Fluent Essays

Topic 5  Write a paper that explores indigenous religions. After an introduction with a clear and focused thesis statement, set up a three-column chart: one column for the basic elements of religion; one for indigenous religions, and one for the Eastern religion of your choice (there are at least three that have indigenous aspects or roots). Identify five or more of the basic aspects of a religion, then determine if they can be found in indigenous or Eastern religions. Summarize your results in a concluding paragraph and address these questions: Based on the terms and definitions of Chapter 1 are indigenous religions really religions? Using the information from Chapter 2, did you find any indigenous religious elements in Eastern religions? RELIGIOUS RESPONSES 1 C H A P T E R 1 RELIGIOUS RESPONSES “By calling myself spiritual but not religious, I can still acknowledge my belief that there may be higher powers of a divine nature without necessarily accepting just one belief system of an organized religious institution.” Ivy DeWitt1 1.1 Explain what is meant by spirituality 1.2 Identify three perspectives used to explain the existence of religion 1.3 Differentiate between monotheistic, polytheistic, and nontheistic 1.4 Explain the significance of rituals, symbols, and myths in religions 1.5 Contrast absolutist with liberal interpretations of a religious tradition 1.6 Discuss the major positions that have emerged in the dialogue between science and religion since the nineteenth century 1.7 Describe how women are challenging the patriarchal nature of many institutionalized religions 1.8 Identify the factors that contribute to the negative aspects of organized religions 1.9 Summarize the different “lenses” used by scholars to study religion Before sunrise, members of a Muslim family rise in Malaysia, perform their purifying ablutions, spread their prayer rugs facing Mecca, and begin their pros- trations and prayers to Allah. In a French cathedral, worshipers line up for their turn to have a priest place a wafer on their tongue, murmuring, “This is the body of Christ, given for you.” In a South Indian village, a group of women reverently anoint a cylindrical stone with milk and fragrant sandalwood paste and place {Insert chapter symbol} M01_P001-032_CH01.indd 1 20/11/2015 13:33 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 2 RELIGIOUS RESPONSES around it offerings of flowers. The monks of a Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery sit cross-legged and upright in utter silence, which is broken occasionally by the noise of the kyosaku bat falling on their shoulders. On a mountain in Mexico, men, women, and children who have been dancing without food or water for days greet an eagle flying overhead with a burst of whistling from the small wooden flutes they wear around their necks. In Jerusalem, Jews tuck scraps of paper containing their personal prayers between the stones of the ancient Western Wall, which once supported their sacred Temple, while above that wall only Muslims are allowed to enter the Dome of the Rock to pray. These and countless other moments in the lives of people around the world are threads of the tapestry we call religion. The word is probably derived from the Latin, meaning “to tie back,” “to tie again.” All of religion shares the goal of tying people back to something behind the surface of life—a greater reality, which lies beyond, or invisibly infuses, the world that we can perceive with our five senses. Attempts to connect with or comprehend this greater reality have taken many forms. Many of them are organized institutions, such as Buddhism or Christianity. These institutions are complexes of such elements as leaders, beliefs, rituals, symbols, myths, scriptures, ethics, spiritual practices, cultural components, historical traditions, and management structures. Moreover, they are not fixed and distinct categories, as simple labels such as “Buddhism” and “Christianity” suggest. Each of these labels is an abstraction that is used in the attempt to bring some kind of order to the study of religious patterns that are in fact complex, diverse, ever-changing, and overlapping. Attempts to define religion What are the inner dimensions of religion? The labels “Buddhism,” “Hinduism,” “Daoism,” “Zoroastrianism,” and “Confucianism” did not exist until the nineteenth century, though the many patterns to which they refer had existed for thousands of years. Professor Willard G. Oxtoby (1933–2003), founding director of the Centre for Religious Studies at the University of Toronto, observed that when Western Christian scholars began studying other religions, they applied assumptions based on the Christian model Jewish women praying at the Western Wall. Many scraps of paper with personal prayers are tucked into the cracks between the ancient stones. M01_P001-032_CH01.indd 2 20/11/2015 13:33 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. RELIGIOUS RESPONSES 3 to other paths, looking for specific creedal statements of belief (a rarity in indigenous lifeways), a dichotomy between what is secular and what is sacred (not helpful in looking at the teachings of Confucius and his fol- lowers), and the idea that a person belongs to only one religion at a time (which does not apply in Japan, where people freely follow various religious traditions). Not all religious behavior occurs within institution- al confines. The inner dimensions of religion—such as experiences, beliefs, and values—can be referred to as spirituality. This is part of what is called religion, but it may occur in personal, noninstitutional ways, without the ritual and social dimensions of organized religions. Indeed there are growing numbers of people in the world today who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” (see box, p. 4). Personal spirituality without reference to a particular religious tradition permeates much contemporary artistic creation. Without theology, without historical references, such direct experiences are difficult to express, whether in words, images, or music. Contemporary artist Lisa Bradley says of her luminous paintings: In them you can see movement and stillness at the same time, things coming in and out of focus. The light seems to be from behind. There is a sense of something like a permeable membrane, of things coming from one dimension to another. But even that doesn’t describe it well. How do you describe truth in words?2 Religions can be dynamic in their effects, bringing deep changes in individuals and societies, for good or ill. As Professor Christopher Queen, world religions scholar from Harvard University, observes: The interpersonal and political realms may be transformed by powerful religious forces. Devotion linking human and divine beings, belief in holy people or sacred space, and ethical teachings that shape behaviors and attitudes may combine to transform individual identities and the social order itself.3 Frederick Streng (1933–1993), an influential scholar of comparative religion, suggested in his book Understanding Religious Life that the central definition of religion is that it is a “means to ultimate transformation.” A complete definition of religion would include its relational aspect (“tying back”), its transformational potential, and also its political dimensions. Current attempts to define religions may thus refer more to processes than to fixed independent entities. Professor of Religious Studies Thomas A. Tweed, for instance, proposes this definition in his book Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion: Religions are confluences of organic-cultural flows that intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and suprahuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries—terrestrial, corporeal, and cosmic. ...This theory is, above all, about movement and relation, and it is an attempt to correct theories [of religion] that have presupposed stasis and minimized interdependence.4 Religion is such a complex and elusive topic that some contemporary schol- ars of religion are seriously questioning whether “religion” or “religions” can be studied at all, or whether the concept of religion itself is useful. They have deter- mined that no matter where and at what point they try to define the concept, other parts will get away. Nonetheless, this difficult-to-grasp subject is central to many people’s lives and has assumed great political significance in today’s world, Lisa Bradley, Passing Shadow, 2002. M01_P001-032_CH01.indd 3 20/11/2015 13:33 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 4 RELIGIOUS RESPONSES LIVING RELIGIOUS RESPONSES An Interview with Ivy DeWitt Ivy DeWitt is a recent college graduate who majored in both economics and religious studies. Raised in a traditional Baptist Church, she found that as she learned more about different religions, and asked questions about issues such as women’s roles within religions, she no longer felt comfortable identifying herself as a member of one specific religious group. Now, like about eighteen percent of Americans, she describes herself as “spiritual but not religious,”5 exploring her beliefs in an individualistic way rather than through set teachings and practices of a single religious organization. Ivy explains: Being spiritual but not religious allows for a more individualized experience and expression of religion. Spirituality feels like an entirely personal experience in many ways to me, and being spiritual but not religious allows me to question and explore a variety of religious identities without feeling as though I’m constrained by a single religious institution. By calling myself spiritual but not religious, I can still acknowledge my belief that there may be higher powers of a divine nature without necessarily accepting just one belief system of an organized religious institution. Ivy acknowledges the important role that religious organizations play in building a strong community, but found that her personal exploration of spirituality was more important to her: I think of “religion” as having more to do with communities and institutions. Growing up as a Baptist Protestant Christian, I felt that the most important part of the religious experience was having strong ties to your group. I also believe another important aspect of religion is doctrines. While I acknowledge that people can have a variety of opinions within a single religion, and that views can also vary throughout branches of a religion, doctrines help to unify people under a central belief