A Question of Origin and Place

Aesthetic, Mythic and Religious Ways of Knowing the World

Religion and the Arts

The following materials are key presentation points developed by the instructor during class lectures. They are not a substitute for student participation in the class lectures, but a highlighting of the pertinent items considered. 

Overall Story Themes.  How have people related to the transcendent and spiritual worlds? Our discussion here will focus on aesthetic and religious expression. For some peoples that which is other than the immediate and material is animated with volition and a life force, often revealed through various art forms and spiritual experiences, while for others the world is fundamentally inanimate, without purpose, with art providing only affective functions. Consequently, "beauty" and "god," and the understanding of one's "origins" and "creation" can have very different meanings and thus roles within peoples' lives. The key questions asked are, for tribal-traditional peoples, how do they understand the spiritual world and how do they access it?   What is the epistemological framework within which Indigenous knowledge is understood and legitimized?  What are the key ontological principles and teachings upon which reality is experienced?  And how does that understanding of reality differ from a scientific view of the world?   For a more expanded introduction to Indigenous worldview, see Spiritual Values of Indigenous Peoples.

Ontological Principles and Teachings:

1. Connectedness (subjectification)- All of reality, both in its spatial and temporal dimensions, is ultimately expressed by its unity, monism and holism, and in terms of "kinship and family."  Humanity exists a part of the universe, humanity mirroring the cosmos, the interior mirroring the external.
   • Implications for a "history" - Do traditional peoples have a concept of "history" or "progress"? And what is the meaning of, "history means disrespect for the ancestors"?
   • Implications for the concept of "self" - Do traditional peoples have the social construct, "individual"?
   • Traditional peoples live in a non-dualistic world, a world that does not differentiate between the material world of nature and the ideational world of "self."
2. Equality of Beings/Elements (equalization) - All "peoples," be they human, animal, plant or rock, share in a fundamental equality with one another.
3. Meaning and Archetypes (qualitation) - The world emanates with a priori significances and universal archetypal patterns, as long as you are attentive.
4. Life-force (qualitation) - An animating power, omnipresent and pervasive, inundates the world.
5. Transcendent - Spiritual World (transcendentation) - Ultimate reality is expressed in its transcendent spirituality.  Example of Plato's Cave  Traditional peoples acknowledge the physical world, and are a pragmatic people, but they vest more importance in the transcendent.
6. Participation and "Replication of the World" (participation and replication; aligning the "bones" of the ontology/teachings, with the symbols of the story; an heirophany) - The essential key.  In the example of the Balinese Eka Dasa Rudra

   As the transcendent archetypes permeate all reality, including the world of nature and the human self, i.e., the "outer" and "inner" worlds, the macrocosm and microcosm, then necessarily, as humans interact with the world, they contribute to the perpetuation and bringing forth of the creation.   The human, as a participant of the world, is in this sense a co-creator of the world. "Man seeks to mirror the cosmos."

   As humans seek to find meaning, they attempt to replicate the meaning of the original archetypes, and, in so doing, gain access to meaning and the life-force.  In turn, the vary existence of the world is perpetuated.  Or re-phrased: "Reality" is that transitory moment of intersection of those participating, imbued with meaningful archetypes and life-force. 

Epistemological Ligitimization:

• Intuitive
• Visionary - rite of passage
• Metaphoric
• Anagogic

The Aesthetic, Ritual and Oral Narrative Texts:

1. Oral Traditions (the first literature)- the foundation of the tribal-traditional world
   • Creation narratives - considered "true," chronicle the adventures and misadventures of the First Peoples (Gods and Mythic Peoples), and are transformative, i.e., "prepare the world for the coming of Human Peoples." The examples of "Sedna" (images of Inuit Art), "Karora" (images of Aboriginal Life), "Salmon Always Goes Up River," "Coyote," and "Spring Boy and Curtain Boy."
   • The Act of Storytelling   The example of "Muskrat Man"
     • Including such techniques as ee, repetition, length, terse, present tense, body language, re-membering.
     • Orality vs. literacy
     • The power of words, "stories make the world" and dasshussua (good bye, illness, wow, Indian name)
     • All coalescing to engage the listeners into participates in the unfolding of the story 


2. Visual Arts  (masks, dance, costumes, songs, poetry, etc.)
• The example of the "Inuit Stone Carver and Sedna"
• Upper Paleolithic Cave Art
• The examples of African, Inuit and Iroquois masks and "utgo"
  • Have their origins in visions, are to be "feed," and when worn transform the dancer and those how come into contact with it
• The example of Balinese Wayang and the Mountain of Poets, and Rangda and Barong


3. Ceremonial Expression - balancing the outer and inner worlds. The example of the "Two Bullets."  See Ritual Typology
   1. collective rituals - illustrated in the instance of world "Renewal Ceremonies"
      • The examples of the Australian Aboriginal Intichiuma ceremonies, the Huichol Pilgrimage, and the Crow Sun Dance
   2. personal rituals - illustrated in the instance of "Rites of Reversal" and healing ceremonies - "Symbolic balance and boundary reversals," i.e., what causes an illness is the reversal of what can heal a body. The examples of Navajo ("hozho" and "hocho") and Kwakiutl healing, and the "Brew"
      • something tangible, e.g., "intrusive objects," which is alien to the body, has entered the body, causing disruption and imbalance of the normal structures and functioning, resulting in an illness. Apply the "sucking" rituals to reverse and heal.
      • the soul and spiritual essence has been removed, e.g., "soul loss," resulting in illness and possible death. Apply shamanic journey to the "other side" to retrieve and reunite the soul into the body and heal.

      and illustrated in "Rites of Passage" (to be considered in the next course topic)

A.  In those times of tremendous celebration or crisis, where and to whom do we turn to rejoice and thank, or for help? The Gods? And if so, how do we communicate with the Gods?

