In this context, “new” is a relative term, given that so much material touching upon religion is old and often obscure. When the itch develops I can go to Google Scholar, plug in search terms related to religion, and have 50 articles in short order. Many will have been published years ago in obscure journals and have been largely forgotten — or worse, were never acknowledged because they were read only by the author’s peers, which may mean that perhaps 100 people read the article. Discovering these articles, many of which are brilliant, is an immense pleasure. Though I wish I could cover all of them, other projects like books, work, and teaching prevent this. Speaking of books, during the recent course of writing one I’ve had the pleasure of reading several articles which deserve mention. Over the next few months, I’ll be covering as many as I can. Some will have more coverage and some less. My hope is to bring attention to superb or provocative work which languishes in the archives.

For those interested in historic Native American religion, I strongly recommend “The Plains Vision Experience: A Study of Power and Privilege” (1971) by Patricia Albers and Seymour Parker. This is one of those rare or old school articles in cultural anthropology where the authors formed a hypothesis and tested it with ethnographic data. They hypothesized that the social construction and cultural import of the vision experience would vary in accord with societal type. They identified three kinds of Plains societies: peripheral hunter-gatherers (e.g., Shoshoni, Flathead, Kutenai), True Plains societies (e.g., Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow), and peripheral farming groups (e.g., Pawnee, Mandan, Hidatsa). Those familiar with Native American ethnohistory will recognize these as valid ecological-economic classifications. All lived on the Plains and all cultivated the vision experience to one degree or another.

Rita Joyce Copyright

As predicted, each group constructed and construed the vision experience differently. Moreover, the differences systematically varied between groups. The authors make a strong case for a regular relationship between type of society and type of vision experience. Before anyone’s eyes start to glaze thinking this is one of those dessicated research projects demanding that anthropology be a nomothetic science, it isn’t. The authors have a deft touch and deep understanding of cultural complexity. They are quite sensitive to lived experiences. I’ve read most of the material on the Plains vision complex, and this article is one of the best. It brings some order and understanding to a field content to collect cultural butterflies in the past (i.e., Ruth Benedict’s work on the vision complex).

The summation is reminiscent of Julian Steward, and worth quoting at length for those who don’t have institutional access to the article:

Given the findings of this paper with respect to the relationship between social-structural variables and the vision experience, it would seem reasonable to assume that socially recognized visions provided an ideology to “explain” and to support the existing societal opportunity structure. In hunting and gathering societies they served to explain inequalities in personal talents and achievements. In True Plains societies they no longer merely validated differences in personal attributes and achievements but represented a means for justifying existing differences in wealth. Finally, in farming societies the institutionalization of standardized visions served to validate the transfer of inherited property and to legitimize ascribed status positions. Further, these visions supported and reinforced the formalization of status inequalities.

This paper also suggests that the specific functions of visions as a form of anticipatory socialization were not uniform. While it seems clear that in all of the societies under consideration visions have an important role in motivating people to conform to existing institutions, they vary in terms of the nature of the conformity that is encouraged. In the peripheral hunting and gathering societies, as well as in the True Plains societies, most socially recognized visions can be seen to function in encouraging personal achievements, initiative, and independence. However, when the symbolism in visions becomes standardized and is associated with social groups, as in the peripheral farming societies, it appears that visions served to reinforce anchorage in and dependency upon organized collectivities. Therefore, depending on the symbolism manifested in visions, they can be seen as rein- forcing either psychological independence or dependence.