system, which can also be very important in holding a community together. In contrast, I think of spirituality as a more individualized experience, something that isn’t defined by the specific teachings or practices of a particular religion. While many people associate spirituality with a greater sense of feeling or emotion than anything that comes about through being part of an organized religion, I don’t necessarily agree. Religion and spirituality can overlap to create a wide sense of emotional experiences, but I like to associate spirituality with individual discovery. To me, spirituality is not just about emotional experience, but also about finding what your values are, and aligning them either with a religious identity or a personalized belief system. Ivy first began to question whether her own evolving beliefs were compatible with what she was taught in school and church during high school: I attended a non-denominational Protestant high school. I had questions about women’s roles in church, and I wondered if my personal beliefs aligned with Protestant teachings on contemporary social issues. There were discussions within my communities about whether women could be pastors. I struggled to understand whether this implied that women and men had different spiritual capabilities, and if I agreed with that sentiment. I started to distance myself from the church as a way to decide what my own viewpoints were concerning women’s rights and other social issues—and whether they aligned with the religious perspectives I had been raised with. I decided to identify as spiritual but not religious roughly about partway through my junior year of college. I began to realize that I didn’t hold any set beliefs that I felt aligned with my religious tradition. Ultimately I decided that it didn’t make sense for me to continue identifying as a Protestant, and the spiritual but not religious label seemed to capture how I felt at the time. I continue to use it now because I believe it is the most accurate description of my belief system. I care more about holding to my personal beliefs in relation to women’s rights and social justice than the community or doctrinal aspects of religion. It’s not that I believe the religious beliefs I grew up with are completely incongruent with my own, but at the moment identifying with a single religious community isn’t reconcilable with other principles that I value. For Ivy, spiritual experience does not follow from accepting a particular set of beliefs, but more from exploring many different religious traditions to see what inspires her. Being spiritual but not religious allows me to navigate religious history while also navigating my own identity. I don’t believe I’ll ever finish navigating either one, which is why I enjoy how being spiritual has allowed me to do that free of any particular religious labels. Some people disagree with certain key tenets of their religion, but still remain a part of it. I think that they choose to focus on what they see as core principles of the tradition, in spite of whatever disagreements they have, and they may find it hard to give up being part of a religious community. I do think that spiritual but not religious people are to some extent missing out on some of the community-related parts of religion. But I believe that most people who identify as spiritual but not religious probably aren’t looking for a community religious experience. Having participated in a religious community myself, I sincerely enjoy my current ability to explore different religious traditions and identities on my own without feeling tied to a specific institution.6 M01_P001-032_CH01.indd 4 20/11/2015 13:33 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. RELIGIOUS RESPONSES 5 so it is important to try sincerely to understand it. In this introductory chapter, we will try to develop some understanding of religion in a generic sense—why it exists, its various patterns and modes of interpretation, its encounters with modern science, its inclusion or exclusion of women, and its potentially nega- tive aspects—before trying in the subsequent chapters to understand the major traditions known as “religions” practiced around the world today. Why are there religions? What major theories have evolved to explain the existence of religion? In many cultures and times, religion has been the basic foundation of life, per- meating all aspects of human existence. In fact, in some cultures what we may now identify as “religion” has so permeated everything that it was not even identified as a particular category of human experience. But from the time of the European Enlightenment, religion has become in the West an object to be studied, rather than a basic fact of life. Cultural anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, psychologists, and even biologists and neuroscientists have peered at religion through their own particular lenses, trying to explain what religion is, its function and purpose, and developing a wide range of methods for study- ing religion. In the following pages we will briefly examine some of the major theories that have evolved. They are not mutually exclusive. Materialist perspective: humans invented religion During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scientific materialism gained considerable prominence as a theory to explain the fact that religion can be found in some form in every culture around the world. The materialistic point of view is that the supernatural is invented by humans; only the material world exists. An influential example of this perspective can be found in the work of the nineteenth-century philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872). He reasoned that deities are simply projections, objectifications of human qualities such as power, wisdom, and love onto an imagined cosmic deity outside ourselves. Then we worship it as Supreme and do not recognize that those same qualities lie within ourselves; instead, we see ourselves as weak and sinful. Feuerbach developed this theory with particular reference to Christianity as he had seen it. Other scientific materialists believe that religions have been created or at least used to manipulate people. Historically, religions have often supported and served secular power. The nineteenth-century socialist philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883), author of The Communist Manifesto, argued that a culture’s religion—as well as all other aspects of its social structure—springs from its eco- nomic framework. In Marx’s view, religion’s origins lie in the longings of the oppressed. It may have developed from the desire to revolutionize society and combat exploitation, but in failing to do so it became otherworldly, an expres- sion of unfulfilled desires for a better, more satisfying life: Man makes religion: religion does not make man. … The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. … Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.7 According to Marx, not only do religions pacify people falsely, they may themselves become tools of oppression. For instance, he charged Christian authorities of his times with supporting “vile acts of the oppressors” by explain- ing them as due punishment of sinners by God. Other critics have made simi- lar complaints against Asian religions that blame the sufferings of the poor on their own misdeeds in previous lives. Such interpretations and uses of religious M01_P001-032_CH01.indd 5 20/11/2015 13:33 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 6 RELIGIOUS RESPONSES teachings lessen the perceived need for society to help those who are oppressed and suffering. Marx’s ideas thus led toward twentieth-century atheistic com- munism, for he had asserted, “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness.”8 Many contemporary atheist thinkers have also adopted a materialist approach to religion, arguing that religious assertions about the supernatural, such as the existence of God, are testable hypotheses that cannot be proven. Functional perspective: religion is useful Another line of reasoning has emerged in the search for a theory explaining the universal existence of religions: They are found everywhere because they are useful, both for society and for individuals. Religions “do things” for us, such as helping us to define ourselves and making the world and life comprehensible to us. Functional explanations have come from many disciplines. One version of the functional explanation is based on sociology. Pioneering work in this area was done by French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). He proposed that humans cannot live without organized social structures, and that religion is a glue that holds a society together. Surely religions have the potential for creating harmony in society, for they all teach social virtues such as love, compassion, altruism, justice, and discipline over our desires and emotions. Political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell concluded from a survey of religiosity in the United States that people who are involved in organized religions are generally more generous toward their neighbors and more con- scientious as citizens than those who do not participate in religions,9 although critics have noted that it may be that the group affiliation that is part of religion is a better predictor of generosity than religious belief itself. The role of religion in the social process of identity formation at individual, family, community, and national levels is now being carefully examined, for people’s identification with a particular religion can be manipulated to influence social change—either to thwart, moderate, or encourage it. Biology also offers some functional reasons for the existence of religion. For instance, John Bowker, author of Is God a Virus?, asserts that religions are organized systems that serve the essential biological purpose of bringing people together for their common survival. To Bowker, religion is found universally because it protects gene replication and the nurturing of children. He proposes that because of its survival value, the potential for religiosity may even be genet- ically inherent in human brains. Some medical professionals have found that religious faith may be good for our health. Research conducted by the Center for the Study of Religion/ Spirituality and Health at Duke University found that those who attend religious services or read scriptures frequently are significantly longer lived, less likely to be