ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGION

• Introductions

• Expectations

• Course Syllabus

• What is Religion?

Info Cards1. Name

2. Major

3. Interested in Session on Researching Anthropology in Library

4. Concerns about the course/learning difficulties

5. What would you like to see included in the course (e.g. any particular topic)

6. Expectations

Religion is Notoriously difficult to define.

But we have no difficulty in deciding whether something

is Religious or not

Or do we

A Luba (DRC) diviner and her client, performing a divination ritual, jointly hold a friction oracle known as a kakishi on a woven mat on the ground between them.. (John Pemberton)

Albrecht Durer 1504

Genesis Ch 3 v6-7

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons

Young Huli girls of Papua New Guinea dressed for traditional dance

The Major Features of Religion• Texts

• A means of explanation

• Stress/Anxiety Relief

• Body of myth

• Rituals

• Magic and witchcraft

• supernatural Beings and powers

• Specially skilled individuals

• Belief in the supernatural

• Symbolic

• Moral code

• Sacred vs. profane

• Emotional Experience

• Group membership/identity

• System

• A philosophy

What makes these religious?