Our paper supports the position that the relative importance of purely individualistically defined religious experiences decreases as one moves to societies with greater economic surplus and social complexity. The growth of status inequality and formalized modes of status allocation are accompanied by increasing restrictions on the incidence, occasions, and participants in personal-spontaneous religious experience that are publicly sanctioned. Private religious experiences, however, do not disappear but increasingly become articulated with formal social groups and their activities. Further, when societies develop larger and more complex corporate structures, such religious phenomena no longer provide a viable or socially acceptable mechanism for status allocation and the assumption of secular power. Societal myths develop to provide a satisfactory rationale for identity with and anchorage in a more complex sociopolitical structure. There is another important factor, however, that comes into play: namely, the increasing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, power, and privileges, and the increasing stabilization of this differentiation. This influence increasingly serves to limit access to and control over supernatural powers. The ideology underlying the vision thus serves (a la Marx) to support the existing distribution of secular power.

That’s really good stuff. The implications for other societies and religions are pretty obvious.

Reference:

Albers, Patricia, & Parker, Seymour. (1971). The Plains Vision Experience: A Study of Power and Privilege Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 27 (3), 203-233

• They are always derivative of the speakers’ native language. In other words, the phonemes, vowels/consonants, and syllables are those of the speaker’s native tongue.
• They often contain isolated words or phrases from known human languages which are different from the speaker’s native tongue. These foreign language words or phrases are inserted at various points in the glossa.
• There is a systematic clipping of syllabics and parsing of phonology (i.e., a shortening and simplification) that derives from the speaker’s native tongue. These clippings-parsings are so regular that experts in the field can predict them before hearing a new “tongue.”
• This shortening and simplification leads to a high incidence of repetition. The same non-semantic words and phrases repeat themselves often, though the ordering of these words-phrases is systematically switched during the course of the utterance.

It seems odd that a supposed celestial or “angelic” language would always be related to, or derivative of, the speaker’s native tongue. Other studies have confirmed this oddness and link “tongues” with dissociative trance states. If this is the case, then we should not be surprised to find glossolalia in non-Christian cultures. This is indeed the case.

In a cross cultural survey of glossolalia and related forms of dissociative speaking, Harvard anthropologist L. Carlyle May concluded that the Christian tradition of speaking in tongues “probably had its roots in the ancient religions of Asia Minor.” Similar sorts of speaking were widely known in the Greco-Roman world and were generally considered, by polytheist and philosophical elites, to be “primitive” or “barbaric” practices. These speech acts were, in other words, associated with shamanist societies and what May calls “religiomedical practitioners.” While we today tend to think of such societies as small-scale foragers or horticulturalists, in classical times there were several large and powerful groups (such as the Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals) that were still suffused with shamanic ideas and practices.

During the course of his study, May was able to parse and categorize dissociative speech-phenomena into six categories:

Language of Spirits: This is the speaking of an alleged “language,” considered to be glossolalic gibberish by linguists, known only to supernatural beings. It usually occurs while in a state of trance or excitability, and was often used during divinatory or curing ceremonies. This type of “language” was widespread in shamanic societies and is the kind of speech that charismatics call “angelic tongues.”

Sacerdotal Language: In contrast to the preceding linguistic nonsense, sacerdotal speech is an actual archaic language learned by shamans or priests and passed down faithfully from one generation to another. Over sufficient time the vernacular would change, making sacerdotal language intelligible only to specialists and cognoscenti. A modern analogy would be Latin speaking Catholic priests.

Language of Animals: This “language of nature,” often used by shamans and found worldwide, simply and expertly mimics animal sounds. Shamans would claim they were talking to animals in this manner, and also claim that such “speech” was a sign he could transform himself into a nonhuman embodiment and move freely between the under world, earth world, and sky world.

Phonations Frustes: These incoherent speech acts include ventriloquism, whistling, groaning, shrieking, crying, and mumbling, frequently interspersed with actual but strangely altered speech. At times, shamans will change and project their voices as if carrying on a conversation with spirits.

