The Power of Gender: Patriarchy and Matriarchy Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Explain the concept of gender ideology and identify two such ideologies. Discuss how patriarchy is embedded in practices and institutions. Suggest reasons for the absence of matriarchy. Give two examples that complicate views of patriarchal dominance. In cultural constructions of gender, two or more genders are defined in an overall system that assigns various forms of behavior and activity to different categories or gendered realms of society. Some of those activities are considered more important than others, and some of those behaviors are more authoritative and dominant. Gender is not only a system of differences between the realms of female and male but also a system of power between those two realms. Patriarchy: Ideology and Practice The author of this chapter, Jennifer Hasty, reflects on what she learned about gender ideology while working as wedding videographer: As a side gig to my anthropology job, I ran my own business as a wedding videographer in the Philadelphia metropolitan area from 2010 to 2017. While the whole venture was driven by economic necessity (I was teaching part-time), the wedding industry turned out to be a fascinating vantage point from which to view gender relations in American society. Most weddings were meticulously planned by the bride, with the groom deferring to her wishes or staying out of the whole process. Brides who were attracted to my artsy, minimalist film aesthetic tended to be middle-class professionals, college graduates heading into careers in education, finance, law, or medicine. Many of these weddings were grand potlatches of middle-class style and markers of identity. Though my brides were well-educated women with professional jobs, when it came to planning their “special day,” nearly all of them reverted to traditions infused with old-fashioned gender roles. Nearly all of them wore a long, white wedding dress, a symbol of virginal purity, although many of them had been cohabiting with their grooms (and some already had children with them). A bride being escorted by her father to her wedding ceremony. Weddings reveal a lot about a culture’s gender ideology. (credit: “Father of the Bride” by stevebrownd50/flickr, CC BY 2.0) Nearly all of them insisted on being “given away” by their fathers, even when those fathers had been largely absent for some part of their childhood due to divorce. This notion of being a gift, given away to the groom, was so powerful that one bride, whose father was not there, declared in her personal vows, “I give myself in marriage to you.” Grooms and their families did not use this language of human gift giving. The notion that a woman is passed from the paternalistic domain of her father into the care and supervision of her groom reflects a larger gender ideology about the relations between men and women in family life. A gender ideology is a coordinated set of ideas about gender categories, relations, behaviors, norms, and ideals. These ideas are embedded in the institutions of the family, the economy, politics, religion, and other sociocultural spheres. As with racial and class ideologies, people often challenge the explicit terms of a gender ideology while actively participating in the institutionalized forms associated with it. Though women have made great strides in American public life in past decades, in their weddings, they still enact a gender ideology that positions them as dependent objects passed between men in the transaction of marriage. The power of gender ideology is that it most frequently operates below the level of consciousness. As you will recall from previous discussions of the term, an ideology that becomes naturalized as “common sense” becomes hegemonic. Patriarchy is a widespread gender ideology that positions men as rulers of private and public life. Within the household, the eldest male is recognized as head of the family, organizing the activities of dependent women and children and governing their behavior. Family resources such as money and land are controlled by senior men. Men make decisions; women acquiesce. Beyond the family, men are accorded positions of leadership throughout society, and women are summoned to play a supportive and enabling role as marginalized subordinates. Contemporary forms of patriarchy in American and European contexts are linked to the European development of capitalism in the 1600s. As economic activities moved out of households and into factories and offices, the household came to be defined as a private sphere, while the world of economic and political activities came to be called the public sphere. Women were assigned to the private sphere of family life, where they were expected to carry out nurturing roles as wives and mothers. Men not only governed the private sphere but also participated in the competitive and sometimes dangerous public sphere. Different forms of patriarchy have emerged throughout the world. In India, the development of agriculture and the rise of the state resulted in the increasing subordination of women in patriarchal social institutions (Bonvillain 1995). Patriarchal ideology and social structure date back to the Vedic period (1500–800 BCE). In the Vedic communities of ancient India, men dominated economic and political life, and women were mostly excluded from these spheres. However, women could exercise some forms of authority as mothers in their households. Girl children, though not preferred, were generally treated well. Girls and boys both were educated and participated in religious activities. Female chastity and fidelity were highly valued, but women could engage in premarital sex without being shunned, and wives could divorce their husbands. Legally, however, daughters and wives were dependent on the men in their lives, who could make decisions on their behalf. A woman was not permitted to inherit property unless she was the only child. In the post-Vedic period, patriarchy was strengthened with the systematic codification of Hindu law. Patriarchy grew even more domineering, with the cultural spread of child marriage, wife-beating, female infanticide, and the disfigurement and ritual death of widows. When India came under Muslim rule in the 12th century, Islamic customs for veiling and secluding women further marginalized women in Hindu and Muslim communities alike. Though contemporary India is a country of ethnic and religious diversity, patriarchy has become a dominant organizational force throughout Indian society. In rural areas, people often live in large extended family households structured by patrilineal descent. These families consist of a married couple, their sons and sons’ families, and their unmarried daughters. Men are recognized as heads of their households, exercising authority over their wives and children. The division of labor assigns men to work as farmers and traders, providing food to the family. Women mainly work in the home but sometimes also help out with agricultural chores such as weeding and harvesting. In the 19th century, a reform movement called for the elimination of many patriarchal customs such as child marriage and sati (the ritual death of widows). Reformers, most of them elite men and women, encouraged the education of girl children and the legalization of inheritance for women. In response, sati became outlawed, widows were allowed to remarry, the marriage age was fixed at 12, and women were permitted to divorce, inherit, and own property. In the latter part of the 20th century, the Indian state passed laws to enhance women’s equality in many areas, including education, inheritance, and employment. Urban women in middle- and upper-class families have benefited from these reforms. However, in rural areas, many of the patriarchal customs outlawed by the state continue to be practiced. Matriarchy: Ideology and (Not) Practice As the term suggests, matriarchy means rule by senior women. In a matriarchal society, women would exercise authority throughout social life and control power and wealth. Like patriarchy, matriarchy is a gender ideology. Unlike patriarchy, however, matriarchy is not embedded in structures and institutions in any culture in the contemporary world. That is to say, it’s just an ideology—not a dominant one, and certainly not hegemonic. While societies with patrilineal kinship systems are strongly patriarchal, societies with matrilineal kinship systems are not matriarchal. This is a common source of confusion. In matrilineal kinship systems, children primarily belong to their mother’s kin group, and inheritance passes through the maternal line. However, even in matrilineal societies, leadership is exercised by the senior men of the family. Instead of a woman’s husband, it is often her brother or mother’s brother (her maternal uncle) who makes decisions about family resources and disciplines the behavior of family members. Scholars who theorize the existence of ancient matriarchies suggest that those societies were not only matrilineal but also dominated by the leadership of women as well as the values of fertility and motherhood. Nineteenth-century social evolutionists such as Friedrich Engels and J.J. Bachofen postulated that matriarchy was the original form of human social organization, later replaced by patriarchy in societies all over the world. This notion was revived by feminist scholars in the 1970s, such as archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (1991), who postulated that the original matriarchal societies of the European Neolithic were overthrown in the Bronze Age by patriarchal invaders on horseback. Gimbutas argued that the Neolithic communities of Europe were peaceful, egalitarian, and gynocentric , or woman-centered. They worshipped a mother goddess associated with the fertility of women and the earth. High priestesses of this fertility cult were the primary leaders, supported by their brothers and a council of women. Warfare was unknown. Then, waves of Indo-European pastoralists swept across Europe on horseback, conquering the original matriarchal Europeans and establishing their violent, patriarchal order with its worship of male gods and veneration of warfare. The Venus of Willendorf statue, found in southern Austria, is presumed to be about 25,000 years old. Some archaeologists speculate that this statue and the many others like it from Paleolithic Europe are symbols of a fertility cult or mother goddess. (credit: “A Female Paleolithic Figurine, Venus of Willendorf” by Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0) Many archaeologists disagree with Gimbutas’s interpretations of the archaeological record and her refusal to consider alternative and more mainstream interpretations of the same evidence by other archaeologists. Feminist archaeologist Ruth Tringham remarked that Gimbutas had “mystified the process of interpretation and presented her own conclusions as objective fact” (1993, 197). While Gimbutas’s work on European matriarchy is criticized by scholarly archaeology, her ideas have been embraced and popularized by New Age feminists. Where are the matriarchies? Why is patriarchy so prevalent while matriarchy is nonexistent? Nobody really knows the answers to these questions. Some anthropologists think that pregnancy and childcare marginalized women, while men were freer to participate in cultural practices, technologies, and institutions. Others suggest that women’s reproductive power posed a threat to men. Patriarchy may have been developed as a system of subordination and control over the acknowledged power of women. In the search for matriarchy, it could be that feminists are looking for the wrong thing. While anthropologists have not found societies in which women dominate and control men, there are plenty of cultural examples in which women and men enjoy relative equality and freedom from sexual oppression and control. Gender and Power in Everyday Life Contemporary anthropologists who study gender pay little attention to hypothetical debates about the origins of patriarchy or the possible existence of ancient matriarchy. Rather, cultural anthropologists are interested in how people interact with the cultural norms and systematized practices of gender in their societies. Gender is diffused throughout culture, embedded in systems of kinship, modes of subsistence, political leadership and participation, law, religion, and medicine. Anthropologists study how people move through these gendered realms in their everyday lives. They explore how identities and possibilities are shaped by the structures of gender as well as how people struggle against and sometimes transform gendered expectations. Cultural anthropologists who study women in