depressed, less likely to have high blood pressure, and nearly ninety percent less likely to smoke. Many other studies have indicated that patients with strong faith recover faster from illness and operations. In contrast, however, some scholars have pointed out that some of the most religious regions of the world also have very high rates of disease, suggesting that it is not just religion but broader societal factors such as community support as well as access to health care that factor into overall wellbeing. Many medical studies have also been done on the potential of prayer to heal illness, but results have been mixed. However, meditation has been proved to reduce mental stress and also to help develop positive emotions, even in the face of great difficulties. Citing laboratory tests of the mental calmness of Buddhists who practice “mindfulness” meditation, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama points out that: Over the millenniums, many practitioners have carried out what we might call “experiments” in how to overcome our tendencies toward destructive emotions. The M01_P001-032_CH01.indd 6 20/11/2015 13:33 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. RELIGIOUS RESPONSES 7 world today needs citizens and leaders who can work toward ensuring stability and engage in dialogue with the “enemy”—no matter what kind of aggression or assault they may have endured. If humanity is to survive, happiness and inner balance are crucial. We would do well to remember that the war against hatred and terror can be waged on this, the internal front, too.10 From the point of view of individual psychology, there are many explanations of the usefulness of religion. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856–1938) sug- gested that religion fulfills neurotic needs. He described religion as a collective fantasy, a “universal obsessional neurosis”—a replaying of our loving and fearful relationships with our parents. Religious belief gives us a God powerful enough to protect us from the terrors of life, and will reward or punish us for obedience or nonobedience to social norms. From Freud’s extremely sceptical point of view, religious belief is an illusion springing from people’s infantile insecurity and neurotic guilt; as such it closely resembles mental illness. On a more positive note, the twentieth-century psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900–1980) concluded that humans have a need for a stable frame of reference, and that religion fulfills this need. As Mata Amritanandamayi, a contemporary Indian spiritual teacher, explains: Faith in God gives one the mental strength needed to confront the problems of life. Faith in the existence of God makes one feel safe and protected from all the evil influences of the world. To have faith in the existence of a Supreme Power and to live accordingly is a religion. When we become religious, morality arises, which, in turn, will help to keep us away from malevolent influences. We won’t drink, we won’t smoke, and we will stop wasting our energy through unnecessary gossip and talk. … We will also develop qualities like love, compassion, patience, mental equipoise, and other positive traits. These will help us to love and serve everyone equally. … Where there is faith, there is harmony, unity and love. A nonbeliever always doubts. … He cannot be at peace; he’s restless. … The foundation of his entire life is unstable and scattered due to his lack of faith in a higher principle.11 For many, the desire for material achievement offers a temporary sense of purposefulness. But once achieved, material goals may seem hollow. Guru Tegh Bahadur, the Ninth Sikh Guru, said: The whole world is just like a dream; It will pass away in an instant, Like a wall of sand, [Though] built up and plastered with great care, Which does not last even four days. Likewise are the pleasures of mammon.12 Once this realization comes, a search for something more lasting and deeply meaningful may then arise. Religions propose ideals that can radically transform people. Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) was an extremely shy, fearful child. His transformation into one of the great political figures of the twentieth century occurred as he meditated single-mindedly on the great Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita, par- ticularly the second chapter, which he says was “inscribed on the tablet of my heart.”13 It reads, in part: He is forever free who has broken Out of the ego-cage of I and mine To be united with the Lord of Love. This is the supreme state. Attain thou this And pass from death to immortality.14 People need inner strength for dealing with personal problems. Those who are suffering severe physical illness, privation, terror, or grief often turn to the divine for help. Conviction that Someone or Something that cannot be seen exists may be an antidote to the discomforting sense of being alone in the M01_P001-032_CH01.indd 7 20/11/2015 13:33 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 8 RELIGIOUS RESPONSES universe. This isolation can be painful, even terrifying. The divine may be sought as a loving father or mother, or as a friend. Alternatively, some paths offer the way of self-transcendence. Through them, the sense of iso- lation is lost in mystical merger with the One Being, with the Ultimate Reality. According to some Asian religions, the concept that we are distinct, autonomous individuals is an illusion; what we think of as “our” consciousnesses and “our” bodies is in perpetual flux. Thus, freedom from prob- lems lies in accepting temporal change and devaluing the “small self” in favor of the eternal self. The ancient sages of India, whose teachings are preserved in the Upanishads, called this eternal self “the breathing behind breathing, the sight behind sight, the hearing behind hearing, the thinking behind thinking… ”15 Buddhists see the problem of human existence dif- ferently. What humans have in common, they feel, is the suffering that comes from life’s impermanence and our craving for it to remain the same. For Buddhists, reliance on an Absolute or God and the belief in a per- sonal self or an Eternal Self only makes the suffering more intense. The solution is to let go of these ideas, to accept the groundlessness and openness of life, and to grow in clear awareness and humanistic values. We may look to religions for understanding, for answers to our many questions about life. Is life just a series of random and chaotic incidents, or is there some meaning and order behind what is happening? Who are we? Why are we here? What happens after we die? Why is there suffering? Why is there evil? Is anybody up there listening? We have difficulty accepting the commonsense notion that this life is all there is. We are born, we struggle to support ourselves, we age, and we die. If we believe that there is nothing more, fear of death may inhibit enjoy- ment of life and make all human actions seem pointless. Confronting mortality is so basic to the spiritual life that, as the Christian monk Brother David Steindl- Rast observes, whenever monks from any spiritual tradition meet, within five minutes they are talking about death. It appears that throughout the world man [sic] has always been seeking something beyond his own death, beyond … INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 33 C H A P T E R 2 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS “I am a child of both worlds. Despite being a university professor, and one who has embraced modernity, I am still a Maasai girl deep down.” Damaris Parsitau1 2.1 Outline the challenges faced by scholars in understanding indigenous sacred ways 2.2 Explain the cultural diversity of indigenous groups 2.3 Describe the circle of right relationships 2.4 Identify the different spiritual specialists in indigenous sacred ways 2.5 Summarize group and individual observances in indigenous sacred ways 2.6 Illustrate how the processes of globalization are affecting indigenous peoples 2.7 Discuss how development projects have affected indigenous peoples and how they have responded Here and there around the globe, pockets of people still follow local sacred ways handed down from their remote ancestors but adapted to contemporary circum- stances. They are often referred to by religious scholars as indigenous peoples. In common parlance, “indigenous” means “native to a place,” but some of these groups have actually migrated or been displaced from somewhere else. This is thus a somewhat catch-all label used to distinguish these local groups from worldwide religions. Despite their great variety, “indigenous peoples” have two characteristics in common: Their spiritual beliefs, rituals, and social practices are centered on their own ancestors, and they relate to a specific geographic place. Their distribution around the world, suggested in the map overleaf, reveals a fascinating picture, with many indigenous groups surviving in the midst of industrialized societies, but with globalization processes altering their traditional lifeways. Indigenous peoples comprise at least four percent of the world’s population. Some who follow the ancient spiritual traditions still live close to the earth in nonindustrial, small-scale cultures; some do not. In some places, such as parts of Africa and India, many traditional spiritual practices and ways of understanding Insert chapter opener symbol M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 33 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 34 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS have been retained, albeit influenced by modernity and global religions. In other places, the ways that indigenous peoples may refer to as their “original instruc- tions” on how to live have almost been lost under the onslaught of genocidal colonization, conversion pressures from global religions, mechanistic material- ism, and the destruction of their natural environments by the global economy of limitless consumption. In those cases, much of the ancient visionary wisdom has disappeared. To seek paying jobs and modern comforts such as electricity, people have shifted from their natural environments into urban settings. In the southwestern United States, there are few traditionally trained elders left and few young people willing to undergo the lengthy and rigorous training necessary for spiritual leadership in these sacred ways. Nevertheless, in many places there is now a renewal of interest in these traditions among the people, fanning hope that what they offer will not be lost. To what extent can [indigenous groups] reinstitute traditional religious values in a world gone mad with development, electronics, almost instantaneous transportation facilities, and intellectually grounded in a rejection of spiritual and mysterious events? Vine Deloria, Jr.2 Understanding indigenous sacred ways What challenges have scholars faced in understanding indigenous sacred ways? Outsiders have known or understood little of the indigenous sacred ways, many of which have long been practiced only in secret. In Mesoamerica, the ancient teachings have remained hidden for 500 years since the coming of the conquis- tadores, passed down within families as a secret oral tradition. The Buryats living Inuit (Eskimo) Lakota (Sioux) Hopi Kogi Navajo Papago Huichol Zuni Cheyenne Onondaga Mohegan Da ga ra Da ho m ey Ibo Am as iri Tsalagi (Cherokee) Akan Yoruba Ogoni Bakongo Achewa Vaduma Kung Efe Nankani Kikuyu Kalmyk Indian tribals Orang Asli Khasi Buryat Yakut Ainu Australian Aborigines Saami (Lapp) Toltec Maya Haida Ne z Pe rc e Yup´ik Koyukon Dene Tha Yurok Apache Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Maori The approximate distribution of indigenous groups mentioned in this chapter. