Asceticism Religion And Biological Evolution

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

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JOHANNES BRONKHORST
• ASCETICISM, RELIGION, AND BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
407
its. What is more, the novice becomes part of the spiritual realm Breath' (or 'Breath maker"). An ancient myth of the Winnebago conhimself. For example, during the initiation ceremony of the Austral- cerning the origin of death proclaims: "Into your bodies Earth-Maker ian Kumai, described by Howitt (1904), secrets are revealed that has placed part of himself. That will return to him if you do the concern a great Being, called Mungan-ngang, who, having lived ini- proper things." In Oglala shamanistic speculation Wakan Tanka, i.e., tially on earth, left the earth, and ascended to the sky, where he still the Great Mystery, 'the Great God', reveals himself in gods, spirits remains (630). Howitt moreover points out, after describing the pu- and demons; he is manifoldness and yet unity. All man's souls are berty rites of the Yuin tribe, that during these initiatory ceremonies taker, they are included in the Great Mystery. "The word Wakan the boys are told about the divine being called Datamulus, being Tanka means all of the wakan beings because they are all as if one." wamed at the same time never to mention these things to women The Ashanti peoples of West Africa know several souls, one of and children. Clay figures of this god are shown during these ceremo sthem, the bra, being "the small bit of the Creator that lives in every nies, only to be destroyed subsequently. After losing their incisor, the person's body.' It returns to the Creator when the person dies. It is the boys were led ... to the tree on which the figure of Daramunt was Supreme Being that directly gives to a man this spirit or life when he is cut, and were told of him and his powers, and that he lived beyond about to be bom, and with it the man's destiny" (Busia 1954: 197; the sky and watched what the Murring did. When a man died he met cited in Hochegger 1965: 288). The return of the kra to God after him and took care of him".
death is confirmed by other investigators (e.g., Danquah 1944: 113; Both in India and in Gnostic Christianity we came across the Meyerowitz 1951: 24; Ringwald 1952: 60). One of the souls of the notion that the inner essence of the human being is identical with the Yoruba is called emi or 'spirit'. "This is regarded as the scat of life. It is highest godhead. This notion, too, is not confined to these two cul- the part of man which is closely related to the gods. Olorun the tures. It is true that the ethnographic evidence is not always clear Supreme Deity is known as Elemi, "Owner of spirits'. A man's spirit is enough to come to very definite pronouncements. Often the-or- thus traced to Olorun, and is therefore regarded as the divine element soul is said to retum to God after death, but this does not necessarily in him" Lucas 1948: 248). Maupoil (1943: 388; cf. Hochegger 1965: imply that the two are identical. It is possible that statements con- 293) speaks of one of the souls accepted by the peoples of Dahomey,
mine the identity of God and soul require a level of sophistication called . The individual se he observes, is nothing but a small part of which is not normally present in the societies under consideration the great Se Man into which it is reabsorbed at death. The fondi of Yet some examples leave no room for doubt.
The Toba-Batak is identical with the High God according to P. L. The examples from North America colected by Hultkrantz (1953 tobing. Although Sinaga (1981: 105) disagrees with this thesis, he 189, 1994) concem most commonly the 'breath-soul'. An Abnald
dmits that "tondi "represents' God in man who shares it according to Indian from Canada made the following statement: "In our old reli
the extent of his possibility and finitude". believed that the Great Spirit who made all things is in these and similar examples make it plausible that notions of gods) everything, and that with every breath of air we drew in the lite or the bd notions of souls) are often related to each other. Since a number Great Spirit." This statement identifies ones breath with the 'Great
cultures tend to depict the soul, or a soul, as not being involved in Spirit', and it does more: it tells us that the Great Spirit is "in every
sery e activities of the body, we may ask whether such a notion of gods, thing" and therefore omnipresent. A different position finds expres
Pr od in particular of the supreme being, as inactive is equally common sion in the belief recorded among the Lenape, that some of them
It is. The remote and inactive nature of the supreme being in a believe their souls to be in the sun, and only their bodies here on
irge number of societies has been noticed by scholars of religion, earth. In this case, the soul is in the creating deity, the sun, and not
and documented in a number of publications. The only activity that therefore in the body. Yet also beliefs of a highest divinity which contained the whole world within itself have been recorded among this people. According to the Creek and the Chikasaw, after death . For a survey of the attributes of supreme beings, and for a short description of
I called 'Master of the history of their study, see the entry "Supreme Beings by Lawrence E. Sullivan the souls of good Indians went to a supreme divinity called "Master of
in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 14: 166-18).