Religion of the Oppressed

by Vittorio Lanternari

"Religions of the Oppressed is the first comprehensive study of the prophetic religions of liberation that have flamed across the modern world."

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this through analysis region by region of upstart religions of occupied aboriginal peoples. I was fascinating with the long (much longer than expected) history of peyote-based Native American churches and the late Nineteenth Century origination of cargo cults. This pushes it back a half century before my supposition it emerged as an echo of WW II. Generally this seemed to support of an idea of 1 to 1.5 centuries to go from ecstatic vision to institutionalized religion. (Lanternari does not assert this, it is just something I noticed and fit in with religions not covered in such detail as Mormonism, Moonies, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.) One point made using Australia as an example is that hunter-gather cultures reacted fundamentally differently from land-bound agricultural and herding cultures. I would like to see a broader analysis than this as it is an intriguing idea that the land-tied societies react with nativistic movements as a protective "scab" (my metaphor) and against the encroaching irritant of uninvited invaders with nomadic roamers more sanguine about it all.

Lanternari observed that, 'The messianic movements of Polynesia have many mythical elements in common with cults flourishing in Melanesia, such as the end of the world and its regeneration, and the resurrection of the dead...” These observations along with general syncretist trends suggest a common evolution path from existential threat to excited fanaticism across diverse cultures and times: offer hopeful magical thinking, defy via traditionalism, bolt on elements of the invaders' beliefs... As stated here, "any power which keeps a people in subjection bears within itself the seeds of another power that may rise to oppose it."

Messianic cults all involve a belief in society's return to its source, usually expressed in terms of the expectation of the millennium and the cataclysms and catastrophes that are to precede it, and also embody a belief in the rising of the dead, in the reversal of the existing social order, in the ejection of the white man, in the end of the world, and in its regeneration in an age of abundance and happiness.

According to Lanternari, this stage of return to the source is usually followed by the so-called 'phase of adjustment' whereby the old and the new are integrated. (Except when the natives are exterminated...)

[Denise Spicer · Rating 3 out of 5]

translated Lisa Sergio 286 pages
Forward by the author.
This classic covers the areas of Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Indonesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, as well as North America. It includes information on the Peyote Cult, the Dreamers, Ghost Dance, Smohalla, and the Shakers of Puget Sound. Has lots of sociological and historical details about the effects of conflicts of the native indigenous populations with Western Culture. Very interesting book which also has a Bibliography and Index.

[Raul Marcelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bueno.