Religions Serve to Communicate. "Religions are the languages of the Gods" The rituals of our religions are a symbolic languages that are understood as originating from the Gods. Thus ritual art, ritual dramas and oral traditions are best able to communicate the needs of the human to those spiritual beings (as an act of prayer, for example), as well as communicates to others in our communities and to others of future generations that which is most cherished and valued.

The symbols in ritual art and drama provide the receptacle of sacred imprint – reflective of archetypes and meaning of spiritual transcendent –a microcosm or sort of shorthand of the cosmos and the Gods.

a. making visible what is normally invisible and hidden – communicate to humans – disseminating and teaching – education

b. but also language for communicating with spiritual world – the ancestors and gods (having derived from that world)

This ritual art and drama reveal the Gods, such as the Inuit Sedna and Plateau Indian Salmon, and are thus best suited to act as the language to communicate with those Gods through arts of prayer and ritual dramas.

B. Where in society are life’s great dilemmas addressed, the lessons and insights from those times of crisis? What do we store our greatest wisdom? Religions? And if so, what are the great lessons and most cherished values that emanate from our religions?

Religions Address Life’s Greatest Challenges, and Serve to Inform and Educate. All religions attempt to acknowledge and identify, and then address and reconcile the great experiential contradictions and dilemmas of life, the quintessential questions. They present a morality, a sort of "road map" that can chart the best paths to follow over the rough landscape of life’s great dilemmas. Religions disseminate a world view, the "wisdom," as well as everyday practical knowledge, such as religious duties, social roles, subsistence activities, etc.

For example, what is the meaning of death? Why is it that all of "life" depends on the "death" of others? We have to kill plants and animals to perpetuate life. Why are we the only beings how seem to know and experience "suffering," and know our own mortality, our eventual death? As to the meaning of death, stay tuned.

In the examples of Hinduism and of Indigenous Religions, among the great values and teachings are the notions of the cosmos that is unified/connected/kinship based, of a spiritual/transcendent realm of the Gods that is primary to the overt material realm of our senses, that meaning and the great archetypes that we need to live by emanate out of the transcendent, along with a life-force that perpetuates all of the cosmos, and that as we are apart of the cosmos, our ritual acts are co-creative and help continue the cosmos. Hence death is simply the shedding of its overt form, worn out clothes, in the soul’s continuation within the transcendent.

In the example of Indigenous Religions, these great lessons are housed in and disseminated through the literary motifs in the oral traditions, e.g., American Indian motifs of the Coyote and the Orphan Quest

In all religions, one of the primary ritual mechanisms for facilitating this educational and transformational role are their rites of passage. We’ll develop an understanding of rites of passage, and apply this understanding throughout the semester.

And in all religions, the way the quintessential teachings are conveyed is inundated with great affective coloring, with ethos. Religions tell their stories providing a "sense of awe and mystery," providing a means to laugh from the heart and rejoice, as well as to cry from the heart and remorse.  Examples of the "Dog's Election" and "Joe Stinks No More"

C. What is the ultimate role of humanity in the greater scheme of things, i.e., in relation to the cosmos and before the Gods?

Religions Help Perpetuate and Re-Create the World - Serve to Transform.  Each religion has some expression of the notion that its practitioners have a participatory, re-creation and renewal of world role. Practitioners help intensify reality, and in so doing, helping integrate themselves with others in your community and with the cosmos itself.

In the example of Indigenous Religions, ritual symbols in art, words and drama are understood as "performative" and have the power to effect the world.  The efficacy of ritual languages (how do they work) is based upon: 1. reciprocity – exchange of gifts, and of "sincerity," 2. as communication – the symbols in art and ritual are the receptacle of sacred imprint, and thus not only receptacle of meaning, but also residue of spiritual life-force. This notion is illustrated in the Kwakiutl Indian story of Quesalid, and in the Crow Indian understanding of dasshussua and the "power of words" – "good bye," illness, vow, and the story of Star Husband.   We will see this also in the Balinese example of the reading of the "lontar leaves" and poetry, of speaking world into being.   The efficacy is thus power of symbols when replicate archetypes (whether "believed" or not).  Example of "the Woman at the Sundance"

Thus ritual art, language and drama are animated with and become extensions of sacred archetypes and life force, manifesting and renewing the creation world

Religions Do Not Offer Explanations. As this notion goes: humans invent religion and myths to help explain the mysterious and unexplainable, e.g., the reasons for the sun coming up each day, why a storm did so much damage, why there is illness and death.

But such a way of thinking, from a practitioners perspective:

1. assumes that sacred stories and texts originate out of human experiences, as if created by an imaginative human, and thus an explanatory role of religion is a denial of the "Gods" as the source of the stories and religions,
2. tends to juxtapose and compare religious myth with scientific enquiry (two very different epistemologies), and thus assumes that religion is simply a form of a "pre-science" and are thus ultimately a false way of thinking,
3. assumes that there is a world out there, that needs accounting and explaining, thus imposing a Cartesian dualism onto a religious world view (a separate world distinct from the self), denying what that religion understands as a "unity and kinship" with it.

To what extent is reality a construction of those who participate in it? Are we not the stories we tell?

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