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tems were not approached; nor have the fields of symbolic and cognitive anthropology turned to this topic, although the Colbys' recent work on Maya divination (1981) and Daniel's on Tamil divination (1984:chap. 5) may signal a change. |
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The Influence of Evans-Pritchard |
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Returning to England to review the work of Evans-Pritchard and the British social anthropologists, we will gain a better insight into the absence of extensive study of African divination systems. Evans-Pritchard's influential Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, published in 1937, was the first serious treatment of divination; it, along with his other writings, confronts several theoretical issues in the study of non-European religions. Here we can only comment on a few key issues raised in his phenomenological study of Zande divination and discussions of the dichotomization of religion and rationality by anthropologists.
7 |
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Evans-Pritchard's critique of the biases affecting the study of religion is found throughout his writings; the argument was formed rather early (Douglas 1981). In the introduction to Nuer Religion, he addresses the most basic problem: |
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So strong has been rationalist influence on anthropology that religious practices are often discussed under the general heading of ritual together with a medley of rites of quite a different kind, all having in common only that the writer regards them as irrational; while religious thought tends to be inserted into a general discussion of values. Here the view is taken that religion is a subject of study sui generis, just as are language or law. (1967:viii) |
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Religion has to be studied as a system, and Evans-Pritchard stresses that the ethnographer's religious orientation is critical, "for even in a descriptive study judgement can in no way be avoided" because those who "give assent" to religious beliefs write differently than those who do not (1967:vii).8 He cites anthropologists' aggressive agnosticism as the cause of the fundamental skepticism encountered in the study of African religions (and thus of divination). Most anthropologists were raised in strongly religious homes,9 but as adults they became atheists or agnostics for whom religion was an illusion (Evans-Pritchard 1965:15). Why then did they persist in the study of religion? |
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They sought, and found, in primitive religions a weapon which could, they thought, be used with deadly effect against Christianity. If primitive religion could be explained away as an intellectual aberration, as a mirage induced by emotional stress, or by its social function, it was implied that the higher religions could be discredited and disposed of in the same way. (Evans-Pritchard 1967:15)10 |
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The cultural event which generated so much of Evans-Pritchard's soul searching and later debate among others11 was the poison oracle of the Azande of southern Sudan, which involves the administration of poison to a chicken whose subsequent behavior provides a response to the matter under investigation (Evans-Pritchard |
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