Viewing religious rituals from cultural persperctive

Viewing religious rituals from cultural persperctive

Kristian Tamtomo, Jakarta

I would like to comment on the article titled Spiritual
Materialism in the Haj Pilgrimage written by Dadi Darmadi (The
Jakarta Post, Dec. 22). The article itself is well written and
well argued. Yet, in my view, it fails to explain the reason why
people are consumerist during their haj pilgrimage. This
phenomena, I think, can be widened to include pilgrimages of
other religions).

One way of finding a reason for this is by examining the
social and cultural significance of the ability of a person to
embark on a haj pilgrimage, from the viewpoint of the person's
community. This is something that Darmadi, as a student of social
anthropology, should have seen in the first place.

Rather, he has chosen to denounce the consumerist behavior of
pilgrims as a result of poor understanding of the spiritual and
religious significance of the haj pilgrimage, not to mention the
ever lurking effects of capitalism. This argument is
understandable from the viewpoint of a religious scholar,
theologian or cleric. However, coming from an anthropologist, I
beg to differ.

Religion has always been a strong topic of anthropology. The
first anthropological works were on, what was labeled then,
"primitive" religion. My first taste of anthropology was in
reading The Religions of Java by superstar anthropologist,
Clifford Geertz.

From all these different works, I can sum up the distinct
anthropological viewpoint on religion. Anthropologists, the
discipline I was trained in, view religion as a part of a wider
social and cultural system. It is inevitably entwined with
society, with its different social classes and relations.

Thus, religious practices are viewed as part of the dynamic of
everyday social life. I think this view can yield different ideas
when compared to the religious point of view that emphasizes the
normative "what is right and what is wrong".

In the case of the haj pilgrimage, a brief case analysis may
obtain a different interpretation. Allow me to illustrate. I
participated in a fieldwork training exercise in the
Petungkriyono, a remote mountain area south of Pekalongan in
January 2001. The villagers there are mostly farmers who plant
corn and vegetables in non-irrigated fields (ladang).

One prominent villager rose up to become the wealthiest person
in the whole area, through his crop and cattle trading business.
He then controlled a substantial amount of land and cattle. Many
villagers came to him to work on his land.

Others also tended his cattle on a shared ownership basis.
Some villagers worked for him as truck drivers to deliver crops
to town. He also gives credit and loans to neighbors in exchange
for the exclusive right to buy and sell their crops.

To put it simply, he became the social and economic patron of
the area. It is then not surprising that he would be the first
man in the village to embark on a haj pilgrimage.

Before he left for Mecca, he arranged a big selamatan
(thanksgiving dinner) and invited hundreds of guests. He also
handed out gifts such as sarongs and peci (Muslim cap) to his
guests. It would not be surprising if, when he returns from haj,
he will hold another selamatan and give out gifts as well.

Most villagers expect him to do that. It is his role as a
patron to do so, in exchange for their labor and support, also to
keep good ties with the other villagers. In this context, his
practice of "spiritual materialism" made perfect sense.

On the other hand, his title as a haj pilgrim would also
increase his social status. Not only is he the social and
economic patron, he will also be a religious patron. He will
still keep the obligations and benefits of his social-economic
ties (reinforced by the gifts he gave out).

In addition to that, he now commands the religious respect
given to a haj pilgrim. Thus, the haj pilgrimage for this man was
not simply a religious phenomenon. He might have intended it to
be just a religious issue, but when it was played out in the
social context that he was in, it became a symbol of his status.
It affected his relationship with the fellow villagers, and it
became a vehicle for a stronger social and political position.

To view the ritual (and rituals in general) as simply a
religious phenomenon would be sterile anthropologically. Once we
can grasp the deeper socio-cultural significance of the
phenomena, then we can see why people do it, why they enjoy it,
and why it makes perfect sense to them.

If we are able to look at things this way, it would not be
surprising (especially for a social scientist) to see that
religious rituals are divided by class. People live in a society
that is divided by class, their culture is also class divided,
and certainly it would not be surprising that religious practices
exhibit the same trait.

Could we not dare, for once, to view religion as inseparable
from culture and society? We might come up with the disturbing
fact that religious rituals and practices have always had social
and political significance.

They were never about spirituality per se, even if religious
teachings and texts say that it should be. Clifford Geertz
understood that when he saw how a simple funeral ritual could
become a symbolic battleground between two different political
ideologies of the 1960s.

Darmadi's explanation of spiritual materialism and the
contestation on religion, tourism and capitalism is very
enlightening. However, it was disappointing, as an
anthropologist, to see that the analysis was briskly closed when
he stated that the haj rituals have become more than a religious
phenomenon. I hope that my illustration above can show that
religious rituals are always, inevitably, more than just
religious phenomena. It makes sense from an anthropological point
of view that religious rituals not only serve religion, but also
social status and politics as well.

It is easy to say "this is wrong or misleading, that is
right", but it is very hard to open our minds to understand what
people are actually doing and why they are doing it. Not just to
"grasp the native's point of view", but also to capture further
meanings that are played out in the course of social phenomena
including religious rituals. The first task of a social scientist
is to achieve this understanding. Then, if one feels the need,
the scientist can choose to pass judgment.

The writer is an Alumnus from the Department of Cultural
Anthropology, Gadjah Mada University.