The “most sacred things,” the sacerrima, are
A.revealed to the initiates by the elders at the end of the liminal period.
B.the axiomatic building blocks of an entire worldview, regarded as absolute ultimate
mysteries.
C.usually reserved for rites of passage that happen in advanced adulthood.
D.are symbolically stripped of meaning during the liminal period.
What are the three phases of rites of transition identified by van Gennep?
A.ambiguity, contradiction, and structure
B.separation, margin, and aggregation
C.exhibitions, actions, and instructions
D.disproportion, monstrousness, and mystery
Myth, symbolism, and worldview are the focus of this chapter because
A.they are usually ignored in the systematic study of religion.
B.although they stand outside of religion, they indirectly affect our experience of it.
C.they are all “informal” religious expressions.
D.they are imperative to the comparative study of religion.
Hoodfar asserts that it is a painful and frustrating experience to
A.live under the veil in Muslim society.
B.attempt to convey the falsehood of western assumptions about the veil without
denying the patriarchal boundaries faced in the Islamic religion.
C.reject one’s religion in favor of feminist principles, but it is a choice that every
self-respecting Muslim woman must make.
D.move back to Islamic society after having lived in the West for over twenty years.
Turner uses the term “divination” to refer to all of the following practices except
A.inquiring about the future events and matters affecting entire tribes and nations from
a Supreme Being.
B.gaining insight into “untoward events” of the past through analysis of the past.
C.inquiring about future personal and immediate events or matters from a deity or
supernatural power.
Practitioners often confuse the “owner of the head” (oricha) with the initiate in Santer’a
rituals.
In the early part of the century, Robert Hertz, relying upon traveler’s accounts of the
peoples of central Borneo, hypothesized that people who practice secondary burial
A.believe that the fate of the body provides a model for the fate of the soul.
B.are more concerned with safeguarding the living from “death pollution” than with the
fate of the dead person’s soul.
C.believe that the soul is forever bonded to the body of the deceased, and therefore the
remains must be placed in a suitable “eternal home.”
D.believe that the second burial is akin to a the “birth” of the deceased person’s soul as
it is now free to animate a new life.
All of the following factors discussed by the editors of this book have been utilized
across the globe to induce ASC or trance, EXCEPT:
A.Drumming/Dance
B.Ritual grooming
C.Drugs
D.Ingestion or abstinence from food
According to Beattie, the status of the Nyoro rulers is validated by
A.their real historical line of descent from the first family.
B.the reification of youth in Nyoro society.
C.ancestral narratives that explain how such status was established.
D.their membership in one of the three ruling families.
E.the demarcation of the Bito dynasty as socially superior to all other Nyoro.
The Charismatic Renewal movement believes that healing practices are necessary after
an abortion because
A.the emotional bond between mother and father has been damaged.
B.the mother has made a difficult but necessary decision which leaves her with
ambiguous emotions of grief and relief.
C.abortion produces death trauma for the fetus and the mother experiences guilt and
grief.
D.the mother is thought to be incapable of conception until she has asked for God’s
forgiveness.
Cannibalism is linked to which if the following historical events discussed in Conklin’s
article:
A.Spanish conquest and killing of natives in the New World
B.”otherizing” to justify enslavement of Africans
C.Both of the above
D.None of the above
Wolf describes a “master symbol” as
A.a symbol that is relevant to all members of a society.
B.a seemingly insignificant object or idea which, when studied, is one of the most
important symbols to members of a society.
C.a material object that stands for something that is not material.
D.a symbol which seems to embody the major hopes and aspirations of a society.
The September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center were different than those of
Pearl Harbor because
A.people from different religious and ideological backgrounds were killed.
B.they cannot be considered a global confrontation.
C.they signaled America’s entry into a long war.
D.Al Qaeda is a group comprised of transnational activists that does not represent the
ideology of any sovereign state.
The serpent-handlers of West Virginia developed their religion from the diverse cultural
exposure of the area.
