1. A History of the World’s Religions Thirteenth Edition
David S. Noss
Blake R. Grangaard

2. Religion in Prehistoric and Primal Cultures
Chapter 1
Religion in Prehistoric
and Primal Cultures

3. Religion in Prehistoric Cultures
We make conjectures based on
Cave paintings
Implements
Burial customs
Artifacts
Comparison to more recent primal cultures

4. The Old Stone Age: Neanderthals
Burial customs
Crouching position
Food and flint implements alongside the body
Other less utilitarian offerings such as flowers
Treated the cave bear with special reverence
Set aside skulls with brain intact
Placed the skulls on elevated slabs of stone or niches in caves
Possibly used the bear skulls in some type of ritual

5. The Old Stone Age: Neanderthals
Human cadavers may have been used as a food source
Human skulls found absent of other bones with the brains removed suggesting the brains were eaten
Human long bones found split open to the marrow suggesting the marrow was eaten

6. The Old Stone Age: Cro-Magnons
Appeared 30,000 years ago
Members of the species Homo sapiens
Hunter-gathers
Were nomads who followed game during the warmer months
During colder months they used caves and lean-tos under cliffs
Accomplished hunters: bones of 100,000 horses found at Solutré in south central France

7. The Old Stone Age: Cro-Magnons
Burial customs similar to Neanderthals
Body surrounded with ornaments such as shell bracelets, stone tools, weapons, and food
Charred bones found at grave sites possibly signifying that the survivors returned to the grave to feast with the dead
Red ochre poured on the body at burial possibly signifying the blood of life

8. The Old Stone Age: Cro-Magnons
Cro-Magnon cave paintings suggest these people sensed a kinship and interaction between human and animal spirits
Magic for the hunt
Fecund Goddess-Mother
Bear cult

9. The Middle Stone Age
The transition from nomadic to village life brought with it changes in religion
Mother-goddess idea expanded to include the earth as a fertile mother
Relics suggest an awe of nature
Magic had grown into a complex system

10. The Neolithic Age Revolutions in agriculture
Great growth in population
Expansion of the idea of female divine power to include
Birthing
Nurturing
Watering
Tending
Protection of all vegetation

11. Characteristics of Religion in Primal Cultures
Awe before the sacred
Expression of anxiety in ritual
Ritual and expectancy
Myth and ritual
Types of magic
Prayer
Divination
Belief in mana
Animism
Veneration and worship of powers
Recognition of a supernatural being
Taboo
Purification rites
Sacrifices and gits
Attitudes toward the dead
Totemism

12. Methods of Control
Fetishism—any resort to the presumed power in inanimate things.
Shamanism—spirits are conjured into or out of human beings by one who is similarly spirit possessed.
Function can be magical or religious

13. The Dieri of Southeast Australia
Culturally this hunter-gatherer society remains somewhere between Paleolithic and Neolithic
From a magico-religious standpoint the medicine man is the outstanding individual in the society and it is believed he can communicate with supernatural beings

14. The Dieri of Southeast Australia
Magico-religious activities and beliefs
Rainmaking
Totemic food ritual
Death rituals
A high god or old man of the sky
Puberty rites

15. The BaVenda of South Africa
Studied by Stayt in the 1920s
Gives us a view of religion at the beginning of the agricultural age
Raised crops and herds of cattle
Complex social structure

16. The BaVenda of South Africa
Displayed a wide array of religious beliefs and practices
Animism and fetishes
Shamans and diviners
Two types of witchcraft
The cult of the dead
A supreme spirit

17. The Cherokees of the Southeastern Woodlands
Despite being influenced by the whites, the Cherokee maintained a unique conceptual system.
Sequoyah designed and perfected an ingenious syllabary of 86 symbols and the traditions were set down in the Cherokee’s own language

18. The Cherokees of the Southeastern Woodlands
The Cherokee conceptual system does not begin with the story of creation of the cosmos.
It is concerned with the order of things and begins with
The shaping of the world
The sacred ordering of space
Categories of space

19. The Cherokees of the Southeastern Woodlands
Other Cherokee myths and traditions
Kinship with animals
Dimensions of the 3 world
The sun and the moon
Priests, witches, medicine and conjury
Rites of passage
Rites of intensification and renewal
Myths concerning food sources

20. The Cherokees of the Southeastern Woodlands
The Green Corn Ceremony
Includes all of the major elements of the Cherokee world view
Took place at the first ripening of the new corn
Length varied from 3 to 8 days