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Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxTerm>Secular religion</OpenstaxTerm> is a system of beliefs held by a society that elevates social ideas, qualities, or commodities to a metaphysical, semidivine status. Often, the group sees itself in terms of a divine image, creating a situation in which, as Émile Durkheim famously said, “society = God.” Various types and degrees of nationalism are a form of secular religion in which a group shows honor, respect, and allegiance to the nation itself as a sacred entity. For large and diverse societies, secular religion can create a powerful and enduring bond among otherwise very different groups of people. Often, philosophical ideas and materialism itself have been at the center of secular religion.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	One of the most prominent examples of secular religion is nationalism, the belief that the nation-state and its interests are more important than those of local groups. U.S. sociologist Robert <OpenstaxTerm>Bellah</OpenstaxTerm> (1967) studied secular religion in the United States and documented the many ways that American society uses religious practices, such as myth, ritual, and sacred space, to elevate the idea of the nation-state. During occasions such as presidential inaugurations and the convocation of Congress, for example, it is routine to use sacred language and prayer, elevating the nation-state to a privileged, sacred status, blessed, ordained, and legitimized by religious imagery. Rituals such as raising the national flag while saying a pledge to the nation-state, flying flags at full versus half-mast, and draping flags over the coffins of deceased service members are practices of secular religion. Burials at nation-state cemeteries such as Arlington National Cemetery may be filled with imagery of secular religion, including a caisson, a bugler, a drummer, and gun salutes.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Ethnographic Sketches </OpenstaxNoteTitle> <OpenstaxH3> Día de los Muertos </OpenstaxH3>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Experience of Marjorie Snipes, chapter author
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		In the Andean highlands of Argentina, most communities celebrate All Souls’ Day, or Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), on November 1 and 2 every year. While this Catholic ritual commemorates the recently departed, usually those who have died in the past three years, it also includes elements of Indigenous religious practices and beliefs centered on Pachamama (Mother Earth). This integration of beliefs from more than one religious system is common across cultures and is called <OpenstaxTerm>syncretism</OpenstaxTerm>.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		The practice of Día de los Muertos is a solemn occasion. Families prepare a favorite meal or food items that they associate with the recently departed and set a place setting for their soul (<OpenstaxEm>alma</OpenstaxEm>). Candles and flowers adorn the elaborately decorated family table. The meal remains available for the soul of the departed from the evening of November 1 until the evening of November 2. During that time, family members meet periodically around the table to offer prayers and to share remembrances of the deceased, and souls are invited to eat and prepare themselves for the journey to the spirit world. Souls of the departed are believed to remain strongly attached to their families and unwilling to leave the living world for three years following death. They must be coaxed by surviving family members to make a peaceful transition to the spirit world, where they can rest. In the southern Andes, many people believe that moths are visual symbols of the soul’s presence. With candles lit throughout the night of November 1, families in rural Andean households often encounter moths. This serves as ritual affirmation.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		On the evening of November 2, after a last prayer of departure, Andean families in El Angosto will gather the favorite foods of their departed and offer them to Pachamama by piling or burying the food into an altar of rocks. Each household has a family altar near their house, called a <OpenstaxEm>mojon</OpenstaxEm>, dedicated to Pachamama. It is a cairn predominantly consisting of white rocks, each believed to symbolize the goddess. The rocks may be naturally white, consisting of milky quartz, a common rock in the area, or they may be calcified or even painted white. During fieldwork, I asked people about the importance of the color white, but their answers were similar to the types of answers many of us would give to questions about our traditions: “This is her special color,” “It’s just this way,” or “This is our custom.” These truthful responses represent enculturation. As a scientist, though, I seek connections between the color white, stones, and Pachamama. I suspect there are several reasons that this color first began to be associated with Mother Earth: milky quartz is a common rock in the region and readily available; since the earth is considered to be Pachamama’s body, the white rocks mimic the color of bone; and perhaps most significantly, the color white is associated with breast milk, a characteristic associated specifically with mothers. Understanding symbolism is important because it gives anthropologists a window into what matters most to those we are studying.
	</OpenstaxParagraph><OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00002" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/c263a00592bb416a023e566a5e80a4478d2889e2" alt="A stack of flat rocks in a barren landscape." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="800" height="531" />
	<OpenstaxFigureText width="800">
		<strong>Figure 13.15</strong> A cairn, or stack of rocks, built alongside the road to Mount Misti in Peru. These stacks of rocks are similar to those created as family altars by Andean families in El Angosto. (credit: “Mount Misti,” by RichardJames1990/flickr, CC-BY-2.0)
	</OpenstaxFigureText>
</OpenstaxNote>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Mini-Fieldwork Activity </OpenstaxNoteTitle> <OpenstaxH3> Participant Observation: Analysis of a Religious Service </OpenstaxH3>
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		Do fieldwork and an analysis of a religious service of your choice. With permission from the religious leader(s), attend the service and practice participant observation. Using what you have learned about sacred place and ritual, analyze the physical environment where the service is occurring. Where is/are the threshold(s)? Where is the axis mundi? How does the built environment contribute to the practice of religion and spiritual exercises? In the service itself, what are the primary themes, and how do different participant constituencies respond to these? Does the service conform to any of the rituals that you studied in this chapter? If so, how? After analyzing the service, reflect on your experience of doing this mini-fieldwork activity.
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</OpenstaxNote>

