Paganism

[Szdfan]

My sister told me 10 years ago that a lot of her friends, all evangelical-style Christians, had gotten into smudging.

And then there are the Amish who practice brauche and similar things.

What's brauche?

[HondurasKeiser]

Outstanding thread, HK. I appreciate your research and will watch the video as well. A few random thoughts and then I will quietly follow.

The articles and videos have brought into the spotlight a trend that can be traced as early as the Victorian era in which séances were popular among the middle and upper classes in English-speaking circles. Indeed, I have seen a great deal of superstitious practices in all cultures and denominations. If I may venture an observation, this seems to be one of those human behaviors that relates to original sin and immaturity in one's relationship with God. Further these behaviors can be spotted in various points of Christian history. Paul the Apostle addressed these behaviors.

Polytheism, animism and spell crafting have never quite disappeared. In certain cultures some of the laity have even blended these beliefs with certain Catholic and Orthodox minor devotions (much to the dismay of the hierarchy, I might add).

Max, your observation in the middle paragraph is, I think particularly salient. I think the pagan temptation is dormant in all of us. Keeping in mind Leibovitz’s typology I’d as a corollary to his second point of “all is chaos”, there exists a desire to control or to create an island of stability amidst the chaos. Not a wrong desire I’d add but instead of looking towards The Rock for refuge, the pagan mind literally looks to rocks and other material things to conjure a sense of control.

[ohio jones]

My sister told me 10 years ago that a lot of her friends, all evangelical-style Christians, had gotten into smudging.

And then there are the Amish who practice brauche and similar things.

What's brauche?

Pagan folk medicine, also called powwow.

[Szdfan]

And then there are the Amish who practice brauche and similar things.

What's brauche?

Pagan folk medicine, also called powwow.

What do they do? Is it a specific practice or an overall term for several things?

[MaxPC]

Outstanding thread, HK. I appreciate your research and will watch the video as well. A few random thoughts and then I will quietly follow.

The articles and videos have brought into the spotlight a trend that can be traced as early as the Victorian era in which séances were popular among the middle and upper classes in English-speaking circles. Indeed, I have seen a great deal of superstitious practices in all cultures and denominations. If I may venture an observation, this seems to be one of those human behaviors that relates to original sin and immaturity in one's relationship with God. Further these behaviors can be spotted in various points of Christian history. Paul the Apostle addressed these behaviors.

Polytheism, animism and spell crafting have never quite disappeared. In certain cultures some of the laity have even blended these beliefs with certain Catholic and Orthodox minor devotions (much to the dismay of the hierarchy, I might add).

Max, your observation in the middle paragraph is, I think particularly salient. I think the pagan temptation is dormant in all of us. Keeping in mind Leibovitz’s typology I’d as a corollary to his second point of “all is chaos”, there exists a desire to control or to create an island of stability amidst the chaos. Not a wrong desire I’d add but instead of looking towards The Rock for refuge, the pagan mind literally looks to rocks and other material things to conjure a sense of control.

Indeed, you have it in one. The human need to control is in all humans; but the degree to which it is prioritised and exercised upon varies within the populace.

[Valerie]

What's brauche?

Pagan folk medicine, also called powwow.

What do they do? Is it a specific practice or an overall term for several things?

I jave been told by Amish that its not "common" in the Amish, but it exists in some communities, by and large they do not practice it, those are called "dark Amish" but definitely Amish overall are more into natural supplements than pharmaceuticals. But there are a lot of people turning towards natural & alternative treatments

[Valerie]

We were surprised when driving through a town in Northeast Ohio on Sunday after church that there was a 3-day pagan festival in a park. I was about sick to my stomach. There were so many people there dressed in all kinds of different ways.

Also I cover my head with a scarf most of time at work. This young lady came in one time and complimented me on my scarf which I thought odd it's not a attractive start at all. She said she wore her scar for her pagan goddess. Interesting ahe would do that? My guess was because of the way I dress she might have thought I was a Conservative Christian and just had to provoke me by mentioning her goddess. A 17 year old I train last year told me she was pagan (and a lesbian) seems to be the cool trend. When you meet people that are in the paganism, I sense the Antichrist spirit in the way of provocation in a way there's a certain attitude when they know you're a Christian, well of course that would be the case

[Neto]

Perhaps I should not be posting yet, as I will not have time to listen and read the things you've already put up here until later, but one of my first questions would be to ask what is the difference, if any, between animism and paganism.

