GEH1045/GEC1013
WORLD RELIGIONS - 2025 Wk 3 – Indigenous Religions
Dr Serina Rahman - SEASD
TODAY’S JOURNEY…
1. Happy Lunar New Year!!!
China Daily
2. CA info…
3. Indigenous Religions
https://www.singaporebestwebdesign.
com/cny/
Week Topic Assignment Lecturer
Wk 1 Introduction – What is Religion?
Wk 2 Mythology or Ancient Religions? Trial Quiz…
Wk 3 Indigenous & Folk Religions Lecture quiz postponed! Dr Serina Rahman
Wk 4 Majority Abrahamic Religions Lecture Quiz
Wk 5 South Asian Religions Lecture Quiz
Wk 6 Religions of East Asia Individual Assignment Prof Kuah KE
RECESS WEEK
Syncretism: Understanding Gods,
Wk 7 Lecture Quiz
Ancestors & Ghosts
Religion, Compassion & the
Wk 8 Prof Kuah KE
Philanthropic Environment
Wk 9 Religion, Health & Illness Lecture Quiz
Wk 10 Religion, State & Politics
Wk 11 Extremism in Religion Lecture Quiz Dr Serina Rahman
Gender & the Politics Group Presentation
Wk 12 Prof Kuah KE
of Religious Expression & Poster Submission
Wk 13 Recap & conclusion Final MCQ Test Dr Serina Rahman
CA DOCUMENT UPLOADED!!!
DUE
CA1 – WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT (30%) WK6!!
23.2.25
▪ Based on lectures from Wks 1-6 + additional research
▪ Due end of Wk 6 (Sun 23rd Feb 2025 at midnight)
▪ Individual Submission: 1500 words (Qns A or B)
▪ How do YOU define religion?
▪ Compare 2 different religions/ faiths/ belief systems…
▪ Plagiarism / ChatGPT = cheating: severe consequences
▪ Academic writing but reflections will help you score –
regurgitating points from lecture / readings will not do you well
▪ Late submissions = 1% deduction per day
CA1 – WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT (30%)
A. How do YOU define RELIGION? B. Compare 2 religions/ faiths/ belief
systems
Given what you have learnt in class/ Examine the similarities between the two,
discussed in tutorial, what do you feel highlighting how practices and rituals serve
defines a religion? Provide examples from to provide strength, hope and direction to
your personal life and observations to its believers. You may use examples from
explain your view, and compare your your own personal experiences,
experience with real life examples/ observations OR from stories shared in
illustrations/ readings from class on the class OR from external sources that emerge
different religious/ indigenous/ other faiths from your research.
or non-faiths.
Note that use of the LAR Framework
(from Wk2) is NOT COMPULSORY (but…
we must always offer a challenge if you’d
like to try to push yourself!)
CA1 – ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN
Factual content 20%
Accuracy, breadth, relevance
Reflection
Thought process, justification, demonstration of personal views, efforts to compare & contrast 40%
between different types of ‘faith’.
External substantiation
Ability to refer to or discuss content/ use sources/ provide examples/ apply to realities beyond 20%
what is taught in the first 6 lectures.
Bias 5%
Acknowledgement of your or writer’s / reference source bias
Infographics etc 10%
Inclusion of any form of photos, maps, graphs, infographic etc.
Format, flow & structure 5%
READINGS THIS WEEK…
▪ Samsul Maarif (2019). Indigenous Religion Paradigm: Re-interpreting
Religious Practices of Indigenous People. Universitas Gadjah Mada. [SM]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332511113_Indigenous_Religi
on_Paradigm_Re-interpreting_Religious_Practices_of_Indigenous_People
▪ Peoples HC, Duda P, Marlowe FW. Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of
Religion. Hum Nat. 2016 Sep;27(3):261-82. doi: 10.1007/s12110-016-
9260-0. [PHC]
▪ Weatherdon, Meaghan S. 2022. Religion, Animals, and Indigenous
Traditions. Religions 13:654. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070654 [WM]
FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE…
▪ YouTube Playlist: Animism & Shamanism. Arith Härger.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdC5TpBuFgfgkxqYhx8FTEKzteM1ugbyb
▪ The Power of Animism: John Reid at TEDx Queenstown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmhFRarkw8E
REMINDER
& TERMINOLOGY
• Just because the beliefs of others are
different from yours – and perhaps are
hard to understand, it does not mean that
their beliefs are wrong…
• In YOUR world, your beliefs are right for
you – in THEIR world, their beliefs work for
them…
• We should choose to listen & learn –
appreciate & wonder. It is not for us to
judge.
