Mini-paper on Tribal and Ancient Religioins by Karen Bucyk

Mini-paper I
Tribal and Ancient Religions
REL101 World Religions
Karen Bucyk


Tribal Religions

The tribe was the social organization of the time. These people were all equal. The men were all hunters and women all gatherers. They provided enough for their clan and that was it. The shaman seemed to be the only person distinct from the others. The shaman could lead the others through the various rituals and ceremonies necessary. It would seem on the surface that the shaman was perhaps the most intellectual of the clan. Maybe not, maybe he just stands out to me because of his position to lead the clan.

In reading about the beginnings of tribal religions, I can understand their reasoning for some of the aspects common to most tribal religions. Prehistoric life, with no written language, would leave a person from our time with lots of questions. The creation myths and taboos common of most tribal religions seem to leave no room for the people of that time to pose questions. They just followed along, believing if they lived their lives this way they would be ok. There was so much that they didn’t know or understand at that time. They accepted the explanations given and didn’t question validity of them.

Their rituals revolved around the rites of passage. They initiated new born babies into the clan. They celebrated puberty passages and marriages. And they held funeral rites to help the deceased soul to find its new afterworld. Today we do celebrate some of these same milestones in my own religion. The rituals of my religion also celebrate birth and initiation, coming into adulthood, marriage and funeral rites.

I can’t imagine joining such a religion in this day and age. My own religion relies so much on the rich written accounts of the bible. Not having anything written to back up what someone retells seems ridiculous to me. I could not blindly trust in the way that these tribal gatherers did. I like to have the concrete, black and white stories to refer back to and read over again. I also like the fact that I can learn about other religions to add to my background knowledge base. The tribal people did not come into contact with other religious groups very often. They didn’t have the diversity that we have today.

What if someone was trying to lead the tribe in one direction for his own personal good? I might liken it so some kind of cult. The members live together and pool resources to sustain the group as a whole. There have been plenty of recent instances where the leader of the cult turns out to be using the followers as a tool for this leaders own benefit.

Ancient Religions

The early civilizations did have writing. They started to have their own written laws put into place. The people of this time had more diversity that the tribes. Different job roles supported different aspects of the society. Hunting and gathering was less relied on. The people began to depend on trading their surplus to get other things they wanted or needed. They began to go to cities for their trading and worshiping. Temples, Oracles and pyramids were built to house their religious ceremonies and rituals.

These people held strong beliefs in the afterlife. They would be rewarded in this afterlife for doing their duty to the society. This was a change from the tribal beliefs that in the afterlife the spirit of the deceased could be reincarnated in some form, perhaps a new child ancestor. My own belief of what heaven will be like is more in line with the ancient civilizations than with the tribes. I have hopes that I will spend eternity in heaven after living a life according to the Commandments.

The Greek religion has the greatest number of deities of these subject religions. The tales of these anthropomorphic deities seem too over exaggerated for me to truly believe. I do find the stories fascinating and enjoy hearing about them. I would have a hard time taking this religion as my own and have to believe them. I also feel the same way about some of the creation myths of the tribal peoples. In the tribal myths, the characters tend to be animal in form. Nice stories, but the logical part of me doesn’t truly believe. I think the purpose of both is to probably connect the people with their earlier ancestors. Telling and reading the stories to future generations serves to solidify the continuation of their beliefs, to show the lengthy histories. I enjoy knowing that my religion has passed the test of time.

I know that I am where I am in my religious life because others before me have paved the way. I think I take for granted that my religion is accepted wherever I go. This was not always the case I know. Others before me struggled to define and bring it to where it is today. I do also think that over time the religion evolves to the times. I think that some tribal religions and ancient religions could bring followers today, with some alterations to today’s lifestyles. In our country we seem to be accepting of all religions as long as we keep them out of the government and they don’t proselytize too loudly.