
  on the part of secular individuals.
• Weber thus saw such rational cosmological systems
  as intrinsically linked with bureaucratic states
  and the stability of their social orders. The
  development of large empires and the need for
  orderly legislation is seen as parallel to the
  increasing scope pf a rational comprehension of
  an eternal, enduring and orderly cosmos.
• Taboos are also seen as the first and the most
  general instance of harnessing religion to
  extra-religious purposes economic and social
  interests. It is of interest here to note that
  Weber denied the universality of totemism,
  suggesting that the derivation of all groups and
  all religion from totemism was an exaggeration.