Xenoglossia: This is actual speech in a real language. It is uttered by someone who claims that s/he never learned the language, that the language is not consciously accessible, and that it arose spontaneously. The language is spoken only in a trance or dissociative state. This is well known from alleged cases of glossolalia among Christians but is also known among shamans. When cases of xenoglossia are investigated, it is nearly always the case that the person has had substantial exposure to the foreign language, and there are mundane explanations for its use. Unsurprisingly, xenoglossia is most common in Africa where people are often raised in polyglot environments. Among some Buddhists, xenoglossia is explained by transmigration of souls. Thus, if a Korean is able to speak German without supposedly having learned the language, it is explained by saying that in a past life, the person must have been German.

Ermeneglossia (Interpretation of Tongues): This is normal speech which follows one of the previous speech displays. It supposedly interprets what was previously uttered. This too is well known in some Christian circles but is also widespread in shamanic societies. Because this nearly always involves two people, implicit or explicit cooperation is essential. Glossolalia and ermeneglossia often appear together, so that “the gibberish is explained and put to use.”

As is true of all scholars who have studied these speech phenomena, May concludes they have cultural origins, conventions, and constraints:

Religious mores determine to a great extent how the practitioner may act when he is entranced and whether or not he may become entranced at all while curing, divining, or convoking the spirits. Even if frenzied behavior is countenanced in a given society, the speaker is not given absolute freedom of behavior: he must follow within certain bounds the customs of other speakers. Consequently, there seems to be considerable truth in the assertion that people do not speak in tongues unless they have heard about speaking-in-tongues, and to this should be added that on the whole they become glossolalists only if their customs permit them to.

Glossolalia in one form or another is found in religions that are tolerant of highly emotional, individualistic behavior on the part of medicine men and their assistants. The priest may seize upon exotic utterances to demonstrate the realness and variety of his powers and to maintain about himself an air of mysticism and otherworldliness. Laymen are inclined to accept his odd sounds as proof of his spiritual prowess.

This survey has shown that speaking-in-tongues is widespread and very ancient. Indeed, it is probable that as long as man has had divination, curing, sorcery, and propitiation of spirits he has had glossolalia. Other forms of speech-phenomena that have been discussed would also seem to be very old.

As far as May is concerned, all these speech acts are learned either explicitly through teaching or implicitly through mimicry. There is no evidence to the contrary.

If you are interested in these kinds of speech acts, head over to your local Penetecostal church on Sunday to marvel at Babel for yourself.

"Glossolalia" by James Roper

References:

May, L. Carlyle (1956). A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in Non-Christian Religions. American Anthropologist, 58 (1), 75-96 DOI: 10.1525/aa.1956.58.1.02a00060

Goodman, Felicitas (1969). Phonetic Analysis of Glossolalia in Four Cultural Settings. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 8 (2) DOI: 10.2307/1384336

Samarin, William (1968). The Linguisticality of Glossolalia. Hartford Quarterly, 8 (4), 49-75

The China Rule should apply with double force in the field of evolutionary religious studies or what could be called the bio-cultural history of religions. Although the field is vast and permeable, these studies can be divided into types and most scholars work within one of the following paradigms:

Mathematical: these abstract studies rely on rational choice and game theory developed by scholars firmly ensconced within Western intellectual, historical, and religious traditions.

Epidemiological: these studies focus on memory or cognitive constraints and the transmission of religious ideas which usually are Western but sometimes are based on small-scale societies that have been studied by ethnographers.

Experimental: these studies test Western subjects (usually undergraduates) using primes that are either religious or which evoke a response relevant to so-called “world religions.” The cognitive studies in this category are more general and typically test for apprehension of supernatural or invisible agents without reference to any particular religions.

Sociological: these studies rely on Western survey data to test relationships between “religion” and other variables; the religious concepts used in such studies are usually Western but sometimes derive from Western constructions of eastern “world religions.”

Anthropological: these studies revolve around an evolutionary-archaeological record developed mostly by Western scholars working in safe or accessible areas of the world; they often tell a chronological story about religion based on this limited record.

