Religious Specialists

About This Presentation

Title:

Religious Specialists

Description:

It consists of beliefs and behavior concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces ... The coronation of the British monarch by the Archbishop of Canterbury. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:67

Avg rating:3.0/5.0

Slides: 67

Provided by: professor

Category:

more less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Religious Specialists

1
Religious Specialists
2

The Nature of Religion
Religious Specialists
Part-time specialists
Full-time specialists
Priests
Shamans
Prophets
Healers/Diviners

3
Nature of Religion

Religion is a cultural universal
It consists of beliefs and behavior concerned
with supernatural beings, powers, and forces
Cross-cultural studies have revealed many
expressions and functions of religion. These
include explanatory, emotional, social and
ecological factors.

Religion establishes and maintains social
control.
It does this through a series of moral and
ethical beliefs, along with real and imagined
rewards and punishments, internalized in
individuals.
Religion also achieves social control by
mobilizing its members for collective action.
Although it maintains social order, religions
also can promote change.
Religious movements aimed at the revitalization
of society have helped people cope with changing
conditions.

Contemporary religious trends include both rising
secularism and a resurgence of religious
fundamentalism.
Some of todays new religions are inspired by
science and technology
Others by spiritualism
Rituals can be secular as well as religious.

In todays world, local religious practices are
not separate, discrete, self-sustaining.
They depend on external support.
World religions go on battlingand prayingfor
the hearts, minds, and souls of local people.
EX religious expressions in Nigeria.
Donations from North America churches also find
its way to Africa countries.

7
Religious Specialists

Generally speaking, most members of a community
can perform religious rituals
As when a family member says grace before a meal.
However, the performance of some rituals,
especially community-wide rituals, requires
special training.
This training may consist of learning the sacred
texts and the steps in the performance of a
ritual, or it may consists of learning how to
contact and deal directly with the supernatural
world, that is, entered an alerted state.

In small-scale societies with relatively simple
technologies, rituals usually are preformed by
most or all of the adult members of the
community.
However, some individuals may develop a special
interest in religious practices and may develop a
special ability to contact the supernatural.
EX Ju/hoansi (!Kung) they contain healers in
which half of the men and a number of women
become healers.
These men and women are full participants in the
secular life of the group.

Full-time religious specialists do not exist in
these societies
Because these societies do not produce the
surplus of food that is necessary to support
full-time specialists.
Religious practices are more the concern of the
older men, but all may participate on occasion.

Here a !Kung San bushman falls into a trance as
he heals.

11
(No Transcript)
12

Religious activities are not clearly delineated
from nonreligious activities in small-scale
societies.
Religious activities are interwoven with secular
activities.
Indeed, the separation between religious and
secular is not even made.
This is reflected in the lack of full-time
specialists

Some societies have developed part-time
specialists.
These are people who earn their living at some
economic task, such as hunting or farming, but
who are called on to perform rituals when
necessary because of their special knowledge or
abilities.
Such a person might be paid for his or her
services, but many are not.

In larger and more technologically complex
societies we see the development of many
occupational specializations, including religious
practitioners.
These religious practitioners may be full-time
specialists who derived their income primarily
from the performance or religious rituals.
Such individuals may be supported by the
community, or they may derive their income
through payment for services by individuals whom
they have helped.
In some societies religious practitioners may
attain important political and economic
positions.

There are many terms that are used to describe
religious specialists.
Unfortunately, the terms are not used in a
consistent manner.
Sometimes it is a problem of translation because
the nature of religious practitioners and their
activities in many societies might not neatly fit
into a designed category in our society or into a
category as defined by anthropologists.
Also, many terms are not used consistently.
Ex the term healer can refer to a priest or to a
shaman.

16
Priests

Priests are full-time specialists who are
associated with formalized religious
institutions.
These may be linked with kinship groups,
communities, or larger political units.
Priests are given religious authority by those
unit or by formal religious organization.
Priesthoods tend to be found in more complex
food-producing societies, whereas shamans are
associated with technologically simpler ones.
Generally speaking, a society with contain either
a shaman or a priests but seldom both.

