Anthropology and religion : what we know, think, and question

339 Pages·2012·2.79 MB·English

by  Robert L Winzeler

Anthropology and Religion
BOOKS BY ROBERT L. WINZELER
The Peoples of Southeast Asia Today: Ethnography, Ethnology,
and Change in a Complex Region, 2011
Anthropology and Religion: What We Know, Think, and Question, 2008
The Architecture of Life and Death in Borneo, 2004
Indigenous Architecture in Borneo: Traditional Patterns
and New Developments, editor, 1998
Indigenous Peoples and the State: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity
in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo, editor, 1997
Latah in Southeast Asia: The History and Ethnography
of a Culture-Bound Syndrome, 1995
The Seen and the Unseen: Shamanism, Mediumship
and Possession in Borneo, editor, 1993
Ethnic Relations in Kelantan: A Study of the Chinese and Thai
as Ethnic Minorities in a Malay State, 1985
Anthropology and Religion
What We Know, Think, and Question
Second Edition
Robert L. Winzeler
A DIVISION OF
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
Published by AltaMira Press
A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2012 by AltaMira Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winzeler, Robert L.
Anthropology and religion : what we know, think, and question / Robert L. Winzeler.
— 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7591-2189-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7591-2190-4
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7591-2191-1 (electronic)
1. Ethnology—Religious aspects. 2. Religion. I. Title.
BL256.W56 2012
306.6—dc23
2012004879
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For Judy

Contents
Preface xi
1 Anthropology and Religion 1
Words and Things 1
Is Religion a Human Universal? 3
The Meaning of Religion 4
The Anthropology of Religion 12
Types of Anthropological Studies of Religion 15
Types of Religion 16
Religions versus Religion 19
2 Religion Here and There: Western Notions in
Comparative Perspective 21
Religion Is Primarily a Matter of Belief or Faith 21
Religion and Identity: One at a Time 22
Religion Is a Separate Realm of Life 24
Religion Is Associated with a Special Building 25
Religion Concerns Transcendental Rather Than Practical Matters 27
Religion Is the Basis of Morality 31
vii
viii Contents
3 Religion, Evolution, and Prehistory 37
The Bio-evolution of Religion 38
When Did Religion Develop? 39
The Origin of Religion: How It Began 46
The Nature of Early Religion 52
Has Religion Evolved? 53
4 Religion, Adaptation, and the Environment 57
Ecological Functionalism 58
Religion as a Regulator of Ecological Processes 60
Cultural Materialist Explanations of Seemingly Maladaptive
Ritual Practices (or, Solving the Riddles of Culture) 61
Religion and Environmentalism 67
The Problem of Reaching Conclusions about Religion
and Adaptation 76
5 Natural Symbols 77
Are There Natural Symbols? 77
The Natural Environment as Symbolism 78
Animals 80
Colors 89
Lateral Symbolism: Left- and Right-Handedness 92
Percussion Sounds 94
The Head and Its Parts 95
Natural Symbols and Natural Religion 101
6 Myth and Ritual, Old and New 103
What More Exactly Is Myth? 104
Theories, Approaches, and Explanations of Myth 106
The Protagonists of Myth 111
Myth and Gender 120
Contemporary Urban Myths 121
Contemporary Rumor Myths 122
Contents ix
7 Ritual and Belief 129
The Nature of Ritual 130
Religious Ritual 131
Some Common Forms of Religious Ritual 132
Some Common Types of Ritual 134
The Structure of Ritual According to Arnold van Gennep 135
Journeys and Boundaries 135
Rites of Passage 138
Mortuary Rituals 142
Bad Death 144
Funerals as Rites of Passage 145
8 Witchcraft and Sorcery: Past and Present, Far and Near 151
Traditional Witchcraft and Sorcery in Small-Scale Societies 152
Witchcraft in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe 163
Modern Witchcraft or Neo-paganism 171
9 Spirit Possession, Spirit Mediumship, and Shamanism 177
Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship 178
Shamanism 184
Shamanism in the Modern World 192
10 Religious Movements and the Origins of Religions 197
Three Native American Movements 198
Cargo Cults in Melanesia 207
A Religious Movement in Borneo 212
Revitalization? 214
11 Anthropology and the World Religions 217
The World Religions from an Anthropological Perspective 218
Anthropological Studies of the World Religions 231
The Conversion of Indigenous Peoples to and within the
World Religions 239