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 34 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 35 near Lake Baikal in Russia were thought to have been converted to Buddhism and Christianity centuries ago; however, almost the entire population of the area gathered for indigenous ceremonies on Olkhon Island in 1992 and 1993. In parts of Aboriginal Australia, the indigenous teachings have been under- ground for 200 years since white colonialists and Christian missionaries appeared. As Aborigine Lorraine Mafi Williams explains: We have stacked away our religious, spiritual, cultural beliefs. When the missionaries came, we were told by our old people to be respectful, listen and be obedient, go to church, go to Sunday school, but do not adopt the Christian doctrine because it takes away our cultural, spiritual beliefs. So we’ve always stayed within God’s laws in what we know.3 Not uncommonly, the newer global traditions have been blended with the older ways. For instance, Buddhism as it spread often adopted existing customs, such as the recognition of local deities. Now many indigenous people practice one of the global religions while still retaining many of their traditional ways. Until recently, those who attempted to ferret out the native sacred ways had little basis for understanding them. Many were anthropologists who approached spiritual behaviors from the nonspiritual perspective of Western science or else the Christian understanding of religion as a means of salvation from sinful earth- ly existence—a belief not found among most indigenous peoples. There is a great difference between the conceptual frameworks of the religions of Africa and the thinking of Western scholars. Knowing that researchers from other cultures did not grasp the truth of their beliefs, native peoples have at times given them information that was incorrect in order to protect the sanctity of their practices from the uninitiated. Academic study of traditional ways is now becoming more sympathetic and self-critical, however, as is apparent in this statement by Gerhardus Cornelius Oosthuizen, a South African scholar: [The] Western worldview is closed, essentially complete and unchangeable, basically substantive and fundamentally non-mysterious; i.e. it is like a rigid Uluru (Ayers Rock), a unique mass rising from the plains of central Australia, has long been considered sacred by the Aboriginal groups of the area, and in its caves are many ancient paintings. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 35 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 36 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS programmed machine. … This closed worldview is foreign to Africa, which is still deeply religious. … This world is not closed, and not merely basically substantive, but it has great depth, it is unlimited in its qualitative varieties and is truly mysterious; this world is restless, a living and growing organism.4 Indigenous spirituality is a lifeway, a particular approach to all of life. It is not a separate experience, like meditating in the morning or going to church on Sunday. Spirituality ideally pervades all moments. As an elder of the Huichol in Mexico puts it: Everything we do in life is for the glory of God. We praise him in the well-swept floor, the well-weeded field, the polished machete, the brilliant colors of the picture and embroidery. In these ways we prepare for a long life and pray for a good one.5 In most native cultures, spiritual lifeways are shared orally. Oral transmis- sion has been used in all religions, but in indigenous religions oral transmission rather than written scripture remains the main way of sharing and carrying on the traditions. The people create and pass on songs, proverbs, myths, riddles, short sayings, legends, art, music, and the like. This helps to keep the indige- nous sacred ways dynamic and flexible rather than fossilized. It also keeps the sacred experience fresh in the present. Oral narratives may also contain clues to the historical experiences of individuals or groups, but these are often carried from generation to generation in symbolic language. The symbols, metaphors, and humor are not easily understood by outsiders but are central to a people’s understanding of how life works. To the Maori of New Zealand, life is a continual dynamic process of becoming in which all things arise from a burst of cosmic energy. According to their creation story, all beings emerged from a spatially confined liminal state of darkness in which the Sky Father and Earth Mother were locked in eternal embrace, continually conceiving but crowding their off- spring until their children broke that embrace. Their separation created a great burst of light, like wind sweeping through the cosmos. That tremendously free- ing, rejuvenating power is still present and can be called upon through rituals in which all beings—plants, trees, fish, birds, animals, people—are intimately and primordially related. The lifeways of many small-scale cultures are tied to the land on which they live and their entire way of life. They are most meaningful within this context. Many traditional cultures have been dispersed or dismembered, as in the forced emigration of slaves from Africa to the Americas. Despite this, the dynamism of traditional religions has made it possible for African spiritual ways to transcend space, with webs of relationships still maintained between the ancestors, spirits, and people in the diaspora, though they may be practiced secretly and are little understood by outsiders. Despite the hindrances to understanding of indigenous forms of spirituality, the doors to understanding are opening somewhat in our times. The traditional elders are very concerned about the growing potential for planetary disaster. Some are beginning to share their basic values, if not their esoteric practices, in hopes of preventing industrial societies from destroying the earth. Cultural diversity Why are indigenous groups culturally diverse? In this chapter we are considering the faithways of indigenous peoples as a whole. However, behind these generalizations lie many differences in social con- texts as well as in religious beliefs and practices. There are hundreds of different indigenous traditions in North America alone, and at least fifty-three different ethnolinguistic groups in the Andean rainforests. And Australian Aboriginal lifeways, which are some of the world’s oldest surviving cultures, traditionally included more than 500 different clan groups, with differing beliefs, living pat- terns, and languages. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 36 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 37 Indigenous traditions have evolved within materially as well as religiously diverse cul- tures. Some are descendants of civilizations with advanced urban technologies that sup- ported concentrated populations. When the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés took over Tenochtitlán (which now lies beneath Mexico City) in 1519, he found it a beautiful, clean city with elaborate architecture, indoor plumbing, an accurate calendar, and advanced systems of mathematics and astronomy. Former African kingdoms were highly culturally advanced with elaborate arts, such as intricate bronze and copper casting, ivory carving, goldwork- ing, and ceramics. In recent times, some Native American tribes have become quite materially successful via economic enterprises, such as gambling complexes. Among Africa’s innumerable ethnic and social groupings, there are some indigenous groups comprising millions of people, such as the Yoruba of West Africa and the Ashanti of Ghana. Even though they are so large as to be con- sidered “nations,” these groups can be labelled indigenous because they are located in one region, their stories of origin relate to how their ancestors came to occupy that land, and they are bound by lines of kinship, even though these may be mythical. At the other extreme are those few small-scale cultures that still maintain a survival strategy of hunting and gathering. For example, some Australian Aborigines continue to live as mobile foragers, though restricted to government-owned stations. A nomadic survival strategy necessitates simplicity in material goods; whatever can be gathered or built rather easily at the next camp need not be dragged along. But material simplicity is not a sign of spiritual poverty. The Australian Aborigines have complex cosmogonies, or models of the origins of the universe and their purpose within it, as well as a working knowl- edge of their own bioregion. Some traditional peoples live in their ancestral enclaves, though not untouched by the outer world. The Hopi people have continuously occupied a high plateau area of the southwestern United States for between 800 and 1,000 years; their sacred ritual calendar is tied to the yearly farming cycle. By contrast, tribal peoples have lived in India for thousands of years, but the forests they now occupy may not have been their primary homelands. There is evidence that they once lived in the hills and plains but were marginalized by higher-caste Hindus and then British colonizers, and the only place left for them was the forests. Since the twentieth century even the