A priests acts as a representative of the
community in dealing with the deity or deities.
In this capacity priests are responsible for the
performance or prescribed rituals.
These include periodic ritual on a ceremonial
calendar that is usually tied with the
agricultural calendar.
A priest also performs rites of passage such as
birth and death rituals and weddings, as well as
performing rituals in the event of disaster and
illness.
A priests skill is based on the learning of
ritual knowledge and sacred narrative and on
knowledge of how to perform these rituals for the
benefit of the community.

However, a particular ritual might or might not
result in the desired end.
A ritual performed for a rain god to end a
drought might result in a rainstorm or a
continuing drought.
But the failure of the ritual to work is not
necessarily due to the activities of the priest
But might be due to the will of the deity who has
made the decision whether or not to let the rains
come.

19
Jewish Rabbi
Catholic Priests
Balinese Hindu Priests
20
Aztec Priests
21

While priests may contend with important,
practical matters, such as the success of crops
or the curing of illness, they are also
associated with rituals with more generalized
purposes.
These purposes are usually articulated in social
rites of intensification and deal wit the
reinforcement of the beliefs system and the
established ethical code.
Priestly ritual legitimize community ventures
The coronation of the British monarch by the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
On a more personal level, they establish the
legitimacy of a child as a member of the
community.

22
Canterbury Cathedral
Here Queen Elizabeth II is seated on the
coronation chair and is invested with the
Coronation Regalia and crowned with St. Edwards
Crown.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams
23
Persons of Morality

Priests are also individuals who personify the
image of the ideal person.
They are models of ethics and morality in their
communities, and they are held to higher
standards of behavior than is the population at
large.
When a priests fails to live up to these
standards, the significance is much greater than
when another person fails in the same way.
For example, recent revelation of child
molestation by Catholic priests are considered
exceptionally heinous and shocking.

24
Sacred Space

Priestly rituals usually take place in a space
that is set aside for ceremonial activities,
which is considered to be sacred space.
It is usually a community space as well.
It may be an outdoor area or a structure, and the
structure may be large enough that the entire
community can enter and participate in the
rituals.
However, in many societies the ceremonial
structurea shrine or a templeis a place where
sacred objects are kept and into which only a
priests may enter.

25
Wailing wall and the Temple on the Mount
26
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Constantinople) (532-7 AD)
27
Training

The training of a priests usually involves
memorization of vast amounts of knowledge, for
the very survival of the community might depend
on the priest's competence in the performance of
rituals.
Individuals become priests for a variety of
reasons.
Often it is an inherited responsibility, as when
a priestly office is passes on from father to
son.
Many societies have priestly lineages, such as
the Levites of the Old Testament, or priestly
classes or casts, such as the Brahmins of
Hinduism.

Sometimes the position of priests is one of great
prestige and power, and one enters the priesthood
to further ones standing in the community.
At the conclusion of training, the priest is
formally recognized as a religious authority by
the community through a rite of passage, such as
an orgination.

29
Receiving the Call

Priests also may have received a divine call,
sometimes in a dream, visions, or trances.
In some societies a person becomes a priest after
being cured of an illness.
The very fact of being cured may be taken as a
sign of divine favor.
In other societies the reason for entering the
priesthood might be more practical.
In Europe in the 19th century one of the only
ways in which a middle-class man could get an
education was by joining the priesthood

Research and teaching would be important
components of his responsibilities.
It was the custom in some agricultural societies
that the oldest son inherited the land, the
middle son entered the military, and the youngest
son enter the priesthood.

No matter what the reason, the novice must have
the aptitude and ability to learn the required
elements of priestly duties.
Although a priest may connect with the
supernatural through visions and trances, this
ability is not as important as the priest's
ability to memorize and perform rituals in the
proper manner.