While all these kinds of studies are important, their relevance to the evolution and history of “religions” more generally is limited. Until we have all these kinds of studies which apply The China Rule, we cannot be confident that the results are generalizable. My sense is that China, past and present, looms as one giant counterfactual to conclusions that many scholars have drawn (or wish to draw) about the “evolution of religion.” No genealogy of religions is complete without China.

I mention these things because it explains my interest and coverage, over the past year, of Chinese supernaturalism and “religion.” My use of scare quotes here is particularly warranted, given that the Chinese didn’t until recently have a word for “religion” (they created one for purposes of translating Western ideas into Chinese) and most Chinese don’t conceive of “religion” as being a separate conceptual or historical category. It has long been part and inseparable parcel of everyday Chinese life, without the Western trappings of institutions, doctrines, hierarchies, or formalities.

While I sometimes hear that modern Chinese aren’t “religious,” this view derives largely from Western constructions and understandings of “religion.” Metaphysical ideas and supernatural agencies are alive and well in China. One of the most famous traditions, not nearly as old as others but still ancient, revolves around the famous sage Confucius (551-479 BCE).

There are debates about whether “Confucianism” is or is not a “religion.” As is true of debates about whether something is consonant with “true” or “authentic” Christianity or Islam or Hinduism, the answer depends on how the tradition is interpreted and constructed. When it comes to Confucian ideas, some prefer the philosophical-moral construction while others prefer the metaphysical construction.

There is however no debate that a ritual cult devoted to Confucius arose shortly after his death and that the Confucian Cult was eventually incorporated into the Imperial Cult. In “Sacrifice and the Imperial Cult of Confucius,” Thomas Wilson details the history of this development. He sets the stage by noting that the Chinese state, which originated in 1776 BCE, has long been concerned with the supernatural:

A principal duty of the Chinese court was to provide ritual feasts for the gods and spirits at imperial altars and temples. From ancient times to the early twentieth century, the emperor regularly offered a ritual feast–or sacrifice–to Heaven and Earth, the royal ancestors, the gods of grains and soils, sun and moon, stars, and other gods and spirits that reigned over different realms of the cosmos.

Ritual officers stationed throughout the empire venerated local deities, such as wind and clouds, mountains and rivers, city gods and the spirits of the banners that hung at cardinal locations throughout the city. Sacrifice was part of a complex relationship between men and gods based upon mutual dependency.

Wilson then examines the rise of the ritual-sacrificial cult, which “began as a local cult celebrated by Confucius’ biological descendants and his doctrinal heirs.”

Although the Confucian cult had popular appeal, it was most closely associated with the classically educated. Because a classical education was required for civil service, it was not long before the state realized the need to incorporate Confucius into the official cult.

Because the Imperial Cult was rooted in more ancient tradition and made no reference to Confucius, the incorporation process was not without difficulty. Like all canonizations, some things had to be forgotten and others privileged.

This process, which is both history and social construction, was byzantine but it always cohered around the ritual that permeated all aspects of Chinese life. In most cases the ritual involved sacrifice, which in the Chinese context means a feast to feed the spirits. Although Wilson recognizes that this ritual symbolism is rich and rife with semiotic possibility, he rightly focuses on the instrumental goals of sacrifice:

[T]o take sacrifice seriously for what it purports to be–a ritual feast to feed the spirits–is to recognize that it was a technical activity requiring exacting ritual mastery aimed at achieving concrete results. The immediate aim of sacrifice was to venerate the gods, the long-term aim was to nurture them so that the cosmic order would be maintained.

Here we have a splendid example of one of the oldest supernatural practices in human history: offering spirits or gods something tangible in exchange for something both tangible and intangible.

Reference:

Wilson, T. (2002). Sacrifice and the Imperial Cult of Confucius History of Religions, 41 (3) DOI: 10.1086/463684

• Göbekli was built and used by nomadic hunter-gatherers rather than sedentary agriculturalists.
• It was a religious or ritual pilgrimage center that attracted people from far and wide.
• The massive stone structures or megaliths were “temples” or world’s earliest “churches.”
• It shows that complex organized religion preceded the domestication of plants and animals or Neolithic Revolution.