• ‘More-than-human’ – humans are not the
only beings on this planet…
‘RELIGION’ A LONG LONG LONG TIME AGO… [PHC]
▪ A slightly different kind of paper to meet the varied
audiences in this class…
▪ REFER TO THE PAGE NUMBERS in the lectures so
that you know where you can read AROUND…
(sometimes you can actually ignore the rest of the
paper)
▪ Goal of this paper: reconstruct evolution of
religious beliefs & behaviours of early modern
humans
▪ How do they do it? – global sample of hunter-
gatherers / extract 7 traits of ‘religiosity’ +
archaeological evidence (artifacts: red ochre)
[p.263]
▪ Why read this? – Indigeneity = original peoples…
ASSUMPTIONS… correlations
▪ Religion is a biocultural adaptation (set of beliefs
& behaviours based on a shared worldview that
separates the sacred, or supernatural, from the
profane. [PHC:262]
▪ Ritual behaviour can be seen in animals
▪ There is a possibility of religion / ritual existing
before language (traced back to common ancestor
of Neanderthals: half a million yrs ago) [PHC:263]
▪ Progressive development of symbolic behaviour &
complex imagery along with the evolution of
modern human anatomy
▪ ‘natural’ religions of Paleolithic ancestors…
precursor to animism… and eventually modern
‘world religions’
TECHNICAL BITS & TERMINOLOGY [PHC:265-274]
▪ Phylogenetic comparative methods
applied to the study of evolution of
material & non-material culture… [p.264]
▪ phylogenetic = relating to the
evolutionary development &
diversification of a species (Oxford
Dictionary)
▪ Reconstruction of ancestral character
states on phylogenies based on genetic or
linguistic data
▪ homology of the fundamental religious
concepts and their continuity (homology =
state of having the same or similar *labile = liable to change, easily altered [p.273]
relations, relative position or structure)
THE 7 TRAITS OF RELIGIOSITY
[PHC:266]
▪ animism – belief that all ‘natural’ things
(plants, animals… thunder) have
intentionality (a vital force) and can have
influence on human lives
▪ belief in the afterlife – belief in survival
of the individual personality beyond death
▪ shamanism – presence of a ‘shaman’:
ritual intercessor, healer & problem solver
▪ ancestor worship – belief that the spirits
of dead kin remain active in another realm
where they may influence the living & can
be influenced by the living
THE 7 TRAITS OF RELIGIOSITY [PHC:266]
▪ 4 states of ancestor worship:
ancestor spirits can be: absent in
society / present but inactive in human
affairs / may or may not be active in
human affairs / may or may not be
influenced by humans through prayer
or sacrifice
▪ High gods – single, all-powerful
creator deities who may be active in
human affairs & supportive of human
morality
▪ 4 states of gods in societies: absent
/ present but inactive in human affairs
/ active in human affairs but support
a moral agenda / active and morally
[p.277] local gods with limited powers of
punishing
supernatural monitoring
STUDY FINDINGS…
▪ Animism was the earliest and most basic
trait of religion – enabled humans to think in
terms of supernatural beings or spirits [p.274]
▪ Nature of ritual behaviour promoted high
levels of cooperation – belief in morally
punishing high gods: enhances social
behaviour, growth & stabilization of society
[p.262]… inference?
▪ transmission of some religious concepts
require some human species sophistication
[p.263] … inference?
▪ Animistic thought – byproduct of human
capacity for intentionality (occurred before
the belief in an afterlife) [p.274]
▪ Belief in the afterlife → sense of being
watched thus requiring skills of the shaman
STUDY FINDINGS…
▪ Shamans enhanced survival through
physical & emotional healing, enforcement of
group norms & resource management [p.274]
▪ Both material & non-material culture
(religion) to negotiate identities and
relationships among and between groups
[p.275]
▪ Concept of WORSHIP is absent (including of
dead kin) – source of social control but not
prevalent amongst early people – less
emphasis on kin ties
▪ Belief in morally meddling high deities /
rulers also not prevalent [p.276] – non-
meddling local gods more relevant [p.277]
INDIGENOUS RELIGION PARADIGM [SM]
SUMMARY
▪ Cosmological concept that the cosmos
is occupied by different ‘persons’ of
human & non-human beings.
