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B. Tylor</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-E._B._Tylor-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Myth_from_ritual_(primacy_of_ritual)" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Myth_from_ritual_(primacy_of_ritual)"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">3</span> <span>Myth from ritual (primacy of ritual)</span> </div> </a> <button aria-controls="toc-Myth_from_ritual_(primacy_of_ritual)-sublist" class="cdx-button cdx-button--weight-quiet cdx-button--icon-only vector-toc-toggle"> <span class="vector-icon mw-ui-icon-wikimedia-expand"></span> <span>Toggle Myth from ritual (primacy of ritual) subsection</span> </button> <ul id="toc-Myth_from_ritual_(primacy_of_ritual)-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> <li id="toc-William_Robertson_Smith" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#William_Robertson_Smith"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">3.1</span> <span>William Robertson Smith</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-William_Robertson_Smith-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Stanley_Edgar_Hyman" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Stanley_Edgar_Hyman"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">3.2</span> <span>Stanley Edgar Hyman</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Stanley_Edgar_Hyman-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-James_Frazer" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#James_Frazer"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">3.3</span> <span>James Frazer</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-James_Frazer-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Jane_Ellen_Harrison_and_S._H._Hooke" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Jane_Ellen_Harrison_and_S._H._Hooke"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">3.4</span> <span>Jane Ellen Harrison and S. H. Hooke</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Jane_Ellen_Harrison_and_S._H._Hooke-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Myth_and_ritual_as_non-coextensive" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Myth_and_ritual_as_non-coextensive"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">4</span> <span>Myth and ritual as non-coextensive</span> </div> </a> <button aria-controls="toc-Myth_and_ritual_as_non-coextensive-sublist" class="cdx-button cdx-button--weight-quiet cdx-button--icon-only vector-toc-toggle"> <span class="vector-icon mw-ui-icon-wikimedia-expand"></span> <span>Toggle Myth and ritual as non-coextensive subsection</span> </button> <ul id="toc-Myth_and_ritual_as_non-coextensive-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> <li id="toc-Walter_Burkert" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Walter_Burkert"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">4.1</span> <span>Walter Burkert</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Walter_Burkert-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Bronisław_Malinowski" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Bronisław_Malinowski"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">4.2</span> <span>Bronisław Malinowski</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Bronisław_Malinowski-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Mircea_Eliade" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Mircea_Eliade"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">4.3</span> <span>Mircea Eliade</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Mircea_Eliade-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-See_also" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#See_also"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">5</span> <span>See also</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-See_also-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Notes" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Notes"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">6</span> <span>Notes</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Notes-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-References" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#References"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">7</span> <span>References</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-References-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Further_reading" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Further_reading"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">8</span> <span>Further reading</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Further_reading-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </nav> </div> </div> <div class="mw-content-container"> <main id="content" class="mw-body"> <header class="mw-body-header vector-page-titlebar"> <nav aria-label="Contents" class="vector-toc-landmark"> <div id="vector-page-titlebar-toc" class="vector-dropdown vector-page-titlebar-toc vector-button-flush-left" title="Table of Contents" > <input type="checkbox" id="vector-page-titlebar-toc-checkbox" role="button" aria-haspopup="true" data-event-name="ui.dropdown-vector-page-titlebar-toc" class="vector-dropdown-checkbox " aria-label="Toggle the table of contents" > <label id="vector-page-titlebar-toc-label" for="vector-page-titlebar-toc-checkbox" class="vector-dropdown-label cdx-button cdx-button--fake-button cdx-button--fake-button--enabled cdx-button--weight-quiet cdx-button--icon-only " aria-hidden="true" ><span class="vector-icon mw-ui-icon-listBullet mw-ui-icon-wikimedia-listBullet"></span> <span class="vector-dropdown-label-text">Toggle the table of contents</span> </label> <div class="vector-dropdown-content"> <div id="vector-page-titlebar-toc-unpinned-container" class="vector-unpinned-container"> </div> </div> </div> </nav> <h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading mw-first-heading"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Myth and ritual</span></h1> <div id="p-lang-btn" class="vector-dropdown mw-portlet mw-portlet-lang" > <input type="checkbox" id="p-lang-btn-checkbox" role="button" aria-haspopup="true" data-event-name="ui.dropdown-p-lang-btn" class="vector-dropdown-checkbox mw-interlanguage-selector" aria-label="Go to an article in another language. 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searchaux" style="display:none">Two central components of religious practice</div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1236090951">.mw-parser-output .hatnote{font-style:italic}.mw-parser-output div.hatnote{padding-left:1.6em;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .hatnote i{font-style:normal}.mw-parser-output .hatnote+link+.hatnote{margin-top:-0.5em}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .hatnote{display:none!important}}</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Not to be confused with <a href="/wiki/Religion_and_mythology" title="Religion and mythology">Religion and mythology</a>.