Why are these extraordinary claims? Because hunter-gatherers aren’t supposed to be doing these things and the order is wrong.

Before Göbekli, the consensus was that the domestication of the plants-animals was a condition precedent to the construction of megaliths and organized worship. After Göbekli, the causal arrows were supposedly reversed. If correct, this is heady stuff: it would mean that ideas and symbols led to or caused the single most important change in the history of humanity. There is no “civilization” without agriculture or food production.

Under the Göbekli scenario proposed by Schmidt and others, religion is not mere superstructure: it is base.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which Göbekli supposedly provides. But does it? In the October 2011 issue of Current Anthropology, University of Toronto archaeologist Edward Banning challenges the Göbekli claims. Banning’s article raises important questions about what has been found and how it has been interpreted.

Because the Göbekli claims and counterclaims are foundational, I will be covering them in a series of posts. In the first, we will look at the site itself and the extensive (sometimes sensational) press coverage, including interviews with Klaus Schmidt. In the second, we will examine Schmidt’s professional publications and site reports for Göbekli. In the third, we will look at the questions raised by Banning in “So Fair a House: Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East.” Finally, we will assess the whole to determine whether the extraordinary Göbekli claims are supported by sufficient evidence.

Although Göbekli surely is not (as Spiegel suggested in a 2006 cover story) the lost Garden of Eden, its archaeological and historical importance is undeniable. By the end of the series, we should have a better fix on Göbekli and the claims surrounding it. Is Göbekli an archaeological or metaphorical Stairway to Heaven? I kid but watch the video anyway.

Reference:

Banning, E.B. (2011). So Fair a House: Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East Current Anthropology, 52 (5), 619-660 DOI: 10.1086/661207

Aside from the usual concerns about over interpretation, some wondered whether there was any justification for assuming that Paleolithic people had an essentially modern aesthetic category which might be called “art.” If they didn’t, it would follow that artistic interpretations of the cave paintings were just that and shed little light on Paleolithic minds.

Frustrated by the sense that we weren’t getting any closer to understanding Paleolithic symbols, some began searching for alternatives. One of the more compelling came from cognitive archaeologist David Lewis-Williams. Having studied rock art around the world, Lewis-Williams noticed that certain kinds of symbols regularly appeared across time and space. This was an enigma, given that the peoples producing these recurring symbols had not been in contact with one another. These symbols were not, in other words, the result of cultural diffusion.  Lewis-Williams calls these symbols “entoptic forms”:

What could account for this similarity of forms in rock art around the world? Lewis-Williams argues, with considerable force, that such images are the result of a universal cognitive architecture. Our brains are constructed in a particular way to process visual images and carry out other sensory related functions. When we experience altered states of consciousness (“ASC”) and reach a stage just before full blown hallucination, the mental images we generate are similar across time and space. These images are entoptic forms.

We know from ethnography and ethnohistory that in non-state societies, ASC is often the province of shamans. With this in mind, Lewis-Williams argues that entoptic forms are related to shamanic practices. Although we can’t know what kind of cultural meaning the symbols had or were assigned, we could at least link them to ASC and shamans.

If we don’t go any further, the argument is fairly parsimonious and anchored in shared biology. Lewis-Williams, however, goes further. He contends that shamans were largely responsible for the European cave paintings and that access to the caves (and images) was restricted. He sees in this an emerging social complexity and stratification, whereby shamans are privileged and powerful. Although this is plausible it is also speculative. There is little evidence for emerging complexity or stratification in the Upper Paleolithic archaeological record. It is bootstrapping to argue that because shamans (may have) made the paintings, shamans (may have) had more power.

