How proto-religion was practiced

[amorphous_constellation]

Basically I'm thinking that the qualities of religion would have come far before religion. Religion is what happens when you weave individual superstitions/proto-spiritual practices together over the course of a long time, with better and better storytellers to knit together the designs of it over many generations.

Prayer would have started as soon as language was capable of sufficiently describing the human condition and the intents which humans have. For example, a hunter/huntress in the paleolithic group would utter a few sentences before leaving, something about their wish to have a good hunt and feed the whole tribe. The idea of uttering a description of a condition/intent in a concise utterance of language seemed oddly powerful, and eventually it was thought that such utterances reached more than just human ears.

Spirit, the idea of this came about through a skepticism about the binary capacity of the categorical system of life and death. After all, before a human or animal or plant comes into existence, is it not technically dead? So although there is a partition between one and the other, non-existence precedes life, and although death is preceded by life, who is to say then that life can not once more be preceded by non-existence/death? So thus the spirit world was born, and ideas like reincarnation or afterlives were soon to follow.

Sacrifice of plants/animals/objects etc. Basically this would begin as a superstitious practice as soon as humans had the capacity to 'feel gratitude.' The idea was that being grateful had a powerful capacity to affect our existence, and you really could not be too grateful. So a share of a crop or a number of cattle or maybe even tools were selected to trade to the universe for the possibility that life wouldn't get rocky. It may have humbled the egos of paleolithic/neolithic man, for in the waste of it was shown that no hunting hero or master farmer was ever too great to not set aside an earning or two.

I'm sure there's much to add regarding all the other things that made up proto-religion, but these are just a few.

 

[Laika]

It's worth mentioning that such Proto-religions would have developed before the written word and so would have been oral or spoken traditions passed down through the generations.

Arguably Art or symbols (as a much simpler and more direct respensentation of objects than words) may well have played a role such as cave paintings, etc.

 

[Baladas]

Early religion and spirituality interest me as well.
Hunters often would speak their kills, some even seeking to trick their victim into believing that it was not they who killed it (lest the animals spirit seek vengeance). (Source: Graham Harvey, The Handbook of Contemporary Animism)
The feats that our ancestors accomplished in terms of building for the sake of spiritual expression is astounding (Newgrange in Ireland seems to have been created to observe/honor the Winter Solstice).
Their awareness of the seasons, and their dependence on the weather was very much at the forefront of their reality.
Before we began to understand the weather as we do now, we were completely at it's mercy, and it compelled many of our ancestors to give thanks to the elements for being favorable.

It's all very fascinating thing to think about.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Early religion and spirituality interest me as well.
Hunters often would speak their kills, some even seeking to trick their victim into believing that it was not they who killed it (lest the animals spirit seek vengeance). (Source: Graham Harvey, The Handbook of Contemporary Animism)
The feats that our ancestors accomplished in terms of building for the sake of spiritual expression is astounding (Newgrange in Ireland seems to have been created to observe/honor the Winter Solstice).
Their awareness of the seasons, and their dependence on the weather was very much at the forefront of their reality.
Before we began to understand the weather as we do now, we were completely at it's mercy, and it compelled many of our ancestors to give thanks to the elements for being favorable.

It's all very fascinating thing to think about.

It is.

 

[HonestJoe]

I'm sure there's much to add regarding all the other things that made up proto-religion, but these are just a few.

I think there is a risk of you putting too much faith (pun intended) in your speculations. The simple fact is that we don’t know what religious/spiritual beliefs and practices early humans held up to the point of there being surviving written record (and even then this isn’t always perfect).

There are archaeological clues, things ancient people did that would have no practical benefit and thus are presumed to have some ritual purpose. Things like grave goods and other deposits of finely made or deliberately broken items or objects and structures that would have taken great time and resources to create but with no apparent practical application. The precise reasons they did this are lost though. We can also look at the earliest practices that are recorded, see how they developed going forwards and try to trace back along that line. Again though, this involves a whole chunk of speculation and guess work and can only ever result in “might have been” answers.

I think there is often a risk of us unconsciously projecting our own beliefs and idea on ancient people, not recognising how fundamentally different their lives and views of the world around them would have been to ours. I do suspect that the spiritual world ancient people would have imagined could well have been much more feral than we might imagine, with their sacrifices and prayers being less like gifts to a king to win their favour and more meat thrown to wild dogs to distract them for a while. Yet again, all speculation though.

 

[Augustus]

It is also worth noting that one of the primary roles of early 'religion' was to help bind together larger groups of people who were not blood related. Creating a system of meaning that allowed this effectively could be the difference between life and death.

Things like sacrifice and ritual may well have been part of the 'cost' of belonging to the group, meaning nobody got a free ride. Everyone had to have skin in the game.

Other actions and expressions were likely part of the binding/reinforcing process and helped serve to create the system of meaning to which others could 'belong'.

(of course this is only part of the bigger picture, not a complete explanation)

 

[Aupmanyav]

Nice topic. Bonobibi who protects one in the jungle (from Sunderban tigers) with her Muslim attendant - India/Bangladesh, Vata Puja which protects a woman's husband. Many more such traditions in India.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I think there is a risk of you putting too much faith (pun intended) in your speculations. The simple fact is that we don’t know what religious/spiritual beliefs and practices early humans held up to the point of there being surviving written record (and even then this isn’t always perfect).

