RELI 2732 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Institute For Operations Research And The Management Sciences, Ronald Eyre, Pyramid Texts
2 May 2018
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January 22nd, 2018
Lecture 3: Indigenous Religious Communities and Death/Afterlife
Rituals and Beliefs in Yombe in Northern Zambia
• The irth of a hild is ot the irth of a perso
o There is a difference being pointed out between biological
existence and social existence
o The biologically born child becomes a person when it becomes
socially accepted by the community
▪ The hild i the o is i its other’s house so it
belongs to the community
o It does’t hae the protetio of the ouity util it is gie
social meaning within the community through ritual
o When a child is born into the community certain rituals goes
together with its birth
▪ Ritually accepted by the father who takes the infant to the
door of the house and faces it towards the traditional
territory of their clan and he informs the ancestors of the
birth
▪ Then purifies the child with smoke and water and carries it
outside to the civilized world of the village
o What is all this about?
▪ Organic life forms then our human life or death is of no
greater importance than animals and deaths from living
things
▪ Neither meaningful/meaningless buzz of life
o Death also has a socially constructed area – a oe’s stoah
is called a house, the grave is a house (the dead person is put
into a house)
find more resources at oneclass.com
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• Naming something specifically sets you up for a social relationship
with that being (i.e. a fish named james, a chicken named matilda)
• The body of an infant that dies before being named/any rituals being
performed then that body would be disposed of without any ritual or
any social recognition (funeral)
• Does’t ea ithout feelig
• In our society, children are given social/legal recognition upon birth –
some people want to assign social recognition to a person before birth
• Some people consider someone to be of social recognition upon
creation and therefor they believe abortion is murder
• What makes a person a person upon conception?
o In order to understand the ending, you have to understand the
beginning
• What we chose to believe what the beginning or end is through
groups of people
• Whatever we agree is the beginning, it is related to all the causes and
conditions that let up to it
• We tend to blame each other where it began and where it ended – we
have different opinions about it
The Long Search with Ronald Eyre (In-Class video)
• Indonesia, the land of the Toraja’s
• The Way of the Aestors
o Aleptadolo is a ritual ay ithi the Torajia’s
• The ig soial eet of the Toraja’s is a fueral
• The more money you have the bigger the turnout and the more
animals slaughtered in your memory
• Funerals are more like celebrations – people that are highly regarded
are processed as ancestors
• The body is in the coffin but through a ritual the soul will be
encouraged to leave the body
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