While the functional linkage between shamans-ASC-entoptics and ritual surely holds in some or even many cases, it is looking less likely in others. In 2004, Kevin Sharpe and Leslie Van Gelder suggested that 13,000 year old “flutings” inside Rouffignac Cave, France were made by children. In 2006, Sharpe and Van Gelder experimentally confirmed these findings and found that children between 2 and 5 years of age made these markings:

This year a Cambridge University doctoral student in archaeology, Jessica Cooney, discovered that children were responsible for even more “art” at Rouffignac than was previously thought. In a recent interview with History (which includes a slide show), Cooney discussed her findings:

What I’ve found in Rouffignac is that they are screaming to be heard — the presence of children is everywhere in the cave, even in the passages furthest from the entrance. There are no areas in Rouffignac with flutings where we find adults without children, and vice versa.

Many theories about cave art point to shamanism or ritual use. While I don’t rule that out, I don’t think that that’s necessarily the case for all caves. With children involved, it could have been one of those reasons but also very likely could have been play or a time for practicing art, or simply an exploration of the landscape.

If we didn’t know that young children made these markings, it would be tempting to attribute them to shamans experiencing ASC. There are some obvious resemblances between entoptic forms (see chart above) and the childrens’ markings at Rouffignac. While one could argue that the children were shaman apprentices being tutored in ASC and entoptics, this amounts to special pleading. I can’t think of any ethnographic or ethnohistoric instances of children this young being trained as shamans or inducing ASC.

These findings also call into question the often made argument that the deepest, darkest recesses of caves were reserved for experienced shamans (with privileged access to the spirit world) undergoing the most intense ASC. If children were in these dark zones, it is hard to argue for restricted access or shamanistic exclusivity.

The most likely or parsimonious interpretation of these symbols is the one given by Cooney: play. If children were doodling “entoptics” in the cave with their parents, it suggests that “artistic” interpretations of these symbols deserve reconsideration. All in all, this research serves as a good reminder that not everything produced by Paleolithic peoples requires a utilitarian or functional explanation.

References:

Lewis-Williams, David, & Dowson, T.A. (1988). The Signs of All Times: Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic Art Current Anthropology, 29 (2), 201-245

Sharpe, Kevin, & Van Gelder, Leslie (2006). Evidence for Cave Marking by Paleolithic Children Antiquity, 80 (310), 937-947

With this famous sentence, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his masterful critique of political power. Less well known is another sentence from The Social Contract (1762): “No State has ever been founded without Religion serving as its base.”

My reading of history is that Rousseau was right. State-formation has always been accompanied and enabled by religion. If archaeologists have ever excavated an ancient or Neolithic city-state that did not clearly evince the marriage of power with religion, I am unaware of it.

When it comes to more recent city-states, such as Rome, we needn’t rely on archaeological evidence. The record is clear: Roman political power was inextricably linked to Roman civic religion. It is commonplace for historians to observe that the founding of Rome (~750 BCE) “is shrouded in myth.” While true, this is not the simple result of story accretion or faulty memory. The myths were deliberately created and deployed.

Rome’s early leaders knew perfectly well that political power required religious backing. As was so often the case, what Rome lacked it borrowed. Much of this borrowing came from Rome’s older, more powerful and sophisticated neighbor to the north: Etruria. Although Etruscan influence on Rome was considerable, it was most pronounced in the realm of religion. Dominique Briquel (open access) explains:

Such a state of affairs stems from the fact that, in their national religious heritage, the Etruscans had at their disposal a collection of ritual and divination practices of which the Romans knew no equivalent. A great many such rites were borrowed by Rome from her northern neighbours, who had developed them long before Rome felt any such need. The most famous of these was the foundation ritual of cities: it was unanimously admitted that when Romulus founded the city, he had recourse to Tuscan specialists.

