How religion was connected to everyday life. Forms of primitive beliefs. From relative animal to ancestor animal

Primitive religious beliefs

Mythological consciousness

The formation of religion as a relatively independent spiritual sphere was preceded by a long process of formation and development of beliefs within the framework of primitive mythology.

Modern religious scholars believe that historically the first way to master the world was mythological consciousness

The term “mythology” itself is of Greek origin and the term “mythos” literally means “speech, word or legend”, and in science the term “mythology” means a set of myths, which is a spiritual reproduction of reality in the form of a message or narrative, with In this case, all characters and events presented in the myth are recognized as objectively existing or existing.

Mythology most likely formed spontaneously, in the conditions of a communal-tribal system as a result of collective creativity and acted as a certain way of mastering reality.

In mythology there is no awareness of the difference between man and nature, there is no opposition between individual and collective consciousness, there is no separation between the image or symbol and the object itself. There is no clear contrast between the subjective and the objective.

In mythological stories, very often people, animals and objects can be endowed with supernatural characteristics that are not inherent in them in ordinary life.

ONE of the central problems that researchers of ancient religions deal with is the problem of the essence of myth. And in particular, the famous domestic researcher Losev, in his work “Dialectics of Myth,” proposed the following approach to explaining mythology. In his opinion, ancient man mastered only one mental operation: identifying the known with the unknown. Due to objective reasons, ancient man only knew the life of his clan, tribe or city, i.e. limited social space and therefore he projected this social knowledge onto the entire social world around him. And as a result, we can observe the emergence of a hierarchy of gods - from the hierarchy in society, deities appear who are responsible for different types of activities; deities who oversee the main forms of relationships between people - war and love. As a result, Losev concludes that mythology is a projection or tracing of the social life of a certain group.

Much attention was paid to the study of mythological consciousness by the famous researcher of the 20th and early 21st centuries, Claude Lévi-Strauss, who is the developer of a new direction in the humanities called the structural or structuralist approach. From Lévi-Strauss's point of view, so-called binary oppositions occupy a large place in mythological consciousness. As the mythological plot develops, one opposition (opposition) is replaced by another with less pronounced characteristics in relation to the previous one. This process of replacing one opposition with another (the process of resolving the opposition) was designated in Lévi-Strauss’s concept as the “process of mediation.” From Lévi-Strauss's point of view, the task of a researcher in the field of mythology is to identify such oppositions and trace their unfolding in a mythological plot.

The next problem that researchers are actively interested in in the field of studying mythological consciousness is the chronological boundaries of mythological consciousness. The famous researcher of the late 20th century, Karl Jaspers, in his work “The Meaning and Purpose of History” paid great attention to the problem of mythological consciousness, as well as the problem of the formation of rational thinking

As a result of his research, he came to the conclusion that in the history of mankind it is possible to distinguish a certain period (the so-called “Axial Time”), during which the formation of the basic principles (main features) of rational thinking took place. The period of “Axial Time” covers the VIII-II centuries. BC. and it is precisely at this time, according to the philosopher, that, firstly, a qualitative leap in the spiritual development of humanity occurs. During this period, philosophical knowledge appeared and major religious and philosophical movements were formed, such as Taoism in China and Buddhism in India. At this time, a state system with elements of religiosity - Confucianism - was emerging. During this period, an important religious system was formed in Iran - Zaraostrianism. During this period, Judaism actively developed, influencing Christianity. It was during the Axial Age that a person begins to oppose himself to the world, and also to consider himself and the world as objects of knowledge precisely from rational (scientific) positions. K. Jaspers emphasized that the emergence of rational thinking and worldview does not mean that mythological consciousness completely disappeared. These phenomena began to develop in parallel, but at the same time, the closer to modernity, the greater the position that rational consciousness and rational worldview began to occupy.

From the point of view of Erich Fromm, three groups of symbols can be distinguished:

1. Individual

2. Group (negotiable)

3. Universal

The formation of symbols can occur both at a conscious and unconscious level. For religious studies, contractual and universal symbols are of greatest interest, since they reflect religious and mythological information.

Types of Myths

The system of myths is diverse, but, as a rule, most myths are organized around so-called etiological narratives, i.e. narratives that explain the emergence of something or someone. In other words, myths answer the questions “from where,” “why,” “when,” etc. Researchers offer a certain typology of myths for the convenience of studying them:

1. Cosmogonic myths - myths that tell about the emergence of the world as a whole

2. Theogonic myths (“theos” - god), tell about the origin of the gods

3. Astrogonic myths - myths that tell about the emergence of individual cosmic phenomena or planets

4. Anthropogonic myths - myths that tell about the origin of man

5. Ethnogonic myths (totemic myths) - myths telling about the emergence (history) of a people

6. Eschatological myths, i.e. myths that tell about the end of the world (usually through major disasters, the Last Judgment)

7. Calendar myths - myths about dying and resurrecting nature - these myths tell about the peculiarities of human agricultural and pastoral activity, which is cyclical (seasonal) in nature

8. Myths about cultural heroes - tell about characters who played an important role in the history of mankind (Prometheus, Hercules)

9. Another famous European researcher, M. Eliade, paid great attention to the structural study of mythology, who in his work “Aspects of Myth” proposed to highlight several main characteristics of myth:

a) myths are often stories of the exploits of supernatural beings

b) mythological tales are presented as absolutely true for the myth-maker and for the corresponding group

c) myth always has something to do with creation, i.e. talks about the emergence of phenomena, objects, people, the world, etc.

d) by learning about the world, a person seemed to get to know the surrounding social and outer space

At the present stage of human development, religious mythology also retains its certain positions, but at the same time, socio-political mythology has become widespread in the modern world, which draws certain prospects for building a good society (the history of Russia is an attempt at communism, Germany - fascism)

PRIMITIVE FORMS OF RELIGION AND THEIR FEATURES

The term “form of religion” in relation to primitive societies was developed by Soviet ethnographic science and, in particular, a major contribution to the development of this category and to the study of specific early forms of religion was made by Tokarev. By a form of religion, Tokarev proposes to understand a certain set of interconnected beliefs and rituals, which in a certain way reflect the type of social relations or some type of human activity.

Researchers are faced with several important questions, which relate firstly to the time of the emergence of religious life, secondly, an important problem is the question of which forms of religion are earlier and which were formed later, the third question is the essence of these forms of religion.

The formation of religious life in the form of funeral rites and totemism can probably be attributed to the era of the Neanderthals, but funeral rites have been reliably recorded since about 100 thousand years ago. Therefore, researchers note that the emergence of religious life occurred later than the physiological types of people (“homohabiles”, “homoabiles”) began to form.

Over the course of two centuries, researchers, as they studied primitive beliefs, came to the conclusion that the most ancient forms of religion were animism; others said it was fetishism; others said it was totemism; fourth - funeral rites as a form of religion; fifth - magic.

From the point of view of modern science, the earliest forms of religion are funeral rites and totemism.

Funeral rite is a set of actions and beliefs associated with the process of burying a deceased person or animal. From the point of view of researchers, the formation of funeral rituals is due to two main factors: the first is the desire to get rid of the body of a deceased person out of a feeling of discomfort and fear of the deceased; the second is the bitterness of losing a loved one and the desire to meet him again.

There are several main types of burials:

1. Inhumation is the usual placing of the deceased in a grave or other burial structure. The most ancient and widespread type of burial

2. Cremation - complete or incomplete burning

3. Air burial - the bodies of deceased people were hung by their feet from trees

4. Underwater burial - the body of the deceased was placed in water (in a boat, raft; wrapped in a sheet, on a board and in the sea; the channel was blocked, buried there and the channel was blocked again

5. Secondary burial - the body of the deceased was in a certain place for a certain period of time, then after some time it was re-buried

6. Burial of individual parts of a deceased person, primarily the head

In the funeral rite, an important role is played by such elements as the funeral structure and accompanying goods; as a rule, the features of funeral goods in ancient times and the Middle Ages reflected the social status and property status of the deceased. The important significance of the funeral rite, if it is performed according to the tradition of inhumation, is the position of the body of the deceased in the grave and its orientation either relative to the sides of the horizon, or relative to some geographical and other objects.

All the variety of funeral rituals and all its components are aimed at ensuring a favorable transition of the soul of the deceased or other substance to the afterlife.

The funeral rite is very closely connected with the funeral rite and therefore very often researchers use the term “funeral and memorial rites”, since this concept reflects a single cycle aimed at the favorable transition of the soul of the deceased to another world. This entire funeral-memorial cycle can cover a period from several days to one year.

Totemism– a large amount of scientific literature is devoted to the study of totemism, and this form of religion is one of the most controversial in domestic and foreign religious studies. The term “totemism” itself comes from the word “ototeman,” which translated from the language of the North American Indians means “his kind.” This term was first introduced into scientific use at the end of the 18th century, when in 1791 the English traveler J. Long published a book entitled “The Travels and Wanderings of an Indian Translator and Merchant.” True, in this book he gave a somewhat false interpretation of this term, believing that a totem denotes the patron spirit of an individual person, who appears to him in the form of an animal. The problem of totemism began to be studied more comprehensively and scientifically in the 2nd half of the 19th century, in particular in 1870, J. McLenan published his famous work on the veneration of animals and plants, and it was in this work that it was not “totem” that was used, but the term “totemism” and in In this book, the scientist concluded that totemism is a special stage that all peoples went through and the essence of his idea of totemism was the worship of animals and plants.

The English researcher Tylor criticized McLenon's concept; in Tylor's opinion, totemism cannot be reduced to simple worship of animals and plants, as McLenon did. In general, Tylor argued that he discovered in totemism the desire of man to classify the world and its objects, therefore, in general, Tylor viewed totemism as a relationship between a certain type of animal and a tribe (social organism), in addition, Tylor was against considering totemism the basis of religious life of humanity and it is no coincidence that Tylor formulated his concept, according to which the earliest form of religion is anemism, that is, the inspiration of the entire surrounding world. At the same time, McLenan and Tylor, despite their different views, rightly noted that in totemism a person transfers the features of his own social structure to all nature, therefore totemism has not only a religious, but also a social aspect. The greatest contribution to the development of the theory of totemism was made by another English researcher - J. Fraser. In 1887, his first book on this problem appeared, called “totemism,” which contained a large amount of factual data, but did not give a specific definition to this phenomenon, but in 1890 the first edition of his book was published - the golden branch and in this work he tries explain the essence of totemism from the standpoint of the idea of the “external soul”. “External soul” is one of the souls of a person, which is stored in some object or object of the external world. Accordingly, the life of the person himself is connected with the life and safety of this object. Much attention Fraser devoted to the rite of initiation (the transition of a child from childhood to adulthood). During initiations, a person’s soul is transferred to an animal or other object, which becomes his totem. And feedback occurs - the soul of the animal is transferred into the person himself. In this way, a special connection is established between a person and his totem, and hence the idea arises that if you kill the totem, it automatically means killing yourself. In 1910, his other famous book “Totemism and Exogamy” was published (exogamy is a ban on marriage relations between representatives of a related group, the opposite term is endogamy). In this work, the scientist summarized a huge amount of factual information on the problem of totemism and compiled an encyclopedia of totemism, which, according to factual information, has not lost its weight to the present day. In the same work, the scientist paid attention to theoretical aspects in the study of totemism.

Totem, from Fraser’s point of view, is a class of material objects to which primitive man (savage) treats with superstitious respect. This primitive man believes that there is a certain special connection between such a material object and each member of the class. Moreover, this connection between a person and his totem, from Fraser’s point of view, is mutually beneficial: on the one hand, the totem protects the person, and on the other hand, the person shows his respect to the totem in different ways (does not kill totem animals, does not pluck totem plants, etc. .). Fraser points out that, unlike a fetish, a totem is always a whole class of objects, and not a separate object. Most often, animals or plants act as a totem, much less often inanimate objects of nature, and even less often artificially made things.