patriarchal cultures highlight the diversity of women’s experiences and their various techniques of asserting their interests in difficult circumstances. In her study of the problem of fistula among women in Niger, Allison Heller (2019) explores how women navigate gendered realms as they cope with a debilitating reproductive problem. Obstetric fistula is a complication of childbirth in which tissues separating the bladder from the vagina are ruptured, often resulting in chronic incontinence (uncontrolled urination). Often the result of prolonged or obstructed labor, fistula disproportionately affects women in rural and poor communities, who frequently give birth without professional medical assistance. The incontinence, pain, and reproductive complications of fistula stigmatize many of the women who have this condition. A host of global aid and relief agencies depict such women as victims of fistula, rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities. Heller’s ethnography complicates this simplistic picture. In her interviews with women affected by fistula, Heller discovered that family structures and relationships profoundly shape women’s experiences of fistula and the treatments available to them. In social and medical crisis, these women turn to their mothers for support and advocacy. Mothers may insist that their daughters be brought to the hospital in cases of complicated labor, thereby preventing or mitigating the severity of fistula. Mothers may also act as intermediaries between women and their relatives and neighbors, working to reduce the stigma of fistula and promote sympathy and acceptance. Heller also found that marriage conditioned a woman’s experience of fistula. Whether her marriage was arranged or a marriage “for love,” a woman whose family supported her marriage was more likely to receive extended family support. Women who had strong relationships with their husbands were far less likely to be rejected by them after developing fistula. Heller also followed women into the specialized clinics devoted to fistula care and surgical remediation. In what seems like a very unfair process, women with mild fistula are often the first to receive surgery, due to the increased likelihood of positive outcomes. Women with severe fistula may wait for months for their first surgery and then undergo several often-unsuccessful surgeries. The longer the women waited, the more likely their support networks were to wear thin or break down. Contemporary anthropologists of gender study women’s experiences of migration, genocide, religious practice, and media, among many other topics. As mentioned earlier, a growing number of studies also focus on the social construction of masculinity, exploring how men interact with the gendered expectations of their sociocultural contexts. It is tempting to assume that men uniformly benefit from systems of male privilege, with particular benefits accruing to elite men. Researchers who study masculinity in cross-cultural settings have complicated this view. Cultural anthropologist Daniel Jordan Smith studied the challenges of enacting masculinity in Igbo communities of southeast Nigeria. In his book, provocatively titled To Be a Man Is Not a One-Day Job (2017), Smith demonstrates how gender is not simply ascribed at birth but presented as a lifelong project that men must constantly work to achieve. The struggle for masculine identity begins in childhood and intensifies in secondary school as boys learn “to love women and money” (2017, 30). As rural boys are often sent to towns and cities for schooling, the transition from boyhood to manhood frequently involves mastering strategies of urban survival, such as finding ways of making money to pay for consumer items that boost their prestige among peers and enable their romantic relationships. After schooling, a young man is expected to marry and become a father as well as fulfill his role in larger extended family structures. In his senior years, a man is expected to bury his own father with a spectacular funeral. Men learn these roles largely through their relationships with other men who counsel them as friends and mentors. Central to the achievement of Nigerian manhood is money. The central markers of adult manhood all require substantial resources. Without money, a man cannot pay bride wealth to marry or provide for his children. In adulthood, men are expected to accumulate wealth through successful careers and business activities and then use their resources to support their families as well as expanding networks of dependents. Elite men who achieve these milestones later struggle to build and maintain impressive family houses, send their dependents to expensive schools, clothe their wives in fine fashions, and sponsor lavish weddings and funerals. As these examples illustrate, the cultural anthropology of gender considers the situations people face as gendered persons and how they draw from available resources and relationships to fulfill their roles and sometimes challenge gendered expectations. gender ideology a coordinated set of ideas about gender categories, relations, behaviors, norms, and ideals. gynocentric woman-centered. matriarchy a hypothetical gender ideology that positions women as rulers of private and public life. patriarchy a widespread gender ideology that positions men as rulers of private and public life.

Social Sciences


Sexuality and Queer Anthropology Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Explain how sexuality is threaded through the life cycle and various realms of culture. Describe the prevalence of same-sex relationships in heteronormative societies. Define the concept and practices related to ritualized sexuality. Give two examples of transgender roles in heteronormative contexts. Intersecting with gender, the anthropological study of sexuality explores the diversity of meanings, practices, relationships, and experiences associated with erotic interactions. Since the 1980s, the study of sexuality in anthropology has burgeoned into the dynamic subfield of queer anthropology . Anthropologists working in this subfield focus on areas of sociocultural activity distinguished from the presumed norms of heterosexuality and binary gender identities (Howe 2015). Early Anthropological Studies of Sexuality Cultural anthropologists have long been fascinated with sexuality. In his ethnography of sexual practices among the Trobrianders , Bronislaw Malinowski (1929) identifies sexuality as a central concern threaded throughout the sociocultural realms of everyday life. Of central importance to marriage, kinship, and gender relations, sexuality also pervades art, religion, medicine, economics, and even politics in Trobriand culture. Malinowski charts the sexual life stages of Trobrianders, starting with sexualized games in childhood and continuing with adolescent crushes and expeditions by groups of teenage boys or girls to nearby villages in search of amorous adventures. He describes the selection of marriage partners and the frequency of extramarital sexual relations among men. Throughout his analysis, Malinowski emphasizes that all societies must regulate the primal sexual impulse. In this functional view, sexual norms and rules function to maintain order and protect the institutions of marriage and kinship. Like Malinowski (and writing in the same time period), Margaret Mead plots the sexual life stages of women and men in Samoan culture in her most famous book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) . Unlike Malinowski, however, she emphasizes differences between the processes of sexual socialization in Samoa and the United States. Focusing on girls and women, Mead argues that Samoan culture had a more relaxed and open attitude toward sexuality. Throughout childhood, girls often witnessed the bodily realities of childbirth, menstruation, copulation, and death. In adolescence, both boys and girls were expected to experiment with romantic and sexual relationships. Free from the repression and strict sexual discipline of Euro-American culture, Samoans experienced adolescence as not a time of crisis but rather a golden era of freedom and adventure. Three young Samoan women, circa 1890. In her most famous book, Coming of Age in Samoa , Margaret Mead explored the sexual life stages of women and men in Samoan culture. She found that adolescence was experienced as a golden age of romantic and sexual freedom. (credit: “My Trip to Samoa (1911) - 3 Samoan Girls Making Ava 1909” by Bartlett Tripp/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) Shaped by the feminist movement, more contemporary approaches to gender roles and sexuality highlight structures of power in erotic relations between women and men. Over the past few decades, many Americans have become increasingly concerned about the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. Forms of sexual intimidation and violence can happen in many campus contexts, including offices and classrooms as well as student events and parties. An online survey conducted by researchers at the University of Oregon found that students in Greek life (fraternities and sororities) experience nonconsensual sexual contact more than three times as often as other students (Barnes et al. 2021). Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday (1990) conducted ethnographic research on fraternity culture, focusing on how some young men in American fraternities engage in violent assault and criminal coercion against young women. Sanday describes how fraternity men used their privileged access to alcohol and party venues to lure insecure young women to parties where they were plied with alcohol, sometimes drugged, and then sexually assaulted by one or more fraternity members. Sanday argues that fraternity culture is often permeated with forms of verbal and physical aggression against women. Not confined to fraternities, the problem of sexual assault on campuses across the United States has prompted many universities to develop consent awareness training sessions, sexual assault response teams, and survivor support programs. Same-Sex and Queer Studies Though they may be provocative and enlightening, anthropological studies of heterosexuality are still focused on mainstream gender categories and norms. Even more challenging to traditional Western sensibilities are studies, first emerging in the 1970s and 1980s, that demonstrate the prevalence of same-sex erotic interactions in cultures all over the world. A contemporary of Malinowski and Mead, renowned British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard spent his early career studying social organization and witchcraft among two different African groups, the Azande and the Nuer. Later in his career, Evans-Pritchard began thinking about the many stories he had heard in the course of his years studying African societies, particularly stories describing the prevalence of same-sex erotic practices in Zande society in precolonial times. In an article on the topic, he describes how unmarried adult warrior men, unable to marry due to the scarcity of marriageable women and forbidden to engage in adultery with other men’s wives, often took younger men as sexual partners or “wives” (1970). The warrior paid bride wealth to the parents of the younger man and performed services to the young man’s family just as he would have to the natal family of a female wife. The partners took on the roles of husband and wife, and the younger men referred to themselves as women. As the Azande did not approve of anal sex, male partners had sex “between the thighs”—that is, the older man penetrating between the thigh gap of the younger one. Like the men, Zande women also commonly engaged in same-sex practices and relationships. In Zande culture, men were permitted to have more than one wife (a form of marriage called polygyny, as you will recall from Forming Family through Kinship ). A husband took turns sleeping with each of his wives. In a family of several wives, then, a woman would wind up sleeping alone many nights. If she had married a royal husband with several hundred wives, she might have sex with her husband only a few times in her entire married life. Zande men and women told Evans-Pritchard that lonely wives would often get together at night, cut a sweet potato or manioc root into the shape of a penis, and tie it around the waist of one of the women. With this vegetable phallus, they took turns penetrating each other. Women could also formalize a “love-friend” relationship in public, widely considered by Zande men to be a cover for same-sex relations. Unlike male-male relationships, however, women’s same-sex erotic practices were discouraged. Sexual practices between senior and junior men have