NRMS continued, syncretisms

Ghost Dance

Revitalization: 1. Code

• Wovoka/Jack Wilson• Syncretic religious background – Paiute

spiritual practices and Protestant Christianity• Vision – “mazeway resynthesis”– Clean and honest life– Dance and prayer– Rebirth and revival

2. Communication

• Travelers from the Paiute• Pilgrims to Wilson’s community– Railroads, postal service– Ochre, feather etc. tokens delivered across the

West– Visitors to tribes who took up the dance

3. Organization

• No church• Voluntaristic

• Flexible…

Adaptation

• Greatest challenge when adopted by Plains Indians, e.g. Sioux

• Wounded Knee massacre ends it among Plains peoples– But not in other parts of the US

Transformation?

• Incorporated into religious life of many tribes• Native American religion not completely

destroyed or lost

New code?

• Among Plains Indians…• Nick Black Elk– Also from a syncretic background – Catholic and

Sioux healer/spiritual leader– Wisdom incorporated into a book “Black Elk

Speaks”

Communication

• In 1950s and 1960s …• Native American culture at low point• Inspiration of civil rights– Return to reservation….

• Black Elk writings + traditional knowledge of holy men

AIM

• American Indian Movement– Mixed success as a political movement– Over time, has been seen as revitalizing Native

American identity• Language revival/autonomy of reservations etc.

– Native American culture, while altered, remains distinct

Contact and colonization

• Colonial encounters– Unequal relations of native people and colonizers– Colonizers endorse competitive, complex religious

institutions– New political relationships– New technology

Gods and invaders

• Seeing white people as deities or spirits• Not simple acceptance of “superiority” but

attempt to fit newcomers into an existing system of belief and practice– Outcomes may be very different

Myth, belief and contact

• Cortes and Quetzelcoatl

• Capt Cook and Lono

In these cases…

• Indigenous system is obliterated in Mexico• Is Virgin of Guadalupe conceivable as a kind of

NRM?• In Polynesia– Ideas of rank and power continue

• Often, new religion is adopted and modified– Syncretisms (like Santeria, Vodou/Voodoo,

Rastafari)

Adapting to modernity

Old religions face new times

Sharia and the state

• Islam and its adaptations over time• Recent colonial experience– Restriction of Islam to private sphere– Political domination– Discrimination/poverty

Islamic Fundamentalism

• Modern states in the Middle East– Come into being 1950s/60s– Strive for modernity in education/family life/state

and work institutions– Anti-western, anti-colonial– Civil “religion” of secular heroes and places– Militaristic, autocratic

Ideological crisis

• States do not – Alleviate social inequality, poverty– Offer fairness and expression through political

means– Engender trust; corruption is rampant

Meanwhile….

• Islam continues as living tradition in private sphere

• New leaders emerge– Offer welfare services that state does not– Gain positions and power in the judiciary– Resist corruption and graft

Goals?

• Not so much to turn back the clock (although the “good old days” often used as justification)

• Instead– To take over state machinery– Forcibly re-Islamicize family life, education, social

services, foreign policy– Replace civil codes by Islamic law– Social “engineering”

Not all Islam is the same

• Different strands emphasize different components– Puritanical versions versus devotional, tolerant

ones– Sectarian difference – Shia v. Sunni– Quranic interpretation and jurisprudence is not

static