Totemism, according to Fraser, can be clan (a set of clans), sexual and individual. Thus, according to first Fraser's concept of totemism, totemism is both a religion and a social system. According to second Fraser's theory, an important place in totemism is occupied by such a phenomenon as the multiplication of a totem. According to this concept, each clan magically ensures the abundance of its totem, but at the same time, representatives of the clan themselves do not eat totems (animals, plants) for food. Thus, the unification of clans and totems into unique magical cooperation occurs, and thereby the prosperity of the entire surrounding nature is achieved. Third Fraser's theory about the origin of totemism is based on the idea that primitive tribes did not understand the true reason for women's pregnancy and therefore pregnant women believed that there was a certain connection between the conception of a child and some species of plants or animals. At present, all three of Fraser's theories are of interest only as a certain stage in the understanding of totemism, since the subsequent development of religious studies has shown their inconsistency.

Many researchers emphasize the very close emotional connection between people and their totem. At the same time, attention is drawn to the collectivity of totemic ideas, therefore the carriers of such ideas are a group of people and, most often, a clan.

Emile Durkheim paid great attention to the consideration of collective totemic ideas. He believed that totemism was a general stage in the development of religious ideas; his second conclusion was that totemism was the initial stage, i.e. the earliest form of religion. Durkheim based his understanding of this phenomenon on two concepts: sacred and profane (sacred and profane). The sacred is that which is sanctioned by society itself. Accordingly, the totem is sacred because it is a symbol (the material personification of the entire clan). A totem is an elementary form of a deity, in the person of whom the primitive collective honors itself. Thus, Emile Durkheim believed that the totem is precisely the material symbol of the unity of primitive society. At the beginning of the 20th century, certain ideas emerged about totemism as a religious system with a strongly expressed social side. And this system had the following features:

The belief of a group of people (usually a clan) in a special connection between a class of objects in the external world and the collective

This is the belief in the origin of the collective from the totem

Exogamy of a totemic group

The name of the social group based on the totem.

Introduction of food prohibitions regarding the totem

Caring for the totem

Belief in reincarnation as a totem

Totemism was considered a necessary stage in the development of religion and, moreover, was considered one of the earliest forms of religious ideas.

The problem of totemism was given much attention in Russian science, especially during the Soviet period (the first two decades of Soviet power). During the Soviet period, totemism was considered as a historically emerging formation (system). Moreover, totemism was interpreted not only as a necessary stage of religious development, but also as a necessary stage in the development of society in the social aspect.

In the 20-30s. In the 20th century, such concepts as the totemic stage, the totemic system, which preceded the tribal system, began to be introduced. During the Soviet period, researchers who dealt with the problems of totemism proposed different approaches to its interpretation and, moreover, during their scientific activity sometimes changed their position.

Religious scholar and ethnographer Zelenin, who studied the issue of totemism among the peoples of Eastern Europe and northern Asia. In the 2nd half of the 30s. the scientist wrote: “totem is one of the most ancient forms of spirit. In a totem, the spirit is still completely inseparable from its external form of an animal or other natural object. It is precisely this material spirit-totem that is the object of the earliest manifestation of primitive religious beliefs.” in the first half of the 30s. the same Zelenin believed that totemism could have been preceded by the so-called “cult of the Angons” (patron spirits among the peoples of Siberia in the form of anthropomorphic organs).

Another researcher Zolotarev also dealt with the problem of totemism and believed that totemism is a universal ideology that establishes the relationship between nature and primitive society.

Tolstoy in the early 30s. pointed out that for totemism it is very important to feel the connection of the collective with a certain territory and with the productive forces of this territory. In addition, he believed that the feeling of a production connection with a certain species of animals and plants lies at the basis of the ideologies of totemism. Another researcher who studied the problems of early forms of religions, Anisimov, came to the conclusion that totemism is certainly a staged phenomenon that most peoples went through, but totemism was preceded by an earlier form of religion - fetishism.

Tokarev defined totemism as a form of religion of early tribal hunting communities as a belief in a supernatural connection or kinship existing between people and certain types of material objects (animals or plants). Tokarev believed that the basis of totemism is the transfer of consanguineous relationships to the outside world.

Another famous researcher, Semenov, made a great contribution to the development of the theory of totemism in Soviet science. In his opinion, the idea of the identity of a group of people with a certain type of animal arose as a result of hunting specialization.

In general, in Soviet science there was an understanding of totemism as a universal and obligatory stage in the spiritual and social development of primitive peoples.

Already at the beginning of the 20th century, a second approach to understanding totemism began to take shape. This approach was based on the fact that the concept of “totemism” is often used by ethnographers, religious scholars, and historians to include a variety of religious and social phenomena. In particular, in 1910 The famous European researcher, Alexander Goldenweiser, published a work on totemism entitled “Totemism and Analytical Study,” where he came to the conclusion that totemism as a religious-social system does not exist, and the term “totemism” itself is an illusion or self-deception of researchers.

In the second half of the 20th century, this problem was also raised. First of all, such a famous researcher as Claude Lévi-Strauss. One of his works is called “Totemism Today.” In this work, Levi-Strauss emphasizes that the sphere of totemism lies primarily in the intellectual field and therefore totemism and everything connected with it is nothing more than a form or aspect of universal systematic activity. In this regard, various animals, plants and other natural phenomena in primitive society acted as elements of classification, i.e. as some logical tools in the process of intellectual activity of primitive man. And moreover, from the point of view of Lévi-Strauss, totemism is largely used by modern researchers to unite various religious and social phenomena, and from here he concludes that totemism, in the form in which his researchers propose it, did not exist. Of course, not all researchers share this position, which is why the famous scientist P. Warsi, after the publication of Lévi-Strauss’s works, wrote that the scientist’s desire was not to understand totemism, but to exclude it as a religious phenomenon.

Despite the fact that scientists recognize the diversity and complexity of the concept of totemism, nevertheless, modern science considers the use of this term justified and the need to study this phenomenon. A. Elkin published the work “Totemism in Northwestern Australia. Elkin believes that, indeed, totemism is not a single phenomenon, but a term that is used to designate different phenomena of a social, religious and magical nature. Therefore, it is necessary to study each time the characteristics of the relationships that arise in one or another group. Elkin offers his classification of totemism according to two criteria: form and function. By form, the scientist understands a certain way of distributing totems among members of the tribe, and by function he understands the role that individual forms of totemism play in the life of the collective.

Classifications according to Elkin:

1. Individual totemism

2. Gender totemism (male, female)

3. Sections and subsections

4. Tribal totemism

5. Local totemism (in this case, membership in a totemic group is determined by location, and not by kinship)

6. Tribal totemism

Classification by functions according to Elkin:

1. Public or social totemism

2. Cult totemism

3. Conception totemism

4. Dream totemism

5. Helper totemism

Elkin concludes that the essence of totemism is manifested in a view of the world, according to which man is part of nature, has no sharp differences from other living species and has the same vital essence as other living organisms. At the same time, the scientist emphasizes that this is not a mutual connection between the entire people or tribe and nature as a whole. Because in this case we are talking about the relationship between a person and a group of people on the one hand and individual species of animals and plants on the other.

In modern Russian science, the problem of totemism is also raised by researchers. Especially in relation to the study of the remnants of totemism among the peoples of Siberia. The domestic scientist Alekseev made a great contribution to the development of such problems. In modern domestic science, totemism is understood as a system of beliefs in which a person has a relationship with a totem or the existence of a mystical relationship between a group or individual and a totem is recognized. It is also traditionally believed in our science that a totem is, as a rule, an animal or plant that acts as a symbol, an emblem of a social group or an individual. Primitive people treated the totem as a kind and caring ancestor and patron who protects people (namely their relatives) from hunger, disease, cold, death, etc. Initially, Russian researchers believed that the totem was a real animal, insect or plant. But gradually such real objects were replaced by more or less realistic images, and then by a more simplified symbol, word or sound.

Domestic scientists also generally accept Elkin’s classification approach. As historical development progressed, most peoples lost the totemic concept, but in a number of regions, primarily in Australia, it turned out to be the most tenacious. Our domestic scientists point out that among Australian tribes, objects called “churinga” are of great importance in ritual activities. These are stone or wooden plates with drawings printed on them that represent a particular totem. According to the Australian aborigines, churingas store the magical power of the totem ancestor. It is the churingas that ensure the reproduction of living beings, can serve as a receptacle for an ancestor, and favor the birth of children. The connection between objects is so strong that if such an object is destroyed or broken, a person can get sick and even die. Of course, according to domestic scientists, individual and group totemism was of great importance. It was the basis of the worldview of primitive society. There is also a connection between totemism and magic, the cult of ancestors, with the idea of the existence of the soul, with beliefs about the existence of spirits. Currently, elements of group totemism are recorded not only among the peoples of Australia, but also among some of the peoples of Africa (South and Center), Oceania and North America.

Despite the controversial approaches to the definition of totemism, most researchers recognize the existence of this socio-religious phenomenon and researchers note that remnants of totemism can be found in many religious systems of antiquity. We can conclude that perhaps totemism is considered as a stage in the spiritual development of humanity.

Animism

The term animism itself is of Latin origin from the term anima, which means soul. In religious studies, the term “animism” means the belief in the existence of souls and spirits, that is, supernatural beings that in the religious consciousness are represented as acting in all dead and living nature and such spirits can influence the whole world, including humans. In other words, animism is the spiritualization or animation of the entire surrounding world. The term “animism” was first used by the German researcher Stahl in his article in 1608. at that time, by the term “animism” he understood the doctrine of the impersonal life principle, of the soul underlying all life processes. The term animism received its greatest development already in the 19th century thanks to the research of Tylor. The concept of animism has been repeatedly supplemented and revised by scientists, and now animism is indeed considered as one of the early forms of religion, but it is emphasized that its appearance is associated with a certain level of abstract phenomenon, therefore animism is one of the most recent religious forms that arose in the primitive era . The very last one is shamanism. It absorbed elements of previous religions. Animism developed over a long period and in one form or another it is present in almost all religious traditions. Animism is divided into three large sections - archaic animism (spiritualization of the entire surrounding world), spiritualism (ancient world and the East. That is, spirits, gods and all that), monotheism (Islam, Christianity, Judaism). Scientists also note that animism includes the following components:

1. Knowledge of the nature and origin of the soul

2. Knowledge about the location of the soul inside the human body

3. Knowledge about the presence of the soul outside the physical body

4. Knowledge about the residence of the soul after the physical death of the human body (knowledge about the afterlife of the soul)

5. Knowledge about the transformation of the soul or its rebirth

Ethnographic material provides a wide variety of studies of this phenomenon, and therefore it is no coincidence that researchers noticed that in addition to animism, researchers identified another direction, which was called animatism from “animatus” - animate. In religious studies, this term means belief in a single impersonal force that manifests itself in nature and controls the processes occurring in it. This term was introduced into scientific circulation by the English anthropologist R. Marrett. In his opinion, it was animatism that was the initial stage of the spiritual development of humanity.

Seminar #1

Tribal cultures and their characteristics:

Patriarchal

Seminar #2

Polytheism of Ancient Egypt

Features of the geographical location of Egypt:

Geography

Ancient Egyptian civilization arose on the banks of the Nile River, and its prosperity was largely due to its seasonal floods, which promoted agriculture. The Nile, having overcome the gorges in the area of the first rapids (the southern border of Ancient Egypt), flows through a narrow and long valley washed into the plateau of the northeastern Sahara. The usual width of the valley is 10-20 km, but in places it narrows to the width of a stream; in the west it is bordered by the Libyan Desert, in the east by the Arabian. Further, the river fan-shapedly breaks into branches, and after about 200 km [~ 6] they flow into the Mediterranean Sea (the northern border of Egypt), forming a triangular delta. The overall elevation difference of the river is quite small - in the upper reaches 91 m (near Aswan), and in the delta the highest point is 12 m above sea level: 44-45.