been found in many cultures, sparking controversies over questions of consent and child abuse. Studying a New Guinea group he called the “Sambia” (a pseudonym), anthropologist Gilbert Herdt (1984) described initiation rituals in which teenage boys were expected to fellate older male mentors in order to absorb the male essence that would make them into fully socialized men. Herdt termed this practice " ritualized homosexuality ," though some have argued with the application of Western categories of sexuality to describe such symbolically complex ritual practices. While some same-sex practices are ritualized, others are more informal and less public. Some cultures construct same-sex practices as a phase associated with adolescent experimentation and tutelage. As in many parts of contemporary Africa, girls in boarding schools in Ghana are known to experiment with same-sex relationships. In Ghana, it’s called supi (possibly short for supervisor or superintendent ). In boarding high schools, a senior girl might take a junior girl as a special friend (Dankwa 2009; Gyasi-Gyamera and Søgaard 2020). Some of these bonds are fairly casual. The junior girl runs errands for the senior girl, such as fetching water or food. The senior girl provides protection and help to the junior girl (such schools could be full of difficulties, including supply shortages and bullying). Some supi relationships can become emotionally and physically intense. The two girls often exchange gifts, write each other love letters, and fondle and caress one another. They might shower together or share a bed. Supi is not limited to a special category of girls (i.e., identified lesbians) but has been widespread among schoolgirls, nearly all of whom eventually marry men and fulfill their conventional roles as wives and mothers. In the past two decades, evangelical Christianity in Ghana has branded same-sex relationships as evils to be rooted out through ceremonies resembling exorcism. While supi is an ambiguous practice, sometimes involving sexuality and sometimes not, it has been stigmatized by evangelicals in Ghana. Christian journalists have written stories about wealthy women who snatch away young wives, referring to lesbian relationships as supi-supi . Lurid popular films such as Women in Love (1996) and Supi: The Real Woman to Woman (1996) both sensationalize and condemn women’s same-sex practices, associating them with a secret cult of mermaid worship called Mami Wata. Many anthropological studies describe same-sex practices in societies that otherwise strongly value heterosexual marriage and fertility. In such contexts, sexuality is not so much an identity as it is a ritual, life stage, coping technique, or form of pleasure. Though sometimes shielded from public view, same-sex relations are seen as complementary to heterosexual relations in some cultural contexts, fully compatible with conventional demands for heterosexual marriage and family life. In his research on gender and sexuality in Nicaragua, for instance, Roger Lancaster (1992) found that conventionally masculine men could maintain their essentially heterosexual identities if they took the “active,” penetrative role in same-sex encounters. With the progress of the LGBTQIA+ movement originating in the United States and western Europe, people around the world who engage in same-sex and transgender practices have formed public identities and communities, calling for the acceptance and legal recognition of their relationships. Rather than indulging in same-sex pleasures as a substitute for “the real thing” or as something done “on the side,” American gay and lesbian communities recast their own practices as “the real thing,” a set of practices and relationships central to their whole way of life. This assertion has profound implications for notions of family and community. If heterosexual marriage and reproduction form the foundation of kinship systems based on the idea of biological descent, then same-sex relationships suggest new forms of kinship based on networks and shared values. In Families We Choose (1991), anthropologist Kath Weston explores how lesbian and gay families in the San Francisco Bay Area constructed family networks that both reflected and challenged mainstream notions of family. Boston Pride Parade, 2007. LGBTQIA+ people around the world have publicly advocated for the acceptance and legal recognition of their relationships. (credit: “Children in Wagon (Part 2)” by greenmelinda/flickr, CC BY 2.0) Esther Newton, 1940– Personal History: Esther Newton was born the child of an unmarried Protestant mother and an absent Jewish father. After she was born, she and her mother were ostracized from her mother’s genteel upper-class family. Her mother later remarried. Growing up in the gender-rigid, heteronormative 1940s and 1950s, Esther flouted gender norms at an early age, becoming “an anti-girl, a girl refusenik” (Newton 2018, 60). She was bullied for her unconventional dress and behavior. As a young woman, she wore men’s clothes, smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes, and dated hyperfeminine lesbian women. Thus, before she even came out as a lesbian, Newton self-consciously constructed her “butch” identity—“the first identity that had ever made sense out of my body’s situation, the first rendition of gender that ever rang true, the first look I could ever pull together” (92). For her undergraduate studies, Newton attended the University of Michigan, where she earned her BA with distinction in history. In Margaret Mead Made Me Gay (2000), Newton describes her reaction to reading the work of anthropologist Margaret Mead as a college student. Mead’s relativistic portrayal of the flexibility of gender categories gave Newton consolation and ignited her interest in anthropology. She went to the University of Chicago to study anthropology at the graduate level with kinship scholar David Schneider. Area of Anthropology: For her dissertation, Newton conducted fieldwork among men who dressed as women in the American Midwest. Entitled “The ‘Drag Queens’: A Study in Urban Anthropology” (1968), this pathbreaking work described the experiences, challenges, and culture of gender-nonconforming American men in a variety of theatrical and everyday settings. Her research on this topic was later published in her book Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America (1972), the first major anthropological study of a gay or lesbian community in the United States. In spite of its initially lukewarm reception, the book has since become a classic in LGBTQIA+ studies. Accomplishments in the Field: Hired in 1971, Newton was a founding faculty member of the State University of New York at Purchase, also known as Purchase College. She helped establish the disciplines of anthropology, women’s studies, and gay/lesbian studies there. Newton taught at Purchase until 2006 and is now a professor emerita. Importance of Her Work : In her memoir, My Butch Career (2018), Newton tells the story of the first half of her life, highlighting the challenges facing her generation of middle-class lesbians. She describes the difficulties of pursuing higher education and building a professional career, including the impossibility of coming out even as she studied and wrote about lesbian, gay, and gender-nonconforming communities in American society in the 1960s. Esther Newton’s work has been translated into French, Spanish, Hebrew, Polish, and Slovak. She is the subject of the documentary film Esther Newton Made Me Gay , currently in production, which has a trailer available to view . In an interview, Newton commented, “It’s been fun being a film star” (2019). Transgender Studies Evans-Pritchard’s research on male-male marriage among the precolonial Azande provided an example of young men who were socially constructed as women through their wifely role in these marriages. Across the continent, in West Africa, women in precolonial Igbo society could be ritually transformed into men and then engage in female-female marriages as husbands. In Male Daughters and Female Husbands (1987), Ifi Amadiume describes how a father with no sons could make his eldest daughter into an honorary “son” who could inherit and carry on the patrilineage. This woman became a “male daughter.” If she were married, she would return to her natal compound to undergo a ceremony that transferred her into the social category of male. She would then wear men’s clothes, live in the male section of the compound, perform men’s work rather than women’s, and participate in community life as a man. She could marry women who then became her wives (thus becoming a “female husband”). Those wives would have discreet liaisons with men in the area in order to bear children, who would belong to the lineage of the female husband. It was also possible for Igbo women who became wealthy and powerful in their communities to take a title through ritual means that allowed them to take wives of their own, just as male daughters could. Even if she were married herself, a powerful woman could have wives to do most or all of her domestic work. Did these powerful women have sexual relations with their wives? Anthropologists just don’t know. Amadiume describes women joking about sex between women in such marriages, but nobody knows how common it might have been. Building on this earlier research, a fresh area of inquiry has developed in anthropology centered on the experiences, identities, and practices of transgender and gender-nonbinary persons and communities. Transgender describes a person who transitions from a gender category ascribed at birth to a chosen gender identity. Gender nonbinary describes a person who rejects strict male and female gender categories in favor of a more flexible and contextual expression of gender. Cultural anthropologists have described a great diversity in the expression of trans identities, pointing to the prevalence of transgender practices the world over. Taking an innovative approach, anthropologist Marcia Ochoa (2014) devised a research project on “spectacular femininity” in Venezuela by examining two communities: female beauty pageant contestants and transgender sex workers who also hold beauty pageants. Ochoa traces the emergence of the beauty pageant in Venezuela and identifies this ritual competition as a carrier of notions of modernity and nationhood. She explores the competition of young women, or misses , in the Miss Venezuela pageant as well as the local and regional beauty pageants for transformistas , gay Venezuelans who identify as women. The stylized performances of transformistas carry over into their displays on Avenida Libertador in central Caracas, the neighborhood where they conduct their trade as sex workers. In order to compete in these realms of spectacular femininity, both misses and transformistas undergo painful surgical procedures to make their bodies conform to an exaggerated ideal of Eurocentric femininity. Hellen Madok, a.k.a. Pamela Soares, Miss Brasil Transex winner, 2007 (left); transgender women at Trans Pride 2007 in Washington, DC (right). A fresh area of anthropological inquiry explores the experiences, identities, and practices of transgender and gender-nonbinary persons and communities. (credit: left, Silvio Tanaka/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0; right, “DC Transgender Pride 2007” by FightHIVinDC/flickr, CC BY 2.0) Ochoa’s work is pathbreaking in its ability to bring together concepts often explored separately or held in opposition: heterosexuality and non-heterosexuality, gender and sexuality, and cis and trans identities ( cisgender describes gender identity constructed on the sex assigned at birth). By juxtaposing misses and transformistas , she shows how these seemingly disparate concepts are threaded together in the complex web of Venezuelan culture. The End of Gender? In cultures that are strongly heteronormative with rigid two-gender systems, some people feel restricted in their gender identities and sexual practices. In many countries, efforts to create more flexibility in the expression of gender and sexuality have focused on gaining equal rights for and combating discrimination against women and LGBTQIA+ persons. In the past 50 years, this social movement has achieved great strides at national and global levels. In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution recognizing LGBTQIA+ rights. The United Nations subsequently urged all countries to pass laws to protect LGBTQIA+ persons from discrimination, hate crimes, and the criminalization of non-heterosexuality. Same-sex marriage has now been legalized in 29 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, and most of western Europe. In many countries, however, same-sex