Dwilight University/Theology/Prolegomena to the Study of Religion

Prolegomena to the study of religion, a case from the Zuma territories

by Ven Dhalgren

To Abbigal Pike

This pamphlet comes into being as a response to an open invitation by student Abbigal Pike to tackle some broad questions about religion, its nature and its functions. The present work intends then to be a modest help to Abbigal Pike's endeavour, providing material to work on, together with some methodological concerns on what a study of religion might look like.

I draw here from my experience in the Zuma territories, living with a clan of 25 individuals in the territories between Underroot and Overroot for a number of months. A premise needs to be made. The study of the Zuma is, to my knowledge, still at a very early stage. The “Zuma coalition” encompasses the Daimon lords that rule over the Zuma regions, lesser daimons, and a range of uncivilised tribal peoples. Indeed the tribal populations in these territories are seen as mindless dirty puppets of flesh in control of the daimon lords, or at best like children stuck at the dawn of civilisation – not yet having made the first step on the path of progress we have been steadily marching on over the last centuries. Although there are studies on the daimons – especially on their lords, as Moritz Von Igelfeld's fundamental work – no study exist to my knowledge of this tribal peoples (and I would be delighted to be contradicted on this, it is so frustrating to work without previous scholarship!).

I am arguing then that the term “Zuma Coalition” conflates what should be kept separate, that daimon lords and tribal groups cannot be treated under the same token. Far from being an outrageous claim – everyone can see the difference between a daimon lord and a tribal man (apparently, for I have never seen a daimon lord but just read their description)– it is I believe important when we talk in the University for words to be precise and distinctions to sharp and agreed on.

I am here at risk of a further generalisation here, and I shall point it out. I am speaking of “tribal groups” as opposed to “daimon lords”, but, although I have in depth experience of just one of these groups, I suspect that great difference exists between them. In lack of a precise system of classification – I am indeed working on one at the moment, but too much informations are missing – I shall speak of the tribes as a unit, but it is important to keep in mind that there is no such unity, and hopefully further scholarship will unveil these differences.

Marriage Ritual

The tribal people of the borderlands where I stayed do not marry within their clans. It is taboo for them to give their daughter in marriage to someone in the same village where she is born (indeed clans are defined by the village units: a clan is the totality of the peoples that live in the village), similarly to our taboo against marrying within the family. The difference is that their clan is much bigger than our families, and can encompass up to 70-80 individuals. This system also ensure mutual dependence between clans, young men from a clan have to rely on another clan to provide them a wife. The problem is that, although these clans live close to each other, and a clan's village can be usually seen from another's, they are in constant warfare. This warfare seems to be much more ideological than practical, for I haven't see any hostilities in all the months I spent with them and people in the clan I stayed in are really vague about past hostilities when asked (although I admit my knowledge of their language is still limited). The only way to exchange women is then through a complex ritual where spirits intervene to force clans to give each other daughters in marriage.

The marriage ritual consists in two parts. The different clans march towards a small mountain that lies in the unclaimed land that is theatre to tribal warfare, all dressed in ritual garments. Their bodies are covered in the paste of the Yom root chewed and spat, which produces a white paste used to draw figures on the bodies. Feather are worn and, during the climbing of the mountain, noises of birds are imitated. Something most peculiar happens here. When climbing the mountain with my clan I could hear the noises and bird calls of all the other clans doing the same. As if a mysterious force is pulling them to the top at the same moment; I couldn't find out how they know when to gather. Close to the top of the mountain, where a small plateau will host the ritual, the clan disbands and every member, young male and females in the age of marriage, runs in different directions. What follows, I could only gage from the distance, for being to close would have meant the risk of being given in marriage. All the youth converges on the plateau and distinctions between clans fall, for a majestic flock of birds dances and sings and no distinctions can be made. The spirits fly with them, they say, and when dancing they are spirits as well and unite with the ancestors who abandoned the sky to walk on earth. During the dance a young male would scream and fall on the compacted soil in a fit and a young girl would follow immediately after. Ritual experts from every clan would walk and mark the couple with red soil, till the night is over and most youngs lie on the floor, marked and exhausted. The rest would walk away in silence, waiting for the spirits to match them with the right spouse at the next ritual. The marked male would now stand up, confused, human again after having been spirit and bird, and look for a girl with the same mark. She'll follow him to his clan and become his wife.

If the ritual is taken in isolation, it is not difficult to call it “religious” but, if the all social context is analysed it is clear that seeing this as religion is problematic. The ritual in fact is a delicate social mechanism that regulates the flow of women between clans, and therefore the very mapping of social change. Which clan becomes bigger and which dies out, which gets powerful and which will have to beg, all is decided on the grounds of the marriage ritual. This is in fact not only a marriage ritual, but the very structure of inter-clan tribal social life.

Asking questions of the kind “what is religion” and “what does religion do” can be misleading in contexts in which religion is completely mingled with other parts of social life. In fact, if we asked a young tribal man about what he is doing he would say “I am finding a wife” and not “I am praising the gods”. The risk we face is one of making “religion” into an object and, once arrived in a foreign land, with its new customs and peoples, ask ourselves “where is the religion” or “what is their religion”, with the subsequent “what does religion do” questions. I hope that the examples above showed that what at a first glance we might call religious is actually a social act that regulates marriage, inter-clan relations and the future wealth and power of a clan. And I am sure that in other contexts as well the category “religion” can conceal a more subtle complexity that we'll miss in looking for religion and its functions.

I hope to have helped providing another angle on the question raised by student Abbigal Pike's letter, and, ultimately, to spark a debate somehow. I am fully convinced that student Abbigal Pike's perspective is a valid one, and in most cases religion can be easily isolated and separated from the social context. However, a different perspective can help the work of a scholar, and this is a modest contribution to her work in progress.