Ancient Egypt itself included the Nile Delta - the historical region of Lower Egypt ("Lowland", "Delta") and the valley upstream of the Nile up to the 1st rapids - Upper Egypt ("Upper Reach", "Valley"), as well as the region of the Fayum oasis. The modern localization of this territory corresponds to the Arab Republic of Egypt, but coincides only with those governorates (governors) of Egypt that are located along the Nile.

Coastline

The sea washing the country in the north was called by the ancient Egyptians Vaj-Ur. Now this is the Mediterranean Sea, or rather its eastern part. Since the period of antiquity, the name of the coastal waters of Egypt has been known as the Egyptian Sea, which, somewhere in the Marmariki region, conventionally borders the Libyan Sea. Probably, in the prehistoric period, on the site of the modern Nile delta, there was a sea bay, which, in the process of desertification of North Africa, gradually became a huge swamp, and, by the time of the emergence of the first cultures of Ancient Egypt, the coast of the delta was impenetrable swampy reed thickets, cut by numerous branches of the Nile ( in ancient times there were 8 main ones, now there are 2). Also along the northern coast of Egypt there was (and still is) a chain of salty lagoon-type lakes, separated from the sea by narrow isthmuses. In the 5th century BC. e. Herodotus considered the length of the Mediterranean coast of Egypt to be 700 km, defining it in the west from the Gulf of Plinthina, and to Lake Serbonida in the east.

The coast of another sea close to the Egyptians - the Red Sea - was only slightly developed by them, just like the Mediterranean before the Ptolemies. Starting from the Middle Kingdom period, several cities were founded on the western Red Sea coast, and the area around the Arabian Gulf (modern Gulf of Suez) was settled, in which, in the ancient period, the port of Heroopolis arose. The ancient Egyptians called the shore of the Red Sea Ta-Nuter, and the sea itself was called She-Iaru(“Lake Iaru”): 458, Considering the coastline in ancient times, we must remember that the level of the world’s oceans is now constantly rising, and the older the era under study, the slightly further from the modern shore the border between sea and land ran. For the Red Sea, this means that it was narrower and shallower, but this will not be completely true in relation to the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea - since the Nile, with its sediments, on the contrary, moves the land boundary over time: 45.

Introduction 3

1. Primitive community and totemism 4

2. Cult of the Dead 7

3. Magic and religion 10

4 . From relative animal to ancestor animal 14

5. Marriage and food prohibitions 19

6. From animal totem to animal god 22

Conclusion 24

Bibliography

Introduction

There are five main sciences with the help of which we study the religion of primitive society, its emergence and further development:

archeology of prehistoric times, which studies monuments, burial grounds, the area where they are located, and especially the tools of labor of distant eras and those changes in the way of life of people to which the gradual improvement of tools led;

anthropology, dealing with the problem of modification of the biological type of a person in connection with transformations in the structure of society over a number of successive historical eras;

linguistics, allowing us to identify different periods of human history reflected in linguistic forms, written or oral;

folkloristics, exploring legends, myths, customs and traditions, authentic literature of a culturally underdeveloped society;

paleontology And ethnography, the only sciences that are usually resorted to when studying the origins of religion.

Lewis Henry Morgan's work on the history of primitive society, Ancient Society, was the starting point for a whole series of ethnographic research. The conclusions that Marx and Engels drew from Morgan's extensive work, especially the famous work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", published by Engels in 1884, were confirmed in the later works of G. Childe, D. Thomson, S. A. Tokarev and other Soviet researchers.

Ethnographic data, if used sufficiently seriously and thoughtfully, are also of great importance for clarifying one of the main properties of religious ideology - the stability of its survivals in successive phases of social development.

1. Primitive community and totemism

Throughout the pre-glacial period, people lived in small groups of ten to twelve members. Modern sociologists called these groups the primitive horde and then identified two main stages of its existence - a state of savagery and a state of barbarism.

In this era, there was no division of labor, promiscuous sexual intercourse reigned, there were no leaders or any social connections between members of the horde. The economy of the horde consisted exclusively of appropriation, and not of production. People collected berries and fruits, shellfish and insects. Only occasionally did they hunt small animals. Man was not yet able to realize his connections with other people and with nature and could not, therefore, reflect these connections in any form of religious ideas, even the most elementary and primitive. “In order for religion to arise, a broader social base, more complex social relations were necessary.”

The essence of religion must be revealed in the forms of the material world, which correspond to each phase of human ideological development. The ideas of primitive man about sleep and dreaming, about death explain the origin of religious fictions and early ideas about the soul. But in order for these ideas to arise, the formation of a “primitive community” was required, which replaced the original semi-animal state. This transition was characterized by the discovery of a number of tools. To the random collection of food was added an organized, although still primitive, form of hunting and fishing. It was finally necessary for people to move on to a semi-sedentary life in various kinds of shelters and caves, where they could think about the animals and people appearing in dreams as their “doubles” and think about the mysteries of death.

Powerful atmospheric and geological shocks of the Ice Age drove people into caves and contributed to the search for new means of protecting and maintaining life. People learned how to keep a fire going by accident, then learned how to create sparks to light it themselves. Stone processing began to produce hunting tools. They continued to hunt together huge animals - mammoths, giant rhinoceroses, prehistoric deer, which the cold drove to human habitats.

Jointly captured booty was common property. Only when more advanced tools were made, such as an ax with two edges, arrows, spears with the first metal tips, and finally a bronze ax, did hunting begin and the idea of possession also arose, which passes from things to people and marks the transition from primitive communism to a new type of economy based on private property.

The existence of religious life in the most ancient periods of history is evidenced by only a few external signs, which are sometimes very difficult to interpret.

Numerous rituals that originated in primitive society due to certain economic and social conditions then passed - without changes or with minor innovations - into the religion of subsequent eras.

It is enough to recall the rites of passage, which “have been preserved in the form of Christian sacraments, the sacred spring meal of the Mbanbuuma, or Intichium, of the Grund tribe of Central Australia, which has all the basic signs of the sacrament, the purpose and funeral ceremonies, preserved to this day, although without its former magical, meaning, customs of mourning, etc.

The era of primitive society stretched over many tens of thousands of years, starting from the first period of the Stone Age, or early Paleolithic, when a man lived who received the name Neanderthal, and right up to the Bronze Age, covering the second millennium BC. Traces of primitive society were preserved among peoples still living in a semi-wild state, for example among the Australians. It should, however, be taken into account that the conclusions of our official ethnography, which studies the life of such peoples in modern conditions, cannot be accepted without reservations, since it is too affected by contact with more developed forms of society.

Primitive society does not yet know the division into classes opposing each other and, therefore, does not have any state organization. It is united by consanguineous, sexual, age ties, and these connections arise only due to the dependence caused by the specialization of certain age groups in the manufacture and use of primitive hunting and fishing tools. Naturally, the religion of that ancient era of human collective life is based on ideas about kinship, about differences in gender and age, transferred to the world of non-existent, fictitious relationships, which express man’s powerlessness over nature, his uncertainty about the future.

This mystical kinship by blood and tribe is expressed in the term “totem” or “totam,” which in the ancient Algonquian dialect of one of the Indian tribes of North America means “kinship with a brother” or “with a sister.” This term was first used in 1791 to designate religious ideas inherent in the vague and contradictory manifestations of the social life of the clan.

Totemism, which binds together members of the most ancient social groups through sacred mythology and a system of rites of atonement, guaranteeing people's existence and unity, is the first form of religion of human society, which arose during the Lower Paleolithic period, and it is this that must be studied. to explain the rituals, myths and customs of primitive society since the Neanderthal era.

2. Cult of the dead

Almost all treatises on the history of religion begin with the presentation of the religious beliefs of primitive people with what is usually called the cult of the dead.

However, although the custom of burying the dead seems to be the most ancient, and perhaps even goes back to the very beginnings of prehistoric times, perhaps to the last interglacial period, that is, to 180-120 thousand years BC. e., nothing gives us reason to assert that from the very beginning it is associated with the belief in the existence of the soul of the deceased and with the duty to honor it to propitiate it through certain rites. The distinction between matter and spirit, and consequently between soul and body, is unfamiliar to primitive society. The idea of this difference arises only when the human family, as Engels put it, “splits” and the organization of society based on the equal distribution of work gives way to a communal-tribal system based on different types of private accumulation and the first class differences.

Archaeological data about the prehistoric era and ethnographic studies confirm that the custom of burying the dead initially meets only one need to ensure the continuation of the deceased’s material existence. The corpse was laid supine between two stone slabs or placed curled up in a ball, with its legs tucked in, in the position of a sleeping person, dressed in his usual clothes. His weapons and various household items were placed next to him. It is likely that this custom determined the development of primitive stone processing and gave impetus to the primary manifestations of art.

People believed that the deceased continued to live. Therefore, his remains were painted red. Hunting has already given rise to the idea of the connection between life and blood. During the funeral, the body of the deceased was painted with liquid or powdered red ocher. The remains discovered in many burials contain obvious traces of this ritual. However, this custom has survived to this day. U Some nationalities to this day lower the dead into a coffin painted red or covered with material of the same color. Before the ashes of the Great Pontiff are placed in St. Peter's Basilica, they are displayed in a coffin wrapped in red cloth.

The usual sign of mourning in our time is black, sometimes white (for example, among Bantu blacks). This custom has a completely different origin. When the idea of pure and unclean was born and harmful powers began to be attributed to the dead, the need arose to mark with a certain color objects, people and places that, as a person feared, bore traces of constant or accidental touches of the deceased. Hence the change in clothing and decoration that occurs during the period of mourning. In order to return to ordinary life, primitive man also had to undergo certain purification rites.

In a prehistoric burial ground discovered in the vicinity of Mentone, in the place where the mouth and nose of the buried person should have been, a depression filled with red powder was discovered. Thanks to the vitality attributed to ocher, the deceased could “breathe.” In other cases, the corpse was buried near the fire so that the deceased would not have to suffer from the lack of heat necessary to maintain life. Offerings of food and drink and animal figurines buried with the corpse served the same purpose.

Obviously, animals were killed and buried along with the person, believing that they would still be useful to him. In the Chapelle-aux-Saints grotto, France, animal bones were found near the grave. However, these could be the remains of a funeral feast, which took place right there in the expectation that the deceased would take part in it.

It is clear, in any case, that until the end of the era of primitive society there are no convincing signs of human sacrifice. There is scientific literature about this custom, characteristic of all ancient peoples without exception, abundantly equipped with facts and details, which, however, are not always interpreted critically enough. Primitive society was already disintegrating, and classes began to form with the division of people into the propertied class and into the enslaved labor force, when people, men and women, began to be buried alive or killed at the burial of their owners (or widows at the funeral of their husbands, and it is interesting to note , that during the period of matriarchy there were no examples of the burial of men killed at the funeral of their wives, since in this era property to the spouse did not yet exist).

In a later era, which is characterized by the emergence of private property and class stratification, human sacrifices known to us were performed, starting with the customs of the Aztecs in Mexico and the Mayan tribe in Yucatan and Guatemala and right up to the Phoenicians, Semitic peoples in general, including the Jewish tribes in Palestine.

True, in earlier periods we find traces of ritual cannibalism, which was widespread among all primitive peoples down to the present day. From the skull of the deceased (as evidenced by the so-called “Circe’s skull”) or the skulls of killed animals, the brain was extracted through a special, sometimes very complex operation; then it was eaten in order to acquire certain qualities. But all this has nothing to do with human sacrifice. The idea of sacrificing one person to another at the moment of his death could not have arisen before some people, while still alive, had not been “sacrificed” to other people on the basis of their subjugation and enslavement. So, in ancient times, the custom of burying the dead did not have a truly religious content. Material life continues, as primitive people believed, even in the grave. The afterlife of the “spirit” does not yet exist in the minds of people.

3. Magic and religion

Before moving on to a detailed description of totemism, it is necessary to determine the real place of another phenomenon. It is usually relied upon when trying to separate religious faith from popular prejudices, presenting it as a higher “moment” of spiritual life, independent of the regional conditions of a particular historical era. It's about connections between magic and religion and the supposed differences between them.