It was in the all important realm of divination or haruspicy, however, that Rome felt the greatest need to borrow:

The Etruscans had developed a body of divinatory knowledge which permitted them, for example, to assign meaning to patterns of lightning (keraunoscopy), to decipher the indications contained in the liver or in other organs of sacrificial victims (hepatoscopy), and generally to understand why the gods provoked the whole array of unusual phenomena behind which supernatural intervention was perceived, designated by the term “prodigies” (prodigia). The Etruscans had carefully studied all of these, and they had devoted to them an entire specialized literature called, quite simply, the “Etruscan books.” (Briquel 2007:154).

Bronze "Liver" with Etruscan Inscriptions

There were several categories of such books which together formed a body of knowledge known as “Etrusca disciplina.” This choice of words sheds considerable light on Roman epistemology: “The term ‘discipline’ is important, since it shows that the ancients considered it a veritable science, which is the meaning of the word in Latin, even if it was used specifically in the domain of religion” (id.).

Here we have a nice example of J.G. Frazer’s contention that divinatory practices, which might be considered a form of “magic,” presaged later scientific notions of cause and effect. I find it telling that the formative Chinese dynasties employed similar divinatory practices and linked them to political power. What Frazer called “magic” was simply a form of supernaturalism that can be found, in one form or another, in all religions.

Reference:

Briquel, Dominique (2007). Tages Against Jesus: Etruscan Religion in Late Roman Empire Etruscan Studies, 10 (1), 153-161

Because Mithraism came to prominence during those centuries when Christianity was in its formative period, comparisons between the two are inevitable. While some claim that Christianity borrowed heavily from Mithraism or was modeled on it, this seems unlikely and arguments to this effect are more polemic than history. The Roman elites devoted to Mithras were quite different from the provincials devoted to Christ, and these differences are reflected in the two religions.

If there is any correspondence between the two, it is one of changing sensibility. To the extent early Christianity was pacifist and loving, it held little appeal for Roman soldiers and aristocrats who valued strength and virility. With its primary icon being the sun god Mithras (who is usually portrayed as slaying a wild bull) and its primary ritual being a communal feast among “brothers,” the cult was well suited to those whose business was war.

Mithras Slaying the Bull

While Constantine’s 4th century A.D. conversion gave Christianity a substantial boost, Roman elites were skeptical and slow to follow. The subsequent adoption of Christianity as the official religion of empire had many consequences, one of which was that it had to serve the interests of empire. Because one of those interests is war, I suspect that at least some of the martial elements of Mithraism were incorporated into Christianity. The mature (and militarized) fruits of this incorporation appeared several centuries later, during the Crusades. The rituals of the Knights Templar and other Christian military orders bear a striking resemblance to the Mithraic rituals so favored by Roman legionnaires.

Whatever the connections, the origins of Mithraism remain (appropriately enough) a mystery. In the late 1800s, the philologist Franz Cumont inaugurated a Mithras origins debate that continues to this day. In “The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis,” Roger Beck convincingly argues for an origin in the eastern border province of Commagene. The Kingdom of Commagene was in the right place at the right time and when it was incorporated into the Roman Empire, Commagenian elites would have carried the cult to Rome.

Although the Mithras cult was not present in Rome during the late republic or early empire (circa 49 BCE), several cults worshiped bulls and sacrificed them during rituals. There is a great scene from the HBO/BBC miniseries “Rome” that depicts one such sacrifice in gory detail:

Bull worship and sacrifice is undoubtedly much older and may go back several thousands of years to late Neolithic hunter-gatherers and probably was present in the earliest Neolithic communities such as Catal Hoyuk. The Mithraic adoption of bull symbolism was in all likelihood an homage of sorts to the distant past.

Reference:

Beck, R. (1998). The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis The Journal of Roman Studies, 88 DOI: 10.2307/300807

While shamanic healing methods are varied, there is a great deal of ritual similarity across time and space: trance, sucking, rattling, manipulation, and suggestion. The more dramatic the performance, the better. This historic and geographic continuity is not the result of cultural diffusion. Shamanic healing methods are similar across time and space because they can improve therapeutic outcomes.