▪ Personhood human beings –
extends BEYOND humans (could
belong to ‘nature’: forest, mountains
and land) – but can also include culture
& the supernatural
▪ All humans & more-than/non-human
beings interrelate and engage in
‘interpersonal’ relationships religiously
for mutual benefits
BUT FIRST… THE CONTRAST! …& HISTORY…
▪ World religion paradigm: hierarchical & reified [p.104]
▪ With European presence: religion = Christianity
▪ Other traditions similar to Christianity → world religions
(Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam…) → determines inclusion &
exclusion (hegemony)
▪ (Tyler, 1871) indigenous peoples: pagan, infidels,
heathens… animistic: personhood human beings. There
is no hierarchy [p.105]
▪ Some forced to claim a ‘religion’ to avoid ‘communist’
label & arrest / citizenship ignored – others claim
religion for access to state facilities (hypocritical)
Human Rights Watch ▪ Now instead of blank on identification cards where
others have ‘agama’ → indigenous faiths = kepercayaan
(non-religious term) [p.104]
INDONESIAN STATE PHILOSOPHY – POST-
INDEPENDENCE (1945) BY PRESIDENT SUKARNO
▪ Belief in One God
(monotheism)
▪ Just & Civlised
Humanity
▪ Unity of Indonesia
▪ Democracy guided
by Deliberation
▪ Social Justice for all
Indonesian People
EVOLUTION OF ‘RELIGION/AGAMA’… [PHC:106]
▪ ‘religio’: Latin word (1st Century) – conscientiousness, sense of right, moral
obligation or duty towards anything… (used in secular context – included adat
(indigenous traditions or customs/ ‘primitive practice’ & animism))
▪ 1945 – independence: Birth of Pancasila address… agama → reified
(monotheism): Islam + Protestanism & Catholicism
▪ Sanskrit words: Pancasila - panca (5) + sila (principles) / Agama = religio
▪ 1959 – Hinduism & Buddhism recognized (even though Sanskrit was ‘theirs’)
▪ 1965 – Confucianism included: then banned in 1967… 2001 added again
▪ Agama defined: doctrine of one God – a prophet – a holy book – institution
– internationally embraced. Indigenous religions
▪ Early 20th Century: Dutch colonialist: policy separating Islam and adat
▪ Adat: pseudo-religion – subject for change to be modernized [p.107]
WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS???
NOTHING EXISTS IN SILO…
SILO
SE3211: RELIGION, POLITICS & SOCIETY
AGAMA AS A TOOL… [PHC:107]
▪ colonial legacy: preserved by Indonesian government = legitimizing agama
/ to subordinate or reduce in importance/value adat as ‘non-religious’
▪ 1978-1998 (New Order): discrimination against those without ‘religion’ – loss
Graphic design by SANNE PEAK - https://paisano-
online.com/28126/opinion/commentary/disarming-
divinity-use-religion-as-a-mirror-not-a-weapon/
of rights (marriage registration & birth certificates… / freedom of belief)
▪ religion included in identity cards: cementing & institutionalizing discrimination
– FORCED to choose from the religious options
▪ 2000s – discourse → violation of human rights… Civic Administration Law
No. 23/2006: indigenous or religions not yet admitted can leave ID blank
▪ Concession but still publicly stigmatized for a lack of religion: deemed
irreligious / anti-religious / socially illegal
▪ 2017 – indigenous religions can put ‘kepercayaan’ (belief) in identity cards
▪ public resistance is still strong (deemed ‘pseudo-religion) academic
misrepresentation…
DEVELOPING AN INDIGENOUS RELIGION PARADIGM [PHC:109]
▪ Based on fieldwork: interlocutors began with ‘socially-acceptable’
explanations of belief system – with trust, elaborated on the actual
details…
▪ Religiosities should be understood through the ways people under
research think about their world, suitable to their worldview, an
understanding of socio-cultural order that highlights ways of
understanding reality (Morrison 2000)
▪ How a community views the world in relation to themselves, their
existences, in relation to all else
▪ Key questions to determine a cosmology (science of origin and
development of the universe):
▪ Who is the self (who am I, where do I come from, how do I live in this
world?)
