Folk religion
In
The term "folk religion" is generally held to encompass two related but separate subjects. The first is the religious dimension of
Definition
In
Yoder's third definition was that often employed within folkloristics, which held that folk religion was "the interaction of belief, ritual, custom, and mythology in traditional societies", representing that which was often pejoratively characterised as superstition.[6] The fourth definition provided by Yoder stated that folk religion represented the "folk interpretation and expression of religion". Noting that this definition would not encompass beliefs that were largely unconnected from organised religion, such as in witchcraft, he therefore altered this definition by including the concept of "folk religiosity", thereby defining folk religion as "the deposit in culture of folk religiosity, the full range of folk attitudes to religion".[7] His fifth and final definition represented a "practical working definition" that combined elements from these various other definitions. Thus, he summarized folk religion as "the totality of all those views and practices of religion that exist among the people apart from and alongside the strictly theological and liturgical forms of the official religion".[8]
Yoder described "folk religion" as existing "in a complex society in relation to and in tension with the organized religion(s) of that society. Its relatively unorganized character differentiates it from organized religion".[9]
Alternately, the sociologist of religion Matthias Zic Varul defined "folk religion" as "the relatively un-reflected aspect of ordinary practices and beliefs that are oriented towards, or productive of, something beyond the immediate here-and-now: everyday transcendence".[10]
In sociology, folk religion is often contrasted with elite religion. Folk religion is defined as the beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols originating from sources other than the religion's leadership. Folk religion in many instances is tolerated by the religion's leadership, although they may consider it an error.[11] A similar concept is lived religion, the study of religion as practiced by believers.
Historical development
In Europe the study of "folk religion" emerged from the study of religiöse Volkskunde, a German term which was used in reference to "the religious dimension of folk-culture, or the folk-cultural dimension of religion".
In the Americas, the study of folk religion developed among
Although the subject of folk religion fell within the remit of scholars operating in both folkloristics and religious studies, by 1974 Yoder noted that U.S.-based academics in the latter continued to largely ignore it, instead focusing on the study of theology and institutionalised religion; he contrasted this with the situation in Europe, where historians of religion had devoted much time to studying folk religiosity.[17] He also lamented that many U.S.-based folklorists also neglected the subject of religion because it did not fit within the standard genre-based system for cataloguing folklore.[18]The term "folk religion" came to be increasingly rejected in the 1990s and 2000s by scholars seeking more precise terminology.[19]
Problems and critique
Yoder noted that one problem with the use of the term "folk religion" was that it did not fit into the work of those scholars who used the term "religion" in reference solely to
A second problem with the use of "folk religion" that Yoder highlighted was that some scholars, particularly those operating in the sociology of religion, used the term as a synonym for ethnic religion (which is alternately known as national religion or tribal religion), meaning a religion closely tied to a particular ethnic or national group and is thus contrasted with a "universal religion" which cuts across ethnic and national boundaries.[21] Among the scholars to have adopted this use of terminology are E. Wilbur Bock.[22]
The folklorist Leonard Norman Primiano argued that the use of "folk religion", as well as related terms like "popular religion" and "unofficial religion", by scholars, does "an extreme disservice" to the forms of religiosity that scholars are examining, because – in his opinion – such terms are "residualistic, [and] derogatory".[23] He argued that using such terminology implies that there is "a pure element" to religion "which is in some way transformed, even contaminated, by its exposure to human communities".[24] As a corrective, he suggested that scholars use "vernacular religion" as an alternative.[25] Defining this term, Primiano stated that "vernacular religion" is, "by definition, religion as it is lived: as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practice it. Since religion inherently involves interpretation, it is impossible for the religion of an individual not to be vernacular".[26]
Kapaló was critical of this approach, deeming it "mistaken" and arguing that switching from "folk religion" to "vernacular religion" results in the scholar "picking up a different selection of things from the world".[27] He cautioned that both terms carried an "ideological and semantic load" and warned scholars to pay attention to the associations that each word had.[28]
Chinese folk religion
Chinese folk religion is sometimes categorized with
Despite being heavily suppressed during the last two centuries, from the
The term Shenism was first published by AJA Elliot in 1955 to describe Chinese folk religion in Southeast Asia.[41]
Indigenous Philippine folk religions
Indigenous Philippine folk religions are the distinct native religions of various ethnic groups in the Philippines, where most follow belief systems in line with animism. Generally, these indigenous folk religions are referred to as Anitism or Bathalism.[42] Some of these beliefs stem from pre-Christian religions that were especially influenced by Hinduism and were regarded by the Spanish as "myths" and "superstitions" in an effort to de-legitimize legitimate precolonial beliefs by forcefully replacing those native beliefs with colonial Catholic Christian myths and superstitions. Today, some of these precolonial beliefs are still held by Filipinos, especially in the provinces.
