Chapter 4 Vocab

Question 1

Ritual

Answer 1

A patterned, reoccurring sequence of behaviors.

Question 2

Religious ritual

Answer 2

A ritual that involves the manipulation of religious symbols.

Question 3

Prescriptive ritual

Answer 3

A ritual that a deity or religious authority requires to be performed.

Question 4

Situational or crisis ritual

Answer 4

A ritual that arises spontaneously, frequently in times of crisis.

Question 5

Periodic or calendrical ritual

Answer 5

A ritual that is performed on a regular basis as part of a religious calendar.

Question 6

Occasional ritual

Answer 6

A ritual that is performed when a particular need arises.

Question 7

Technological ritual

Answer 7

A ritual that attempts to influence or control nature, especially in those situations that affect human activities and well being.

Question 8

Hunting and gathering rites of intensification

Answer 8

A ritual whose purpose is to influence nature in the quest for food.

Question 9

Protective ritual

Answer 9

A ritual that is performed at the start of or during a dangerous activity to protect the participants or to protect the community against disaster.

Question 10

Divination ritual

Answer 10

: A ritual that is used for the purpose of divination.

Question 11

Ethnobotany

Answer 11

The anthropological study of the use of plant material, especially in healing.

Question 12

Therapy ritual

Answer 12

A ritual whose function is to cure.

Question 13

Anti-therapy ritual

Answer 13

A ritual that is performed to bring about illness, accident, or death.

Question 14

Cursing ritual

Answer 14

An anti-therapy ritual that involves reciting a curse to bring about illness and death.

Question 15

Ideological ritual

Answer 15

A ritual that delineates codes of proper behavior, promotes community solidarity, articulates the community’s worldview, and assists the community in managing crises.

Question 16

Social rite of intensification

Answer 16

A type of ideological ritual that functions to reinforce the belief system and the values of the society, performed as a periodic ritual or an occasional ritual in times of stress.

Question 17

Rite of passage

Answer 17

A ritual that occurs when an individual changes status, serving to legitimize the new status and to imprint it on the community’s collective memory.

Question 18

Status

Answer 18

A social position that is defined in terms of appropriate behavior, rights and obligations, and its relationship to other statuses.

Question 19

Rank

Answer 19

The relative placement of a status in the society.

Question 20

Separation

Answer 20

The first phase of a rite of passage in which an individual is removed from his or her former status.

Question 21

Transition

Answer 21

The second phase of a rite of passage during which a person is in a liminal state and is moved from one status to another.

Question 22

Incorporation

Answer 22

The final stage of a rite of passage in which the individual is reintroduced to the community in his or her new status.

Question 23

Liminality

Answer 23

The state of ambiguous marginality that characterizes the transition phase of a rite of passage.

Question 24

Communitas

Answer 24

A state characterized by a sense of equality, community and camaraderie.

Question 25

Age set

Answer 25

A social group that contains members of one sex within a specific age span.

Question 26

Clitoridectomy

Answer 26

A surgical procedure characterized by removal of the clitoris as well as parts or all of the labia minora.

Question 27

Pharaonic infibulation

Answer 27

A surgical procedure performed on women that involves the complete removal of the clitoris and the labia minora and majora, the two sides of the wound then being stitched together, leaving a small opening.

Question 28

Revitalization ritual

Answer 28

A ritual that is associated with a revitalization movement.

Question 29

Pilgrimage

Answer 29

A journey to a sacred place or a sequence of sacred spaces at which rituals are performed.

Question 30

Tabu

Answer 30

Objects and persons that are off limits and are thereby segregated. May also refer to certain behaviors that would bring about negative consequences through supernatural means.

Question 31

Mana

Answer 31

An impersonal supernatural force.

Question 32

Weber studied…

Answer 32

− several different cultures with a concern to investigate the relationship between religious orientations and modernization…
− religion and social change

Question 33

Rationalization

Answer 33

− development of greater standardization, consistency and coordination in organizational structure
− related to concepts of disenchantment and secularization

Question 34

Charisma

Answer 34

− ‘gift’
− the quality of an individual personality by virtue of which that person is set apart from ordinary people and regarded as endowed with exceptional qualities

Question 35

Types of Authority

Answer 35

− Traditional (eg monarch – who might be all three)
− Rational-legal (eg. A university president or Canadian prime minister)
− Charismatic (Bono? Obama? Trudeau? Rick Mercer?)

Question 36

Types of Religious leader

Answer 36

• priest

* prophet

Question 37

Authority & Weber’s three Ideal types

Answer 37

…is the legitimate exercise of power
− charismatic authority based on the extraordinary quality of…
− rational-legal – legitimated by law… legally qualified office-holder
− traditional – legitimated by past practice

Question 38

“Alienation is…”

Answer 38

• “… the estrangement of individuals from each other and/or a specific situation or process. It is a consequence of social structures that oppresses people, denying them their humanity” (EPM)

Question 39

Religious alienation

Answer 39

• “the more of himself man attributes to God, the less he has left in himself”
• to Marx, religion was a sign that the society had not finished developing

Question 40

Sexual Taboos

Answer 40

• Expressed in exogamy (pair-bonding outside the immediate social group)
• Consider the incest taboo
• Tensions between exogamous and endogamous behavior (exogamous – say, at the family level; endogamous at the cultural or religious or ethnic level)

Question 41

Food Sexual

Answer 41

• Certain foods are off-limits for the entire group; eating foods in a certain order – e.g. the head of the family, the eldest sons, then young children, then the mother eats last…

Question 42

Syncretism

Answer 42

o A fusing of traits from two cultures to form something new and yet permitting the retention of the old by subsuming the old into a new form

Question 43

Technological rituals

Answer 43

a ritual that attempts to influence or control nature, especially in those situations that affect human activities and well-being

Question 44

Protective rituals

Answer 44

A ritual that is performed at the start of, or during, a dangerous activity to protect the participants or to protect the community against disaster

Question 45

Divination rituals

Answer 45

A ritual that is used for the purpose of divination

Question 46

Therapy Rituals

Answer 46

A ritual whose function is to cure

Question 47

Anti-therapy rituals

Answer 47

cursing ritual

Question 48

Ideological Rituals

Answer 48

o A ritual that delineates codes of proper behavior

• Promotes community solidarity

Question 49

Social rite of Intensification

Answer 49

o A type of ideological ritual that functions to reinforce the belief system and the values of the society
o Performed as a periodic ritual or an occasional ritual in times of stress

Question 50

Rite of Passage

Answer 50

• A ritual that occurs when an individual changes status, serving to legitimize the new status and to imprint it on the community’s collective memory
o Birth, puberty, death
• Status
o A social position that is defined in terms of appropriate behavior, rights, and obligations, and its relationship to other statuses.
• Rank
o The relative placement of a status in society

Question 51

3 phases of rites of passage

Answer 51

o	Separation 
•	Symbolized by death 
o	Transition & Liminality 
•	Ambiguous 
o	Incorporation 
•	Symbolized by rebirth 
o	Examples: 
•	Coming of Age Rituals 
	Menarch