I was reminded of these things while watching the intense trailer for Balian, a documentary in progress by filmmaker Daniel McGuire:

“Balian,” a documentary by filmmaker, Dan McGuire, tells the story of the rise and fall of a charismatic Balinese shaman (or “Balian”) named Mangku Pogog. In Bali healers enter powerful trance states in which they embody their spirit help, often drawing the patient into trance as well. Mangku Pogog engaged in full embodiment trance states curing conditions like blindness and leprosy by guiding the power of spirit through yoga postures, large stones, heavy sticks, and sucking extractions.

Join Dan and host Christina Pratt as they explore the world-view of Balinese healers and their attitudes towards sickness, health, and the healing power of transformative ritual. Through the story of Mangku Pogog we can see the effect of globalization on the belief systems of traditional people. What new challenges are presented to traditional healers as people come for healing with different worldviews and diverse beliefs about healing? Will traditional wisdom survive or be changed by “spiritual tourism.”

Compelling stuff! Dan is trying to complete the film and is running a Kickstarter Campaign. I encourage everyone to get involved with what promises to be an important film.

Preparing for the Sun Dance by Howard Terpning

Ritual is a means of performing the way things ought to be in conscious tension to the way things are in such a way that ritualized perfection is recollected in the ordinary, uncontrolled course of things.”

– Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Bare Facts of Ritual”

The Buran-Kaya rockshelter is located in the Crimean Mountains (Ukraine) near the Black Sea. Discovered in 1990, it is one of the earliest and richest Middle to Upper Paleolithic sites in the region. The assemblage of greatest interest has been directly dated and is 32,000 years old.

In a recently published study (open access), Sandrine Prat and colleagues report on the human remains and activities at Buran-Kaya. The site contains 162 human bones — mostly fragmented crania — representing 5 individuals (an adult, subadult, and juvenile). The skulls show unequivocal evidence of processing; cut marks have created multiple and parallel striations. Non-human crania at the site do not show similar signs of processing. The human heads were being treated differently. The question is why.

The authors suggest the cutting “could be interpreted as a mortuary ritual, either ritual cannibalism or a specific mortuary practice: post-mortem disarticulation processes of corpses for secondary disposal,” and is evidence of symbolic behavior related to the dead. This is a plausible suggestion. The authors then suggest a distinction between “ritual cannibalism” and “dietary cannibalism.” If ethnographic analogues are any guide, these suggestions are not mutually exclusive: the processing of human heads could have been all these things.

Among hunter-gatherers, the killing and eating of big-game is never simply a dietary act. Food is symbolic; rituals surround its preparation and consumption. If this is true of ordinary big-game, it would have been doubly true of extraordinary big-game. Hunting large mammals is a dangerous business and would have been most dangerous when humans were the prey. So when human head soup was on the menu, the ritualism surely was intense. Knowing this, it seems unlikely we can ever distinguish “ritual” and “dietary” cannibalism: the two are intertwined.

Following the feast (if it was that), the crania could been specially treated in some kind of mortuary ritual. We don’t know whether the crania belonged to strangers/enemies or relatives/friends. If the former, the crania may have been curated out of respect. If the latter, the crania may have been curated for different reasons. Perhaps they were symbols and sources of power or prowess.

The processed crania from Buran-Kaya are hardly unique; we find evidence of similar treatments, widely spread in space and time, throughout the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Whether it was cannibalistic or mortuary or both, it seems likely that head hunting and handling was symbolically and ritualistically charged.

Reference:

Prat S, Péan SC, Crépin L, Drucker DG, Puaud SJ, Valladas H, Lázničková-Galetová M, van der Plicht J, & Yanevich A (2011). The oldest anatomically modern humans from far southeast europe: direct dating, culture and behavior. PloS one, 6 (6) PMID: 21698105