Folk Christianity
Folk Christianity is defined differently by various scholars. Christianity as most people live it – a term used to "overcome the division of beliefs into Orthodox and unorthodox",[43] Christianity as impacted by superstition as practiced by certain geographical Christian groups,[44] and Christianity defined "in cultural terms without reference to the theologies and histories."[45]
Folk Islam
Folk Islam is an
Various practices and beliefs have been identified with the concept of "folk Islam". They include the following:
- belief in traditional magic systems and ecstatic rituals[49][50]
- the use of amulets[51]
- veneration of saints or jinn, as in the Gnawa cult[52][53]
- incorporation of animistic beliefs[54]
Folk Judaism
In one of the first major academic works on the subject, titled Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion, Joshua Trachtenberg provided a definition of Jewish folk religion as consisting of ideas and practices that, whilst not meeting with the approval of religious leaders, enjoyed wide popularity such that they must be included in what he termed the field of religion.[55] This included unorthodox beliefs about demons and angels, and magical practices.
Later studies have emphasized the significance of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem to the many Jewish folk customs linked to mourning and in particular to the belief in hibbut ha-qever (torture of the grave) a belief that the dead are tortured in their grave for three days after burial by demons until they remember their names. This idea began with early eschatological aggadah and was then further developed by the kabbalists.[56]
Writer Stephen Sharot has stated that Jewish popular religion in common with other forms of folk religion, has a focus on the
Charles Liebman has written that the essence of the folk religion of American Jews is their social ties to one another, illustrated by the finding that religious practices that would prevent social integration – such as a strict interpretation of dietary laws and the Sabbath – have been abandoned, whilst the practices that are followed – such as the Passover Seder, social rites of passage, and the High Holy Days- are ones that strengthen Jewish family and community integration.[61] Liebman described the rituals and beliefs of contemporary Jewish folk religion in his works, The Ambivalent American Jew (1973) and American Jewry: Identity and Affiliation.
Folk Hinduism
June McDaniel (2007) classifies
During the 19th century, scholars had divided Hinduism and
See also
Part of a series on |
Magic |
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- Evil eye – Curse brought by a malevolent glare
- Ethnoreligious group – Ethnic group whose members are also unified by a common religion
- Folk saint – Spirit unofficially recognized by a group of people
- Gavari – 40-day long festival held in the Mewar region of Rajasthan, India
- Magic and religion
- Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena
- Popular piety – Expressions of folk Catholicism
- Pre-Christian Alpine traditions
- Prehistoric religion – Religion before written records
- Pseudoreligion – Non-mainstream philosophical movements which function like religions
- Religious syncretism – Blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system
- Romani folklore – Folktales, myths, oral traditions, and legends of the Romani people
- Sanamahism – Indigenous religion of the Meitei people
- Shamanism – Religious practice
- Stregoneria– Italian-American neopagan tradition
- Tengrism – Religion of the Turko-Mongolic Steppe
- Veneration of the dead – Cultural or religious practice
- Witchcraft – Practices believed to use supernatural powers
- Witch doctor – Type of healer in many traditional medicine systems
References
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- Bowker, John (2003) [2000]. "Folk religion". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191727221.
