Anthropology of Religion

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Anthropology of Religion

• Robert Rhoades
• Dept. of Anthropology
• University of Georgia, Athens

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• Anthropologists concerned with universality of
  religion
• Anthony F. C. Wallace a set of rituals,
  rationalized by myth, which mobilizes
  supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving
  or preventing transformations of state in man and
  nature

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Theories of Religion

• Evolutionist Theory
• E. B. Tylor
• Animism belief in spirit beings
• Animatism inanimate impersonal power (e.g.
  mana)
• Psychological
• Sociological
• Eclectic

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Common Components of All Religions

• Obsessive emotion
• Concept of supernatural
• Animism
• Animatism
• Polytheism
• Monotheism
• Myth
• Dogma
• Ritual
• Mana

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Contd.

• Means of obtaining mana
• Practitioners
• Priests and Priestesses (Full-time)
• Shamans
• Key concepts
• Religions powers superior to humans
• Magic manipulate nature
• Imitative magic like produces like
• Contagious magic things once in contact can
  influence one another after contact
• Witchcraft explanation of events based on the
  belief that certain individuals possess an innate
  psychic power capable of causing harm

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The Millennarian Movement

• Historic cases
• Plains Indians Ghost Dance
• Cargo Cults
• First Millennium
• Recent Events
• Heavens Gate
• Tody Aum Shinkyo Sect
• Waco David Koresh
• Second coming of Chrisht

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Characteristics of Millennarian Movements

• Repressed peoples
• Profound and total rejection of evil world
• Longing for a new world
• End of time (marked by Millennium)
• New world will be established
• Prophet appears (mentally unstable, promises new
  world if followers do what he says, generally
  killed)
• Most Millenarian movements fail
• A few become revolutions