One of the fantastic and daunting things about a project which seeks to comprehend “religion” in its historical entirety and cultural variety is that it’s impossible to read everything. The field for this kind of project is enormous and is touched upon, in one way or another, by nearly every discipline in the academy. This [...]
Tags:ecological anthropology·economic anthropology·Julian Steward·Native Americans·Plains Indians·ritual variation·Ruth Benedict·vision complex·vision quest
Death is big business. This past year, Americans spent $15 billion on funeral related expenses. Americans are not outliers when it comes to death spending; funeral related expenditures around the world are estimated to be at least this much and probably more. Strangely, the ratio of death spending does not diminish in poorer countries. In [...]
Tags:ancestor cults·ancestor worship·ancestors·bones·burial·Catal Hoyuk·Catalhoyuk·Cree·death·delayed return systems·filial piety·funerals·funerary·genealogy·grave goods·Ian Hodder·J.G. Macqueen·lineages·morals·mortuary·mourning·Native Americans·norms·Ojibway·Paul Hackett·power·rituals·secondary burial·skeletons·spirits·Sunghir·supernatural surveillance
In evolutionary biology, few issues have caused more debate than altruism or what appears to be altruism. It is generally accepted that selection operates on individual organisms and that these organisms are selfishly interested in their own survival and reproduction. Another way of stating this is that individual organisms are interested solely in passing along [...]
Tags:altruism·archetypal·Carl Jung·cooperation·coyote·culture hero·David Sloan Wilson·E.O. Wilson·Elliot Sober·Franz Boas·George Price·George Williams·group level selection·inclusive fitness·Jerry Coyne·John Maynard Smith·Kantian·kin selection·kindness·Mac Linscott Ricketts·metaphysics·Michael Carroll·multilevel selection·mythology·Native Americans·Oren Harman·Paul Radin·reciprocal altruism·Richard Dawkins·Robert Trivers·selfish genes·selfishness·The Price of Altruism·Trickster·unit of selection·William Hamilton
In many books and articles addressing the origins of “religious” behavior, one will find the assertion that deliberate burials are indicative of soul beliefs and that because people began burying the dead approximately 100,000 years ago, this marks the beginning of what we today call religion. As I noted in this post, there are several [...]
Tags:afterlife·afterlife beliefs·burials·commonsense dualism·deliberate burials·fox·foxes·funerary·grave goods·guardian spirit·Jordan·Levant·Lisa Maher·mortuary·Native Americans·Natufian·pre-Natufian·Russia·social complexity·social organization·soul·spirit·Sunghir·Sungir·Upper Paleolithic·Uyun al-Hammam·vision·vision quest
Every once in a great while an author manages to synthesize a vast amount of academic material into a wide-ranging monograph that is beautifully written and immensely valuable. Such authors have a rare gift and provide us with books that are much needed at a time when the pressures of academic specialization force far too much writing of [...]
Tags:American Indians·Bill Bryson·In the Hands of the Great Spirit·Jake Page·Native Americans·synthesis
Over at The Stone, the primatologist Frans de Waal asks whether we can act “morally” without being “religious.” I quote-bracket these terms because they are not without complication, and we should be careful about using them in the context of such discussions. Regardless, de Waal poses some questions for which we have historical answers. For [...]
Tags:altruistic·Bart Ehrman·chimpanzees·Christianity·ethics·ethnohistory·evolution of morality·Frans de Waal·implicit ethics·Islam·Judaism·Misquoting Jesus·monotheism·Morals Without God·Native Americans·norms·polytheism·primates·primatologist·prosocial·religions of the book·right conduct
Physicists having difficulty with the elusive Higgs boson and mysterious dark matter may wish to look for an alternative explanation: the effect that Adam and Eve’s original sin had on the universe. Whatever this hypothesis lacks in plausibility it makes up for with childish parsimony.
As Karl Giberson explains in Christianity and Extraterrestrial Life, there are [...]
Tags:Adam·aliens·Answers in Genesis·apple·cosmology·Creation Museum·dark matter·entropy·Eve·Garden of Eden·geocentrism·Higgs boson·Karl Giberson·Ken Ham·literalist Christianity·Mother Earth·Native Americans·original sin·physics·Ptolemaic universe·Romans·Second Law of Thermodynamics·tree of knowledge·Young Earth Creationists
Although it seems odd on the surface, coyotes play a major role in Native American ceremonies, mythology, legend, and cosmology. Of all the magnificent animals from which they could choose — wolf, bear, bison, eagle — why the coyote?
Given that Native Americans were renowned for their knowledge of animal behaviors, one thing is certain: there [...]
Tags:Amerindian ethnohistory·Apache·Carol Kaesuk Yoon·Cheyenne outbreak·Comanche·cosmology·coyote·Coyote at the Kitchen Door·coyotes·Crazy Horse·Creator·Dull Knife·First Americans·Ft. Robinson·Mysteries that Howl and Hunt·mythology·Native Americans·Trickster
For those interested in traditional or historic Native American cosmologies, supernaturalism, rituals, and religions, the most prolific and authoritative researcher is Ake Hultkrantz, the Swedish cultural anthropologist and professor of comparative religions at the University of Stockholm who passed away in 2006.
It has always seemed a bit odd that the primary authority in this vast [...]
Tags:Ake Hultkrantz·Amerindians·Arapaho·Arapahoe·comparative religions·cosmogony·cosmology·ethnohistory·ethnology·First Americans·Gifford Lectures·mythology·Native Americans·Natural Theology·religions·rituals·Shoshone·Shoshoni·supenaturalism·Swedish cultural anthropologist·The Religions of the American Indians
Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers discusses the case of a professor — teaching at a public university — who presented his Catholic views, disguised as philosophy, on homosexuality to his students. One student complained to the administration, calling the professor’s position “hate speech.” PZ Myers disagrees and calls it “stupid speech.” Myers then proceeds to [...]
Tags:berdache·biology·bisexuality·Catholic·Catholic belief·Catholic Church·Catholic dogma·Catholic Moral Law·Catholic theology·essentialism·ethnographic record·evolutionary fitness·extended kinship·fictive kinship·genetics·hermaphrodites·history·homosexuality·Kenneth J. Howell·Missives from Marx·moral·morality·mystification·Native Americans·natural moral law·Naturalization·nature·nuclear family·Pharyngula·procreation·PZ Myers·reality·Reification·reproduction·sexual anatomy·sexual development·sexual ontogeny·sexual physiology·sexual preferences·sexual variation·sexuality·social construction·societies that accept homosexuality·Two Spirits·University of Illinois·utilitarianism