32
Ethnographic Examples of Priests

In Hinduism the future of the world and all
people are in the hands of the gods.
Therefore the gods must be worshiped.
Priests are important as the focal worshippers
and intermediaries between people and the gods.
Priests play crucial roles, performing public
worship for the well-being of all.
Priests also conduct important religious action
in the major temples of the high gods, such as
Shiva and Vishnu, including burning incense and
making offerings.

Many similarities can be found between rabbis
(Jewish specialists) and ulemas, (a type of
Islamic religious specialist).
In both cases the specialists is primarily a
scholar and an interpreter of a system of
religious law.
The basis of the status of the rabbi and ulema is
their knowledge and expertise in this religious
law.
Both religions are largely based on a core text,
the Tora and the Quran.
These texts have been greatly expanded by oral
tradition, later recorder, which is the basis for
further interpretations.

Although rabbis often preside at marriages and
funerals, this is not necessary anyone who
possesses the knowledge of how to perform that
ritual can do so.
The specialists are more like experts, who
through scholarship and the living of an
exemplary life have attained their positions.
EX although Judaism stresses the value of
studying the religious texts for all males, the
existence of a vast amount of commentary and
interpretation has in practice restricted the
explanation of the sacred test to a small number
of trained specialists.

In contrast, the position of the Roman Catholic
priest is based primarily on ritual knowledge and
control.
The priests authority lies in his sole right to
administer the sacraments, including the
important rites of baptism, marriage, and last
rites.
Unlike Catholic priests, the rabbi and ulema do
not administer sacraments, control rights or
assume control over congregations.

36
Aztec Priests

Aztec society (Meso-American culture area) was
based on agriculture and was highly stratified
Priests (full-time) ranked very high in the
society.
They numbered in the thousands and were arranged
in a complex hierarchy.
The main role of the priests was to serve as
intermediaries between people and the gods.
The Aztecs believed that the life of the Sun was
about to end and tried to avoid that by providing
the sacred food that the sun needed blood.

37
Extent of the Aztec Empire
The Great Temple. An artists reconstruction at
the time of Cortez
38

Human sacrifice on a large scale was an important
part of Aztec religion and ritual was carried out
by the priests.
A ritual would begin with a 4-day period pf
preparation.
During that time the priests would fast and make
offerings of such items as food, cloth, and
incense.
The ritual itself would be preceded by a dramatic
procession.
The participants, elaborately costumed and
accompanied by music ensembles, would walk to the
specific temple of sacrifice. All important
rituals involved the sacrifice of either animals
or humans.

The ritual human sacrificial victims were called
in ixiptal in teteo, or deity impersonators, as
the belief was that they were transformed into
the gods.
They would be ritually bathed, specially costumed
to impersonate the specific deity to whom they
were being sacrificed, and taught special dances.
A wide range of techniques were used in
sacrifice, including decapitation, drowning,
strangulation, shooting with arrows, combat, and
throwing from heights.

Commonly, the victim was led up the temple stairs
to the sacrificial stone (techcatl)
The victim would be held down by four priests,
and the temple priest would cut through the
victims chest to remove the heart while it was
still beating.
Referred to as precious eagle cactus fruit
The heart would then be offered to the sun for
nourishment.
That was sometimes followed by the body being
rolled back down the temple steps, where it was
often dismembered, flayed, and eaten.

41
Zuni Priests

The Zuni developed religious practices that
involved a complex of priests.
This complex of priestly societies forms the
basis of Zuni religious and political
organization.
Young males, rarely females, are inducted into
one of the six kiva groups that exist in Zuni
society.
A kiva is a ceremonial chamber, a sacred space
analogous to a shrine or temple.
Among the Zuni, kivas a rectangular rooms built
above ground.

42
Location of the Zuni Nation
43

The six kivas are associated with the six
cardinal directions
North, east, south, west, zenith overhead, and
nadir underground.
Ritual responsibility of the priests of each kiva
group is the accurate performance or rituals.
This involves the manipulation of sacred objects
and the recitation of prayers.
Zuni society also recognizes many other
priesthoods.
They include the priests of the 12 medicine
societies that both men and women join when they
are cured of an illness because of work of the
medicine soceity.