In fact, it is unthinkable to completely separate the concepts of magic and religion. Each cult includes magical practice: all prayers, from primitive to modern religions, are, in essence, a form of naive and illusory influence on the outside world. It is impossible to oppose religion to magic without breaking with science.

The relationship between man and nature that has been established since time immemorial has always had a dual character: the dominance of omnipotent nature over helpless man, on the one hand, and, on the other, the influence on nature that man sought to exercise, even in limited and imperfect forms, characteristic of primitive society - using their tools, their productive forces, their abilities.

The interaction of these two only outwardly incomparable forces determines the development of unique techniques through which primitive man sought to exert his imagined influence on nature. These techniques, in fact, are magical practice.

Imitation of hunting techniques should contribute to the success of the hunt itself. Before going in search of kangaroos, Australians dance rhythmically around a picture depicting the much-coveted prey on which the tribe's existence depends.

If the Caroline Islanders want a newborn to become a good fisherman, they try to tie its newly cut umbilical cord to a pirogue or shuttle.

The Ainu people, the indigenous population of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and the Japanese island of Hokkaido, catch a small bear cub. One of the clan women feeds him with her milk. After a few years, the bear is strangled or killed with arrows. The meat is then eaten together during a sacred meal. But before the ritual sacrifice, the bear is prayed to return to earth as soon as possible, allow itself to be caught, and thus continue to feed the group of people who raised it.

Thus, in origin, witchcraft practice is not opposed to religion, but, on the contrary, merges with it. It is true that magic is not yet associated with any privileges of a social nature (in a primitive society everyone can try to “put pressure” on the forces of nature). However, very early on, individual members of the clan begin to emerge, claiming to have special abilities for this. With the advent of the first “sorcerer,” the concept of “priest” also appeared.

All these are undeniable signs of the formation of a religious ideology.

We have already noted that primitive society is characterized by a naive materialistic understanding of life, nature and social relations. The elementary needs of the first people, who owned everything in common and did not know the private appropriation of the means of subsistence, were uniformly satisfied or not satisfied. The history of nature and the history of people merged together: the second seemed to continue the first.

The basic contradiction between man and the forces of nature, which lies at the basis of primitive society, is not in itself sufficient to explain the emergence of the idea of the otherworldly, much less the idea of “evil,” “sin,” and “salvation.” The contradictions rooted in differences in kinship, age and gender do not yet have a class character and have not given rise to any form of truly religious withdrawal from life. It took people's awareness of the limitations that the new structure of society imposed on their daily lives so that, along with the decomposition of society into classes, there also arose the need for a certain “spiritual” element (as is usually expressed in theological and idealistic philosophy), opposed to nature, the bodily, material.

Strictly speaking, the first forms of religiosity cannot even be recognized as manifestations of ritual practice based on any “supernatural” idea and thereby opposed to normal human everyday customs. The relationship between people and their totem - an animal, a plant or a natural phenomenon - does not go beyond the boundaries of a primitive materialistic worldview with all its characteristic absurdities, which are preserved and maintained in the beliefs of subsequent eras. Magic itself at first appears to be a kind of material pressure from man on nature or society to obtain certain tangible results.

Collective life itself could not “objectively manifest itself in myth and ritual,” as various representatives of the French sociological school from Durkheim to Lévy-Bruhl assert. A society without social contradictions could never give rise to religious “alienation.”

When a primitive community, based on the equal participation of its members in the receipt and appropriation of products, disintegrates and gives way to a regime of private property, for this period the religious ideas of people did not go beyond the imaginary connections of the primitive group with certain animals or plants on which its members ate (such as hare, turtle, porcupine, kangaroo, wild boar, eagle, bear, deer, various types of berries and herbs, trees). But the stratification of the family and the emergence of classes led to a bifurcation of ideology that was of exceptional importance, and gave rise to different views of nature, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the world of phenomena, which were henceforth recognized as supernatural.

4 . From relative animal to ancestor animal

Totemism-- the most ancient form of religion that we know in the history of mankind before the era of the emergence of classes.

What exactly does "totem" mean? This word, as we have already seen, originally meant a relationship between members of a certain group of people and their supposed or actual ancestor. Later, this kinship relationship was extended to animals and plants that serve a given group for sustenance. This expansion of ideas itself is a certain religious process. From the idea of a totem, over time, the cult of animals, plants and natural phenomena that determine human life will develop.

It is often argued that totemism cannot be considered a religious phenomenon, since the mythical kinsman and patron of the group is not yet recognized as superior to man and is not identified with any deity. Proponents of this point of view, which is supported by theologians and some rationalist scientists, simply do not take into account that the process of establishing the idea of a supreme being, and especially a personified deity, could not begin before privileged groups began to predominate in society, leading layers, social classes.

In a society with a division of labor based on kinship relations and age differences, kinship relations naturally become the main type of religious ties. The animal on which the clan depends for its food supply is at the same time regarded as a kin of the group. Members of a given clan do not eat its meat, just as men and women of the same group do not marry each other. This prohibition is expressed in a word of Polynesian origin - “tabu” (“tapu”), which was first heard by the navigator Cook in Tanga (1771). The original meaning of this word is separated, removed away. In a primitive society, a taboo is everything that, according to primitive man, is fraught with danger.

Taboos are imposed on the sick, on corpses, on strangers, on women at certain periods of their physiological life, and in general on all objects that, as it seems to primitive man, have an extraordinary character. Later, tribal leaders, monarchs and priests would fall into the same category. Everything that is taboo, untouchable and carries infection; however, these ideas gave rise to some healing and cleansing prohibitions.

All these beliefs are explained in various forms of real life and social relations, the effects of which people experienced for themselves. It was not religion that gave birth to the idea of pure and impure, holy and profane, permitted and forbidden, but social practice, which created the reflected world of legends and rituals called sacred. But, having been born, these ideas went through a path of independent development. And the conclusion that people’s way of life and mode of production, and not their way of thinking, led to certain ideas does not at all mean neglecting the specific meaning of ideology or the explanation of religious issues by simple economic references.

Which researcher of primitive society can deny the decisive role of social relations of production?

A group of people lives by hunting, which was everywhere an obligatory stage in the development of society. But in order to catch the prey, it is necessary to master the extremely complex art of hunting, the ideological reflection of which can be seen in the so-called initiation rites, to which only men are currently allowed. This is purification, initiation and introduction of the young man into the ranks of hunters (or fishermen).

In ritual celebrations, often lasting weeks, the initiate symbolically dies in order to be reborn into a new life and be able to fulfill his duties to society. We are still far from the ideas of redemption and salvation that arise only in the era of the highest development of slavery, when salvation, impossible on earth, was transferred to the sphere of fiction, to the other world. But the transition of a young man to a more responsible category due to his age or the skills he has acquired does not contain the germ of the idea of \u200b\u200bthose rituals that will later develop into the religion of the “mysteries” and into Christianity itself.

Powerless in the face of nature and the collective, primitive man identifies himself with the animal ancestor, with his totem, through complex and often painful ceremonies, which ultimately increases his dependence on nature and the social environment. From the ritual, from the details of the cult, little by little the desire arises to interpret reality from the point of view of myth and tradition.

When reconstructing the process of development of the first forms of religious ideology, it is always necessary to beware of attributing to a person concerns and beliefs that can arise only in subsequent phases of the development of society.

There is no doubt that when we try to judge the customs and views of an era in which the exploitation of man by man did not yet exist, it is difficult for us to get rid of the burden of old ideas accumulated over thousands of years, which are reflected in the very language in which we speak about everything. these issues. It is as difficult as it is to describe now, even in general terms, the changes that will take place in the character, morals and minds of men with the disappearance of classes and the establishment of a society where freedom and equality will not, as now, be dubious expressions.

When, for example, we talk about a cult , we introduce a concept that could not have made sense at the most ancient stage of the development of human society.

Indeed, etymologically, the idea of cult is connected with the practice of cultivating the land and presupposes a society in which relations of production are already based on a primitive form of agriculture and on a corresponding division of labor between old and young, especially between men and women.

During this period, it was the women who were tasked with field work, growing fruits and plants, in addition to cooking, while men continued to hunt. The advancement of women in society, which characterizes the era of matriarchy, dates back to this period in the history of primitive society.

Traces of this era are preserved not only in religious life, in folk traditions and in language, but also in the customs of many peoples of our time: on the Malay Peninsula, in India, in Sumatra, in New Guinea, among the Eskimos, among the Nile tribes , in Congo, Tanganyika, Angola and South America.

The era of matriarchy explains why the most ancient fertility rites known to us are characterized primarily by the cult of a woman or the attributes of a woman (schematic representations of the details of a woman’s anatomy, magical vulvar cults, etc.).

But before forcing the land to submit to the will of the person cultivating it, society experienced a period of collecting means of subsistence, which everyone was engaged in on an equal basis, a period of hunting, cattle breeding and shepherding. While the division of labor was carried out within the framework of age and kinship relations, the connection between the individual and the totem could not yet acquire the character of a genuine cult.

Each group of people within a larger association - the terms clan and tribe presuppose an already fairly developed social organization - it specializes in hunting a specific animal: boar, deer, snakes, bear, kangaroo. But in a society where the individual depends on others for food, this animal eventually ceases to be separated from the group itself - it becomes its symbol, its patron, and finally, its ancestor.

Complex ceremonies gradually transform the idea of a biological connection into an imaginary connection. And little by little, from such ideas, the cult of ancestors arises, which is possible with a much higher degree of social differentiation and has been preserved among the various nationalities of India, China, Africa and Polynesia.

A person of a certain totemic group treats his animal ancestor with special respect. Those, for example, who hunt bears avoid eating its meat, at least during the period of holy fasting, but feed on game caught by hunters of other groups who have a different totem. The community of people formed on the site of the collapsed primitive horde is like a vast cooperative in which everyone must take care of food for others and in turn depends on others for the means of subsistence.

Thus, fundamentally socio-economic factors explain strange customs and prohibitions, for the interpretation of which the most fantastic conjectures are often resorted to.

5. Marriage and food prohibitions

Let us consider the rules of exogamous marriage, practiced, as the word itself shows, outside the small group to which primitive man belongs.

Perhaps the law of exogamy is Exogamy (from the Greek. exo-- "outside" and gatnos -- "marriage") is a custom that prohibits marriages within a certain group of people. , which strictly prohibits sexual unions within a given group, represents, as many claim, a spontaneous remedy against the dangers of incest? Or is this simply an official sanctification of the oldest form of female abduction? Those who argue in this way clearly attribute to primitive man ideological processes that developed only in times closer to ours.

A person of one totemic group is looking for a spouse in other groups (always within the broader social association in which these groups are included, since exogamy can only be spoken of in relation to a clan; in a tribe there is only endogamy Endogamy (from the Greek. endon -- "inside" and gamos -- "marriage") is a custom that prohibits marriages outside a certain group of people.). This depends primarily on the fact that the expansion of kinship relations in this way leads to a significant improvement in the means of subsistence. Simply put, giving a woman from a clan as a wife to a member of another clan means securing a new type of food for oneself.

This incentive persisted as long as there was a ban on eating the meat of one’s wild relative, the totem.

Through exogamy, a still small and isolated human group becomes more numerous while remaining internally cohesive.

A similar picture emerges when studying various food prohibitions.

Historians of religion are still continuing the debate about the origin of the custom of not eating pork, trying to decide whether it comes from the Arabs or from law-abiding Jews. The prohibition against eating pork stems simply from the fact that at a certain period of their development the Semitic peoples, like all other peoples, experienced an era of totemism and initially considered pigs and boars to be their animal relatives, sacred animals. Accordingly, they were taboo for all hunters. Subsequently, the idea of this ancient phenomenon was lost, but the ban was preserved and was legalized by religion, and fantastic justifications were invented to justify it.