A quick on-line search brought up the following:

Pagan vs animism
A Pagan is a person who believes that everything has a soul or spirit. This is called Animism, and all Pagan religions share this belief. Rivers, animals, rocks, trees, land are all filled with there [sic] own unique spirits for people who are Pagans.

Religious beliefs like that of the pre-Christian Banawa are normally classified as animistic, but their traditional beliefs do not really fit the description above. Mainly, they would not say that "everything has a soul or spirit". It is very easy to tell, just by the grammatical differences in the way that animate vs inanimate "things" are classified. For one example - the "heavenly bodies". The sun and the stars are animate beings, while the moon is not. (My memory fails me at the moment in regards to the planet Venus, which is the only other heavenly body that has a distinctive name.) Trees and other plants are also specifically not animate. (There is no plural form for any inanimate thing.)

To further confuse the issue, (in the traditional Banawa belief system) a spirit MAY inhabit a place like a water falls, or a deep pool. Also animals, but I never heard any suggestion that a spirit would inhabit a tree.

Thank you, Neto. Do you think the Banawa animism as you understand it maps well with Leibovitz's 3 categories for describing the similar characteristics of a pagan worldview?

I still haven't listened to the video, but skipped to Lebbovitz's 3 categories, in order to answer the question here.
First I just looked at the three category one sentence summaries, and wrote out what I see as the Banawa counterparts. Then I read his descriptions for each. I would not say that they have analyzed any of this to any depth, in a cognitive process, nor would they be able to express their views in a logical manner.

1. What to do about enemies, or 'opponents'? (These others are often out-group people, but also sometimes in-group people. But in the sense that he speaks of the "Us vs. Them" view of humanity, the Banawa also have these two basic terms, the one meaning literally "That us", and the other just meaning something like 'outsider'. They do, however, have distinctive names for several other tribal groups, including the one they entirely wiped out.)

2. Confusion or uncertainty in distinguishing the natural and the spiritual world. (I don't think I've expressed this well, because this is not a question they would pose. That is, this 'confusion' is not a problem for them. Leibovitz's description "boundaries are not clearly defined" is a good way to express it, but this is also an outsider's view. The pre-Christian Banawa belief would have been more along the lines of "The natural and spiritual intersect, often unexpectedly." This is where fear comes in, because you really never know if what you see is 'real' (in a sort of permanent physical sense), or a manifestation of a spirit. An example: The word for an "apparition" or a spirit in human form is also the same as that for an un-known person observed from a distance. Also, when I would come into their realm, they ask: "Is that you, Neto?" (And I ask them the same question. But it is possible that this question is not really just a formal greeting, but actually a request for the 'being' that appears in their presence to identify themselves.)
They experience the same uncertainty when they see an animal or bird in the jungle, and they have ways to recognize when it is a spirit, and when it is 'real'. (For instance, a spirit doesn't leave tracks, even in mud. If you shoot and 'kill' an animal, and its heart is still beating after you've gutted it, it's a spirit, and they will immediately run away. These are both actual examples, from stories they told me of personal experiences.)

3. How to gain control of spiritual powers for the good of the group, or sometimes for personal good against others in the tribe. I don't think they have ever asked the question "What do the spirits want?" They recognize the power/control of the spirits, and they sought to use their relationship with a 'friendly spirit' (a sort of spirit advocate) for their own good. Sometimes this power would be turned against fellow tribesmen, in the form of a curse. (I have a recording where one of the men told me how one must be very careful when around the shaman, sort of like "walking on eggshells" as we might say.)

[I've used the term 'spirits' here in place of 'gods', because it seems more accurate to me, from their perspective. There was, by the way, the belief that when a person's soul finally left the area, they would either go up into the sky to the 'good spirits', or down into the earth to the 'bad spirits'. The souls of the good people, at least, would then be cooked in a huge pot, and there-after also become spirits, like those they had joined. This also seems a reason not to use the term 'gods'.]

[Neto]

Here's a Patheos blog post from a few years ago about the sexual ethos of paganism. I'm curious Neto, if you can see the "Sex as Domination" paradigm at work in the Banawa?

