NRMs in nonWestern societies I: nativisticrevitalization movements

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NRMs in non-Western societies I
nativistic/revitalization movements

• 20.10.2005

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Readings

• Kracht The Kiowa Ghost Dance, 1894-1916 An
  Unheralded Revitalization Movement (in
  Ethnohistory 39 (4) 1992)
• Capeci and Knight Reactions to Colonialism The
  North American Ghost Dance and East African
  Maji-Maji Rebellions (in Historian 54 (4) 1990)

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Discussion topics

• Theory
• Wallace Revitalization movements
• Linton Nativistic movements
• Ethnography
• North America
• Ghost Dance (Paiute, Sioux)
• Peyote Cult / Native American Church
• Longhouse religion / Handsome Lake Cult
  (Iroquois)
• Other indigenous prophets (Delaware, Shawnee)
• Asia
• Boxer rebellion (China)
• Africa
• Xhosa cattle-killing (South Africa)

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Anthony Wallace revitalization movements

• Revitalization Movements (1956)
• deliberate, organized, conscious effort by
  members of a society to construct a more
  satisfying culture.
• General characteristics
• In societies undergoing rapid/devastating social
  change
• Acculturation, colonization, climatic change etc
• Rebellious / reactionary character
• Response to relative deprivation
• Characteristic structure
• Not only religious but also secular/political
• Several ideal types of religious revitalization
  movements
• depending on emphasis
• in reality a mixture

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Wallace revitalization movements

• Nativistic movements
• Elimination of alien persons, customs and values
• eg. Ghost Dance
• Revivalistic movements
• Revival of customs and values of previous
  generations
• eg. Neoshamanism in Siberia
• Cargo cults
• Importation of alien values, customs, material
  arriving as cargo
• eg. Vailala Madness, Jon Frum cult

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Wallace revitalization movements

• Vitalistic movements
• Importation of alien elements/materials but not
  as cargo
• Millenarian movements
• apocalyptic world transformation engineered by
  the supernatural
• Messianic
• Divine saviour brings about changes
• Eg. Handsome Lake cult

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Wallace revitalization movements

• Characteristic structure
• I Steady State
• II Period of Increased Individual Stress
• III Period of Cultural Distortion
• IV Period of Revitalization
• 1. Mazeway Reformulation
• 2. Communication
• 3. Organization
• 4. Adaptation
• 5. Cultural Transformation
• 6. Routinization
• V New Steady State

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Wallace revitalization movements

• II Period of Increased Individual Stress
• socio-cultural system pushed out of equlibirum
• gt increase of stress / disillusionment
• gt individual anomic behaviour
• III Period of Cultural Distortion
• individual deviances become instituionalized
• eg alcoholism, black market, breaches of sexual
  mores, violence
• gt severe cultural distortion

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Wallace revitalization movements

• IV Period of Revitalization
• Mazeway reformulation
• Vision of a future society and ways to achieve it
  (code)
• By a prophet with a revelation
• Hallucinatory gt religious
• Non-hallucinatory gt political
• Communication
• preaching gt hysterical conversion of
  individuals
• Organization
• formation of a movement
• Adaptation
• Cultural Transformation
• revolution, apocalypse etc
• Routinization
• Innovation gt maintenance

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Ralph Linton nativistic movements

• First attempt at systemic approach
• American Anthropologist (1943)
• Nativistic movement
• "Any conscious, organized attempt on the part of
  a society's members to revive or perpetuate
  selected aspects of its culture."
• conscious, organized attempt"
• when the existence of culture is threatened
• by-product of a contact with other societies
• selected aspects of its culture
• certain elements of culture, not cultures as
  wholes
• current or remembered elements of culture
• invention of tradition / structural amnesia

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Linton nativistic movements

• Two dimensions
• Revivalistic vs perpetuative
• Magical vs rational
• Revivalistic vs perpetuative
• Revivalistic nativism
• Revive extinct or moribund elements of culture
• eg. Celtic revival
• Perpetuative nativism
• Perpetuate current elements of culture
• eg. Rio Grande pueblos

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Linton nativistic movements

• Magical vs rational
• Magical nativism
• receives most attention
• comparable to the messianic movements
• similarities
• prophet
• apocalyptic and millennial aspects
• magical formula of revival
• differences
• millennium modeled on the past
• more or less familiar elements of culture
  involved
• Rational nativism

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Linton nativistic movements

• Hence gt four types of movements
• 1) Revivalistic-magical
• 2) Revivalistic-rational
• 3) Perpetuative-magical
• 4) Perpetuative-rational
• 1 and 4 most common
• General feature of all
• Emerge in culture contact
• dominant vs dominated culture
• situations of acculturation

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Ethnography - general

• Movements by culture areas (Wallace)
• Due to particular relationship with colonizers
• Melanesia
• importation area (cargo cults)
• North America
• revival area (Ghost Dance)
• South America
• Drug-induced migrations to land free of
  colonizers
• Africa (especially South)
• Separatist churches that have broken free of the
  missionary organizations

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Ethnographic examples

• North America
• Ghost Dance (Paiute, Sioux)
• Peyote Cult / Native American Church
• Longhouse religion / Handsome Lake (Iroquois)
• Other indigenous prophets (Delaware, Shawnee)
• Asia
• Boxer rebellion (China)
• Africa
• Xhosa rebellion (South Africa)

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Ghost Dance

• Classical example of Linton's magical-revivalistic
  movement
• Kehoe (1989) The Ghost Dance Ethnohistory and
  Revitalization
• Originates from Northern Paiute Indians in
  Nevada
• Two waves
• 1870s (Wodziwob) gt Northern California
• 1890s (Wovoka) gt Eastwards to Plains tribes
• Last active congregation in 1960s
• Common message
• intervention of the Great Spirit
• resurrection of the dead
• rejection of the white mans civilization
• disappearance of the whites
• restoration of past state of affairs
• unity among tribes

