45 Introduction

Peter Clarke

The term ‘traditional’ as used here to refer to the Australian Aboriginal, African, Melanesian, Maori and North, Mesoamerican and South American Indian religions covered in this section of the volume is not meant to suggest that these religions are static and unchanging, but is simply one way of distinguishing them from the major world religions which have spread themselves more widely across many different cultures and which tend to be, therefore, less confined to and by any one specific socio-cultural matrix.

Indeed, it is very Ekely, given that they are, with some exceptions, in a sense non-literate and for that reason among others highly eclectic, that traditional religions have been more flexible and tolerant of change than those excluding, literate religions or religions of the book, the world religions as they are called, whose literary mode of supernatural direction and guidance leaves them in theory at least less room for manoeuvre. Moreover, while the use of the label traditional can be somewhat misleading, it is perhaps less so thunprimitive which has been applied to these religions, not only in the sense of early or primeval, but also in the sense of ‘lower’ and less ‘rational’ than the religions of what have often been described as the more ‘civilised’, ‘advanced’ societies. This view of traditional religions was based not on empirical data but on a theory of social and intellectual development or evolution current in the nineteenth century. According to this evolutionist approach, the term primitive referred on the one hand to a stage low down on the scale of social and intellectual development reached by prehistoric man and on the other to those contemporary, non-literate peoples whom, it was assumed, had remained at this same low social and intellectual level. It is clear that evolutionists of this mind tended to make too close a connection between social structure and thought, making development in the latter totally dependent on development in the former.

In this century beginning after the First World War, and increasingly from the 1930s, researchers began to produce convincing evidence that not only undermined the two last mentioned propositions but also the premiss concerning the alleged inferiority of the ‘primitive’ mind, showing that non-literate peoples, though technologically very far from advanced, had developed, none the less, highly complex systems of thought and belief.¹ One ethnologist, the Austrian, Father Wilhelm Schmidt, went so far as to maintain that the hunting-gathering, forest Pygmies of central Africa, far from being animists or fetishists, later ‘degenerations’ of religion, were in fact monotheists, and that since they represented the oldest surviving culture on earth this was the earliest form of religion. It hardly needs to be said, however, that any attempt by the ethnologist or any other scholar to trace the earliest form of religion has encountered and will continue to encounter unsurmountable obstacles, the main one being the lack of historical data.

This has also been a problem for the student of traditional religion and perhaps explains why these religions have come to be regarded not only as static but also the product of and confined to a particular society. The contributions on African and Native American refigions in particular show how misleading this view of traditional religion can be. In both instances, as in many other cases, the traditional religions in question spread across numerous political, economic, geographical and cultural boundaries and underwent considerable development and change.

For the most part, it has been the social scientist and, in particular the social anthropologist, who has provided most of the information we have about these religions, some focusing their attention almost exclusively on the functions of these religions within the social system, others on their symbolic and philosophic content and others (Chapter 46 on Shamanism being an example) on both function and meaning.

But what about the possible application of other disciplines, such as history, to this subject? Can this discipline, for example, contribute to a deeper understanding of traditional religions? The fact that many of these religions are in a sense non-literate religions not only makes the task of documenting their history extremely difficult but also opens it up to a great deal of speculation and conjecture. But, as several of the contributions to this section show, this should not deter the student from attempting such a study. The kind of written historical document rightly valued so much by the Western-trained historian although of great importance is not everything. The historian can usefully attempt a study of traditional religion by the judicious use of oral tradition and other materials such as those provided by the archaeologist, art historian and linguist among others, as a number of the contributions to this section, and in particular those on African and Native American religion, show. Moreover, in some instances traditional societies have their own ‘written’ records of their history, as the chapter on Native American religion illustrates. The ‘outside world’ has also documented, but not always very accurately or objectively as we have seen, something of the beliefs and practices of these religions, and here again we can look to all the contributions to this section for examples. It is both possible and fruitful, then, to attempt the historical study of ‘traditional’ religions.² Moreover, a study such as this might usefully examine these religions in a wider cultural, geographical and religious context. Although their contact with literate cultures and the wider world in general has been uneven it is, however, the case, that for a relatively long time many of the traditional religions, far from existing in a self-contained traditional universe have been part of a complex sphere of relationships that extended to contact with the world religions, and which in varying degrees involved contact with the world of books, most often at first the religious books or scriptures of Christianity and Islam, or the ideas contained in those books.

And the result has very often been, not the complete demise of the former but, as the contribution on Melanesian religion illustrates, the development and modification of the beliefs and practices of both the traditional religion and the world religion in question.

But how long can traditional religion survive the impact of these world religions, regarded increasingly by many in traditional societies as religions of progress, and the process of‘modernisation’ itself? This question is addressed directly in the contribution on Australian Aboriginal religion. There are examples, as the author of the account on North American Indian religion shows, where in the past forces from outside have brought about the virtual collapse of traditional religion. Moreover, elsewhere in this volume contributors have pointed to the rapid growth of Christianity and Islam over the past one hundred and fifty years in, for example, Africa, and to the fundamental changes brought about by these two world religions in the social and religious life of African societies. Under their impact and that of the forces of modernity all things traditional, including religion, appear to have literally fallen apart.

But changes and developments have not all been in one direction only. As is the case in Melanesian religion, and the same holds for African religion, traditional refigion has not only shown in the recent past a remarkable capacity to develop and adapt its own beliefs and practices when confronted by both the world religions and ‘modernity’ but has also greatly influenced much of the belief and practice of these same world religions and to an extent the direction in which the forces of modernity have sought to steer traditional society. Moreover, there are examples, the Maori religion being one and Afro-Brazilian religion another, where what is in essence a traditional religious life has developed a way of interacting with and settling down alongside a world religion in a modem setting.

Furthermore, although fewer people now refer to themselves as traditional religionists, these religions continue to appeal for a variety of different reasons to many from all walks of life, whether Western- educated or not. In parts of Africa, as one contributor shows, not only have traditional religions ‘intermixed with the main movements of twentiethcentury change’ and ‘turned out to be alive and important at the heart of revolutionary movements’ but they have also countered new ideas and approaches in a number of fields, including modern medicine and technology, which have not been able to undermine confidence in that important insight at the heart of traditional religion: that solutions to health and environmental problems have an important relational dimension. And we see from the contribution on Australian Aboriginal religion how important Aboriginal myth and ceremony have been in determining Aborigines’ legal rights to land. Traditional religions, then, though under threat, continue to be of importance to many both at the level of meaning and function and it would, therefore, be premature to predict their demise.

Notes

1. For an example see E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford university Press, Oxford, 1956).

2. In addition to the contributions to this section of the volume see also T.O. Ranger and I.N. Kimambo (eds.), The Historical Study of African Religion (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1972).

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Source: Clarke Peter et al. (eds.). The World's Religions. Routledge,1988. — 995 p.. 1988

45 Introduction

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