In the Ancient world, it was simply taken for granted that sex was about power. The social order was defined by a hierarchy of concentric circles. At the center, the free, male, citizen, and then in concentric circles, women, freedmen, foreigners, children, and so on. The main paradigm for sex was not heterosexual/homosexual, married/unmarried, even reproductive/non-reproductive, it was active/passive or dominant/submissive, and the main taboo was for someone who was supposed to be “active” to be “passive”.

This is why sexual slavery (particularly of children) was not frowned upon, and neither was homosexuality as long as it involved an older man and a younger man so that it was clear that the relationship had an “active” and a “passive” participant. Heterosexual marriage was also perfectly understood, since women were of a lower social status than men.

It’s worth dwelling for a second on the world that these beliefs created. The practice of expositio, the exposing of infants, was widespread and unproblematic, since children were of lower status than adults. And the extant sources we have concur: the typical fate of exposed infants was either death or ‘adoption’ into slavery, which was typically sexual slavery since that was the most profitable use for a child. Brothels specializing in child sex slaves were established, legal businesses; the majority, it seems, specializing in boy sex slaves. Sources describe sex with castrated slaves as particularly exciting, and sources report that babies were sometimes castrated so that they could work in brothels later on. Pagan apologists roundly mocked the early Christians for not only not practicing expositio (an echo of which can be found in anti-Catholic Protestant polemics against teeming mackerel-snapping families) but rescuing exposed infants and adopting them.

Sex is always about power, about domination. And that can be exciting. (Don’t lie.) But Christianity came on the scene proclaiming a very different ethic: Paul described marital relations as an allegory of the relationship between Christ and the Church, a relationship which was, of course, one of self-giving unto death. In a civilization that was all about power, Christianity proclaimed the end of power. Sex was endowed with a heightened sacred dimension, which meant that it could only be done under certain circumstances, precisely because it was not about power but about self-gift, just like Christ was the King who had won his victory through death on a Cross.

On the Christian reading, this facet of sexuality is very easily understandable: the urge to dominate and to “lord it over” is the sinful urge, the root of Adam’s sin, and it is not surprising that it would be such an important aspect of a central facet of our lives such as sexuality. In the classical Christian reading, sin does not exist as such, but is instead a lack or a corruption of the good. Sexuality is good, but because of sin must be disciplined and purified into a form of Christlike self-gift, whether through abstinence or through marital (reproductive) sex.

The disadvantage I have in answering this question is that I do not have a broad experience beyond our years with the Banawa. I do not recall that there was anything in my anthropology/ethnology training that dealt specifically with the question of s3xuality as domination. So I don't really know how contrastive or similar the Banawa view of marriage and s3xuality in general is, in comparison to other animist cultures. So I'll just describe their view of premarital s3x first, then go on to their view of marriage, and how it is protected. (However, because our purpose was to bring Christ, and not traditional enthnological study, we never asked questions about how they performed the act, what positions were used, or about the dynamics of the relationship involved, such as willingness of the wife, or spousal rap3. Our direct teaching in this area was confined to avoiding s3x before marriage, and more generally, sacrificial kindness toward the spouse. So the only information we received was what was offered, in "tattle-taling" and in recorded discourses about past events.)

B3stiality: I don't know that it is "practiced" within the culture, but it sometimes came up in discussions, always with disapproval. No one ever told me of any in-group person who had done it, but on several occasions different outsiders were mentioned. (This was not with living animals, although there would be opportunities for such with both domesticated dogs and perhaps monkeys. It generally involved the "use" of a female tapir after it had been killed for meat.) But the strong condemnation of it would be the main observation I can make.