acts and gender nonconformity are still criminalized, sometimes punishable by death. Where progress has been made on human rights for LGBTQIA+ persons, these changes have made life much easier for many people, allowing them to feel secure in their families, their jobs, and their public lives. Some activists are concerned that such legal reforms do not go far enough, however. Gender and sexuality are not just legal issues; they are cultural issues as well. The strict heterosexual two-gender scheme common to European and American cultures is a system infused with patriarchal values, expressed in patriarchal practices and institutions. That is to say, inequality is built into the heteronormative system of gender. In order to achieve true freedom and full equality, is it necessary to get rid of categories of gender and sexuality altogether? Are gender categories inherently oppressive? Some people think so, arguing that society should transition to more gender-blind forms of language and social relations. In the United States, a movement is underway to neutralize gender in everyday language. Whereas masculine pronouns (he/him) were previously the default way of referring to hypothetical persons or situations where gender is not specified, followed by a movement toward specifying both masculine and feminine pronouns (he or she/him or her), new conventions call for the use of third-person plural forms (they/them) as singular pronouns instead, particularly to include people who identify as neither man nor woman. For example, instead of saying, “Every person should wash his hands” or “Every person should wash his or her hands,” one might say, “Every person should wash their hands.” (Notably, this is already an accepted feature of everyday English that people commonly use without thinking about; if a housemate tells you, “Someone left a message for you,” you’re more likely to respond with “What did they want?” than with “What did he want?” or “What did he or she want?”) Moreover, a convention is evolving that allows people to specify the pronouns they would prefer, either gendered (she/her, he/him) or neutral (they/them, other). Will changes in pronoun usage bring about greater freedom and equality in patriarchal societies? Maybe. Many languages have gender-free pronouns, such as Twi, a West African language of the Akan peoples in central Ghana. However, though matrilineal, the Akans are also patriarchal. And gender is a very fundamental aspect of identity in Akan societies, structuring norms of dress, language, behavior, and relationships throughout a person’s life. In other words, pronouns do not bear much relationship to the organization of gender in culture and social institutions. In the United States, the English language pronoun system might change to be gender neutral, but women and LGBTQIA+ people will still inhabit those cultural categories. Those categories will not just disappear. Previous discussions of racial categories have addressed the fact that race is not a set of biological categories objectively found in nature. Rather, race, like gender, is socioculturally constructed. Even so, it is naive to pretend that race does not exist as a social reality that structures inequality in many societies. As discussed in, Social Inequalities , when people try to be “color blind,” they ignore the sociocultural reality of race and make it more difficult to recognize and remediate racial inequalities. Similarly, the fact that gender is a social construct does not mean that people can easily transition to a gender-blind society. Scholars of gender and sexuality argue that American society still grants forms of authority and privilege to heterosexual men through the cultural norms pervading public and private life. Asserting a “gender blind” perspective may obscure forms of inequality and violence that operate through gender and sexuality. Race and gender are both powerful sociocultural categories embedded in social practices and institutions. Anthropology encourages recognition of the diversity and complexity of those constructed categories alongside acknowledgment of the real histories of marginalization and struggle. Perhaps changes in pronoun use are just the beginning of more far-reaching changes to come. Summary Gender and sexuality are complex and highly variable aspects of culture. Examining evidence from primates and humans as well as the archaeological record, anthropologists have concluded that humans are highly variable, capable of many expressions of gender and sexuality. Cultural anthropologists describe how notions of femininity and masculinity are embedded in institutions and performed by people in their everyday practices. A growing area of research considers the experiences of intersex persons as well as efforts by parents and doctors to assign gender in ambiguous situations. Many cultures allow for greater flexibility beyond the dichotomy of male and female, providing alternative forms of masculinity and femininity for people who wish to transition out of their assigned categories. The study of gender and sexuality also shows how power operates among the categories of gender, particularly through forms of gender ideology such as patriarchy. Like gender, human sexuality is a highly flexible aspect of culture, expressed in a broad range of practices and institutions. Anthropologists have discovered that same-sex practices are quite common even in heteronormative contexts. Recent anthropological research illustrates how gender ideologies shape the identities and experiences of people in communities practicing different forms of sexuality. Self-Reflection Consider your own body. What do you do to your body on a daily or weekly basis? Why? For two nonconsecutive days, make careful note of all of the routine practices devoted to your body (including hygiene, dress, exercise, etc.). Are these practices shaped by notions of gender? Of sex or sexuality? Do these practices shape the way you think of your body as gendered? Do they influence the way you present yourself in social situations? Do you think they influence the way others interact with you? Consider how other people respond to and interact with your body (or refuse to interact with it). How are these interactions shaped by cultural notions of gender and sexuality? Are there notions of power embedded in these bodily practices? Patriarchy? Feminism? Heteronormativity? Critical Thinking Questions Suggested Readings di Leonardo, Micaela, ed. 1991. Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era . Berkeley: University of California Press. Newton, Esther. 2000. Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Stryker, Susan, and Stephen Whittle, ed. 2006. The Transgender Studies Reader . New York: Routledge. Bibliography Amadiume, Ifi. 1987. Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society . London: Zed Books. Barnes, Melissa L., Alexis Adams-Clark, Marina N. Rosenthal, and Carly P. Smith. 2021. “Pledged into Harm: Sorority and Fraternity Members Face Increased Risk of Sexual Assault and Sexual Violence.” Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence 6 (1). https://doi.org/10.23860/dignity.2021.06.01.09. Behrens, Kevin G. 2020. “A Principled Ethical Approach to Intersex Paediatric Surgeries.” BMC Medical Ethics 21:108. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00550-x. Bonvillain, Nancy. 1995. Women and Men: Cultural Constructs of Gender . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Brandes, Stanley. 1980. Metaphors of Masculinity: Sex and Status in Andalusian Folklore . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Butler, Judith. 1992. “The Body You Want: An Interview with Judith Butler.” By Liz Kotz. Artforum , November 1992. https://www.artforum.com/print/199209/the-body-you-want-an-inteview-with-judith-butler-33505. Dankwa, Serena Owusua. 2009. “‘It’s a Silent Trade’: Female Same-Sex Intimacies in Post-Colonial Ghana.” NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 17 (3): 192–205. https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740903117208. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1970. “Sexual Inversion among the Azande.” American Anthropologist 72 (6): 1428–1434. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1970.72.6.02a00170. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 1992. Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men . 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality . New York: Basic Books. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2001. “A Conversation with Anne Fausto-Sterling: Exploring What Makes Us Male or Female.” Interview by Claudia Dreifus. New York Times , January 2, 2001. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/02/science/a-conversation-with-anne-fausto-sterling-exploring-what-makes-us-male-or-female.html. Fedigan, Linda Marie, and Laurence Fedigan. 1989. “Gender and the Study of Primates.” In Gender and Anthropology: Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching , edited by Sandra Morgen, 41–64. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association. Gibbons, Ann. 2012. “Bonobos Join Chimps as Closest Human Relatives.” Science , June 13, 2012. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/06/bonobos-join-chimps-closest-human-relatives. Gibbons, Ann. 2020. “Woman the Hunter: Ancient Andean Remains Challenge Old Ideas of Who Speared Big Game.” Science , November 4, 2020. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/woman-hunter-ancient-andean-remains-challenge-old-ideas-who-speared-big-game. Gimbutas, Marija. 1991. The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe . Edited by Joan Marler. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Gutmann, Matthew C. 1997. “Trafficking in Men: The Anthropology of Masculinity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26:385–409. Gyasi-Gyamerah, Angela Anarfi, and Mathias Søgaard. 2020. “Caught between Worlds: Ghanaian Youth’s Views of Hybrid Sexuality.” In Routledge Handbook of Queer African Studies , edited by S. N. Nyeck, 254–265. New York: Routledge. Heller, Alison. 2019. Fistula Politics: Birthing Injuries and the Quest for Continence in Niger . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Herdt, Gilbert H., ed. 1984. Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia . Berkeley: University of California Press. Hewlett, Barry S. 1991. Intimate Fathers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Howe, Cymene. 2015. “Queer Anthropology.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences , edited by James D. Wright, 2nd ed., 752–758. New York: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.12219-6. Lancaster, Roger N. 1992. Life Is Hard: Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua . Berkeley: University of California Press. Lipset, David. 2003. “Rereading Sex and Temperament: Margaret Mead’s Sepik Triptych and Its Ethnographic Critics.” Anthropological Quarterly 76 (4): 693–713. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1929. The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia: An Ethnographic Account of Courtship, Marriage, and Family Life among the Natives of the Trobriand Islands, British New Guinea . London: George Routledge & Sons. Mascia-Lees, Frances E., and Nancy Johnson Black. 2000. Gender and Anthropology . Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Mead, Margaret. 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation . New York: W. Morrow. Mead, Margaret. 1935. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York: W. Morrow. Nanda, Serena. 2000. Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations . Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Newton, Esther. 1972. Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Newton, Esther. 2000. Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Newton, Esther. 2018. My Butch Career: A Memoir . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Newton, Esther. 2019. “Esther Newton Talks My Butch Career: A Memoir .” October 3, 2019, in Outtake Voices , hosted by Charlotte Robinson. Podcast. https://voices.outtakeonline.com/2019/10/esther-newton-talks-my-butch-career.html. Ochoa, Marcia. 2014. Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ozyegin, Gul, ed. 2015. Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Cultures . Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist. 1974. “Woman, Culture, and Society: A Theoretical Overview.” In Woman, Culture, and Society , edited by Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, 17–42. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Sanday, Peggy Reeves. 1990. Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus . New York: New York University Press. Smith, Daniel Jordan. 2017. To Be a Man Is Not a One-Day Job: Masculinity, Money, and Intimacy in Nigeria . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tringham, Ruth. 1993. Review of The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe , by Marija Gimbutas, edited by Joan Marler. American Anthropologist 95 (1): 196–197. Viloria, Hida. 2017. “Doctors Resort to Nonsensical Reasoning to Justify Surgeries on Intersex Children.” HuffPost , July 29, 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doctors-resort-to-nonsensical-arguments-to-justify_b_597b9b19e4b09982b7376474. Weston, Kath. 1991. Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship . New York: Columbia University Press. Zihlman, Adrienne L. 1997. “Natural History of Apes: Life-History Features in Females and Males.” In The Evolving Female: A Life History Perspective , edited by Mary Ellen Morbeck, Alison Galloway, and Adrienne L. Zihlman, 86–104. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. gender nonbinary rejecting strict male and female gender categories in favor of a more flexible and contextual expression of gender. queer anthropology a subfield of anthropology that focuses on areas of sociocultural activity distinguished from the presumed norms of heterosexuality and gender identities.

