Search

Many anthropological explanations of magical practices are based on the assumption that the immediate cause of performing an act of magic is the belief that the magic will work as claimed. Such explanations typically attempt to show why people come to believe that magical acts work as claimed when such acts do not identifiably have such effects. We suggest an alternative approach to the explanation of magic that views magic as a form of religious behavior, a form of communication that promotes or protects cooperative social relationships. We suggest that all forms of religious behavior involve persons communicating acceptance of a supernatural claim and that this act communicates a willingness to accept nonskeptically the influence of the person making such a claim. Thus, religious behavior communicates a willingness to cooperate with the claim maker and others who accept his or her influence. We suggest that magic, which can be distinguished by the communicated acceptance of the claim that certain techniques have supernatural effects, also promotes cooperation. Different types of magic, including sorcery, love magic, and curing magic, can be shown to communicate different types of messages, such as a threat to use violence to punish unsocial behavior, sexual desire, or concern for a person's well-being. Ethnographic examples are used to support this hypothesis. This approach requires no assumptions about whether the practitioners of magic do or do not believe that the magical acts work as claimed. It attempts only to account for the identifiable talk and behavior that constitute magical acts by examining the identifiable, and often important, effects of these acts on the behavior of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Totemism, a topic that fascinated and then was summarily dismissed by anthropologists, has been resurrected by evolutionary psychologists’ recent attempts to explain religion. New approaches to religion are all based on the assumption that religious behavior is the result of evolved psychological mechanisms. We focus on two aspects of Totemism that may present challenges to this view. First, if religious behavior is simply the result of evolved psychological mechanisms, would it not spring forth anew each generation from an individual's psychological mechanisms? Yet, Australian Totemism, like other forms of Totemism, is profoundly traditional, copied by one generation from the prior ones for hundreds of generations. Regardless of personal inclinations, individuals are obligated to participate. Second, it is problematic to assume that all practitioners of Totemism actually believe their religious claims. We propose an alternative explanation that accounts for the persistence of Totemism and that does not rely on an assumption that its practitioners are preliterate or naive because they have strange beliefs. We focus on Totemism as a cultural mechanism aimed at building and sustaining social relationships among close and distant kinsmen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on the means by which ancestors transmitted acquired phenotypic characteristics to their descendants using myths. Detailed information on Oedipus myth being used as an example; Interpretation of Oedipus's myth; Conclusion reached.

Explains that emphasis on the exotic aspects of shamanism has undermined the role of shamans as interpreters of religious traditions. Traditions as encouraging cooperation; Previous approaches to shamanism; Practice of visiting dead ancestors; Shamanism as interpreting religious traditions.

The article presents information on the paper "Restaging the Will to Believe," by Thomas G. Kirsch published in the journal "American Anthropologist." Kirsch's paper exposes the difficulties of studying religious belief, but the reforms he suggests need to go even further. Kirsch emphasizes on the dynamic nature of religious behavior in the paper but his new terminology does not address the fundamental problem touched on -- but not solved -- in his paper. He is assumes that people do or do not possess a certain kind of talk, what he refers to as "my informants' assertions."