Christian ritual is full of symbolism and traditions relating to a number of different animals, which are included in the foundation of poetry, art and often also in theological teachings. The lamb and the shepherd, the miraculous catch of fish in the legends of the inhabitants of the catacombs and the first apologists of Christianity, the dove identified with the “holy spirit,” the legend of the tempting serpent—all these are themes that have now become an integral part of Christian doctrine. But they are also found in many other religions and are not just the product of a rich poetic imagination. Art subsequently processed real material from that period in the history of society, when all these animals were in certain relationships with people.

To explain the origin of these symbols we must always refer to the phase of totemism.

In fact, before entering into Christian symbolism, fish was the totem of various Palestinian tribes that lived by fishing. With the transition to more developed forms of social life, this totem was transformed into a personified god. Fish-headed deities are often found in many other religions of the same era.

In a similar way, one can interpret the Christian motif of the dove - a “sacred” animal in Asia Minor and among a number of Slavic tribes - or a snake, which the Israelites of the desert region revered as a symbol of a mysterious deity, sometimes identified with an “evil force”, and also mentions of a ram, a lamb and a goat. There is an ancient totemic tradition of the “scapegoat,” which comes to life again in the history of the Jewish people: an animal burdened with the sins of an entire tribe. To explain the origin of these symbols, we must always refer to the phase of totemism.

In fact, before entering into Christian symbolism, fish was the totem of various Palestinian tribes that lived by fishing. burdened with everything that is considered unclean, the tribe is expelled from the settlement into the desert, where it dies, thereby freeing the tribe from curse or punishment.

And at this stage we already encounter profound changes that have taken place in the structure of society.

6. From animal totem to animal god

It is quite possible that special concerns regarding the totem animal contributed to the domestication and cultivation of individual animals.

In fact, for magical rites that facilitate hunting, and for ritual meals, which eventually turned into the collective communion of believers, for all this it was necessary to have “sacred” animals on hand, in cages or special pens. If this explanation is correct, we are faced with one of the typical cases of the reverse influence on the economic structure of the ideology that arose from it, to some extent changing the original relations of production.

There is no doubt, however, that the transition from the first phase of a society based on hunting to cattle breeding and early forms of agriculture is determined not by religious motives, but by the development of new tools and the formation of new economic and social relations between people.

The emergence of agriculture, which followed the discovery of the first crude agricultural tools for cultivating the land, meant the collapse and destruction of cults based on totemism. Magic dances, which were supposed to promote successful hunting, were replaced by various fertility rites, vulvar and phallic cults, which did not yet represent anything scandalous or bacchanalian, but were simply considered favorable for the fertility of the fields.

The worship of the animal ancestor is gradually dissolved in the worship of nature. This is a very slow process with distinct stages.

Not all totems were animals. The poverty of the fauna in some areas and the rapid increase in the number of groups of people united among themselves had previously led to the use of individual organs or body parts of animals as surrogates for a totem. These are, for example, the gluteal thickenings of a kangaroo (in Australia) or the tails of a number of animals. In other cases, herbs, vegetables, and plants gradually became a totem through assimilation. When we discover the use of inanimate objects or natural phenomena as totems, this means that significant changes have begun in the depths of society. A new form of division of labor arises between groups of hunters; specialization appears that underlies the craft; Cultivation of the land begins, and the sun, wind, rain, moon, clouds become increasingly important in the life of society.

The ancestor animal, still in its characteristic form of a beast, begins to acquire qualities characteristic of natural phenomena. Man, transformed into a shepherd and farmer, feels himself in a new relationship with atmospheric phenomena that constantly influence his work. The totem increasingly moves its location from the ground upward - to the sky, to the mountains, clouds. Personified forces arise, which, as it seems to a person, dominate the development of life and society.

Here we discover another, derivative process. Simultaneously with the emergence of new forms of labor and the organization of society, private property emerges, classes appear, and a regime of exploitation of man by man arises.

The transformation of an animal totem into an animal deity, which can also cause evil and therefore must be neutralized and appeased, is a religious reflection of a new social structure based on the discriminatory power of caste, leader, leader layer.

Conclusion

Religion does not appear with man. For hundreds and perhaps thousands of centuries on our earth, which is probably 4 billion years old, groups of people, like animals, fed on herbs, roots, plant juices, snails and insects, wandering in the warm and damp forests of the pre-glacial period .

They did not yet know fire and did not feel the need for housing and clothing.

The first tool of labor, which caused a genuine revolution both in the physical appearance of people and in their society in the course of the increasing separation of man from the animal world, was the hand. That process, which anthropologists called the discovery of the hand, which at the same time became a tool and a product of labor, served to form the basic characteristics of man: thinking, language and the vertical position of the body.

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Which religion is the most ancient?

The emergence of primitive religions dates back to a long period, approximately 40-30 thousand years ago. But which belief came first? Scientists have different points of view on this matter. Some believe that this happened when people began to perceive each other’s souls, others - with the advent of witchcraft, and others took the worship of animals or objects as a basis. But the very origin of religion itself represents a large complex of beliefs. It is difficult to give priority to any of them, since there is no necessary data. The information that archaeologists, researchers and historians receive is not enough.

It is impossible not to take into account the distribution of the first beliefs throughout the planet, which forces us to conclude that attempts to look for each tribe that existed at that time had its own object of worship were illegitimate.

We can only say with certainty that the first and subsequent basis of every religion is belief in the supernatural. However, it is expressed differently everywhere. Christians, for example, worship their God, who has no flesh but is omnipresent. It's supernatural. in turn, they plan their own Gods from wood. If they don’t like something, they can cut or pierce their patron with a needle. This is also supernatural. Therefore, every modern religion has its own ancient “ancestor”.

When did the first religion appear?

Initially, primitive religions and myths were closely intertwined. In modern times it is impossible to find an interpretation for some events. The fact is that they tried to tell them to their descendants with the help of mythology, embellishing and/or expressing themselves too figuratively.

However, the question of when beliefs arise is still relevant today. Archaeologists claim that the first religions appeared after homo sapiens. Excavations, the burials of which date back to 80 thousand years ago, definitely indicate that he did not think about other worlds at all. People were simply buried and that was all. There is no evidence that this process was accompanied by rituals.

Weapons, food and some household items are found in later graves (burials made 30-10 thousand years ago). This means that people began to think of death as a long sleep. When a person wakes up, and this must happen, it is necessary that the essentials be near him. People buried or burned took on an invisible, ghostly form. They became peculiar guardians of the clan.

There was also a period without religions, but very little is known about it to modern scientists.

Reasons for the emergence of the first and subsequent religions

Primitive religions and their features are very similar to modern beliefs. Various religious cults have acted for thousands of years in their own and state interests, exerting a psychological impact on their flock.

There are 4 main reasons for the emergence of ancient beliefs, and they are no different from modern ones:

Intelligence. A person needs an explanation for any event that happens in his life. And if he cannot obtain it thanks to his knowledge, then he will certainly receive a justification for what he observes through supernatural intervention.
Psychology. Life on earth is finite, and there is no way to resist death, at least for the moment. Therefore, a person must be freed from the fear of dying. Thanks to religion, this can be done quite successfully.
Morality. There is no society that would exist without rules and prohibitions. It is difficult to punish everyone who violates them. It is much easier to scare and prevent these actions. If a person is afraid of doing something bad, because supernatural forces will punish him, then the number of violators will significantly decrease.
Policy. To maintain the stability of any state, ideological support is required. And only one or another belief can provide it.

Thus, the emergence of religions can be taken for granted, since there are more than enough reasons for this.

Totemism

The types of religions of primitive man and their description should begin with totemism. Ancient people lived in groups. Most often these were families or their association. Alone, a person would not be able to provide himself with everything he needs. This is how the cult of animal worship appeared. Societies hunted animals to obtain food without which they could not survive. And the emergence of totemism is quite logical. This is how humanity paid tribute to its livelihood.

So, totemism is the belief that one family has a blood relationship with a particular animal or natural phenomenon. People saw them as patrons who helped, punished if necessary, resolved conflicts, and so on.

There are two features of totemism. Firstly, each member of the tribe had a desire to look like their animal. For example, some Africans knocked out their lower teeth to look like a zebra or antelope. Secondly, it could not be eaten unless the ritual was followed.

The modern descendant of totemism is Hinduism. Here some animals, most often the cow, are sacred.

Fetishism

It is impossible to consider primitive religions without taking into account fetishism. It represented the belief that some things have supernatural properties. Various objects were worshiped, passed from parents to children, always kept at hand, and so on.

Fetishism is often compared to magic. However, if it is present, it is in a more complex form. Magic helped to have an additional impact on some phenomenon, but did not in any way influence its occurrence.

Another feature of fetishism is that the objects were not worshipped. They were revered and treated with respect.

Magic and religion

Primitive religions could not do without the participation of magic. It is a set of rites and rituals, after which, it was believed, it became possible to control certain events and influence them in every possible way. Many hunters performed various ritual dances, which made the process of finding and killing the animal more successful.

Despite the apparent impossibility of magic, it is magic that forms the basis of most modern religions as a common element. For example, there is a belief that a rite or ritual (the sacrament of baptism, funeral service, and so on) has supernatural power. But it is also considered in a separate form, different from all beliefs. People tell fortunes with cards, call upon spirits, or do anything to see deceased ancestors.

Animism

Primitive religions could not do without the participation of the human soul. Ancient people thought about such concepts as death, sleep, experience, and so on. As a result of such thoughts, the belief arose that everyone has a soul. Later it was supplemented by the fact that only bodies die. The soul passes into another shell or exists independently in a separate other world. This is how animism appears, which is a belief in spirits, and it does not matter whether they belong to a person, an animal or a plant.

The peculiarity of this religion was that the soul could live indefinitely. After the body died, it broke out and calmly continued its existence, only in a different form.

Animism is also the ancestor of most modern religions. Ideas about immortal souls, gods and demons - all this is its basis. But animism also exists separately, in spiritualism, belief in ghosts, essences, and so on.

Shamanism

It is impossible to consider primitive religions without highlighting the clergy. This is most acutely visible in shamanism. As an independent religion, it appears much later than those discussed above, and represents the belief that an intermediary (shaman) can communicate with spirits. Sometimes these spirits were evil, but most often they were kind, giving advice. Shamans often became leaders of tribes or communities, because people understood that they were associated with supernatural forces. Therefore, if something happens, they will be able to protect them better than some king or khan, who is only capable of natural movements (weapons, troops, and so on).

Elements of shamanism are present in virtually all modern religions. Believers have a special attitude towards priests, mullahs or other clergy, believing that they are under the direct influence of higher powers.

Unpopular primitive religious beliefs

The types of primitive religions need to be supplemented with some beliefs that are not as popular as totemism or, for example, magic. These include the agricultural cult. Primitive people who practiced agriculture worshiped the gods of various cultures, as well as the earth itself. There were, for example, patrons of corn, beans, and so on.

The agricultural cult is well represented in modern Christianity. Here the Mother of God is represented as the patroness of bread, George - agriculture, the prophet Elijah - rain and thunder, and so on.

Thus, it will not be possible to briefly consider the primitive forms of religion. Every ancient belief exists to this day, even if it has actually lost its face. Rituals and sacraments, rituals and amulets - all these are parts of the faith of primitive man. And it is impossible in modern times to find a religion that does not have a strong direct connection with the most ancient cults.

1. General characteristics of primitive forms of religion.

2. Early historical forms of religion and tribal cults: fetishism, totemism, taboo, magic, animism.

3. Shamanism.

General characteristics of primitive forms of religion

Speaking about the early forms of religion, we rely on indirect evidence from archaeological excavations and observations by ethnographers of modern primitive societies. Thus, the Austrian ethnologist W. Schmidt and his followers put forward the concept of primordial monotheism, according to which all modern religions take their origins from the so-called “primitive monotheism.” But we can only create reconstructions of these religious forms without being able to directly observe them.