Social Sciences


Introduction A man carries a Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheel, rotating it as a way of sending out prayers as blessings. (credit: “Person in face mask holding Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Wheel” by Grisha Grishkoff/Pexels, CC0) Religion is one of the most complex and pervasive of all sociocultural institutions. It is also universal. All cultures and societies across time have had beliefs and worldviews that can be classified as religious in nature, even within political institutions that are areligious or avow atheism. Innovative research also indicates that primates, most especially the human species, have evolved physically, socially, and emotionally toward a sense of spirituality and religiosity (see King 2007).

Social Sciences


What Is Religion? Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Distinguish between religion, spirituality, and worldview. Describe the connections between witchcraft, sorcery, and magic. Identify differences between deities and spirits. Identify shamanism. Describe the institutionalization of religion in state societies. Defining Religion, Spirituality, and Worldview An anthropological inquiry into religion can easily become muddled and hazy because religion encompasses intangible things such as values, ideas, beliefs, and norms. It can be helpful to establish some shared signposts. Two researchers whose work has focused on religion offer definitions that point to diverse poles of thought about the subject. Frequently, anthropologists bookend their understanding of religion by citing these well-known definitions. French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) utilized an anthropological approach to religion in his study of totemism among Indigenous Australian peoples in the early 20th century. In his work The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915), he argues that social scientists should begin with what he calls “simple religions” in their attempts to understand the structure and function of belief systems in general. His definition of religion takes an empirical approach and identifies key elements of a religion: “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (47). This definition breaks down religion into the components of beliefs, practices, and a social organization—what a shared group of people believe and do. An outdoor Christian worship service timed to coincide with the sunrise on Easter morning. Religion includes a great variety of human constructs and experiences. (credit: “Easter Sunrise Service 2017” by James S. Laughlin/Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs/flickr, Public Domain) The other signpost used within anthropology to make sense of religion was crafted by American anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926–2006) in his work The Interpretation of Cultures (1973). Geertz’s definition takes a very different approach: “A religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (90). Geertz’s definition, which is complex and holistic and addresses intangibles such as emotions and feelings, presents religion as a different paradigm , or overall model, for how we see systems of belief. Geertz views religion as an impetus to view and act upon the world in a certain manner. While still acknowledging that religion is a shared endeavor, Geertz focuses on religion’s role as a potent cultural symbol. Elusive, ambiguous, and hard to define, religion in Geertz’s conception is primarily a feeling that motivates and unites groups of people with shared beliefs. In the next section, we will examine the meanings of symbols and how they function within cultures, which will deepen your understanding of Geertz’s definition. For Geertz, religion is intensely symbolic. When anthropologists study religion, it can be helpful to consider both of these definitions because religion includes such varied human constructs and experiences as social structures, sets of beliefs, a feeling of awe, and an aura of mystery. While different religious groups and practices sometimes extend beyond what can be covered by a simple definition, we can broadly define religion as a shared system of beliefs and practices regarding the interaction of natural and supernatural phenomena. And yet as soon as we ascribe a meaning to religion, we must distinguish some related concepts, such as spirituality and worldview. Over the last few years, a growing number of Americans have been choosing to define themselves as spiritual rather than religious. A 2017 Pew Research Center study found that 27 percent of Americans identify as “spiritual but not religious,” which is 8 percentage points higher than it was in 2012 (Lipka and Gecewicz 2017). There are different factors that can distinguish religion and spirituality, and individuals will define and use these terms in specific ways; however, in general, while religion usually refers to shared affiliation with a particular structure or organization, spirituality normally refers to loosely structured beliefs and feelings about relationships between the natural and supernatural worlds. Spirituality can be very adaptable to changing circumstances and is often built upon an individual’s perception of the surrounding environment. Many Americans with religious affiliation also use the term spirituality and distinguish it from their religion. Pew found in 2017 that 48 percent of respondents said they were both religious and spiritual. Pew also found that 27 percent of people say religion is very important to them (Lipka and Gecewicz 2017). Another trend pertaining to religion in the United States is the growth of those defining themselves as nones , or people with no religious affiliation. In a 2014 survey of 35,000 Americans from 50 states, Pew found that nearly a quarter of Americans assigned themselves to this category (Pew Research Center 2015). The percentage of adults assigning themselves to the “none” category had grown substantially, from 16 percent in 2007 to 23 percent in 2014; among millennials, the percentage of nones was even higher, at 35 percent (Lipka 2015). In a follow-up survey, participants were asked to identity their major reasons for choosing to be nonaffiliated; the most common responses pointed to the growing politicization of American churches and a more critical and questioning stance toward the institutional structure of all religions (Pew Research Center 2018). It is important, however, to point out that nones are not the same as agnostics or atheists. Nones may hold traditional and/or nontraditional religious beliefs outside of membership in a religious institution. Agnosticism is the belief that God or the divine is unknowable and therefore skepticism of belief is appropriate, and atheism is a stance that denies the existence of a god or collection of gods. Nones, agnostics, and atheists can hold spiritual beliefs, however. When anthropologists study religion, it is very important for them to define the terms they are using because these terms can have different meanings when used outside of academic studies. In addition, the meaning of terms may change. As the social and political landscape in a society changes, it affects all social institutions, including religion. Religious Affiliation Percentage Christian 70.6% Jewish 1.9% Muslim 0.9% Buddhist 0.7% Hindu 0.7% *Unaffiliated/Nones 22.8% American religious affiliations and “nones,” based on the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study, 2014. Even those who consider themselves neither spiritual nor religious hold secular, or nonreligious, beliefs that structure how they view themselves and the world they live in. The term worldview refers to a person’s outlook or orientation; it is a learned perspective, which has both individual and collective components, on the nature of life itself. Individuals frequently conflate and intermingle their religious and spiritual beliefs and their worldviews as they experience change within their lives. When studying religion, anthropologists need to remain aware of these various dimensions of belief. The word religion is not always adequate to identify an individual’s belief systems. Like all social institutions, religion evolves within and across time and cultures—even across early human species! Adapting to changes in population size and the reality of people’s daily lives, religions and religious/spiritual practices reflect life on the ground . Interestingly, though, while some institutions (such as economics) tend to change radically from one era to another, often because of technological changes, religion tends to be more viscous , meaning it tends to change at a much slower pace and mix together various beliefs and practices. While religion can be a factor in promoting rapid social change, it more commonly changes slowly and retains older features while adding new ones. In effect, religion contains within it many of its earlier iterations and can thus be quite complex. Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Magic People in Western cultures too often think of religion as a belief system associated with a church, temple, or mosque, but religion is much more diverse. In the 1960s, anthropologists typically used an evolutionary model for religion that associated less structured religious systems with simple societies and more complex forms of religion with more complex political systems. Anthropologists noticed that as populations grew, all forms of organization—political, economic, social, and religious—became more complex as well. For example, with the emergence of tribal societies, religion expanded to become not only a system of healing and connection with both animate and inanimate things in the environment but also a mechanism for addressing desire and conflict. Witchcraft and sorcery, both forms of magic, are more visible in larger-scale, more complex societies. The terms witchcraft and sorcery are variously defined across disciplines and from one researcher to another, yet there is some agreement about common elements associated with each. Witchcraft involves the use of intangible (not material) means to cause a change in circumstances to another person. It is normally associated with practices such as incantations, spells, blessings, and other types of formulaic language that, when pronounced, causes a transformation. Sorcery is similar to witchcraft but involves the use of material elements to cause a change in circumstances to another person. It is normally associated with such practices as magical bundles, love potions, and any specific action that uses another person’s personal leavings (such as their hair, nails, or even excreta). While some scholars argue that witchcraft and sorcery are “dark,” negative, antisocial actions that seek to punish others, ethnographic research is filled with examples of more ambiguous or even positive uses as well. Cultural anthropologist Alma Gottlieb , who did fieldwork among the Beng people of Côte d’Ivoire in Africa, describes how the king that the Beng choose as their leader must always be a witch himself, not because of his ability to harm others but because his mystical powers allow him to protect the Beng people that he rules (2008). His knowledge and abilities allow him to be a capable ruler. Some scholars argue that witchcraft and sorcery may be later developments in religion and not part of the earliest rituals because they can be used to express social conflict. What is