Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religionHartland, Edwin Sidney
Religion
Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religion
Hartland, Edwin Sidney
Ethnopsychology; Magic; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
On this definition two observations may be made. The first is that it
does not exclude any rites performed for social ends, or for
individual ends, so far as they are not definitely antisocial. The
Australian husband meets the crisis of desertion by his wife by means
of _arungquiltha_. He performs an act organized by society to meet
this very crisis--on the definition, therefore, a religious act. But
if by precisely the same process he attempt to slay his enemy, he is
guilty of magic. Or is the wife’s desertion not a crisis in the sense
attached to the word by Dr Marett? Perhaps it is a relief, a solution
of a domestic crisis.
The second observation is that the definition ignores the whole of
life not occupied by crises. When the Californian Hupa awakes in the
morning and sees the dawn, it cannot be said that he is at his wits’
end, that the ordinary and expected has been replaced by the
extraordinary and unexpected. What does he do? He {84} greets the dawn
with a silent prayer that he may see many dawns, for he regards it as
a person who is benevolently inclined to him.[84.1] This surely is
religion. The point is met by the further statement that “the religion
of a savage is part of his custom; nay, rather it is his whole custom
so far as it appears sacred--so far as it coerces him by way of his
imagination. Between him and the unknown stands nothing but his
custom. It is his all-in-all, his stand-by, his faith and his hope.
Being thus the sole source of his confidence, his custom, so far as
his imagination plays about it, becomes his ‘luck.’ We may say that
any and every custom, in so far as it is regarded as lucky, is a
religious rite.”[84.2] In that case religion is much more than the
facing of the unknown, the organized effort to face crisis. It is
custom coercing man by way of his imagination. A convenient custom
coerces by way of their imagination weary women at Tlemcen in Algeria
not to sweep out the house for three days at the New Year, so that
they may not lose their luck.[84.3] Can we legitimately call this
religion? Or take another case. There are people in England who will
not utter a boast, or tell a small social fib, without taking the
precaution to touch wood. I have known educated women drag a chair
across the room to a visitor who had just boasted of immunity from a
trifling ailment, in order that she might touch wood. Despite their
education, they were coerced by way of their imagination to this
little ceremony. There must be thousands of things done merely for
luck, and done habitually, by peoples alike in barbarism and in
civilization. Some of them probably are relics of a once living
belief. About others there is no such presumption; {85} yet they
exercise the same constraint. Does that make them religious rites?
Does it make even those that once were portions of some living belief,
but are so no longer, religious rites now? Of course it is all a
matter of definition of terms. But a definition of religion which
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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