Data from modern archeology indicate that about 40 thousand years ago the simplest forms of beliefs arose simultaneously with the completion of the transformation of primitive people (Neanderthals) into modern people (homo sapiens). True, some scientists associate the emergence of primitive beliefs with a later time - with the era of the Cro-Magnon man - a fossil representative of the “ready-made” type. But we prefer the first point of view.

One of the most important problems of that time was the determination of the essential and symbolic meaning of human death. This is evidenced by excavated burials that contain the remains of the ritual: jewelry, weapons, household items, and food remains were placed next to the deceased. In this way the deceased was prepared for “life” after death. This indicates that people of that era had faith in the soul, in the afterlife. Funeral rites acquire special significance as a kind of connection between the existence of the living and the dead. It was believed that if the living failed to fulfill their duties towards the dead, their spirits could destroy the clan or “take” their fellow tribesmen into oblivion.

The existence of early religious ideas is also confirmed by the monuments of the tents of the original painting. The schematic nature of these images gives reason to talk about the existence of beliefs in supernatural connections between humans and certain animals. Sometimes people were depicted wearing animal skins, and sometimes they were half-animal, half-human. The movements reproduced in the drawings indicate the existence of a complex of magical actions, that is, the figure of the sorcerer appears as an intermediary between the world perceived at the sensory level and the supernatural world. Based on these finds, scientists concluded that religion existed during this period of history.

Early historical forms of religion and tribal cults: fetishism, totemism, taboo, magic, animism

Early forms of religion include: magic and fetishism, totemism and animism, agricultural cult and shamanism, which arose during the formation and development of the tribal system (from 100 to 40,000 years ago). This tribal system went through three main phases: early and late (developed) matriarchy and patriarchy. Each phase corresponded to its own form of religious ideas: early matriarchy - totemism, late - agricultural cult, patriarchy - shamanism. But all these forms of belief were accompanied by fetishism and magic, animism and animatism.

It has been established that among primitive people it was very common to honor various objects that warded off danger and brought good luck. This form of religious belief is called fetishism(from Portuguese Feitico - amulet, magical thing, or lat. Factitius - magically skillful) is the belief in the existence of supernatural properties of material objects. Objects of worship were first found by Portuguese sailors in West Africa in the 15th century, and then numerous analogues of fetishism were discovered in the religions of many peoples. The phenomenon of fetishization was first described by the French researcher Charles de Brus (1709-1777) in his work “The Cult of Godfetishes.” He believed that fetishes are objects of inanimate nature that attracted a person’s attention with some special features. An object of worship, or a fetish, could be any object that captured a person’s imagination: a stone of a strange shape, a piece of wood, an animal’s tooth, etc. This object was assigned functions that were not characteristic of it (the ability to heal, protect from enemies, help in hunting). Thus, among the ancient Germans, spruce was considered a powerful fetish. In winter, they came to one of the tallest spruce trees in the forest, asked it for help and protection, sang and danced around it, and hung gifts on it. And members of the Dakota tribe in North America, when they found a stone that looked like a human face, caressed it, painted it and called it grandfather, brought it gifts and asked for protection from danger. The custom of worshiping stones existed in many tribes of North Asia. It does not bypass European countries either. But several centuries ago in England and France there was a ban on worshiping stones, which indicates the long-term preservation of fetishistic beliefs even during the reign of the Christian religion in Europe.

A later manifestation of fetishism was the practice of artificially making fetishes. A new fetish was created by combining natural components (bark, leaves, roots) with objects that were traditionally considered miraculous (pieces of sacred trees, snails, growths on trees, sand from the confluence of two rivers, scorpion tail, etc.). It is clear that people imagined how the mechanical combination of two objects would lead to a manifold increase in the supernatural qualities of the newly created object of worship.

The identification of the so-called “fetish of fetishes” is considered to be a kind of culmination of fetishistic ideas in Africa - a generally accepted sanctuary of large associations of tribes. However, the famous researcher Karl Meingof considers it wrong to call the religion of the peoples of West Africa “fetishism”; in his opinion, it is better to call it “demonism.” Thus, two conclusions can be drawn regarding West African “fetishism” that are not consistent with the usual idea of it: firstly, this is a relatively late, and not the initial form of the religions of the peoples of Africa; secondly, the cult of fetishes in this country is predominantly a cult of personal substitutes.

During the period of European colonization of Africa, fetishistic practice remained perhaps the only opportunity to resist European colonialists and missionaries. It took on various forms - numerous secret societies were created, which aimed to find means to counter the “fetishes” of whites. Objects taken from Europeans (firearms, money, matches, locks, empty bottles) were introduced into fetishistic circulation. Some of the Africans even tried to secretly christen their own fetishes in order to increase their power.

In later forms of religion, fetishism was preserved in the form of worship of idols - material objects endowed with the mysterious power of influence with the features of a person or animal. In modern religions, it exists in the form of veneration of sacred objects (crosses, icons, relics), and as an independent remainder - in the form of faith in talismans and amulets. A talisman, from the point of view of superstitious people, brings happiness, an amulet protects against misfortune (horseshoes, amulet, pendants, etc.).

Another early form of religious views can be considered totemism (in the language of the Ojibwe Indians (crane) ot-totem - its genus) - belief in the supernatural kinship of human groups (clan, tribe "I") with certain species of animals and plants (less often - natural phenomena and inanimate objects). The term totemism appears in scientific speech at the beginning of the 18th century and is consolidated at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries in the works of the outstanding English ethnographer James Fraser (1854-1941). The first fundamental work on totemism was his book “Totemism and Exogamy” , in which he hypothesized the origin of totemism from ancient ideas about the nature of childbirth: a woman becomes pregnant when the spirit of a plant or animal enters the womb. Since in this case the child is involved in the life of the animal or plant, this animal or plant is endowed with special meaning.

People looked at totems as substitutes for the clan and tribe, protectors, assistants in the outbreak of all conflicts, they considered them brothers and sisters. Therefore, primitive people called their clan groups after totems. For example, the North American Ojibwe Indians in the 17th century. had five clan groups, which were called crane, catfish, loon, bear, marten. In Australia at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. Europeans were very surprised by the answer of the aborigines to the question “Who are you?” - “I am a kangaroo”, or “I am an insect larva”. Thus, through the ancestral totem, Australians emphasized their tribal affiliation.

At first, only a real animal, plant, bird or insect was considered a totem. Then his more or less realistic image began to suffice, in the end people began to be content with any symbol, word or sound with which they designated their totem. Each person, before going to bed and upon waking up, said the name of her totem, because she thought that thanks to its supernatural support, nothing bad would happen to her, on the contrary, she would be lucky in hunting and in other matters.

The emergence of totemism is closely “connected with the economic activities of primitive man - gathering and hunting. Plants and animals that gave man the opportunity to exist became objects of worship. In the first stages of the development of totemism, such worship did not exclude, but rather made it possible to use totem animals and plants for food Therefore, sometimes, to express their attitude towards the totem, primitive people used the words “this is our meat." Later, elements of social, primarily blood relations, were introduced into totemism. Members of the clan group (blood relatives) began to believe that the ancestor and patron their group has a certain totem animal or plant and their ancient ancestors, who combined the characteristics of people and the totem, possessed incredible abilities.This led, on the one hand, to the strengthening of the cult of ancestors, on the other, to a change in attitude towards the totem itself, including including the emergence of a ban on its use in food, except in cases where its consumption had little ritual character and was reminiscent of ancient norms and rules.

This is how a totem cult arises taboo- a system of prohibitions on the use of a totem animal in food or the task of causing any harm to it. The classic country where the taboo system received its greatest development is Polynesia. According to J. Fraser, the word “taboo” from the Polynesian language is translated as “noted” or “especially highlighted.” Taboos were an important mechanism for regulating social relations. Thus, gender and age taboos divided the primitive community into marriage classes, thereby excluding sexual relations between close relatives. Food taboos strictly regulated the nature of the food that was given to the leader, warriors, old people, women, and children. Other taboos were intended to guarantee the inviolability of the home or hearth, regulate burial rules, prohibit a stranger from communicating with a woman after her marriage, and the like.

These taboos were very strict. Researchers give the following examples of violation of prohibitions. One day, one of the tribal leaders of New Zealand left scraps from his dinner, which one of the ordinary members of the tribe ate. When the latter realized that he had used the leader’s food for food (this was prohibited), he fell to the ground, began to convulse and died These examples are not isolated. The very fact of awareness of the violation of a taboo, understood as something sacred, paralyzed the will of the violator, as well as the ability of his body to live.

Totemic taboos outlived totemism itself for a long time and remained in more developed religions in the form of corresponding prohibitions on eating “impure (dirty)” types of food. For example, among Jews and Muslims, pork is considered dirty meat and therefore not suitable for food. No one can give a clear explanation for this, and the fact that this is a dirty animal looks unconvincing, because the pig is a very picky eater.

In the conditions of the collapse of the tribal system, primary totemic beliefs develop into anthropomorphic cults of nature, elements, animals, where these objects of worship are already presented as a human face. Later, elements of totemism entered all religions. Its influence is felt in Hinduism, where many animals (eg cow, elephant, monkey, snake) are considered sacred. Remnants of this original form of religion can also be seen in the images of centaurs from Greek Olympian mythology. Traces of totemism are clearly visible in Christianity. The Holy Spirit is still depicted today as a dove, and Christ is often called the “lamb (lamb) of God” or symbolized by a fish. The Christian sacrament of communion originates from the rite of ritual eating of a totem: it is believed that, under the guise of bread and wine, believers eat the body and beat the blood of Christ.

Along with totemism and taboos, an outstanding place in the life of primitive man was occupied by magic(from the Greek Mageia - witchcraft, divination) - belief in the existence of supernatural methods of influencing nature or humans, that is, the world around us. There is no separation between magic and religion; it is impossible to oppose religion to magic, since every cult includes magical practice - prayers, from primitive to modern religions. Man is a product of matter and is therefore completely at its mercy.

The origins of this form of religious belief are more fully described by the English ethnographer Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) in his work Magic, Science and Religion. While studying the life of the natives of the Pacific Trobriand Islands, he noticed an interesting pattern. It turned out that the natives use magic in agriculture - in planting tuberous plants, but magic is not used in cultivating fruit trees, which produce a stable harvest. In fishing, magical techniques are practiced when catching sharks or other large and dangerous fish, but when catching small fish, magic is considered unnecessary. The boat workshop is always accompanied by magical rituals, but magic is not used in the construction of houses. These studies allowed Malinovsky to conclude that the field of magic is a high-risk activity. It comes to the rescue if there is no reliable algorithm for achieving success, when a person is not confident in his abilities, if it is guided by chance and uncertainty. This forces her to rely on the help of supernatural forces and perform magical actions.

The relationship that was established between man and nature has always had a dual character: on the one hand, the dominance of omnipotent nature over helpless man, on the other, the impact on nature that man strived for using his imperfect strengths and abilities. These techniques are magical practice.

Imitation of hunting means should contribute to the success of the hunt itself. Before going in search of kangaroos, Australians dance rhythmically around a drawing depicting the desired prey.

Magic is divided into six types: industrial, healing, love, harmful (destructive), meteorological (weather magic) and military. This species classification is far from complete, since many subspecies can be distinguished within each species. Thus, industrial magic, in turn, had many varieties: hunting, fishing, construction, agricultural, pottery, educational, sports, blacksmithing, etc.

Sometimes they also talk about “black”, harmful, and “white”, positive magic.

Harmful magic was intended to cause harm by supernatural means to an individual or persons. Among the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere, the following techniques dominated: targeting the enemy with a sharpened stick or bone, the Northern - “spoilage” through food, drinks, clothing, and the like. An important means of harmful magic is garbage if it is secretly thrown into someone else's yard.

One of the varieties of harmful magic is the belief in the “evil eye”, which was endowed with individual animals (snake, lion, cat, etc.) and people (slanted, with sunken dark eyes, with frowning eyebrows or those that have grown together). There is a belief that people and animals get sick from the evil eye, cows and goats don’t get milked, a hunter’s weapon loses its fighting properties, and the like.