the relationship between conflict, religion, and political organization? Consider what you learned in Social Inequalities . As a society’s population rises, individuals within that society have less familiarity and personal experience with each other and must instead rely on family reputation or rank as the basis for establishing trust. Also, as social diversity increases, people find themselves interacting with those who have different behaviors and beliefs from their own. Frequently, we trust those who are most like ourselves, and diversity can create a sense of mistrust. This sense of not knowing or understanding the people one lives, works, and trades with creates social stress and forces people to put themselves into what can feel like risky situations when interacting with one another. In such a setting, witchcraft and sorcery provide a feeling of security and control over other people. Historically, as populations increased and sociocultural institutions became larger and more complex, religion evolved to provide mechanisms such as witchcraft and sorcery that helped individuals establish a sense of social control over their lives. Magic is essential to both witchcraft and sorcery, and the principles of magic are part of every religion. The anthropological study of magic is considered to have begun in the late 19th century with the 1890 publication of The Golden Bough , by Scottish social anthropologist Sir James G. Frazer . This work, published in several volumes, details the rituals and beliefs of a diverse range of societies, all collected by Frazer from the accounts of missionaries and travelers. Frazer was an armchair anthropologist, meaning that he did not practice fieldwork. In his work, he provided one of the earliest definitions of magic, describing it as “a spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct” (Frazer [1922] 1925, 11). A more precise and neutral definition depicts magic as a supposed system of natural law whose practice causes a transformation to occur. In the natural world—the world of our senses and the things we hear, see, smell, taste, and touch—we operate with evidence of observable cause and effect. Magic is a system in which the actions or causes are not always empirical. Speaking a spell or other magical formula does not provide observable (empirical) effects. For practitioners of magic, however, this abstract cause and effect is just as consequential and just as true. Frazer refers to magic as “sympathetic magic” because it is based on the idea of sympathy, or common feeling, and he argued that there are two principles of sympathetic magic: the law of similarity and the law of contagion. The law of similarity is the belief that a magician can create a desired change by imitating that change. This is associated with actions or charms that mimic or look like the effects one desires, such as the use of an effigy that looks like another person or even the Venus figurine associated with the Upper Paleolithic period, whose voluptuous female body parts may have been used as part of a fertility ritual. By taking actions on the stand-in figure, the magician is able to cause an effect on the person believed to be represented by this figure. The law of contagion is the belief that things that have once been in contact with each other remain connected always, such as a piece of jewelry owned by someone you love, a locket of hair or baby tooth kept as a keepsake, or personal leavings to be used in acts of sorcery. The Venus figurine was a genre of art most frequently associated with the late Upper Paleolithic period, 25,000–12,000 BCE. It is considered a form of magic because the exaggerated female body parts are believed to be related to ideas of female fertility and reproduction. (credit: “Venus von Willendorf” by Anagoria/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0) This classification of magic broadens our understanding of how magic can be used and how common it is across all religions. Prayers and special mortuary artifacts ( grave goods ) indicate that the concept of magic is an innately human practice and not associated solely with tribal societies. In most cultures and across religious traditions, people bury or cremate loved ones with meaningful clothing, jewelry, or even a photo. These practices and sentimental acts are magical bonds and connections among acts, artifacts, and people. Even prayers and shamanic journeying (a form of metaphysical travel) to spirits and deities, practiced in almost all religious traditions, are magical contracts within people’s belief systems that strengthen practitioners’ faith. Instead of seeing magic as something outside of religion that diminishes seriousness, anthropologists see magic as a profound human act of faith. Supernatural Forces and Beings As stated earlier, religion typically regards the interaction of natural and supernatural phenomena. Put simply, a supernatural force is a figure or energy that does not follow natural law. In other words, it is nonempirical and cannot be measured or observed by normal means. Religious practices rely on contact and interaction with a wide range of supernatural forces of varying degrees of complexity and specificity. In many religious traditions, there are both supernatural deities, or gods who are named and have the ability to change human fortunes, and spirits, who are less powerful and not always identified by name. Spirit or spirits can be diffuse and perceived as a field of energy or an unnamed force. Practitioners of witchcraft and sorcery manipulate a supposed supernatural force that is often referred to by the term mana , first identified in Polynesia among the Maori of New Zealand ( mana is a Maori word). Anthropologists see a similar supposed sacred energy field in many different religious traditions and now use this word to refer to that energy force. Mana is an impersonal (unnamed and unidentified) force that can adhere for varying periods of time to people or animate and inanimate objects to make them sacred. One example is in the biblical story that appears in Mark 5:25–30, in which a woman suffering an illness simply touches Jesus’s cloak and is healed. Jesus asks, “Who touched my clothes?” because he recognizes that some of this force has passed from him to the woman who was ill in order to heal her. Many Christians see the person of Jesus as sacred and holy from the time of his baptism by the Holy Spirit. Christian baptism in many traditions is meant as a duplication or repetition of Christ’s baptism. There are also named and known supernatural deities. A deity is a god or goddess. Most often conceived as humanlike, gods (male) and goddesses (female) are typically named beings with individual personalities and interests. Monotheistic religions focus on a single named god or goddess, and polytheistic religions are built around a pantheon, or group, of gods and/or goddesses, each usually specializing in a specific sort of behavior or action. And there are spirits , which tend to be associated with very specific (and narrower) activities, such as earth spirits or guardian spirits (or angels). Some spirits emanate from or are connected directly to humans, such as ghosts and ancestor spirits , which may be attached to specific individuals, families, or places. In some patrilineal societies, ancestor spirits require a great deal of sacrifice from the living. This veneration of the dead can consume large quantities of resources. In the Philippines, the practice of venerating the ancestor spirits involves elaborate house shrines, altars, and food offerings. In central Madagascar, the Merino people practice a regular “turning of the bones,” called famidihana . Every five to seven years, a family will disinter some of their deceased family members and replace their burial clothing with new, expensive silk garments as a form of remembrance and to honor all of their ancestors. In both of these cases, ancestor spirits are believed to continue to have an effect on their living relatives, and failure to carry out these rituals is believed to put the living at risk of harm from the dead. Religious Specialists Religious groups typically have some type of leadership, whether formal or informal. Some religious leaders occupy a specific role or status within a larger organization, representing the rules and regulations of the institution, including norms of behavior. In anthropology, these individuals are called priests , even though they may have other titles within their religious groups. Anthropology defines priests as full-time practitioners, meaning they occupy a religious rank at all times, whether or not they are officiating at rituals or ceremonies, and they have leadership over groups of people. They serve as mediators or guides between individuals or groups of people and the deity or deities. In religion-specific terms, anthropological priests may be called by various names, including titles such as priest, pastor, preacher, teacher, imam (Islam), and rabbi (Judaism). Another category of specialists is prophets . These individuals are associated with religious change and transformation, calling for a renewal of beliefs or a restructuring of the status quo. Their leadership is usually temporary or indirect, and sometimes the prophet is on the margins of a larger religious organization. German sociologist Max Weber (1947) identified prophets as having charisma , a personality trait that conveys authority: Charisma is a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These as such are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader. (358–359) A third type of specialist is shamans . Shamans are part-time religious specialists who work with clients to address very specific and individual needs by making direct contact with deities or supernatural forces. While priests will officiate at recurring ritual events, a shaman, much like a medical psychologist, addresses each individual need. One exception to this is the shaman’s role in subsistence, usually hunting. In societies where the shaman is responsible for “calling up the animals” so that hunters will have success, the ritual may be calendrical , or occurring on a cyclical basis. While shamans are medical and religious specialists within shamanic societies, there are other religions that practice forms of shamanism as part of their own belief systems. Sometimes, these shamanic practitioners will be known by terms such as pastor or preacher , or even layperson . And some religious specialists serve as both part-time priests and part-time shamans, occupying more than one role as needed within a group of practitioners. You will read more about shamanism in the next section. Shamanism One early form of religion is shamanism , a practice of divination and healing that involves soul travel, also called shamanic journeying, to connect natural and supernatural realms in nonlinear time. Associated initially with small-scale societies, shamanic practices are now known to be embedded in many of the world’s religions. In some cultures, shamans are part-time specialists, usually drawn into the practice by a “calling” and trained in the necessary skills and rituals though an apprenticeship. In other cultures, all individuals are believed to be capable of shamanic journeying if properly trained. By journeying—an act frequently initiated by dance, trance, drumbeat, song, or hallucinogenic substances—the shaman is able to consult with a spiritual world populated by supernatural figures and deceased ancestors. The term itself, šamán , meaning “one who knows,” is an Evenki word, originating among the Evenk people of northern Siberia. Shamanism, found all over the world, was first studied by anthropologists in Siberia. While shamanism is a healing practice, it conforms to the anthropological definition of religion as a shared set of beliefs and practices pertaining to the natural and supernatural. Cultures and societies that publicly affirm shamanism as a predominant and generally accepted practice often are referred to as shamanic cultures . Shamanism and shamanic activity, however, are found within most religions. The world’s two dominant mainstream religions both contain a type of shamanistic practice: the laying on of hands in Christianity, in which a mystical healing and blessing is passed from one person to another, and the mystical Islamic practice of Sufism, in which the practitioner, called a dervish, dances by whirling faster and faster in order to reach a trance state of communing with the divine. There are numerous other shared religious beliefs and practices among different religions besides shamanism. Given the physical and social evolution of our species, it is likely that we all share aspects of a fundamental