Table Of ContentLEARNING RELIGION
Methodology and History in Anthropology
General Editor: David Parkin, Director of the Institute of Social and
Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford
Volume 1 Volume 10
Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute Categories ofSelf: Louis Dumont’s Theory
Edited by Wendy James and N.J. Allen ofthe Individual
By André Celtel
Volume 2
Franz Baerman Steiner: Selected Writings Volume 11
Volume I: Taboo, Truth and Religion. Existential Anthropology: Events,
Franz B. Steiner Exigencies and Effects
Edited by Jeremy Adler and Richard By Michael Jackson
Fardon
Volume 12
Volume 3 An Introduction to Two Theories ofSocial
Franz Baerman Steiner. Selected Writings Anthropology: Descent Groups and
Volume II: Orientalism, Value, and Marriage Alliance.Louis Dumont
Civilisation.Franz B. Steiner Edited and Translated by Robert Parkin
Edited by Jeremy Adler and Richard
Fardon Volume 13
Navigating Terrains ofWar: Youth and
Volume 4 Soldering in Guinea-Bissau
The Problem ofContext By Henrik Vigh
Edited by Roy Dilley
Volume 14
Volume 5 The Politics ofEgalitarianism: Theory and
Religion in English Everyday Life Practice
By Timothy Jenkins Edited by Jacqueline Solway
Volume 6 Volume 15
Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic A History ofOxford Anthropology
Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia, Edited by Peter Rivière
1870s–1930s
Edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Volume 16
L. Welsch Holistic Anthropology: Emergence and
Convergence
Volume 7 Edited by David Parkin and
Anthropologists in a Wider World: Essays Stanley Ulijaszek
on Field Research
Edited by Paul Dresch, Wendy James and Volume 17
David Parkin Learning Religion: Anthropological
Approaches
Volume 8 Edited by David Berliner and
Categories and Classifications: Maussian Ramon Sarró
Reflections on the Social
By N.J. Allen Volume 18
Ways ofKnowing: Anthropological
Volume 9 Approaches to Crafting Experience and
Louis Dumont and Hierarchical Opposition Knowledge
By Robert Parkin Edited by Mark Harris
LEARNING RELIGION
Anthropological Approaches
Edited by
David Berliner and Ramon Sarró
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
00-Prelims_HB_00-Prelims.qxd 10/30/13 1:07 PM Page iv
First published in 2007 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
© 2007 David Berliner and Ramon Sarró
All rights reserved.
Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and
review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any informa-
tion storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written
permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Learning religion : anthropological approaches / edited by David Berliner and Ramon
Sarró.
p. cm. -- (Methodology and history in anthropology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84545-374-9 (hbk)
1. Ethnology--Religious aspects. 2. Religion. I. Berliner, David C. II. Sarró, Ramon.
BL256.L385 2007
207'.5--dc22
2007035361
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed on acid-free paper
ISBN: 978-1-84545-374-9 hardback
ISBN: 978-1-78238-213-3 institutional ebook
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
1. On Learning Religion: An Introduction 1
David Berliner and Ramon Sarró
2. Learning to Believe: A Preliminary Approach 21
Carlo Severi
3. Menstrual Slaps and First Blood Celebrations: Inference,
Simulation and the Learning ofRitual 31
Michael Houseman
4. The Accidental in Religious Instruction: Ideas and
Convictions 49
David Parkin
5. On Catching Up With Oneself: Learning to Know That One
Means What One Does 65
Michael Lambek
6. How Do You Learn to Know That it is God Who Speaks? 83
T.M. Luhrmann
7. How to Learn in an Afro-Brazilian Spirit Possession
Religion: Ontology and Multiplicity in Candomblé 103
Marcio Goldman
8. Learning to be a Proper Medium: Middle-Class
Womanhood and Spirit Mediumship at Christian
Rationalist Séances in Cape Verde 121
João Vasconcelos
9. Copyright and Authorship: Ritual Speech and the New
Market ofWords in Toraja 141
Aurora Donzelli
vi Contents
10. Learning Faith: Young Christians and Catechism 161
Laurence Hérault
11. What is Interesting about Chinese Religion 177
Charles Stafford
12. The Sound ofWitchcraft: Noise as Mediation in
Religious Transmission 191
Michael Rowlands
Bibliography 209
Notes on Contributors 229
Index 233
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This volume is the product ofa conference held at the Institute ofSocial Sciences, Uni-
versity ofLisbon, on 8–11 September 2005. We would like to express our gratitude first
and foremost to Christina Toren and to João Pina-Cabral for having encouraged us to
organize it and to the Institute of Social Sciences for having offered such a wonderful
venue for it, as well as to the many institutions that funded it: The Wennegren Founda-
tion for Anthropological Research was our main sponsor, but we would also like to
remember here the significant contributions of the Gulbenkian Foundation, the Luso-
American Foundation, the British Council, the Foundation for Science and Technology
(Portugal) and, last but not least, the Institute itself, not only for the financial help but
also for the efficiency with which it dealt with the organization ofthe event.
Special thanks are, of course, due to the guests to the conference who made it an
unforgettable meeting. Our paper givers Rita Astuti, Ruy Blanes, Aurora Donzelli, Carlos
Fausto, Anna Fedele, Marcio Goldman, Peter Gow, Arnauld Halloy, Laurence Hérault,
Charles Hirschkind, Michael Houseman, Michael Lambek, Tanya Luhrmann, José Mapril,
Adeline Masquelier, David Parkin, Michael Rowlands, Carlo Severi, Sónia Silva, Benjamin
Soares, Charles Stafford, Marina P. Temudo, Christina Toren, and João Vasconcelos; as
well as our chairs/discussants: Catarina A. Costa, Cristiana Bastos, Joan Bestard, Stephen
Dix, Antónia P. de Lima, João Pina-Cabral, Nuno Porto, Gonçalo D. dos Santos, Nina C.
Tiesler, Wilson Trajano F. and Susana M. Viegas.
Finally, we would also like to express here our deepest gratitude to David Parkin who
engineered the book with us and invited us to submit it to the collection he edits for
Berghahn Books and for his instrumental help in putting it together.
Chapter 1
ON LEARNING RELIGION:
AN INTRODUCTION
David Berliner and Ramon Sarró
Religion, Recollection and Learning
A Biblical text (Acts of the Apostles, 8: 31–32) tells us that immediately
after Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost inspired Jesus’ disciples to spread
the good news, Philip, one of the apostles, saw the eunuch of the
queen of the Ethiopians reading the Book of Isaiah. ‘Do you under-
stand what you are reading?’ asked Philip. ‘How can I, unless someone
instructs me?’ replied the eunuch. Then Philip carefully read the text
with him and explained that what they were reading was in fact the
announcement of the coming of Jesus. The eunuch not only under-
stood then what he had been reading (andtold), but also asked to be
baptized with water. Something somewhat similar happened two
thousand years later when a Russian woman we met told us she used
to read the Bible a lot, but had not understood it. She only understood
it when her boyfriend, a Jehovah’s Witness, explained the meaning of
the texts to her. Not only did she then ‘understand’ the Bible, but she
also converted from the Orthodox Church to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’
religion.
These relatively simple occurrences could exemplify some of the
aspects we wanted to explore when in September 2005, under the
aegis of the Wennergen Foundation for Anthropological Research, we
organized a symposium, rather intriguingly called ‘learning religion’,
at the Institute of Social Sciences, Lisbon. We have here a man and a
woman who respectively celebrate a religious action routinely (read-
ing a holy text without ‘understanding’ it) and an instructor who fills