If a man takes a scalp in battle, he joins the
warrior society.
In a time a man may join a number of priesthoods.
The accumulation of ritual knowledge over time is
associated with prestige and political authority.
Zuni political authority is vested in a counsel
of priests of the sun and keeper of the calendar.
Their major concern is with religious matters,
such as selecting some of the participants in
certain ritual, the placement of occasional
rituals into the ritual calendar, and the
reaction of the religious organization to natural
disasters.

45
Shamans

The distinction between priests and shamans is
not always a clear-cut one, and there are many
religious specialists who fall somewhere in
between.
Generally speaking, in contrast to priests, a
shaman receives his or her power directly from
the spirit world and acquires status and the
ability to do things, such as cure, through
personal communication with the supernatural.
Unlike priests, shamans are part-time independent
contractors.

The authority of a shaman lies in his or her
charisma and ability to heal.
The relationship between a shaman and the
community is a personal one.
Shamans focus on specific problems, such as those
that affect a particular individual or family.
Because clients often select a shaman in a
particular situation for the shamans reputation
and track record in curing, successful shamans
can amass a significant degree of social
authority.

Because of shamans ability to directly contact
the supernatural, members of their communities
often regard shamans with some suspicion.
The same powers that enable them to cure sickness
could also be used to cause it.
Priests do not have this same connection and so
are not viewed with the same concern.
Priests are capable of causing the same personal
evil that we all are, but they have no special
ability to do so.

The method the shaman uses for contracting the
supernatural may consist of traditional,
standardized methods that fit our definition of
ritual.
The ritual is only a means for contacting and
establishing a relationship with a supernatural
entity the ritual is not an end in itself.
The success of a shaman lies not in his or her
ability to memorize and perform rituals, but in
his or her ability to successfully establish
contact and some measure of control over the
supernatural.

Because shamans receive their power and authority
directly from a supernatural entity, they
frequently are chosen by spirits to become a
shaman.
In some societies a person may deliberately seek
a call through inducing an altered state of
consciousness.
This is most frequently in societies in which
shamans achieve some degree of political status.
In other societies the task of being a shaman is
so difficult and demanding, and the shaman is so
marginalized, that the individuals do not seek a
call.

It is common that the spirits will call to the
future shaman during a particular difficult time
is his or her life.
This shamanic initiation often includes the ideas
that the spirits eat, dismember, or kill the
person before he or she can be reborn as a
shaman.
The spirits are testing the initiate, and the
symbolism of death, transformation, and rebirth
are very common.

The shaman often undergoes a period of training,
usually with an older shaman.
The main purpose of the training is to learn how
to make contact with the supernatural.
This is a very dangerous activity
The candidate establishes a relationship with a
spirit familiar, who acts as his or her guide to
the supernatural world.
The period of apprenticeship may include periods
of seclusion, fasting, and the taking of
hallucinogens.

The shamans ability to make this souls journey
to the supernatural realm is linked to his or her
special abilities at transformation.
This is often linked to other ideas of
transformation, such as speaking other languages
or transforming into animals or other beings.
Also common is gender transformation, in which
the shaman wears the cloths of, or even takes on
some of the social roles of, the opposite sex or
is seen as being sexually ambiguous.

53
Ethnographic examples of Shamanism

The term shaman actually comes from the Tungus
language from Central Siberia, in which it refers
to religious specialists who use hand-held drums
and spirit helpers to help members of their
community.
The term was later expanded to include similar
religious specialists in other cultures.
Siberian shamans performed rituals to heal the
sick, to divine the future, and to ensure success
in the hunt.

54
Siberian Shamans

Here the world is seen as being divided into
three realms.
Upper realm is one of light and good spirits
Middle realm is the home of people and spirits of
the earth.
Lower realm is one of darkness and evil spirits
It is the shamans role, while in an altered
state of consciousness, to communicate with
various spirits.
The shaman may also journey to one of the other
realms.