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Ghost Dance

• Terminological variations
• Wovokas version - Ghost Dance
• Paiute - "dance in a circle"
• Shoshoni - "everybody dragging"
• Comanche - "the Father's Dance"
• Kiowa - "dance with clasped hands"
• Caddo - "prayer of all to the Father"
• Sioux - "spirit dance"

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Ghost Dance

• Ghost Dance of 1890
• Paiute Indian Wovoka ( Jack Wilson, c.1856-1932)
  
• a revelation during a solar eclipse in 1889
• gt Plains Indians Sioux and Arapaho etc

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Ghost Dance

• Dancing
• slow shuffling movements following the course of
  the sun
• performed for four or five days
• accompanied by singing and chanting
• no drumming or other musical instruments
• Beliefs
• eventual reunification with ancestors
• restoration of the world in its primordial state
• whites vanish

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Ghost Dance

• Sioux /Sitting Bull (c. 1831-90) additions
• the use hypnosis to bring about trances
• communication with the dead
• ghost shirt
• makes the wearer immune to bullets
• Wounded Knee Massacre (South Dakota, 1890)
• attack by the US Army
• over 300 Native Americans killed
• Many of Wovokas ideas and concepts
• adopted by Peyote cults

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Peyote cult

• Peyotism / Peyote religion / Peyote way
• Nowadays most widespread religion among Indians
• practiced in more than 50 Indian tribes
• Pre-Columbian Mexico
• Espeally huichol Indian ceremonies
• Consumption of mescalin buttons (Lophophora
  williamsii)
• communication with Gods and the deceased
• provider of power, guidance and healing
• North America
• gt in 1880s (Comanche of Oklahoma)
• gt Native American Church in 1918
• "Indian version of Christianity"

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Peyote cult

• passive movement compared to Ghost Dance
• nonviolent response to deprivation
• acceptance and resignation
• Bernard Barber (1941) "Acculturation and
  Messianic Movements"
• Wide-spread because nonthreatening to white
  American culture

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Peyote cult

• Syncretic
• Incorporates many Christian theology, ethics and
  symbols
• Eg. Jesus as a Native American cultural hero
• Moral dimension
• brotherly love (i.e Indian unity)
• family values
• avoidance of alcohol
• Legal harassment

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Peyote cult

• Numerous studies
• Weston La BarreThe Peyote Cult (1938)
• Aldous Huxley Doors to Perception Heaven and
  Hell (1954)
• experiences of taking mescalin
• David Aberle The Peyote Religion among the
  Navaho (1965)
• Barbara Myerhoff The Peyote Hunt The Sacred
  Journey of the Huichol Indians (1974)

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Handsome Lake Cult

• Longhouse religion
• Gai'wiio
• Good Message (in Seneca)
• Handsome Lake
• Iroquois Prophet Ganioda'yo (1735?1815)
• visions in 1799
• gt Code of Handsome Lake
• Prevalent among Seneca

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Handsome Lake Cult

• Wallace Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (1970)
• Prototypical revitalization movement
• Sociocultural disorganization
• Due to colonization
• gtperiod of individual stress
• quasipathological reactions
• alcoholism
• accusations of witchcraft
• gt Period of cultural distortion
• Factionalism

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Handsome Lake Cult

• gt Period of revitalization
• Revelations by Handsome Lake in 1799
• Handsome Lake's Code
• Prohibition of alcohol
• Reduction of witchcraft
• Stress on family, marriage, children
• Nativistic/revivalist dimension
• Traditional clothing
• revitalization of the traditional seasonal
  ceremonies
• gt Transformation of society
• religious ltgt social change!

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Delaware Prophet

• Delaware Prophet of Ohio
• Began preaching in 1762
• against intertribal war
• drunkenness
• polygamy
• use of magic
• gt Native Americans would be able to resist the
  whites
• An inspiration to Pontiac (1720 - 1769)
• chief of Ottawa tribe
• Leader of revolt against British rule (176366)

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Shawnee Prophet

• Tenskwatawa (Elskawanta)
• Began preaching in 1805
• Total rejection of white culture
• The ways of the white men
• an evil that corrupted all they touched
• Spiritual decay due to whites
• vision of an intertribal confederacy
• a single Indian nation
• Killed in 1811

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Boxer Rebellion

• Late 19th century
• China defeated by Japan in 1895
• Spheres of interest" of European powers
• Open door" policy of the US
• gt anti-foreign feelings
• Boxer Rebellion in 1900
• NE China / Beijing
• Attack on foreign compounds and churches
• Killing of Western diplomats, Christian converts,
  missionaries

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Boxer Rebellion

• Boxers Fists of Righteous Harmony (I-Ho Ch'üan)
  
• A religious society
• animistic magic, rituals and spells
• Aims
• initially
• opposed to China's ruling Manchu Qing dynasty
• later
• expulsion of foreigners
• renewal of Chinese society
• Defeated by international forces in 1900
• "Boxer Protocol
• China forced to pay war reparations

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Xhosa cattle-killing

• Xhosa of South Africa
• First half of the 19th century
• successive defeats and disasters
• gt increased desperation
• 15-year old prophet Nongqawuse
• communication with messengers from the ancestors
• great resurrection on 16 February 1857
• the dead would arise
• fat cattle would appear
• old people would become young and well
• abundance would replace the impoverishment
• whites would disappear
• former Xhosa political and social system would be
  restored

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Xhosa cattle-killing

• Preconditions
• all cattle to be killed
• all grain to be destroyed
• gt the Cattle-killing of 1856-57
• gt widespread starvation
• 40,000 people died
• gt mass conversion to Christianity