religious orientation and that religious changes are added on to, rather than used to replace, earlier practices such as shamanism. Whirling dervishes enter a trance state during a ceremony in Turkey by practicing a rhythmic, spinning dance. In this state, they are able to commune with the deity. (credit: “Whirling Dervishes 2” by Richard Ha/flickr, CC BY 2.0) Indigenous shamanism continues to be a significant force for healing and prophecy today and is the predominant religious mode in small-scale, subsistence-based societies, such as bands of gatherers and hunters. Shamanism is valued by hunters as an intuitive way to locate wild animals, often depicted as “getting into the mind of the animal.” Shamanism is also valued as a means of healing, allowing individuals to discern and address sources of physical and social illness that may be affecting their health. One of the best-studied shamanic healing practices is that of the !Kung San in Central Africa. When individuals in that society suffer physical or socioemotional distress, they practice n/um tchai , a medicine dance, to draw up spiritual forces within themselves that can be used for shamanic self-healing (Marshall [1969] 2009). Shamanism is an early form of religion. It is based on perceived contact between natural and supernatural realms. Here, a Kwakiutl shaman from the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States makes contact with supernatural forces. (credit: “Hamatsa emerging from the woods—Koskimo” by Edward S. Curtis/Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, Public Domain) Shamanistic practices remain an important part of the culture of modern Inuit people in the Canadian Arctic, particularly their practices pertaining to whale hunting. Although these traditional hunts were prohibited for a time, Inuit people were able to legally resume them in 1994. In a recent study of Inuit whaling communities in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, cultural anthropologists Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich Oosten (2013) found that although hunting technology has changed—whaling spears now include a grenade that, when aimed properly, allows for a quick and more humane death—many shamanistic beliefs and social practices pertaining to the hunt endure. The sharing of maktak or muktuk (whale skin and blubber) with elders is believed to lift their spirits and prolong their lives by connecting them to their ancestors and memories of their youth, the communal sharing of whale meat connects families to each other, and the relationship between hunter and hunted mystically sustains the populations of both. Inuit hunters believe that the whale “gives itself” to the hunter in order to establish this relationship, and when the hunter and community gratefully and humbly consume the catch, this ties the whales to the people and preserves them both. While Laugrand and Oosten found that most Inuit communities practice modern-day Christianity, the shamanistic values of their ancestors continue to play a major role in their understanding of both the whale hunt and what it means to be Inuit today. Their practice and understanding of religion incorporate both the church and their ancestral beliefs. Contemporary Inuit still use shamanistic practices when they hunt and fish. Here, an Inuit fisherman in Greenland goes out seeking fish. (credit: Renate Haase/Pixabay, CC0) Above all, shamanism reflects the principles and practice of mutuality and balance, the belief that all living things are connected to each other and can have an effect on each other. This is a value that reverberates through almost all other religious systems as well. Concepts such as stewardship (caring for and nurturing resources), charity (providing for the needs of others), and justice (concern and respect for others and their rights) are all valued in shamanism. The Institutionalization of Religion Shamanism is classified as animism , a worldview in which spiritual agency is assigned to all things, including natural elements such as rocks and trees. Sometimes associated with the idea of dual souls—a day soul and a night soul, the latter of which can wander in dreams—and sometimes with unnamed and disembodied spirits believed to be associated with living and nonliving things, animism was at first understood by anthropologists as a primitive step toward more complex religions. In his work Primitive Culture (1871), British anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor , considered the first academic anthropologist, identified animism as a proto-religion, an evolutionary beginning point for all religions. As population densities increased and societies developed more complex forms of social organization, religion mirrored many of these changes. With the advent of state societies, religion became institutionalized. As population densities increased and urban areas emerged, the structure and function of religion shifted into a bureaucracy, known as a state religion . State religions are formal institutions with full-time administrators (e.g., priests, pastors, rabbis, imams), a set doctrine of beliefs and regulations, and a policy of growth by seeking new practitioners through conversion. While state religions continued to exhibit characteristics of earlier forms, they were now structured as organizations with a hierarchy, including functionaries at different levels with different specializations. Religion was now administered as well as practiced. Similar to the use of mercenaries as paid soldiers in a state army, bureaucratic religions include paid positions that may not require subscribing to the belief system itself. Examples of early state religions include the pantheons of Egypt and Greece. Today, the most common state religions are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Rather than part-time shamans, tribal and state religions are often headed by full-time religious leaders who administer higher levels within the religious bureaucracy. With institutionalization, religion began to develop formalized doctrines , or sets of specific and usually rigid principles or teachings, that would be applied through the codification of a formal system of laws. And, unlike earlier religious forms, state religions are usually defined not by birthright but by conversion. Using proselytization , a recruitment practice in which members actively seek converts to the group, state religions are powerful institutions in society. They bring diverse groups of people together and establish common value systems. There are two common arrangements between political states and state religions. In some instances, such as contemporary Iran, the religious institution and the state are one, and religious leaders head the political structure. In other societies, there is an explicit separation between religion and state. The separation has been handled differently across nation-states. In some states, the political government supports a state religion (or several) as the official religion(s). In some of these cases, the religious institution will play a role in political decision-making from local to national levels. In other state societies with a separation between religion and state, religious institutions will receive favors, such as subsidies, from state governments. This may include tax or military exemptions and privileged access to resources. It is this latter arrangement that we see in the United States, where institutions such as the Department of Defense and the IRS keep lists of officially recognized religions with political and tax-exempt status. Among the approximately 200 sovereign nation-states worldwide, there are many variations in the relationship between state and religion, including societies that have political religions, where the state or state rulers are considered divine and holy. In North Korea today, people practice an official policy of juche , which means self-reliance and independence. A highly nationalist policy, it has religious overtones, including reverence and obeisance to the state leader (Kim Jong Un) and unquestioning allegiance to the North Korean state. An extreme form of nationalism, juche functions as a political religion with the government and leader seen as deity and divine. Unlike in a theocracy, where the religious structure has political power, in North Korea, the political structure is the practiced religion. Historically, relationships between religious institution and state have been extremely complex, with power arrangements shifting and changing over time. Today, Christian fundamentalism is playing an increasingly political role in U.S. society. Since its bureaucratization, religion has had a political role in almost every nation-state. In many state societies, religious institutions serve as charity organizations to meet the basic needs of many citizens, as educational institutions offering both mainstream and alternative pedagogies, and as community organizations to help mobilize groups of people for specific actions. Although some states—such as Cuba, China, Cambodia, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union—have declared atheism as their official policy during certain historical periods, religion has never fully disappeared in any of them. Religious groups, however, may face varying levels of oppression within state societies. The Uighurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic group of some 10 million people in northwestern China. Since 2017, when Chinese president Xi Jinping issued an order that all religions in China should be Chinese in their orientation, the Uighurs have faced mounting levels of oppression, including discrimination in state services. There have been recent accusations of mass sterilizations and genocide by the Chinese government against this ethnic minority (see BBC News 2021). During periods of state oppression, religion tends to break up into smaller units practiced at a local or even household level. agnosticism the belief that God or the divine is unknowable and therefore skepticism is appropriate. animism a worldview in which there is believed to be spiritual agency in all things, including natural elements such as rocks and trees. atheism the lack of belief in a god or gods. deity a god, usually named, with individual personalities and interests. doctrine a set of formal and usually rigid principles or teachings of a religious organization. goddesses female deities. gods deities; often, specifically male deities. law of contagion the belief that things that have once been in contact with each other remain connected always; a theory of magic. law of similarity the belief that things that are alike exert a force on each other; a theory of magic. magic a supposed system of natural law, the practice of which causes a transformation to occur. mana an impersonal force that can adhere to people or animate and inanimate objects to make them sacred . monotheistic religion a religion that centers on a single named god or goddess. none a person with no religious affiliation. polytheistic religion a religion that centers on a group of gods and/or goddesses, each devoted to a specific action or behavior. priests full-time religious leaders who manage and administer at a high level within the religious bureaucracy. prophet an individual associated with religious change who calls for a renewal of beliefs or a restructuring of the status quo. A prophet’s leadership is usually temporary or indirect. proselytization a recruitment practice in which members actively seek converts to the group. religion a shared system of beliefs and practices that are highly regarded in society. Most often, religion is focused on the interaction of natural and supernatural phenomena. shamanism a practice of healing and divination that involves soul travel to connect natural and supernatural realms in nonlinear time. shaman a part-time religious figure who works to connect with deities on behalf of others. sorcery a practice involving the use of material elements to cause a change in circumstances to another person. spirit supernatural being associated with specific activities, such as an earth spirit or guardian spirit (or angel). spirituality a loose structure of beliefs and feelings about relationships between the natural and supernatural worlds. state religion a formal religious institution with full-time administrators, a set doctrine of beliefs and regulations, and a policy of seeking growth by conversion of new practitioners. witchcraft a practice involving the use of intangible means to cause a change in circumstances to another person. worldview a specific outlook or orientation that an individual or group of individuals holds on the nature of the world.