55
Evenk shaman Nickolay Kombagir 1926
Khakass shaman 1930
56

One of the main functions of the shaman is
healing.
Learn what the spirits want
Send off a disease-causing spirit
Retrieve a lost soul
A shaman has a spirit familiar or animal souls
that help in the shamans work.
These spirits give the shaman his or her
particular qualities and powers.
It is by having these spirits that the shaman is
able to heal
But, this also gives the shaman the potential to
do harm.

Other shamans specialize in using the ability to
contact the spirits to help ensure a successful
hunt.
Here the shaman will contact the spirits and make
a deal with them.
Good hunt for human flesh and blood
This is one of the causes of human sickness and
death.
It is the role of the shaman to attempt to
minimize the amount of human sickness while
trying to maximize the number of animals that
will be successfully hunted.
This works because of this pact

58
Korean Shamanism

Are mostly women.
Referred to as mudang, these women function
largely through the practice of possession.
The society believes that certain people have a
psychological predisposition for this role.
The spirits, in their search for someone to
possess, tend to be drawn to individuals whose
maum (soul) has already been fractured and
therefore been made vulnerable.
The potential mudang therefore is someone who is
experiencing possession sickness.

The shamanic initiation ritual heals the initiate
o the illness.
This healing can be achieved only is the initiate
accepts for her fate as a mudang and undergoes
the initiation ritual.
After initiation the shaman performs many other
kinds of shamanic rituals.
These include rituals that lead the spirit of a
person who has died into paradise, heal illness,
bring well-being to a village or family, help for
a good harvest, and celebrate important family
events such as weddings.

60
Prophets

A prophet is a mouthpiece of the gods.
It is the role of a prophet to communicate the
words and will of the gods to his or her
community and to act as an intermediary between
the gods and the people.
Although shamans may occasionally function as
prophets, in many cases the role of the prophet
is a separate one.
Prophets are found in a wide variety of cultures
and include the familiar examples of Moses, Jesus
Christ, and Mohammad.

61
Handsome Lake

Handsome Lake was a prophet of the Seneca tribe
during the time when the reservation system was
first imposed.
In 1799 Handsome Lake became ill and appeared to
have died.
His body was prepared for burial, but he revived.
He said that he had had a vision of three
messengers who had revealed to him Gods will and
told him that he was to carry this message back
to his people.

Later that same year he received a second
revelation in which he was shown heaven and hell
and was given moral instructions, which were very
similar to Christian ideas.
Handsome Lake received further revelation in
subsequent years.
On the basis of his visions, he preached a
revitalization of traditional seasonal
ceremonies, strengthening the family, and a
prohibition against alcohol.
His teachings continued to spread after his death
in 1815 and ultimately became the foundation for
the Longhouse religion.

63
Healers and Diviners

Anthropologists have identified many other kinds
of religious practitioners.
Sometimes these other terms are actually used to
refer to priests or shamans, or they include many
characteristics of priests or shamans.
Sometimes they represent specialized functions
that are also found in priestly and shamanistic
activates.
Some more complex societies have developed an
array or religious specialists.

The term healer is often used to refer to a
priest or shaman, especially when the individual
is focused on the curing of illness or accident.
However, more specialized healers also exists.
Many of the activities of healers are similar to
those of American medical practitioners.
EX they may set bones, treat sprains with cold,
or administer drugs made from native plants and
other materials.
Herbalist they are intimately familiar with the
various plant material made from these materials.

A diviner is someone who practices divination.
Divination is a series of techniques and
activities that are used to obtain information
about things that are not normally knowable.
These may include things that will happen in the
future, things that are occurring at the present
time but at a distance, and things that touch the
supernatural, such as the identification of a
witch.
Some divination techniques involve the
interpretation of natural phenomena or some
activity, such as the turning over of cards.

Other techniques involve the diviner entering and
altered state of consciousness and, while in that
state, obtaining the requested information.
Diviners usually focus on very practical
questions
What is a good time to plant my crop?
Will my investment pay off?
Whom should I marry?
The diviner often provides the diagnosis, and the
healers provides the cure.
Diviners usually, but not always, work for
private clients and are paid for their services.