forests have been taken over for “devel- opment” projects and encroached upon by more politically and economically powerful groups, rendering many of the seventy-five million Indian tribespeople landless laborers. Other indigenous peoples visit their sacred sites and ancestral shrines but live in more urban settings because of job opportunities. The people who participate in ceremonies in the Mexican countryside include subway personnel, journal- ists, and artists of native blood who live in Mexico City. In addition to variations in lifestyles, indigenous traditions vary in their adap- tations to dominant religions. Often native practices have become interwoven with those of global religions, such as Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. In Southeast Asia, household Buddhist shrines are almost identical to the spirit houses in which the people still make offerings to honor the local spirits. In Africa, the spread of Islam and Christianity saw the introduction of new religious ideas and practices into indigenous sacred ways. The encounter transformed indigenous religious thought and practice but did not supplant it; indigenous religions preserved some of their beliefs and ritual practices but also adjusted The indigenous community of Acoma Pueblo—built on a high plateau in New Mexico—live in what may be the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 37 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 38 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS to the new sociocultural milieu. The Dahomey tradition from West Africa was carried to Haiti by African slaves and called Vodou, from vodu, one of the names for the chief nonhuman spirits. Forced by European colonialists to adopt Christianity, worshipers of Vodou secretly fused their old gods with their images of Catholic saints. More recently, emigrants from Haiti have formed diaspora communities of Vodou worshipers in cities such as New York, New Orleans, Miami, and Montreal, where Vodou specialists are often called upon to heal sick- ness and use magic to bring desired changes. In Australia, some Aboriginal peo- ple are converting to Islam for various reasons. These include honouring their roots among ancestors who intermarried with Muslim traders from Indonesian islands or cameleers from Afghanistan, political activism against social injustice, and the search for a positive identity. Conversion does not necessarily mean abandoning their traditional culture. As one convert explains: Islam recognises tribes and nations. It gives you identity, a purpose. It doesn’t just say, “You’re Muslim, that’s it.” It says yes, all Muslims are the same, but it does recognise we belong to different tribes and nations, so it doesn’t do what Christianity did to a lot of Aboriginal people [which] was try and make them like white people. … Islam allows you your identity, your tribe and nation, and that is quoted in the Quran.6 Despite their different histories and economic patterns, and their geograph- ical separation, indigenous sacred ways have some characteristics in common. Similarities found among the myths and symbols of geographically separate peo- ples can be partly accounted for by global diffusion through trade, travel, com- munications, and other kinds of contact. Perhaps from ancient contact across land-bridges that no longer exist, there are similarities between the languages of the Tsalagi in the Americas, Tibetans, and the aboriginal Ainu of Japan. There are also basic similarities in human experience, such as birth and death, pleasure and pain, and wonderment about the cosmos and our place in it. Cognitive sci- entists of religion also relate similarities in symbols and stories to shared human environmental conditions and the way the human mind functions. For instance, in all cultures, people tend to project human qualities onto plants, animals, and inanimate things and cross boundaries of this-worldly logic, developing belief in beings or forces that operate in extraordinary ways in the midst of ordinary time and space. People’s relationships to, and the concepts surrounding, these symbols are not inevitably the same. Nevertheless, the following sections look at some recurring themes in the spiritual ways of diverse indigenous cultures. These tendencies are not unique to indigenous religions, for they appear in other religions as well, but they may be particularly prominent in indigenous lifeways. The circle of right relationships What is the circle of right relationships? For many indigenous peoples, everything in the cosmos is intimately interre- lated. These interrelationships originate in the way everything was created. To Australian Aborigines, before time began there was land, but it was flat and devoid of any features. Powerful ancestral beings came forth from beneath the surface and began moving around, shaping the land as they moved across it. In this “Dreamtime,” the ancestral figures also created groups of humans to take care of the places that had been created. The people thus feel that they belong to their native place in an eternal sacred relationship. A symbol of unity among the parts of this sacred reality is a circle. This is not used by all indigenous people; the Navajo, for instance, regard a completed cir- cle as stifling and restrictive. However, many other indigenous peoples hold the circle sacred because it is infinite—it has no beginning, no end. Time is circular rather than linear, for it keeps coming back to the same place. Life revolves around the generational cycles of birth, youth, maturity, and physical death, M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 38 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 39 the return of the seasons, the cyclical movements of the moon, sun, stars, and planets. Rituals such as rites of passage may be performed to help keep these cycles in balance. To maintain the natural balance of the circles of existence, most indigenous peoples have traditionally been taught that they must develop right relation- ships with everything that is. Their relatives include the unseen world of spirits, the land and weather, the people and creatures, and the power within. Relationships with spirit The cosmos is thought to contain and be affected by numerous divinities, spir- its, and also ancestors. For many indigenous groups, ancestors are the closest and most important spirits. Death is not an end; connection continues between the spirit of the dead person and the living relatives. To the Nankani of north- ern Ghana, ancestors have been delegated the power to take care of the needs and quarrels of their descendants, since they know and understand them well. For the Amasiri people of southeast Nigeria, the relationship of ancestors with the living is so intimate that the dead person may be buried in the floor of the home. During a funeral, mourners beg the parent not to forget them—to always remember and protect them. Traditional Africans understand that the person is not an individual, but a composite of many souls—the spirits of one’s parents and ancestors—resonating to their feelings. Rev. William Kingsley Opoku, International Coordinator of the African Council for Spiritual Churches, says: Our ancestors are our saints. Christian missionaries who came here wanted us to pray to their saints, their dead people. But what about our saints? … If you are grateful to your ancestors, then you have blessings from your grandmother, your grandfather, who brought you forth.7 Continued communication with the “living dead” (ancestors who have died within living memory) may include libation rituals in which food and drink are offered to the ancestors, acknowledging that they are still in a sense living and engaged with the people’s lives. For the Nankani, female ancestors are represented by pots within the house decorated with bangles; male ancestors are represented by pots placed outside the house. The guidance and protection of the ancestors is essential. Failure to keep in touch with them is a dangerous oversight, which may bring misfortunes to the family. Among the gentle Efe pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), children learn to value the circle by playing the “circle game.” With feet making a circle, each child names a circular object and then an expression of roundness (the family circle, togetherness, “a complete rainbow”). M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 39 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 40 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS Many unseen powers are perceived to be at work in the material world. In addition to ancestors, some of these are perceived without form, as mysterious presences, who may be benevolent or malevolent. Others are perceived as hav- ing more definite, albeit invisible, forms and personalities. These may include deities with human-like personalities, the nature spirits of special local places, such as venerable trees and mountains, animal spirit helpers, personified ele- mental forces, or the nagas, known to the traditional peoples of Nepal as invisible serpentine spirits who control the circulation of water in the world and also within our bodies. The Dagara of Burkina Faso in West Africa are familiar with the kontombili, who look like humans but are only about one foot (thirty centimeters) tall, because of the humble way they express their spiritual power. Other West African groups, descendants of ancient hierarchical civilizations, recognize a great pantheon of deities, the orisa or vodu, each the object of special worship. The orisa are embodiments of the dynamic forces in life, such as Oya, powerful goddess of change, experienced in winds; Osun, orisa of fresh waters, associat- ed with sweetness, healing, love, fertility, and prosperity; Olokun, ruler of the mysterious depths of consciousness; Shango, a former king who is now honored as the stormy god of electricity and genius; Ifa, god of wisdom; and Obatala, the source of creativity, warmth, and enlightenment. At the beginning of time, in Yoruba cosmology, there was only one godhead, described by psychologist Clyde Ford as “a beingless being, a dimensionless point, an infinite container of everything, including itself.”8 According to the mythology, this being was smashed by a boulder pushed down by a rebellious slave, and broke into hun- dreds of fragments, each of which became an orisa. According to some analysts, orisa can also be seen as archetypes of traits existing within the human psyche. Their ultimate purpose—and