If speculation is the only thing we can do, we might as well speculate away.

I do suspect that the spiritual world ancient people would have imagined could well have been much more feral than we might imagine, with their sacrifices and prayers being less like gifts to a king to win their favour and more meat thrown to wild dogs to distract them for a while.

That's possible, but it might also be a good way to attract animals you wouldn't want near the camp. Especially if something like a one ton short-faced bear was still around or an entelodont.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Their awareness of the seasons, and their dependence on the weather was very much at the forefront of their reality.
Before we began to understand the weather as we do now, we were completely at it's mercy, and it compelled many of our ancestors to give thanks to the elements for being favorable.

I think though that it's possible that the paleolithic/neolithic man was wiser with those things and even we are today. The invention of the horoscope, the zodiac system, the coordination of stonehenge or the pyramids etc. with astral events, from what I read was astounding for how old these things were. We may understand the seasons better now scientifically, but we are from living in harmony with the weather like we might have done a long while ago.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Basically I'm thinking that ...

Basically you're thinking that your idle speculation is somehow worth more than one informed by anthropology or sociology. That's really silly.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Basically you're thinking that your idle speculation is somehow worth more than one informed by anthropology or sociology. That's really silly.

I've yet to write that I think that... Somehow I guess my writing style appears very self-confident to some people. I suppose during speculation I could multiply my adjectives that imply doubt.

 

[HonestJoe]

If speculation is the only thing we can do, we might as well speculate away.

Oh, I’m all for a bit of casual speculation, it’s just important to recognise that’s what it is, especially in the field of religion.

That's possible, but it might also be a good way to attract animals you wouldn't want near the camp. Especially if something like a one ton short-faced bear was still around or an entelodont.

The meat-to-dogs was a metaphor. The point was that we can’t assume ancient people saw the “supernatural” in the same largely benign way the modern monotheistic faiths we’re most familiar with do. For example, we tend to see gods as different types of people but it’s equally possible for them to be seen as different types of animal. That would make the entire basis of any religious practices surrounding them quite different and would make any of our assumptions based on our own understanding of religion fundamentally flawed.

 

[Riverwolf]

The meat-to-dogs was a metaphor. The point was that we can’t assume ancient people saw the “supernatural” in the same largely benign way the modern monotheistic faiths we’re most familiar with do. For example, we tend to see gods as different types of people but it’s equally possible for them to be seen as different types of animal. That would make the entire basis of any religious practices surrounding them quite different and would make any of our assumptions based on our own understanding of religion fundamentally flawed.

Post-Christian European culture has a pretty bad track record when it comes to understanding religions other than Christianity.

We actually can assume that many pre-Christians didn't see the Gods in omnibenevolent ways, because there are plenty of records that pretty much confirm divine malevolence in addition to benevolence. While it wasn't necessarily a case of appeasing volcano gods with virgin sacrifices, one need look no further than Northern Lore or Classical Mythology to see stories of popular Gods being quite vindictive, destructive, and delightful in the deaths of people they don't like. And between the various cultures, there's also quite a bit of diversity in terms of how the Gods behave, and how to properly treat them. And that's still in a world that's closer to us in modernity than that of hunter-gatherers, who in Europe would have been the pre-PIE indigenous peoples.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

The meat-to-dogs was a metaphor. The point was that we can’t assume ancient people saw the “supernatural” in the same largely benign way the modern monotheistic faiths we’re most familiar with do. For example, we tend to see gods as different types of people but it’s equally possible for them to be seen as different types of animal. That would make the entire basis of any religious practices surrounding them quite different and would make any of our assumptions based on our own understanding of religion fundamentally flawed.

Hm.. well to riff on that a little more, maybe it was that at first people saw the gods as animals, then they saw the god(s) behind the animals via anthropomorphism, then finally the gods were separated into a form most similar to a human one. I think maybe the Celtic myths show a good transition phase if understand their gods right.. if one saw a group of crows, somehow oddly that would unified in the mind as morrigan.. but I guess I imagine that seeing the crows as independent animal spirits probably came first before attaching morrigan or a triad of human-like sisters to them.

 

[Bear Wild]

Early religion and spirituality interest me as well.
Hunters often would speak their kills, some even seeking to trick their victim into believing that it was not they who killed it (lest the animals spirit seek vengeance). (Source: Graham Harvey, The Handbook of Contemporary Animism)
The feats that our ancestors accomplished in terms of building for the sake of spiritual expression is astounding (Newgrange in Ireland seems to have been created to observe/honor the Winter Solstice).
Their awareness of the seasons, and their dependence on the weather was very much at the forefront of their reality.
Before we began to understand the weather as we do now, we were completely at it's mercy, and it compelled many of our ancestors to give thanks to the elements for being favorable.

It's all very fascinating thing to think about.

I find it very interesting too. I find the relationship of the goddess with the land and the god with the tribe also fascinating and that only in the harmony of the two accepting the wild and the social unity as both essential creates the correct balance. We have all to much taken away the wild aspects of our would in favor of control and now we are out of balance.