13.5.2 Secular Religion

1 What Is Anthropology?

1.1 The Study of Humanity, or "Anthropology Is Vast"

1.1.1 The Heart of Anthropology: Central Narrative and Commitments

1.1.2 Central Commitment #1: Exploring Sociocultural Diversity

1.1.3 Central Commitment #2: Understanding How Societies Hold Together

1.1.4 Central Commitment #3: Examining the Interdependence of Humans and Nature

1.2 The Four-Field Approach: Four Approaches within the Guiding Narrative

1.2.1 Biological Anthropology

1.2.2 Archaeology

1.2.3 Cultural Anthropology

1.2.4 Linguistic Anthropology

1.2.5 How the Four Fields Work Together: The Example of Race

1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

1.3.1 Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

1.3.2 Primitivism and Orientalism

1.4 Western Bias in Our Assumptions about Humanity

1.4.1 Primitivism and Orientalism in Popular Culture

1.4.2 The Bias of Backwardness

1.5 Holism, Anthropology’s Distinctive Approach

1.5.1 Society as an Integrated Whole

1.5.2 Sources of Contradiction, Conflict, and Change

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

1.6.1 Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

1.6.2 Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

1.7 Reaching for an Insider’s Point of View

1.7.1 The Challenge of Representing Others

1.7.2 Collaborative Methods of Representation

1.7.3 Working across Cultures toward Common Goals

1.7.4 Suggested Readings

2 Methods: Cultural and Archaeological

2.1 Archaeological Research Methods

2.1.1 Archaeological Techniques

2.1.2 Archaeological Dating Methods

2.2 Conservation and Naturalism

2.2.1 Early Efforts

2.2.2 Salvage Anthropology

2.2.3 Museum Collections

2.2.4 Interpretation and Voice

2.3 Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.1 The Development of Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.2 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

2.4 Participant Observation and Interviewing

2.4.1 Participant Observation

2.4.2 Interviewing Informants

2.4.3 Ethical Considerations

2.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

2.5.1 Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Information

2.5.2 Modeling

2.5.3 The Science of Anthropology

2.6 Collections

2.6.1 Archives

2.6.2 Three-Dimensional Collections

2.6.3 Ownership

2.6.4 Suggested Readings

3 Culture Concept Theory: Theories of Cultural Change

3.1 The Homeyness of Culture

3.2 The Winkiness of Culture

3.3 The Elements of Culture

3.3.1 Culture Is What We Make

3.3.2 Culture Is What We Do

3.3.3 Culture Is What We Think

3.4 The Aggregates of Culture

3.4.1 Symbols

3.4.2 Ritual

3.4.3 Social Structure

3.5 Modes of Cultural Analysis

3.5.1 Evolution, Adaptation, and Historical Particularism

3.5.2 Functionalism

3.5.3 Structuralism

3.5.4 Ontology

3.6 The Paradoxes of Culture

3.6.1 Paradox 1: Culture Is Continuous, but It Changes

3.6.2 Paradox 2: Culture Is Bounded but Mobile

3.6.3 Paradox 3: Culture Is Consensual but Contested

3.6.4 Paradox 4: Culture Is Shared, but It Varies

3.6.5 Suggested Readings

4 Biological Evolution and Early Human Evidence

4.1 What Is Biological Anthropology?

4.1.1 Looking to the Deep Past

4.1.2 Exploring What It Means to Be Human

4.2 What’s in a Name? The Science of Taxonomy

4.2.1 Defining the Science of Taxonomy

4.2.2 Defining a Species

4.3 It’s All in the Genes! The Foundation of Evolution

4.3.1 The Units of Life

4.3.2 Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Heredity

4.3.3 Mendelian Inheritance in Humans

4.4 Evolution in Action: Past and Present

4.4.1 Early Evolutionists and the Fixity of Species

4.4.2 Charles Darwin’s Role in Changing Views of the Natural World

4.4.3 Understanding Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

4.5 What Is a Primate?

4.5.1 What Is a Primate?

4.5.2 Primate Behavioral Variation

4.5.3 Explaining Primate Success

4.5.4 Primate Classification and Taxonomy

4.6 Origin of and Classification of Primates

4.6.1 Understanding Concepts of Time

4.6.2 Fossils and Dating Methods

Question	Answer
two opposing concepts, commonly found in institutions such as kinship and in myth.	binary opposition
a set of formal and usually rigid principles or teachings of a religious organization.	doctrine
a religion that centers on a single named god or goddess.	monotheistic religion
a person with no religious affiliation.	none
a religion that centers on a group of gods and/or goddesses, each devoted to a specific action or behavior.	polytheistic religion
an individual associated with religious change who calls for a renewal of beliefs or a restructuring of the status quo. A prophet’s leadership is usually temporary or indirect.	prophet
a ritual invoked to seek some sort of redress, remedy, or compensation for an individual by means of supernatural intervention.	rite of affliction
a ritual performed by a religious group to affirm, strengthen, and maintain bonds of solidarity.	rite of intensification
a ritual in which an individual or group marks a social transformation.	rite of passage
a system of beliefs held by a society that elevates social ideas, qualities, or commodities to a metaphysical, semidivine status.	secular religion
a part-time religious figure who works to connect with deities on behalf of others.	shaman
supernatural being associated with specific activities, such as an earth spirit or guardian spirit (or angel).	spirit
an integration or use of more than one religious system.	syncretism