Although priests and shamans sometimes coexist as among the Plains Indians of North
America, Turner notes that shamans are most often found where the priest is absent in
A.small-scale agricultural societies with ceremonial public “calendrical” rites.
B.food-gathering cultures where they perform “non-calendrical” rites to address illness
or mishap.
C.cultures that operate with an inherent cultural fear of supernatural mischievousness
and treachery.
D.small-scale societies with high incidences of inter- and inner-tribal conflict.
When the shah’s modernist government outlawed the chador in Iran in 1936
A.women suddenly had a great deal more freedom than ever before, prompting a
fundamentalist backlash.
B.the pan-Middle East women’s right’s movement was born.
C.women began entering the public sphere in massive numbers.
D.many independent women became dependent, among many other negative and
restrictive consequences of the sweeping and empty measure.
The function of the relationships between the three Nyoro dynasties is to
A.show how each dynasty is part of the same ruling family.
B.differentiate each dynasty as completely unrelated to the others.
C.emphasize the superiority of the current dynasty.
D.enable the present ruling line to claim respect, prestige, and authority.
In Santer’a, embodiment is especially important because
A.the teaching of moral behavior and ritual skills happens informally and nonverbally.
B.observers can easily evaluate the initiate to decide whether or not he/she will be
accepted into the religion.
C.verbal communication is strictly discouraged.
D.participants cannot communicate with oricha verbally.
To the Charismatic Renewal movement, the imaginary baptism of an aborted fetus heals
by
A.turning the fetus into a person who can be prayed for and sent to Jesus.
B.reassuring the mother that she has made the correct decision.
C.allowing the fetus a second opportunity on earth in the future.
D.cleansing the mother’s hands in an act symbolizing the washing away of sin.
The “labeling theory of deviance” asserts that
A.once members of society have been labeled as deviants, they become the lowest
common denominator socially and, thereby, are assigned only partial personhood in the
society.
B.the designation of deviance is entirely dependent upon the world-view and customs
of a particular society.
C.the designation of behavior as deviant focuses on the reaction of those involved
instead of on the act itself.
D.there at least four different levels of deviance in any society ranging from mild
impropriety to social pariahs.
By touching one’s head to the floor, a ritually younger Santer’a participant salutes the
“head” of an elder which
A.shows submission and acceptance of one’s position in the social order.
B.marks the end of the initiation ritual.
C.creates an eternal bond between the ritual families of the two participants.
D.marks the end of subordination to the elder and elevates one’s position to that of
equal status.
In the myth told by Urmilaji and recorded by Narayan and continuing ritual/worship
practices, the Pipal tree represents which Hindi deity?
A.Shiva
B.Brahma
C.Vishnu
D.Ganesha
During a reasoning session at David and Lion’s house on the pier, David draws on
passages from
A.Haile Ras Tafari Selassi I’s famous treatise on the principles of Rastafarianism.
B.ancient Ethiopian texts.
C.the Bible.
D.the lyrics of Bob Marley.
How is Anthropology like Science?
A.It seeks to explain its subject matter by reducing it to a single theoretical perspective
B.It seeks to explain its subject matter by constructing a model to identify the different
theoretical processes or mechanisms working within a single phenomenon
C.It seeks to explain its subject matter within one culture/society
D.It seeks to explain its subject matter by establishing a truth
When A.F.C. Wallace studied various forms of religious behavior he concluded that
A.differences in religious practice are arbitrary.
B.there are five major approaches to religion corresponding to five geographical
regions.
C.there are different “types,” from simple to complex, of religious forms, which often
correspond to the level of social structure in the society.
D.”primitive” belief systems lack important characteristics of religion as a genre.
Greetz explains that the unified meaning of “feeling” and “meaning” in the word “rasa”
allows for all of the following EXCEPT:
A.A perceived fusion of Subjective experience and religions truths to be taken
subjectively.
B.Increasing predominance of atheism do to skepticism.
C.Development of a sophisticated analysis of subjective experience.