that of those who pay attention to them as inner forces—is to return to that presumed original state of wholeness. Australian Aborigines understand their environment as concentric fields of subtle energies. (Nym Bunduk, 1907–1974, Snakes and Emu.) M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 40 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 41 Many indigenous traditions also worship a Supreme Being who they believe created the cos- mos. This being is known by the Lakota as “Great Mysterious” or “Great Spirit.” African names for the being are attributes, such as “All-powerful,” “Creator,” “the one who is met everywhere,” “the one who exists by himself,” or “the one who began the forest.” To traditional Buryats of Russia, the chief power in the world is the eternally blue sky, Tengry. The Supreme Being is often referred to by male pronouns, but in some groups the Supreme Being is a female. Some tribes of the southwestern United States call her “Changing Woman”—sometimes young, sometimes old, the mother of the earth, associated with women’s reproductive cycles and the mystery of birth, the creatrix. Many traditional languages make no distinction between male and female pronouns, and some see the divine as androgynous, a force arising from the interaction of male and female aspects of the universe. In the religions of Africa, the Supreme Being—whether singular or plural— may have human-like qualities, but no gender. This great Source is so awesome that no images are used to represent it. An Inuit spiritual adept described his people’s experience of: a power that we call Sila, which is not to be explained in simple words. A great spirit, supporting the world and the weather and all life on earth, a spirit so mighty that [what it says] to mankind is not through common words, but by storm and snow and rain and the fury of the sea; all the forces of nature that men fear. But Sila has also another way of [communicating]; by sunlight and calm of the sea, and little children innocently at play, themselves understanding nothing. … When all is well, Sila sends no message to mankind, but withdraws into endless nothingness, apart.9 African myths suggest that the High God was originally so close to humans that they became disrespectful. The All-powerful was like the sky, they say, which was once so close that children wiped their dirty hands on it, and women (blamed by men for the withdrawal) broke off pieces for soup and bumped it with their sticks when pounding grain. Although southern and central Africans believe in a high being who presides over the universe, including less powerful spirits, they consider this being either too distant, too powerful, or too dangerous to worship or call on for help. It cannot therefore be said that indigenous concepts of, and attitudes toward, a Supreme Being are necessarily the same as that which Western monotheistic religions refer to as God or Allah. In the religions of Africa, much more emphasis tends to be placed on the transcendent dimensions of everyday life and doing what is spiritually necessary to keep life going normally. The spirits are thought to be available to those who seek them as helpers, as intermediaries between the people and the power, and as teachers. A right relationship with these spirit beings can be a sacred partnership. Seekers respect and learn from them; they also purify themselves in order to engage their services for the good of the people. Teachings about the spirits also help the people to understand how they should live together in … INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 33 C H A P T E R 2 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS “I am a child of both worlds. Despite being a university professor, and one who has embraced modernity, I am still a Maasai girl deep down.” Damaris Parsitau1 2.1 Outline the challenges faced by scholars in understanding indigenous sacred ways 2.2 Explain the cultural diversity of indigenous groups 2.3 Describe the circle of right relationships 2.4 Identify the different spiritual specialists in indigenous sacred ways 2.5 Summarize group and individual observances in indigenous sacred ways 2.6 Illustrate how the processes of globalization are affecting indigenous peoples 2.7 Discuss how development projects have affected indigenous peoples and how they have responded Here and there around the globe, pockets of people still follow local sacred ways handed down from their remote ancestors but adapted to contemporary circum- stances. They are often referred to by religious scholars as indigenous peoples. In common parlance, “indigenous” means “native to a place,” but some of these groups have actually migrated or been displaced from somewhere else. This is thus a somewhat catch-all label used to distinguish these local groups from worldwide religions. Despite their great variety, “indigenous peoples” have two characteristics in common: Their spiritual beliefs, rituals, and social practices are centered on their own ancestors, and they relate to a specific geographic place. Their distribution around the world, suggested in the map overleaf, reveals a fascinating picture, with many indigenous groups surviving in the midst of industrialized societies, but with globalization processes altering their traditional lifeways. Indigenous peoples comprise at least four percent of the world’s population. Some who follow the ancient spiritual traditions still live close to the earth in nonindustrial, small-scale cultures; some do not. In some places, such as parts of Africa and India, many traditional spiritual practices and ways of understanding Insert chapter opener symbol M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 33 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 34 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS have been retained, albeit influenced by modernity and global religions. In other places, the ways that indigenous peoples may refer to as their “original instruc- tions” on how to live have almost been lost under the onslaught of genocidal colonization, conversion pressures from global religions, mechanistic material- ism, and the destruction of their natural environments by the global economy of limitless consumption. In those cases, much of the ancient visionary wisdom has disappeared. To seek paying jobs and modern comforts such as electricity, people have shifted from their natural environments into urban settings. In the southwestern United States, there are few traditionally trained elders left and few young people willing to undergo the lengthy and rigorous training necessary for spiritual leadership in these sacred ways. Nevertheless, in many places there is now a renewal of interest in these traditions among the people, fanning hope that what they offer will not be lost. To what extent can [indigenous groups] reinstitute traditional religious values in a world gone mad with development, electronics, almost instantaneous transportation facilities, and intellectually grounded in a rejection of spiritual and mysterious events? Vine Deloria, Jr.2 Understanding indigenous sacred ways What challenges have scholars faced in understanding indigenous sacred ways? Outsiders have known or understood little of the indigenous sacred ways, many of which have long been practiced only in secret. In Mesoamerica, the ancient teachings have remained hidden for 500 years since the coming of the conquis- tadores, passed down within families as a secret oral tradition. The Buryats living Inuit (Eskimo) Lakota (Sioux) Hopi Kogi Navajo Papago Huichol Zuni Cheyenne Onondaga Mohegan Da ga ra Da ho m ey Ibo Am as iri Tsalagi (Cherokee) Akan Yoruba Ogoni Bakongo Achewa Vaduma Kung Efe Nankani Kikuyu Kalmyk Indian tribals Orang Asli Khasi Buryat Yakut Ainu Australian Aborigines Saami (Lapp) Toltec Maya Haida Ne z Pe rc e Yup´ik Koyukon Dene Tha Yurok Apache Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Maori The approximate distribution of indigenous groups mentioned in this chapter. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 34 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 35 near Lake Baikal in Russia were thought to have been converted to Buddhism and Christianity centuries ago; however, almost the entire population of the area gathered for indigenous ceremonies on Olkhon Island in 1992 and 1993. In parts of Aboriginal Australia, the indigenous teachings have been under- ground for 200 years since white colonialists and Christian missionaries appeared. As Aborigine Lorraine Mafi Williams explains: We have stacked away our religious, spiritual, cultural beliefs. When the missionaries came, we were told by our old people to be respectful, listen and be obedient, go to church, go to Sunday school, but do not adopt the Christian doctrine because it takes away our cultural, spiritual beliefs. So we’ve always stayed within God’s laws in what we know.3 Not uncommonly, the newer global traditions have been blended with the older ways. For instance, Buddhism as it spread often adopted existing customs, such as the recognition of local deities. Now many indigenous people practice one of the global religions while still retaining many of their traditional ways. Until recently, those who attempted to ferret out the native sacred ways had little basis for understanding them. Many were anthropologists who approached spiritual behaviors from the nonspiritual perspective of Western science or else the Christian understanding of religion as a means of salvation from sinful earth- ly existence—a belief not found among most indigenous peoples. There is a great difference between the conceptual frameworks of the religions of Africa and the thinking of Western scholars. Knowing that researchers from other cultures did not grasp the truth of their beliefs, native peoples have at times given them information that was incorrect in order to protect the sanctity of their practices from the uninitiated. Academic study of traditional ways is now becoming more sympathetic and self-critical, however, as is apparent in this statement by Gerhardus Cornelius Oosthuizen, a South African scholar: [The] Western worldview is closed, essentially complete and unchangeable, basically substantive and fundamentally non-mysterious; i.e. it is like a rigid Uluru (Ayers Rock), a unique mass rising from the plains of central Australia, has long been considered sacred by the Aboriginal groups of the area, and in its caves are many ancient paintings. