ANTH 2550 Lecture Notes - Civil Religion, Veneration Of The Dead

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 2550
• Professor: Tom Sherwood

Document Summary

Civil religion is any set of beliefs and rituals related to the past, present and/or future of a people (nation) which are understood in some transcendental fashion (hammond, 1976: 171). Different culture have different understandings of where the soul and where it resides. The understanding of the soul and the type of death rituals which are performed are connected. Ancestor worship is the veneration of ancestors who may bring aid to their descendants or, if neglected, may bring misfortune. Vampires are a person who has died before his or her time and who brings about the death of their friends and relatives until his or her corpse is killed. Zombies are a corpse that has been raised from the grave and animated.