Social Sciences


Symbolic and Sacred Space Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Distinguish between a symbol and sign. Explain the architectural dimensions of sacred space. Understand the meaning of sacred place. Symbolism in Religion Symbolism plays a vital role in religion. A symbol stands for something else, is arbitrary, and has no natural connection to its reference. There are two main types of symbols. A symbol can be a metaphor , meaning that it is completely disconnected from what it represents, such as the Islamic symbol of the crescent and star, which represents enlightenment brought about through God. Or a symbol might be a metonym , in which the part stands for the whole, such as the cross, which is an artifact of a specific portion of Christian history that is now used to stand for Christianity as a whole. Symbols are multivocal by nature, which means they can have more than one meaning. Their meaning derives from both how the symbol is used and how the audience views it. The more common and widespread a symbol, the more conflicting references and meanings may coexist. As an example, think of the U.S. flag; when draped over a veteran’s casket, the flag has a different meaning from when it is waved at a rally or burned in protest. One symbol, multiple meanings. (left) In the first image, fog represents the collision of warm and cold air over San Francisco Bay; it is a natural effect. (right) In the second image, the fog/smoke is artificially created onstage at a Rolling Stones concert to establish a particular mood and association. It is symbolic. (credit: (left) “Above the fog” by CucombreLibre/flickr, CC BY 2.0, credit : (right) “StonesLondon220518-82” by Raph_PH/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0) The prevalence of symbolism in religion indicates that religions are learned and shared systems of belief. While there are empirical aspects to religion, especially in regard to religious practices such as dance, trance, and prayer, the meaning behind the practices is entirely learned. Symbolism is attached not only to supernatural deities and spirits but also to religious places, myths, and rituals. In the Ethnographic Sketch at the end of the chapter, you will read more about symbols and religion. The tools used for working magic displayed on this traditional Wiccan altar include an athame, a ritual knife that is used in many rituals, among them the ritual of casting a circle (creating a sacred place). Also shown are a boline, sword, wand, pentacle, chalice, and censer. (credit: “Wiccan Altar” by Fer Doirich/Wikimedia Commons, CC0) Religious Places Anthropologists distinguish between space , an unmarked physical field on which imagination or action can occur, and place , a location that has sociocultural meaning(s) attached. Many religions and religious practices are defined by sacred places that serve as settings for hierophany , the manifestation of the sacred or divine. Commonly, the sense of the sacred derives from the prior history and the use of a place. In most religions, sacred places are marked by other symbols. A Jewish home is identified as a special religious place. One way of marking this sacred place is by attaching mezuzahs, small casings containing a tiny parchment with a verse from the Torah to external and internal doorposts. Placings these mezuzahs at the points of entry marks the place inside as holy, sacred, and set apart. Like most religious places, the Jewish home is a densely symbolic place. Religious places are part of the built environment, or places that people create as representations of their beliefs. Religious scholar Mircea Eliade focuses on religious places in his work The Sacred and Profane (1959), arguing that one “becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane” (11). He identifies three characteristics associated with sacred places: Every sacred place is marked by a threshold , which separates the two spaces, the sacred inside and the profane outside. It marks a passageway and a new mode of being: “The threshold is the limit, the boundary, the frontier.” It is guarded in various ways and it is an “object of great importance” (25). Every sacred place memorializes a hierophany , or sacred event, by including an area within the sacred place that is most holy—usually where something sacred has occurred in the past. This is like an umbilical cord (Eliade calls it an axis mundi) that connects practitioner with deity and/or spirit, memorializing the occurrence of something special that happened (or happens) here. In many religious places, there will be an altar or some sort of commemoration in this spot. Every sacred place represents an imago mundi , an image or microcosm of the world as seen from the religious perspective. In some religious traditions, sacred places will be decorated with reminders of what is most valued by that tradition, using various types of artworks. In Catholic churches, for example, paintings of the events associated with the crucifixion of Christ, known as the stations of the cross, remind believers of Christ’s sacrifice. Eliade’s characteristics of sacred places can be useful tools for beginning to understand the role of a place in a religion or a religious practice that is unfamiliar to us. They prompt us to look at the place through a believer’s eyes: What happens here? What are the meanings associated with the different parts of this place? What are the proper ways to enter and exit and show respect? Because religion is heavily symbolic, we must strive to understand these places from inside the religious belief system. The practice of casting the Wiccan circle is a good example of creating religious place. Wicca is a relatively new religious movement based on ancient pagan beliefs and rituals. It is sometimes referred to as a neo-pagan movement because it is a modern polytheistic movement focused on belief in nature spirits. Although it has historical roots, the movement itself began in the mid-1900s in England. Wicca is focused on the dual energies of the male and the female and typically involves the worship of a goddess and a god (sometimes along with other deities), celebrating the natural world and the idea that this dual spirit resides in nature. The pentagram, a five-pointed star, is the primary Wiccan symbol, representing the five classical elements: air, water, fire, earth, and aether (spirit). When Wiccans—also called witches, regardless of gender—gather to worship, they establish a religious place outdoors. This is done through a ritual called casting a circle. Using a ritual knife or sword that represents fire, the witch casting the circle will symbolically “cut” the circle in three dimensions by walking out the circumference on the ground to symbolically mark the boundaries and establish the threshold. Then the caster will call on the guardians of the watchtowers of the four directions—north, south, east, and west—and above to mark the spherical shape as the caster marks the space using salt water (earth and water) and incense (fire and air). Once the guardians are invoked, the circle is cast and the practitioners can enter for the sacred ritual. When the ritual ends, the circle is dismantled by reversing each of these actions and returning the ground to its profane (not holy) status. The circle is sacred as soon as it is cast and remains sacred until the meeting ends and it is ritually deactivated. The circle is fluid, portable, and only cast for a single use each time. It serves as the entrance to the sacred portal in which the practitioners will encounter and interact with the spirits. Knowing how to properly cast the circle is critical, so a skilled witch is always in charge of this phase. Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is a sacred place marked by numerous symbols. Note that elaborate stained glass, Gothic arches, candles, and incredibly high ceiling. It is shown here before a 2019 fire that caused considerable damage. (credit: “Inside Notre Dame” by Kosala Bandara/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0) While Eliade’s approach to sacred architecture remains useful, anthropology increasingly uses a phenomenological, or experience-based, approach when studying place. The phenomenological approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a place emerges as it is used. Within this approach, a church building is understood to become sacred when practitioners bring their beliefs and meanings regarding the sacred with them into the sanctuary. It is the meaning assigned to the place by the people entering it that establishes its sacredness. The phenomenological approach argues that the nature of a place emerges from its use and denomination as a sacred place. This a new perspective in anthropology that opens up exciting new fields in the study of religious place. hierophany the manifestation of the sacred or divine. metaphor a symbol that is not naturally connected to what it represents. metonym a symbol in which a part stands for the whole. multivocal describes symbols that have more than one meaning. place a location that has sociocultural meaning attached to it. space an unmarked physical field; a place with no specific cultural meaning. symbol something that stands arbitrarily for something else and has no natural connection to its referent.

Social Sciences