Chapter 12 - Religion

Question 1

Wallace

Answer 1

belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces
(universal categories)

Question 2

Durkheim

Answer 2

Key distinction between the sacred and the profane/mundane
- the sacred is culturally constructed and varies cross-culturally

Question 3

Reese

Answer 3

bodies of people who gather together regularly for worship
- they internalize common beliefs and a shared system of meaning

Question 4

Turner

Answer 4

communitas - intense feelings of social solidarity, equality and togetherness

Question 5

Tylor

Answer 5

ancient humans were intrigued with death, dreamings, and trance
- religion evolved through stages

Question 6

Animism

Answer 6

belief in animal spiritual being

Question 7

Polytheism

Answer 7

belief in multiple gods

Question 8

Monotheism

Answer 8

belief in a single, all powerful deity

Question 9

Mana

Answer 9

-Originally from Pacific Island-
sacred impersonal force existing in the universe

Melanesian mana is similar to good luck
(a charm or amulet)

Polynesian mana is attached to political offices
(high chiefs contain the mana)

Question 10

Magic

Answer 10

supernatural techniques intended to accomplish specific aims

may be imitative (with voodoo dolls)
or contagious (through contact)

Question 11

Malinowski

Answer 11

when people face uncertainty and danger, they turn to religion
magic is used to establish control, but religion is born out of the real tragedies of human life

Question 12

Ritual

Answer 12

formal-stylized, repetitive, stereotyped behavior, based on liturgical order

Question 13

Rites of Passage

Answer 13

customs associated with transition from one stage of life to another

ex. weddings, graduations

Question 14

Rites of Passage Phases

Answer 14

seperation: withdraw from ordinary society
liminality: in between phase of passage rite
incorporation: reentering society, change of status rite completed

Question 15

Totem

Answer 15

animal, plant or geographic feature associated with a specific social group, to which that totem is sacred or symbolically important

Question 16

Cosmology

Answer 16

system, often religious, for imagining and understanding the universe

Question 17

Leveling Mechanism

Answer 17

custom that brings standouts back in line with community norms

Question 18

Shamans

Answer 18

part-time magic-religious practitioner

Question 19

Wallace

Answer 19

describes religions of such stratified societies as “ecclesiastical”
- pertaining to an established church and its hierarchy of officials