Rap3: Several stories were told about men who ignored the taboo of approaching a young woman who was in the isolation hut after her first period, and went into the hut, and rap3d the confined girl. The cultural taboo teaches that if a girl in this stage looks at a man, his stomach will swell up, and he will die. The isolation period is a large part of dealing with this danger, and is meant to protect the men, and to some degree, the girl, This isolation is nearly total. The walls of the hut are very thick, rendering total darkness inside. There is a single opening, with a thickly woven mat covering it both from the inside and from the outside. The girl's mother removes the outer 'door' to place food in the wall space between the two 'doors', then after covering the opening from the outside, she calls to her daughter, that she can open the inner door and retrieve the food. She blindfolds herself when she needs to leave the hut for bathing and for relieving herself, calls to her mother or a sister, and is lead down the trail by the hand. The isolation period can last up to nearly a year or even longer, depending on the timing of her need to go into isolation in relation to wet or dry season, and the ability of the father to provide the large amounts of food for the feast when she is taken out. On the night before the feast she is brought out, with a tightly woven basket over her head. Dancing and singing go on throughout the night. They dance around a pole, and the girl will be holding onto a cord held in the elbow of her brother, who is holding onto the pole. At daybreak she is tied face down on a whipping rack, and lashed by usually 4 men who were chosen by her father. As her "coming of age" ceremony, the beating she receives prepares her to become a mature woman, a transition from trust of the men in the village to the consciousness of the need to avoid contact with any man not her father, brother, or husband. The exception is the premarital "experimentation" that goes on, as a part of the process of "finding a suitable husband". The teaching we gave in this general area was mostly dealing with this cultural practice, to teach purity before marriage. Their own traditional standards on purity after marriage were very strong, with the total avoidance of any unrelated man & woman. (Not to look at an unrelated woman at all, or to speak to her.)

"Dating": I mentioned this already, that there was a fair bit of premarital s3x going on, from what we could gather. Again, we never directly questioned anyone about this, but it came out in stories told to explain relational dynamics between different men who had had interests in the same young woman before marriage. (Ironically, the two men with whom I worked consistently in the Bible translation task happened to have had this experience, where one had "stolen" the other's girlfriend, while the first was away for an extended time of working for outsiders, specifically in order to get enough money to be able to buy nice pots and other things for his prospective wife. When he came back, this rival had already married the girl. One of the wives in this affair once also went after the other with a machete. And the women knew how to handle a machete, too. That these two men were able to work together on the Scripture was a testimony to the power of Christ in their lives, one they themselves recognized, and spoke of.)

Marriage: As I've already alluded to, marriages are protected by strict avoidance between unrelated men & women. A woman never goes to the river (for bathing or clothes washing) alone. This protects herself from men, and she will send a child along with any woman who does not have a companion; this protects her own marriage, because her husband can then not become involved with another woman. The only divorces of which we were aware were, with only two exceptions, because of infertility, which was probably always the man's "fault", but was always blamed on the woman. There was a single case of this among the people living at the time we arrived there. The husband had left his wife for another woman because no children were born to them, but the second marriage remained childless as well. Another man talked with the Brazilian missionary who was there with his wife during the first part of our time there, and suggested that he would leave his wife, and take her sister. The missionary couple were also childless at that time, also due to infertility (although they did later have children). He was able to relate to the Banawa man in a way I could not, and he was convinced to stay with his first wife. (They remain childless.) Two other divorces: One was where a man left his wife, and remained alone, because of her violent treatment of their daughter, who remained with her father. (She later married another man, and they had children together as well.) Another woman was abandoned by her husband when she gave too much of some type of medicine to her sick child, who then died from an overdose. She hadn't understood the instructions her husband had given her, but she was blamed, and he took their other children and left the village and the tribe, taking a Brazilian woman for a wife. She married another Banawa man, but they never had children of their own.

Wife-beating: This was common before the Gospel took hold in the tribe, but always when the man was drunk.

Probably, even after all of this above, I have not actually answered your question. I rather suspect that there is an aspect of "domination" in the traditional Banawa marriage, but the women exercise choice in their marriage partner. (I would assume this element of domination partly because I think that it is typical of humanity in general, and God also spoke directly to this issue in the garden - that this would be the result of the curse of sin.)

One other comment about "animist Christians": I have learned a great deal from my Christian brothers from the Banawa tribe. Animists do not attempt to separate the "secular" and the "religious", something which Western (Greek?) thought has imposed on us. I would also say that they share this characteristic with the Jews of both the Old & New Testament periods. They recognize the realness of the spiritual world, and how it intersects with and "interferes in" the physical world. I think that we can learn from them, to regain this holistic consciousness of reality, becoming more open to the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives (and more aware of the unseen spiritual dangers in the world).

[HondurasKeiser]

This is all very fascinating, Neto. Thank you!