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 35 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 36 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS programmed machine. … This closed worldview is foreign to Africa, which is still deeply religious. … This world is not closed, and not merely basically substantive, but it has great depth, it is unlimited in its qualitative varieties and is truly mysterious; this world is restless, a living and growing organism.4 Indigenous spirituality is a lifeway, a particular approach to all of life. It is not a separate experience, like meditating in the morning or going to church on Sunday. Spirituality ideally pervades all moments. As an elder of the Huichol in Mexico puts it: Everything we do in life is for the glory of God. We praise him in the well-swept floor, the well-weeded field, the polished machete, the brilliant colors of the picture and embroidery. In these ways we prepare for a long life and pray for a good one.5 In most native cultures, spiritual lifeways are shared orally. Oral transmis- sion has been used in all religions, but in indigenous religions oral transmission rather than written scripture remains the main way of sharing and carrying on the traditions. The people create and pass on songs, proverbs, myths, riddles, short sayings, legends, art, music, and the like. This helps to keep the indige- nous sacred ways dynamic and flexible rather than fossilized. It also keeps the sacred experience fresh in the present. Oral narratives may also contain clues to the historical experiences of individuals or groups, but these are often carried from generation to generation in symbolic language. The symbols, metaphors, and humor are not easily understood by outsiders but are central to a people’s understanding of how life works. To the Maori of New Zealand, life is a continual dynamic process of becoming in which all things arise from a burst of cosmic energy. According to their creation story, all beings emerged from a spatially confined liminal state of darkness in which the Sky Father and Earth Mother were locked in eternal embrace, continually conceiving but crowding their off- spring until their children broke that embrace. Their separation created a great burst of light, like wind sweeping through the cosmos. That tremendously free- ing, rejuvenating power is still present and can be called upon through rituals in which all beings—plants, trees, fish, birds, animals, people—are intimately and primordially related. The lifeways of many small-scale cultures are tied to the land on which they live and their entire way of life. They are most meaningful within this context. Many traditional cultures have been dispersed or dismembered, as in the forced emigration of slaves from Africa to the Americas. Despite this, the dynamism of traditional religions has made it possible for African spiritual ways to transcend space, with webs of relationships still maintained between the ancestors, spirits, and people in the diaspora, though they may be practiced secretly and are little understood by outsiders. Despite the hindrances to understanding of indigenous forms of spirituality, the doors to understanding are opening somewhat in our times. The traditional elders are very concerned about the growing potential for planetary disaster. Some are beginning to share their basic values, if not their esoteric practices, in hopes of preventing industrial societies from destroying the earth. Cultural diversity Why are indigenous groups culturally diverse? In this chapter we are considering the faithways of indigenous peoples as a whole. However, behind these generalizations lie many differences in social con- texts as well as in religious beliefs and practices. There are hundreds of different indigenous traditions in North America alone, and at least fifty-three different ethnolinguistic groups in the Andean rainforests. And Australian Aboriginal lifeways, which are some of the world’s oldest surviving cultures, traditionally included more than 500 different clan groups, with differing beliefs, living pat- terns, and languages. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 36 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 37 Indigenous traditions have evolved within materially as well as religiously diverse cul- tures. Some are descendants of civilizations with advanced urban technologies that sup- ported concentrated populations. When the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés took over Tenochtitlán (which now lies beneath Mexico City) in 1519, he found it a beautiful, clean city with elaborate architecture, indoor plumbing, an accurate calendar, and advanced systems of mathematics and astronomy. Former African kingdoms were highly culturally advanced with elaborate arts, such as intricate bronze and copper casting, ivory carving, goldwork- ing, and ceramics. In recent times, some Native American tribes have become quite materially successful via economic enterprises, such as gambling complexes. Among Africa’s innumerable ethnic and social groupings, there are some indigenous groups comprising millions of people, such as the Yoruba of West Africa and the Ashanti of Ghana. Even though they are so large as to be con- sidered “nations,” these groups can be labelled indigenous because they are located in one region, their stories of origin relate to how their ancestors came to occupy that land, and they are bound by lines of kinship, even though these may be mythical. At the other extreme are those few small-scale cultures that still maintain a survival strategy of hunting and gathering. For example, some Australian Aborigines continue to live as mobile foragers, though restricted to government-owned stations. A nomadic survival strategy necessitates simplicity in material goods; whatever can be gathered or built rather easily at the next camp need not be dragged along. But material simplicity is not a sign of spiritual poverty. The Australian Aborigines have complex cosmogonies, or models of the origins of the universe and their purpose within it, as well as a working knowl- edge of their own bioregion. Some traditional peoples live in their ancestral enclaves, though not untouched by the outer world. The Hopi people have continuously occupied a high plateau area of the southwestern United States for between 800 and 1,000 years; their sacred ritual calendar is tied to the yearly farming cycle. By contrast, tribal peoples have lived in India for thousands of years, but the forests they now occupy may not have been their primary homelands. There is evidence that they once lived in the hills and plains but were marginalized by higher-caste Hindus and then British colonizers, and the only place left for them was the forests. Since the twentieth century even the forests have been taken over for “devel- opment” projects and encroached upon by more politically and economically powerful groups, rendering many of the seventy-five million Indian tribespeople landless laborers. Other indigenous peoples visit their sacred sites and ancestral shrines but live in more urban settings because of job opportunities. The people who participate in ceremonies in the Mexican countryside include subway personnel, journal- ists, and artists of native blood who live in Mexico City. In addition to variations in lifestyles, indigenous traditions vary in their adap- tations to dominant religions. Often native practices have become interwoven with those of global religions, such as Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. In Southeast Asia, household Buddhist shrines are almost identical to the spirit houses in which the people still make offerings to honor the local spirits. In Africa, the spread of Islam and Christianity saw the introduction of new religious ideas and practices into indigenous sacred ways. The encounter transformed indigenous religious thought and practice but did not supplant it; indigenous religions preserved some of their beliefs and ritual practices but also adjusted The indigenous community of Acoma Pueblo—built on a high plateau in New Mexico—live in what may be the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States. M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 37 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 38 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS to the new sociocultural milieu. The Dahomey tradition from West Africa was carried to Haiti by African slaves and called Vodou, from vodu, one of the names for the chief nonhuman spirits. Forced by European colonialists to adopt Christianity, worshipers of Vodou secretly fused their old gods with their images of Catholic saints. More recently, emigrants from Haiti have formed diaspora communities of Vodou worshipers in cities such as New York, New Orleans, Miami, and Montreal, where Vodou specialists are often called upon to heal sick- ness and use magic to bring desired changes. In Australia, some Aboriginal peo- ple are converting to Islam for various reasons. These include honouring their roots among ancestors who intermarried with Muslim traders from Indonesian islands or cameleers from Afghanistan, political activism against social injustice, and the search for a positive identity. Conversion does not necessarily mean abandoning their traditional culture. As one convert explains: Islam recognises tribes and nations. It gives you identity, a purpose. It doesn’t just say, “You’re Muslim, that’s it.” It says yes, all Muslims are the same, but it does recognise we belong to different tribes and nations, so it doesn’t do what Christianity did to a lot of Aboriginal people [which] was try and make them like white people. … Islam allows you your identity, your tribe and nation, and that is quoted in the Quran.6 Despite their different histories and economic patterns, and their geograph- ical separation, indigenous sacred ways have some characteristics in common. Similarities found among the myths and symbols of geographically separate peo- ples can be partly accounted for by global diffusion through trade, travel, com- munications, and other kinds of contact. Perhaps from ancient contact across land-bridges that no longer exist, there are similarities between the languages of the Tsalagi in the Americas, Tibetans, and the aboriginal Ainu of Japan. There are also basic similarities in human experience, such as birth and death, pleasure and pain, and wonderment about the cosmos and our place in it. Cognitive sci- entists of religion also relate similarities in symbols and stories to shared