▪ Who are the other selves (who else is there, how are they understood?)
▪ How does the self relate to other selves (how do you get to know &
engage with others, what are the functions and positions of the self in
relation to others?
DEBUNKING TYLOR’S ‘ANIMISM’ [PHC:111]
▪ Modern peoples (Christianity) originates or develops from primitive
people – religion defined as a ‘belief in spiritual beings’
▪ Indigenous people: ‘lower races’ - their faith not valued with equal
honour
▪ 2 key dogmas of indigenous beliefs: souls of individuals continue to exist Emergent by Design
after the death of the body & spirits and deities control the world and
human life now / beyond death
▪ Theory: Belief in souls & spirits – Worship: practice of animism (BUT)
morality is less represented because animistic practice is devised by
human reason, not supernaturally revealed (like Christianity)
▪ Animism is a ‘natural religion’: science is the true knowledge
(evolutionism), animism is a delusion – justifying forceful conversion
to world religion
▪ When a human relates to a non-human (spirits): he WORSHIPS them
AN INDIGENOUS RELIGION PARADIGM
WORLD RELIGION [PHC:110] INDIGENOUS RELGION [PHC:114]
▪ Western monotheistic ontology ▪ Both the self & others are equal subjects
▪ Hierarchy among categories of being: (not object) – all are in a relationship
divinity, humanity & nature ▪ Other selves: human (dead & living) and
▪ Supernatural & divine (God) is more non-human (visible & invisible)
powerful, essential and central: requires ▪ Engagement with others is contextual and
worship to ensure human well-being aware: intersubjective cosmology
▪ Humans are to preserve, protect or exploit ▪ Other selves = person (in another form)
nature to fulfill human interests: natural ▪ Relates to others (different from
beings are only meaningful if they serve themselves) as if they are also a ‘person’
human interests (objects) – accorded the same respect & care as
▪ Essentialisation of the divinity is the self (well-being for ALL)
absolute foundation of all – ▪ Engagement through rituals and everyday
culture/humanity & nature are inferior experiences, experiences (also dreams…)
▪ Deity is a distant, intangible force ▪ Spirit is in the everyday & everything
HUMANS ARE JUST ONE PART OF THIS PLANET
https://emeraldreview.com/2022/10/environmental-ethics-human-nature-dualism-of-the-anthropocene/
AN INDIGENOUS RELIGION PARADIGM
▪ No hierarchy – direct engagement
▪ 3 domains (supernatural, culture/humans, nature) do
not exist – all (human and non-human/ visible and
invisible) are ‘persons’
▪ engagement & commitment: responsibility, ethics &
reciprocity: well-being for ALL: religious life is a
matter of responsibility between humans and others
▪ “what I do will affect others” – actions & attitudes
put into relational context
▪ “what I give is what I take, or what I take is what I
give” – the self may exist only through the existence of
or in relationship with other selves – the well-being of
self is dependent on the well-being of others
NATURAL SPACES HAVE RIGHTS
AS HUMANS DO…
▪ The Legend of the Wanganui River (Archives NZ) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsCVxUOVY6c
▪ The River is Me: New Zealand’s Maori Won Personhood for this River
(Atlantic Selects) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQZxRSzxhLI
▪ Kramm 2020: When a River becomes a Person -
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19452829.2020.180161
0
▪ Mihnea Tanasescu: Openrivers Journal -
https://openrivers.lib.umn.edu/article/when-a-river-is-a-person-from-
ecuador-to-new-zealand-nature-gets-its-day-in-court/
▪YouTube: New Zealand’s Human River: Whanganui has been granted legal
2017
status (TRT World) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoOTIx-26TA
RELIGION, ANIMALS AND INDIGENOUS TRADITIONS [WM]
▪ Indigenous stories of the more-than-human
▪ What it means to be a human animal, to exist in relation with and
be part of a cosmology of beings [WM:1]
▪ Indigenous traditions: relational & holistic → animals cannot be
extricated from the webs of interdependent relationships in which
they are entangled
▪ The category of religion (English language word & western
construct that derives from a particular white protestant Christian
imperialist intellectual history) – fails to transpose well onto
indigenous contexts
▪ Paper deconstructs / decolonizes settler colonial modes of
relation (specific set of attitudes, beliefs and ethical dispositions
towards animals that have been taken as normative within both the
study of religion & settler politics)
INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS ARE ABOUT RELATIONS
▪ Animals as persons, relatives, knowledge holders and treaty makers – in
contrast to settler colonial view: objects, resources, possessions [WM:2]
▪ Animals embody pluralities: symbols, metaphors, allegories and stories even
as they are prey, predators and food.