War magic close to harmful in its goals and objectives. The only difference is that harmful is secret and one-sided, and military is the public need to overcome the active resistance of the victim.

Love magic had a dual purpose: to call a train or, conversely, to destroy it (“bewitch” or “where does it come from”,

"dry" or "vidsushity") Love magic should be considered perhaps the most ancient type of magic. Its appearance is due to the fact that in this area there was a lot that was incomprehensible to humans.

Healing magic differed from other types of magic in its exceptional variety of rituals. It is clear that this is traditional medicine. It is very difficult to draw the line between medicine and magic: rubbing a sick person with beeswax was practiced to scare away the spirits of the forest, although it was a good warming agent.

Production magic- its occurrence comes down to the rational economic activities of people who use disguises, disguises, and baiting animals, imitating their voices. Ancient forms of industrial magic are recorded in rock paintings.

Meteorological magic- this is the only type of magic that does not depend on human will and actions.

Usually, magical techniques were performed by specially trained people - wizards and shamans, who sincerely believed in their ability to communicate with spirits, convey to them the requests of fellow tribesmen, influence spirits or miraculous powers. But the main thing is not that they themselves believed in their unusual abilities, but that the team believed them and turned to them for help at critical moments. That is, wizards and shamans enjoyed special honors and respect from their fellow tribesmen. So, witchcraft practice is not opposed to religion, but, on the contrary, merges with it.

Belief in magic has survived to this day as an element of modern religions (belief in the supernatural power of rituals: prayer, sacrifice, purification, fasting) and in an independent form (fortune telling by cards).

Animistic ideas were also common in early-birth society. Animism (from the Latin Anima - soul) - belief in spirits and souls as a double of the body, a carrier of human life, as well as animals and plants. A detailed analysis of animistic beliefs was described by the English anthropologist, ethnologist and religious scholar Edward Taylor (1832-1917) in his work “Primitive Culture”. He was sure that the starting point for animism was the reflections of primitive man on such questions: what is the difference between a living and a dead body, the cause of sleep, ecstasy, illness, death, as well as the experience of trance and hallucinations. But unable to correctly explain these complex phenomena, she forms the concept of a soul located in the body and leaves it from time to time. Next, more complex ideas are formed: about the existence of the soul after the death of the body, the afterlife, etc.

Then the idea of the human soul began to be transferred to the world around us. At first, people thought that souls could look like birds, sometimes animals and plants. As you can see, animistic and totemic beliefs are closely intertwined here, although totemic images were necessary for people not in themselves, but as containers for spirits.

Later, the belief in transmigration arose, which can be found in many religions, especially Hinduism. Even later, people began to spiritualize inanimate phenomena - stones, mountains, rivers and lakes, the sun and stars. This was necessary, firstly, in order to explain the cause of all natural phenomena in a completely satisfactory way, and secondly, to attribute to spirits everything good and bad that happened throughout life. The immediate reason for the appearance of such animistic views may also be the peculiar interpretation by primitive people of a number of acoustic and optical phenomena: echoes, noises, shadows, etc. They seemed to them to be evidence not only of the existence of the human soul, but also of similar non-corporeal doubles of almost everything that exists in world. This is already the stage of late animism, or demonism, which leads to the emergence of belief in God, angels, Satan, mermaids, gnomes, fairies, nymphs, merman, immortal souls and the like. Animism itself lives in the belief in ghosts, spiritualism (the ability to communicate with the souls of the dead using various devices).

Primitive forms of religion

Dictionary

Primitive beliefs

Literature on the topic

Seminar lesson plan

1. The concept of religion.

2. Classification of religions.

3. The structure of religions.

4. Basic approaches to explaining religion.

Quotes…

& ʼʼHe who knows one religion knows none.

Max Muller

&“I understood what faith is: it is something independent of whether God exists. Faith is a blind leap towards someone's arms that will pick you up and accept you. This is a consolation in the face of incomprehensible fears and pain. A child’s trust in the hand that leads him out of the darkness.

Arturo Perez-Reverte."Drum skin"

&“There are two categories of specialists to whom people rush for salvation - priests and doctors. The first save the soul, the second save the body. The Savior, according to our internal attitude, should not be evil, vile or blasphemous. Otherwise, the meaning of seeking salvation is lost.

Natalya Nesterova.ʼʼGrandmother on the verge of demolitionʼʼ

&ʼʼWhat is God? What is salvation, if the world is really extremely important to save? Nothing. If everyone, both here and outside, lived their own lives and allowed others to do the same, God would be in every moment, in every mustard seed, in a piece of cloud, appearing and immediately dissolving. God is here, but these people believed that it was essential to continue the search, since it seemed too easy to accept life as an act of faith.

Paulo Coelho."Veronica decides to die"

&ʼʼEvery faith on this earth is based on fabrication. This falls within the very definition of faith itself. What is faith if not the acceptance of what we only consider to be an immutable truth, something that we simply cannot prove? In any religion, God is described through metaphors, allegories and exaggerations of various kinds. In any - from ancient Egyptians to modern Sunday schools. Metaphor is nothing more than a way to help our consciousness accept the unacceptable. Problems arise when we begin to take metaphors literally.

Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code

&“You can accept any faith, any idea of God - as long as they make you happy and allow you to communicate with the world without fear and condemnation.”

Natalia Pravdina.ʼʼMiracles of my Universe. Our happy world

Let's think...

1. Are you a believer? Who do you believe in? What is God to you?

2. In your opinion, what is the practical significance of the discipline “Religion, History and Modernity”?

3. What is atheism?

4. What are secularization and sacralization?

5. What basic elements does any religion consist of?

6. Which approach to explaining religion is most acceptable to you?

1. Danilyan, O. G. Religious studies [Text]: textbook / O. G. Danilyan, V. M. Taranenko. – M.: Eksmo, 2007. – 480 p.

2. Dictionary of philosophical terms [Text] / scientific. ed. V. G. Kuznetsov. – M.: INFRA-M, 2010. – 731 p.

3. Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary [Text] / ed.-comp. E. F. Gubsky, G. V. Korableva, V. A. Lutchenko. – M.: INFRA-M, 2004. – 576 p.

Animism(lat. anima– spirit, soul) – belief in souls and spirits.

Goddess Mother- a particularly revered female deity found in all ancient religions. The Mother Goddess is the giver of fertility, the manager of all natural processes and the progenitor of plants, animals and people.

Ancestor cult- veneration of the souls of deceased relatives. One of the most pronounced animistic cults that have survived among many peoples of the world to this day. At the root of the cult of ancestors is the idea that they are able to actively intervene in the lives of their descendants - to help them and patronize them, or to send illnesses and disasters to them.

Magic– witchcraft, sorcery; a set of rituals associated with belief in a person’s ability to influence nature, people, animals, gods.

Taboo- a religious prohibition imposed on any object, action, word, the violation of which is punishable by supernatural forces.

Totemism- belief in consanguineous ties that exist between a clan (tribe) and a certain animal or plant that distinguished clans from each other and helped in hunting and war.

Fetishism(port. fetiço– amulet; magic) - the worship of material objects to which supernatural properties are attributed that are not inherent to them (the ability to heal, protect from enemies, help in hunting, etc.).

Primitive forms of religions- ϶ᴛᴏ forms of beliefs in primitive society, when the elemental forces of nature that dominated people could not be explained and were presented in a fantastic form. Primitive people did not know the concept of “nature”; their mind was able to perceive only its individual components and phenomena - animals, stars, thunderstorms, etc., which became objects of worship. The reason for this, obviously, lies in the property of the human consciousness to fear everything that cannot be explained, and therefore to bow before it. Probably, one of the first ways to comprehend the world around us was associated with a person’s transference of his own properties and sensations to everything around him. This is how faith in living nature appeared. Stones, trees, rivers, clouds are also creatures, but they are not similar to humans, just as a tiger, an elephant, and a bear are not like him. And beings that differ too much from humans may also have completely special, incomprehensible, inaccessible properties. Fire offends, lightning kills, thunder thunders in a way that even the mightiest man cannot shout. A sensitive, wary, attentive person of ancient times simply could not help but feel the invisibly present force on which both life and death depended.

Cult of the Mother Goddess

Archeology gives us striking evidence of the universal spread of the cult of the Mother Goddess in the Stone Age. Over a vast area from the Pyrenees to Siberia, female figurines carved from stone or bone are found. All these images are conventionally called “Venus”. They all have one important feature in common. Arms, legs, face are barely outlined. The main thing that attracts the primitive artist is the organs of childbirth and feeding. The final limit of simplification is a figurine representing only breasts - the pure activity of birth and feeding. This is the oldest embodiment of the idea of “eternal femininity”. Archaeologists find images of “Venus” in large numbers among peoples who know writing. It seems that the cult of the Mother Goddess was almost universal.

The Mother Goddess rules all natural processes. She makes a seed immersed in the ground come to life, instills love in people and animals, birds sing songs to her during the days of spring courtship. At the behest of the Mother Goddess, flowers bloom and fruits appear. In ancient times, priestly (religious) functions were sometimes performed predominantly by women. Where this phenomenon has already disappeared, its echoes remain. For example, among the Chukchi, a male shaman performs his rituals in women's clothing.

The Goddess is the feminine principle of the world, one gender, elevated to the Absolute.

Ancestor cult

Primitive monotheism is the veneration of the ancestor, the forefather within the clan. The appearance of other heroes, ancestors, leaders, inventors, etc., together with the veneration of various natural phenomena, leads to polytheism - the veneration of many gods. The remnants of all primitive forms have been preserved in virtually all religions of the world (rites, worship), in the traditions and way of life of the peoples of the whole world.

Concept "ancestor cult" includes a system of various beliefs and rituals associated with the worship of the spirits of deceased relatives or mythological characters considered the ancestors of a clan or tribe. Similar cults existed in ancient times in many societies. The veneration of dead ancestors was based on the idea that after the death of a person, his spirit continues to exist and is capable of interfering in the affairs of the living. Attitudes towards the spirits of the dead were different in different cultures: in some they felt love and respect for them, in others - awe and fear. In some societies the perception of spirits was ambivalent. People believed that the dead usually help the living, but they can also do harm if something in their behavior displeases the spirits.

For many peoples, the dead were clearly divided into two categories. For example, among the Eastern Slavs, one category consisted of “pure” dead people who died a natural death (they were usually called, regardless of age, “parents”), and the other - “unclean”, those who died an unnatural death: suicides, drowned people, drunkards and sorcerers. "Parents" were revered, and "unclean" dead people ("dead people") were feared and tried to be neutralized. The veneration of “parents” is a real family, and formerly tribal, cult of ancestors, preserved among Russians, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Serbs and other Slavic peoples to this day. “Parents” are remembered on Parental Saturdays (before Maslenitsa, Trinity and Lent), during Easter week they visit cemeteries, where they bring food, wine and some are left on the graves of the dead.

Worship, accompanied by various ritual actions, was carried out in relation to those ancestors who occupied a significant position in society during their lifetime. Usually they worshiped the deceased ancestors of any social groups. The choice of the object of worship was carried out on the basis of the nature of existing social relations. In some societies, only male ancestors were revered, in others - women, and thirdly, both were honored with worship.

The spirits of ancestors, like other supernatural beings, were represented in the form of anthropomorphic images. This means that they were attributed properties characteristic of people. The spirits were supposedly able to see, hear, think and experience emotions. Each spirit had its own character with pronounced individual traits. In addition to ordinary human abilities, the dead also had to have supernatural power, which death gave them.

An important distinctive feature of the cult of ancestors were special rituals of honoring memory, carried out regularly every year or at some other frequency. To perpetuate the memory of the dead, tombs and monuments were built.