- Kapaló, James A. (2013). "Folk Religion in Discourse and Practice". Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics. 1 (1): 3–18.
- Primiano, Leonard Norman (1995). "Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklife". Western Folklore. 54 (1): 37–56. JSTOR 1499910.
- Varul, Matthias Zick (2015). "Consumerism as Folk Religion: Transcendence, Probation and Dissatisfaction with Capitalism". Studies in Christian Ethics. 28 (4): 447–460. S2CID 148255400.
- Yoder, Don (1974). "Toward a Definition of Folk Religion". Western Folklore. 33 (1): 1–15. from the original on 2022-04-29. Retrieved 2022-04-12.
Further reading
- Allen, Catherine. The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989; second edition, 2002.
- Badone, Ellen, ed. Religious Orthodoxy and Popular Faith in European Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
- Bastide, Roger. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations. Trans. by Helen Sebba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
- Blackburn, Stuart H. Death and Deification: Folk Cults in Hinduism, History of Religions (1985).
- Brintnal, Douglas. Revolt against the Dead: The Modernization of a Mayan Community in the Highlands of Guatemala. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1979.
- Christian, William A., Jr. Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
- Gellner, David N. Hinduism. None, one or many?, Social Anthropology (2004), 12: 367–371 Cambridge University* Johnson, Paul Christopher. Secrets, Gossip, and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomblé. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Gorshunova, Olga V. (2008). Svjashennye derevja Khodzhi Barora…, ( Sacred Trees of Khodzhi Baror: Phytolatry and the Cult of Female Deity in Central Asia) in Etnoragraficheskoe Obozrenie, No. 1, pp. 71–82. ISSN 0869-5415. (in Russian).
- Kononenko, Natalie "Vernacular religion on the prairies: negotiating a place for the unquiet dead," Archived 2021-04-20 at the Wayback Machine Canadian Slavonic Papers 60, no. 1-2 (2018)
- Nepstad, Sharon Erickson (1996). "Popular Religion, Protest, and Revolt: The Emergence of Political Insurgency in the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran Churches of the 1960s–80s". In Smith, Christian (ed.). Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism. New York: Routledge. pp. 105–124. ISBN 978-0-415-91405-5.
- Nash, June (1996). "Religious Rituals of Resistance and Class Consciousness in Bolivian Tin-Mining Communities". In Smith, Christian (ed.). Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism. New York: Routledge. pp. 87–104. ISBN 978-0-415-91405-5.
- Nutini, Hugo. Ritual Kinship: Ideological and Structural Integration of the Compadrazgo System in Rural Tlaxcala. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
- Nutini, Hugo. Todos Santos in Rural Tlaxcala: A Syncretic, Expressive, and Symbolic Analysis of the Cult of the Dead. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
- Panchenko, Aleksandr. ‘Popular Orthodoxy’ and identity in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia Archived 2023-04-18 at the Wayback Machine, Soviet and Post-Soviet Identities. Ed. by Mark Bassin and Catriona Kelly. Cambridge, 2012, pp. 321–340
- Sinha, Vineeta. Problematizing Received Categories: Revisiting ‘Folk Hinduism’ and ‘Sanskritization’, Current Sociology, Vol. 54, No. 1, 98–111 (2006)
- Sinha, Vineeta. Persistence of ‘Folk Hinduism’ in Malaysia and Singapore, Australian Religion Studies Review Vol. 18 No. 2 (Nov 2005):211–234
- Stuart H. Blackburn, Inside the Drama-House: Rama Stories and Shadow Puppets in South India, UCP (1996), ch. 3: " Ambivalent Accommodations: Bhakti and Folk Hinduism".
- Taylor, Lawrence J. Occasions of Faith: An Anthropology of Irish Catholics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
- Thomas, Keith (1971). Religion and the Decline of Magic. Studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-00220-8.
External links
- Folk Christianity in the Philippines Archived 2011-06-10 at the Wayback Machine
- "Myths over Miami" Archived 2013-11-03 at the Wayback Machine: an account of the folk religion of children living in homeless shelters in Miami, circa 1997.