human environmental conditions and the way the human mind functions. For instance, in all cultures, people tend to project human qualities onto plants, animals, and inanimate things and cross boundaries of this-worldly logic, developing belief in beings or forces that operate in extraordinary ways in the midst of ordinary time and space. People’s relationships to, and the concepts surrounding, these symbols are not inevitably the same. Nevertheless, the following sections look at some recurring themes in the spiritual ways of diverse indigenous cultures. These tendencies are not unique to indigenous religions, for they appear in other religions as well, but they may be particularly prominent in indigenous lifeways. The circle of right relationships What is the circle of right relationships? For many indigenous peoples, everything in the cosmos is intimately interre- lated. These interrelationships originate in the way everything was created. To Australian Aborigines, before time began there was land, but it was flat and devoid of any features. Powerful ancestral beings came forth from beneath the surface and began moving around, shaping the land as they moved across it. In this “Dreamtime,” the ancestral figures also created groups of humans to take care of the places that had been created. The people thus feel that they belong to their native place in an eternal sacred relationship. A symbol of unity among the parts of this sacred reality is a circle. This is not used by all indigenous people; the Navajo, for instance, regard a completed cir- cle as stifling and restrictive. However, many other indigenous peoples hold the circle sacred because it is infinite—it has no beginning, no end. Time is circular rather than linear, for it keeps coming back to the same place. Life revolves around the generational cycles of birth, youth, maturity, and physical death, M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 38 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 39 the return of the seasons, the cyclical movements of the moon, sun, stars, and planets. Rituals such as rites of passage may be performed to help keep these cycles in balance. To maintain the natural balance of the circles of existence, most indigenous peoples have traditionally been taught that they must develop right relation- ships with everything that is. Their relatives include the unseen world of spirits, the land and weather, the people and creatures, and the power within. Relationships with spirit The cosmos is thought to contain and be affected by numerous divinities, spir- its, and also ancestors. For many indigenous groups, ancestors are the closest and most important spirits. Death is not an end; connection continues between the spirit of the dead person and the living relatives. To the Nankani of north- ern Ghana, ancestors have been delegated the power to take care of the needs and quarrels of their descendants, since they know and understand them well. For the Amasiri people of southeast Nigeria, the relationship of ancestors with the living is so intimate that the dead person may be buried in the floor of the home. During a funeral, mourners beg the parent not to forget them—to always remember and protect them. Traditional Africans understand that the person is not an individual, but a composite of many souls—the spirits of one’s parents and ancestors—resonating to their feelings. Rev. William Kingsley Opoku, International Coordinator of the African Council for Spiritual Churches, says: Our ancestors are our saints. Christian missionaries who came here wanted us to pray to their saints, their dead people. But what about our saints? … If you are grateful to your ancestors, then you have blessings from your grandmother, your grandfather, who brought you forth.7 Continued communication with the “living dead” (ancestors who have died within living memory) may include libation rituals in which food and drink are offered to the ancestors, acknowledging that they are still in a sense living and engaged with the people’s lives. For the Nankani, female ancestors are represented by pots within the house decorated with bangles; male ancestors are represented by pots placed outside the house. The guidance and protection of the ancestors is essential. Failure to keep in touch with them is a dangerous oversight, which may bring misfortunes to the family. Among the gentle Efe pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), children learn to value the circle by playing the “circle game.” With feet making a circle, each child names a circular object and then an expression of roundness (the family circle, togetherness, “a complete rainbow”). M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 39 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. 40 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS Many unseen powers are perceived to be at work in the material world. In addition to ancestors, some of these are perceived without form, as mysterious presences, who may be benevolent or malevolent. Others are perceived as hav- ing more definite, albeit invisible, forms and personalities. These may include deities with human-like personalities, the nature spirits of special local places, such as venerable trees and mountains, animal spirit helpers, personified ele- mental forces, or the nagas, known to the traditional peoples of Nepal as invisible serpentine spirits who control the circulation of water in the world and also within our bodies. The Dagara of Burkina Faso in West Africa are familiar with the kontombili, who look like humans but are only about one foot (thirty centimeters) tall, because of the humble way they express their spiritual power. Other West African groups, descendants of ancient hierarchical civilizations, recognize a great pantheon of deities, the orisa or vodu, each the object of special worship. The orisa are embodiments of the dynamic forces in life, such as Oya, powerful goddess of change, experienced in winds; Osun, orisa of fresh waters, associat- ed with sweetness, healing, love, fertility, and prosperity; Olokun, ruler of the mysterious depths of consciousness; Shango, a former king who is now honored as the stormy god of electricity and genius; Ifa, god of wisdom; and Obatala, the source of creativity, warmth, and enlightenment. At the beginning of time, in Yoruba cosmology, there was only one godhead, described by psychologist Clyde Ford as “a beingless being, a dimensionless point, an infinite container of everything, including itself.”8 According to the mythology, this being was smashed by a boulder pushed down by a rebellious slave, and broke into hun- dreds of fragments, each of which became an orisa. According to some analysts, orisa can also be seen as archetypes of traits existing within the human psyche. Their ultimate purpose—and that of those who pay attention to them as inner forces—is to return to that presumed original state of wholeness. Australian Aborigines understand their environment as concentric fields of subtle energies. (Nym Bunduk, 1907–1974, Snakes and Emu.) M02_P033-071_CH02.indd 40 20/11/2015 13:34 Living Religions, Tenth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher and Robin Rinehart. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Pearson Custom Edition. INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 41 Many indigenous traditions also worship a Supreme Being who they believe created the cos- mos. This being is known by the Lakota as “Great Mysterious” or “Great Spirit.” African names for the being are attributes, such as “All-powerful,” “Creator,” “the one who is met everywhere,” “the one who exists by himself,” or “the one who began the forest.” To traditional Buryats of Russia, the chief power in the world is the eternally blue sky, Tengry. The Supreme Being is often referred to by male pronouns, but in some groups the Supreme Being is a female. Some tribes of the southwestern United States call her “Changing Woman”—sometimes young, sometimes old, the mother of the earth, associated with women’s reproductive cycles and the mystery of birth, the creatrix. Many traditional languages make no distinction between male and female pronouns, and some see the divine as androgynous, a force arising from the interaction of male and female aspects of the universe. In the religions of Africa, the Supreme Being—whether singular or plural— may have human-like qualities, but no gender. This great Source is so awesome that no images are used to represent it. An Inuit spiritual adept described his people’s experience of: a power that we call Sila, which is not to be explained in simple words. A great spirit, supporting the world and the weather and all life on earth, a spirit so mighty that [what it says] to mankind is not through common words, but by storm and snow and rain and the fury of the sea; all the forces of nature that men fear. But Sila has also another way of [communicating]; by sunlight and calm of the sea, and little children innocently at play, themselves understanding nothing. … When all is well, Sila sends no message to mankind, but withdraws into endless nothingness, apart.9 African myths suggest that the High God was originally so close to humans that they became disrespectful. The All-powerful was like the sky, they say, which was once so close that children wiped their dirty hands on it, and women (blamed by men for the withdrawal) broke off pieces for soup and bumped it with their sticks when pounding grain. Although southern and central Africans believe in a high being who presides over the universe, including less powerful spirits, they consider this being either too distant, too powerful, or too dangerous to worship or call on for help. It cannot therefore be said that indigenous concepts of, and attitudes toward, a Supreme Being are necessarily the same as that which Western monotheistic religions refer to as God or Allah. In the religions of Africa, much more emphasis tends to be placed on the transcendent dimensions of everyday life and doing what is spiritually necessary to keep life going normally. The spirits are thought to be available to those who seek them as helpers, as intermediaries between the people and the power, and as teachers. A right relationship with these spirit beings can be a sacred partnership. Seekers respect and learn from them; they also purify themselves in order to engage their services for the good of the people. Teachings about the spirits also help the people to understand how they should live together in …