D.Metaphysical analysis of outward reality.
The native Amerindian enema and the Old World enema
A.are indistinguishable, except for the type of plants used; in some cases, as in
members of the morning glory family, the plants used are in fact markedly similar.
B.interestingly enough, are both thought to have come into practice, or been discovered,
during the tenth century A.D.
C.are distinguished from one another because while the Old World enema was
concerned with clearing the bowels, the New World enema was considered a delivery
system for medicines and intoxicants.
D.are really one and the same because the enema was unheard of before the explorers
brought the practice back with them and turned it into a European craze in the use of
belladonna and opium.
Two issues that anthropologists encounter and struggle with in ethnographic or
participant-observation fieldwork that Wagner discusses are:
A.Loyalty and trust
B.Loyalty and “the exclusion syntax principle”
C.Loyalty and “the concrete principle”
D.Loyalty and avoiding anti-popular culture biases
In light of Lewis’s interviews, we might conclude that a central theme in Rastafarian
reasoning sessions is
A.the denunciation of hypocrisy.
B.hope for repatriation to Ethiopia.
C.the life affirming institution of family.
D.the advancement of Rastafarian culture through world-wide reggae music.
Mentioning a “no-hitter” while one is in progress is an example of a
A.ritual of baseball culture as old as the game itself.
B.fetish.
C.personal and idiosyncratic taboo.
D.taboo grounded in baseball culture.
All of the following factor into whether a person id diagnosed with witchcraft versus
HIV/AIDS EXCEPT:
A.Gender
B.T-Cell count
C.Financial status
D.Age and social status/community connection
In Narayan’s article the primary difference between the myth and the story that Urmilaji
tells is:
A.The first myth is traditionally told during ritual worship to the Pipal tree during the
dark moon Monday, and the other story with the same moral lesson is told anecdotally.
B.The first myth is told only to woman, the other is told freely to anyone who asks to
hear it.
C.The first myth is told to personal like Narayan, who have visited Urmilaji more than
once and have garnered her trust, the other story is told freely.
D.The first myth was passed on to Urmilaji from oral tradition, the other story was not.
Wagner describes the six stages of anthropological fieldwork/research in order as:
A.(1) gaining entree, (2) establishing rapport, (3) experiencing culture shock, (4)
attaining an ever-increasing understanding of the culture, (5) analyzing and interpreting
what has been learned, and (6) leaving the field.
B.(1) gaining entree, (2) establishing rapport, (3) experiencing culture shock, (4)
attaining an ever-increasing understanding of the culture, (5) leaving the field, and (6)
analyzing and interpreting what has been learned.
C.(1) gaining entree, (2) experiencing culture shock, (3) establishing rapport, (4)
attaining an ever-increasing understanding of the culture, (5) analyzing and interpreting
what has been learned, and (6) publishing research findings.
D.(1) gaining entree, (2) experiencing culture shock, (3) establishing rapport, (4)
attaining an ever-increasing understanding of the culture, (5) leaving the field, and (6)
analyzing and interpreting what has been learned.
According to Hoodfar, western assumptions of the veil as a symbol of ignorance and
oppression
A.arise from a failure to contextualize non-Western societies and unwillingness to let go
of static ethnocentric images.
B.are completely fabricated and have no historical or cultural foundation.
C.are entirely correct, but their approach to the problem belittles the role of women as
social actors.
D.could hardly be more opposite to the reality of the situation, as only powerful and
wealthy women in traditional Islamic society were veiled.
Why does Vitebsky argue that the word “shamanism” may not be an accurate term?
A.The term “shaman” is only used by the people in about half the religions referred to
as “shamanism.”
B.Neo-shamanism of today has changed people’s ideas of traditional shamanism.
C.”-ism” carries a connotation of formality used when describing “western” religions
which may be inappropriate for more fluid and flexible religions.
D.The term was derived from a tribe in Amazonia which has few similarities to other
peoples around the world.