NOTE → middle of pg2, how she writes about her positionality
▪ Animals (like indigenous people) have been targets for colonial violence
▪ attempted genocides of indigenous people and animals
▪ attacks on animals are attacks on indigenous life and lifeways
▪ physical harm and the killing of animals
▪ denigration of indigenous-animal relationalities
▪ narrative removal of animals from landscapes
▪ co-facilitated by colonial institutions of heteropatriarchy, environmental
racism and religious fundamentalism
INDIGENOUS RELIGIONS ARE ABOUT RELATIONS
▪ targeting animals as a strategy of subjugation [WM:3]
▪ introduction of domesticated livestock & tomatoes as emblems of
colonialism and federal Indian policy
▪ settlers antagonistically graced livestock on reserve lands to assert power –
indigenous people killed livestock for food in acts of survivance
▪ attacked certain species to undermine Indigenous Nationhood – taming of
indigenous lands, justified by a religious imagination that perceived land as
‘empty and promised to settlers by God’ [WM:4]
▪ law that stated that any Christian who discovered land populated by non-
Christians could assert ownership…
▪ removed animals from lands to be settled to establish emptiness and
appropriate territory… effaced human polities from place but expunged
animal beings from their ecologies [WM:4]
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE REVIVE CONNECTIONS
▪ Paulatuk communities concerned about well-being of local char (type of fish) shut
down federal commercial fishery – fish ‘sites of memory’ and stories that strengthen
community & kinship relations: fishing and caretaking of fish [WM:4]
▪ Intertribal Buffalo Council – restore & care for bison populations: spiritual venture
deeply informed by ritual, ceremony and prayer
▪ Kelsey Dayle John – works with Navajo mustangs to revitalize Diné
epistemology – teachers and knowers for decolonization: work through tensions of
settler coloinialism and restore relationships to horses, community and the land.
▪ Reverse the hierarchy: earth is inert, existing only to provide resources for
extraction and profit – we are the only religious subjects in a world replete of
inanimate objects [WM:6]
▪ Human beings can communicate with animals as kin – animals can become human &
vice versa… nonhumas are agential beings engaged in social relations that
profoundly shape human lives [WM:7] – animals are teachers, advice givers and
knowledge holders – land as pedagogy [WM:8]
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE REVIVE CONNECTIONS
▪ animals model ways of being in the world and ways of relating to
other aspects of creation that should be instructive in human
socialization [WM:9]
▪ humans are not separate or above animals, but rather dependent
upon and existing in close relationships with animals: kinship – ‘all my
relations’ – no hyperseparation
▪ “to accept the responsibilities we have within the universal family by
living our lives in a harmonious and moral manner”
▪ not a biological relationship – complicated and hold the potential
of harm – require constant maintenance and care – more-than-human
beings (with a soul) are moral agencts with reciprocal responsibilities
to one another [WM:10]
▪ settler colonies read our children stories about animals that talk, think,
feel and act as our friends – only to tell them later they are childish
for believing in the personhood of the other-than-human…
2without,even%20in%20our%20Creation%20stories. STORIES OF THE DECIMATION OF…
https://www.wildforlifefoundation.org/navajohorses.
html#:~:text=The%20Dine'%20say%20that%20%2
https://nativeshinee.com/blogs/news/the-sacred-connection-bison-
in-native-american-heritage
The tree hugger: Settler attacks on Palestinian farmers and their
olive trees - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fslr2bZs864
MORE CONTROVERSIAL THOUGHTS TO END TODAY
NO QUIZ TODAY
GONG XI FA CAI!!!