The cult of ancestors manifests itself in various ways, primarily in funeral rites. Each nation has its own characteristics and characteristics: the bodies of the dead are buried in the ground, cremated, and eaten (endocannibalism). There are air burials - the dead are left on special platforms or trees. The cult of ancestors was most developed in Africa. According to Africans, the forefathers live in the other world, which is a copy of the world of the living, from where they exert a good or evil influence on people based on whether people observe sacrifice rituals, sacrificial libations or spells and rules of living together.

Totemism

Totem(among North American Indians “ototem” is its genus) – an animal or plant, the image of which has become the emblem of an individual or an entire genus. Totemism is a hunting cult, mainly manifested in tribes and communities in an appropriating economy, where gathering, hunting and fishing dominated. Animals and plants that gave people the opportunity to exist became objects of worship. In the first stages of the development of totemism, such worship did not exclude, but even assumed the use of totemic animals and plants for food. For this reason, sometimes primitive people expressed their attitude towards the totem with the words: “This is our meat.” Moreover, this kind of connection between people and totems dates back to the distant past. Somewhat later, elements of social, primarily consanguineous, relations were introduced into totemism. Members of the clan group (blood relatives) began to believe that the ancestor and patron of their group was a certain totem animal or plant and that their distant ancestors, who combined the characteristics of people and the totem, had extraordinary abilities. This led, on the one hand, to the strengthening of the cult of ancestors, and on the other hand, to a change in attitude towards the totem itself, in particular to the emergence of prohibitions on eating the totem, except in cases where its eating was of a ritual nature.
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Subsequently, within the framework of totemism, a whole system of prohibitions arose, which were called taboo.

In its most “pure” and most convenient form for research, totemism was discovered among the Indians of North America, the aborigines of Australia, and the indigenous inhabitants of Central and South Africa, however, vestiges of totemism (food prohibitions, depictions of sacred beings in the form of animals, etc.) can be found in all religions.

Animism

Animism- belief in souls and spirits, in special supernatural beings on which the life of all living things, the existence of all objects in the surrounding world, and human activity depend. The mysterious marshy swamp was personified in the image of a kikimora, the dense forest - in the image of a goblin, the keeper of the hearth - in the image of a brownie, undifferentiated nature and its elements - in the image of a demon (Greek. daimon- deity, spirit), etc. Later, demons turn, for example in Greek mythology, into gods, giants, heroes.

Animism is the beliefs of people in a productive economy. Man found souls not only in animals, but also in plants, stones, and natural elements. All nature is animated and represents a community of human relatives.

When studying animistic ideas, it should be noted that the theory of animism consists of two dogmas. First of which states: the soul of an individual being is capable of continuing to exist after death or destruction of the body. According to another dogma, all spirits are capable of rising to the heights of the most powerful gods. Adherents of animism believed that spirits could influence the life of each individual person, both in this life and in the afterlife, and control the phenomena of the material world. To answer the question: what is the soul, ancient people tried, first of all, to understand what the difference is between a living and a dead body; what constitutes the cause of wakefulness, sleep, ecstasy, illness and death; what kind of images appear in dreams and visions.

Drawing conclusions from their own observations, people came to the conclusion that every person has a life and a ghost, which are in close connection with the body: life gives a person the opportunity to feel, think and act, and the ghost constitutes his image, or second ʼʼIʼʼ. Both are separable from the body: life can leave it and leave it insensible or dead, and the ghost appears to people at a distance from it.

In the question of the relationship between life and the ghost, the concept of a personal soul, or spirit, appeared. The soul is a subtle, immaterial human image, by its nature something like vapor, air or shadow. It is the soul that is the cause of life and can, leaving the body, quickly be transferred from place to place. Mostly intangible and invisible, it also exhibits physical strength and appears to people sleeping and waking mainly as a ghost, separate from the body, but similar to it. She is able to enter the bodies of other people, animals and even things, take possession of them and act on them.

To understand the human soul, words were found to express it - “spirit”, “soul”, “shadow”, “image”, “heart”, “breath”.

Among the Seminoles of Florida, when a woman died in childbirth, the child was held in front of her face so that he could receive her flying away soul and thus gain strength and wisdom for the life ahead of him. The North American Indians have a well-known custom of burying dead children near the road, so that their souls can pass into passing mothers and thereby be born again. It was usually believed that the souls of ancestors or relatives moved into children. Guinean tribes believed that a child who bears a striking physical or spiritual resemblance to a deceased relative inherits his soul. Welcoming the newborn child with the words: “You have returned,” they looked for any signs to find out which of the ancestors’ souls had returned in the form of a baby. The same meaning is contained in the custom of calling newborn children by old family names. In different parts of the world, there are similarities when choosing a baby name. In the tribes of New Zealand there was a certain ritual of naming a child. The priest read a long series of names of the ancestors, and when the child screamed or sneezed, the servant of the deity stopped; Thus, the child himself chose his name.

According to the code of the redemptive journey of souls, the sinner in the future life was punished by his own sin. For crimes committed in a previous life, all sorts of deformities were sent to people. If in a past life a person stole food, then in the future he will certainly suffer from indigestion, the slanderer will suffer from diseases of the respiratory system, and the horse thief will limp. In other words, a person, voluntarily or unwittingly, chooses his future life through his own actions.

In many animistic beliefs one can see an undeniable reverence for spirits. The living hospitably treated the dead, however, this phenomenon can also be found in modern religious systems. Suffice it to recall the custom of Orthodox Christians to leave food on the graves of deceased relatives and friends.

The doctrine of spirits of illness and spirits of divination occupies an important place in the study of animistic ideas. In ancient times, a physically ill person was considered sick precisely because his body was visited by evil spirits, and a mentally ill person or idiot evoked an extremely respectful attitude towards himself. The mentally ill were especially respected in the East as people visited by God. Echoes of these ideas can be found to this day in the expression “blessed”, i.e. happy.

Fetishism

Fetishism was first discovered by Portuguese sailors in West Africa in the 15th century, and then numerous modifications of fetishism were identified in almost all nations. Object of worship - fetish- could become any object that captured a person’s imagination: an unusual stone, a piece of wood, an animal tooth, a skillfully made figurine, a piece of jewelry. People's treatment of fetishes suggests that they did not always treat their chosen object with due respect. He could be thanked for his assistance, but punished for inaction. One of the African peoples had a custom of torturing fetishes, not only for the purpose of punishing them, but also to motivate them to action. For example, when asking a fetish for something, Africans drove iron nails into it, believing that after this the fetish would better remember the requests made to it and would definitely fulfill them. Otherwise, it was thrown away or replaced with another. Apparently, in ancient times, people did not endow the objects they chose as fetishes with supernatural properties and did not even spiritualize them. The essence of fetishism was that a person saw in individual objects properties that were not revealed by ordinary senses. The primitive fetishist made these objects “sensual-supersensible”, and supersensible properties were attributed to them either on the basis of random associations, or on the basis of misunderstood cause-and-effect relationships.

Elements of fetishism are present in almost all religions and are widespread in the sphere of everyday superstitions and prejudices. Thus, the belief in amulets, talismans and other objects that bring good luck or ward off danger has survived to this day.

Magic and Witchcraft

Magic is an integral part of all religious cults. For an African, for example, no evil is natural. Drought, poor harvest, premature death always mean a breakdown in the harmonious balance between the visible and invisible worlds. In these cases, you should turn to the “sage” (fortune teller) to find the one who violated the ban, or to find the sorcerer who caused the damage. In the first case, the guilt must be expiated by sacrifice, but in the second case, one should turn to a magician. In the world of African spirituality, the magician and the sorcerer represent an irreconcilable opposition. Witch- a dark man who seeks to destroy everyone. He is the “great night”. To carry out his dirty deeds, he turns into either an animal, or a person, or the thing most suitable for fulfilling his plan. He acts of his own free will or on orders. Mage On the contrary, he is a bright, kind person, always ready to protect all people. If the sorcerer lives on the outskirts, then the magician is always in the center of the community.

Varieties magical actions are associated with different aspects of human life: economic magic (rituals for ensuring good luck in hunting, causing rain, etc.); healing (white magic); harmful (black magic, damage). Elements of magic are inherent in the rituals of all religions.

2.2. Primitive morality: taboo

E. Taylor in his work “Primitive Culture” noted that primitive tribes “did not have abstract moral principles, but had a theory of pleasure or pain, benefit or disadvantage, befalling an individual, his family or his tribe. This narrow and rudimentary distinction between good and evil is quite definitely expressed in the answers of the savage, who explained, “that if anyone takes his wife, it will be bad, but if he takes someone else’s wife, it will be good.”

Taboos are typical for people at the tribal stage of social development. Some of the taboo objects were considered sacred, while others were considered unclean in a religious sense. At the same time, contact with both the sacred and the unclean threatened with punishment sent by mysterious forces, spirits or gods. The absence of fixed law and more or less developed morality among primitive tribes led to the fact that taboos became the main mechanism for regulating social relations. Thus, gender and age taboos divided tribes into marriage classes and thereby excluded sexual relations between close relatives. Food taboos determined the nature of the food that was intended for the leader, warriors, women, children, and the elderly. A number of other taboos were intended to guarantee the inviolability of the home or hearth, compliance with burial rules, and the distribution of rights and responsibilities among community members. As society develops and its social differentiation, taboos begin to be used by the tribal elite to strengthen their own economic power and political power. At the center of the taboo system is the personality of the leader and the scope of his activities. Priests and the most prominent warriors also become objects of taboo. Subsequently, a significant part of the taboos entered developed religions, being modified into purely religious, legal and moral prohibitions.

Food ban

Eating played a special role in the life of the natives. There was a belief that it was during eating and drinking that one could lose one’s soul or let in someone else’s. It is in this regard that some precautions were taken when eating food. Natives living on the island. Madagascar, during meals they close the door with a bolt; therefore, no one has yet been able to spy on how they eat. When applied to rulers, these prohibitions looked especially terrifying. Under the threat of immediate death, not a single living creature was supposed to see the ruler eat or drink, and even relatives could be punished. The twelve-year-old son of Chief Loango accidentally ran into the room in which the ruler was eating food at that time. He ordered the boy to be dressed and decorated, fed well, after which he ordered him to be quartered and announced to the people that he had seen the ruler eating.

If the ruler suddenly became thirsty, this procedure was accompanied by the following ceremony. The chief cupbearer approached the ruler, holding a cup of drink in one hand and a bell in the other. After the cup of wine was in the hands of the ruler, the cupbearer turned away and rang the bell, and everyone present in the room fell on their faces and remained in this position until the ruler drank.

The remains of food were under no circumstances thrown away, but were buried in a secluded place, otherwise evil people could use them to cast evil spells on the ruler.

Prohibitions on mourners

A native from New Guinea, after the death of his wife, became an outcast in his native tribe: when he saw a person approaching him, he had to immediately hide in the bushes, especially if a woman was walking towards him. The widowed person was forbidden to hunt at the same time as the rest of the tribe, because the spirit of the deceased could scare away the game. The unlucky one thus had to get food at night.

Prohibitions imposed on warriors

Warriors who were awaiting military action against neighboring tribes were subjected to special rituals. For example, the Maori natives, together with their leader, became untouchable on the eve of the war. With the outbreak of hostilities, men completely moved away from women, because sexual intercourse exhausted the warriors and deprived them of strength before the battle with the enemy. Those who violated the ban were sure to face failure during the military campaign.

Forbidden words

Proper names were subject to a certain ban. For example, the Apalache Indian considered his name an integral part of himself, like a leg or an arm, and therefore treated it with the same care. Almost all the tribes that lived on the islands from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean followed a similar rule. There was an opinion that if you take a different name in old age, your life can be extended. And it was possible to take this life away from another by writing down his name somewhere. The Australian aborigines did not reveal their name to strangers so that they could not bring them misfortune with the help of witchcraft. Some natives of the tribes of Central Australia have two names: the one by which they are known in the tribe, and the other one given to them at birth by the priests. By the way, the Egyptians had a similar custom of giving two names.

Primitive forms of religion - concept and types. Classification and features of the category “Primitive forms of religion” 2017, 2018.