</div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1129693374">.mw-parser-output .hlist dl,.mw-parser-output .hlist ol,.mw-parser-output .hlist ul{margin:0;padding:0}.mw-parser-output .hlist dd,.mw-parser-output .hlist dt,.mw-parser-output .hlist li{margin:0;display:inline}.mw-parser-output .hlist.inline,.mw-parser-output .hlist.inline dl,.mw-parser-output .hlist.inline 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.sidebar-list-title{padding:0 0.4em;text-align:left;font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6em;font-size:105%}.mw-parser-output .sidebar-list-title-c{padding:0 0.4em;text-align:center;margin:0 3.3em}@media(max-width:640px){body.mediawiki .mw-parser-output .sidebar{width:100%!important;clear:both;float:none!important;margin-left:0!important;margin-right:0!important}}body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .sidebar a>img{max-width:none!important}@media screen{html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .sidebar:not(.notheme) .sidebar-list-title,html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .sidebar:not(.notheme) .sidebar-title-with-pretitle{background:transparent!important}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .sidebar:not(.notheme) .sidebar-title-with-pretitle a{color:var(--color-progressive)!important}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .sidebar:not(.notheme) .sidebar-list-title,html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .sidebar:not(.notheme) .sidebar-title-with-pretitle{background:transparent!important}html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .sidebar:not(.notheme) .sidebar-title-with-pretitle a{color:var(--color-progressive)!important}}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .sidebar{display:none!important}}</style><table class="sidebar sidebar-collapse nomobile"><tbody><tr><td class="sidebar-pretitle" style="padding-top:0.2em;">Part of a series on</td></tr><tr><th class="sidebar-title-with-pretitle" style="background:lavender; padding:0.2em;"><a href="/wiki/Anthropology_of_religion" title="Anthropology of religion">Anthropology of religion</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-image"><span class="notpageimage" typeof="mw:File"><a href="/wiki/File:Queue.svg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Queue.svg/100px-Queue.svg.png" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Queue.svg/150px-Queue.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Queue.svg/200px-Queue.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="100" data-file-height="100" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content"> <div class="sidebar-list mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"><div class="sidebar-list-title" style="color: var(--color-base)"><div class="sidebar-list-title-c">Basic concepts</div></div><div class="sidebar-list-content mw-collapsible-content nowraplinks hlist"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Afterlife" title="Afterlife">Afterlife</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Animism" title="Animism">Animism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Augury" title="Augury">Augury</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Communitas" title="Communitas">Communitas</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Comparative_religion" title="Comparative religion">Comparative religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Divination" title="Divination">Divination</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Divine_language" title="Divine language">Divine language</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religion" title="Evolutionary origin of religion">Evolutionary origin of religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Fetishism" title="Fetishism">Fetishism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Great_Spirit" title="Great Spirit">Great Spirit</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Henotheism" title="Henotheism">Henotheism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Initiation" title="Initiation">Initiation</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Laying_on_of_hands" title="Laying on of hands">Laying on of hands</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Liminality" title="Liminality">Liminality</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Magic_(supernatural)" title="Magic (supernatural)">Magic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mana_(Oceanian_cultures)" title="Mana (Oceanian cultures)">Mana</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Monotheism" title="Monotheism">Monotheism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nympholepsy" title="Nympholepsy">Nympholepsy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Oracle" title="Oracle">Oracle</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pilgrimage" title="Pilgrimage">Pilgrimage</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Polytheism" title="Polytheism">Polytheism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Rite_of_passage" title="Rite of passage">Rite of passage</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ritual" title="Ritual">Ritual</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sacred_language" title="Sacred language">Sacred language</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sacred%E2%80%93profane_dichotomy" class="mw-redirect" title="Sacred–profane dichotomy">Sacred–profane dichotomy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sacred_site" class="mw-redirect" title="Sacred site">Sacred site</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shamanism" title="Shamanism">Shamanism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Soul_dualism" title="Soul dualism">Soul dualism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Superstition" title="Superstition">Superstition</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theories_about_religion" title="Theories about religion">Theories about religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Totem" title="Totem">Totem</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Transtheism" title="Transtheism">Transtheism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead" title="Veneration of the dead">Veneration of the dead</a></li></ul></div></div></td> </tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content"> <div class="sidebar-list mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"><div class="sidebar-list-title" style="color: var(--color-base)"><div class="sidebar-list-title-c">Case studies</div></div><div class="sidebar-list-content mw-collapsible-content nowraplinks hlist"> <dl><dt>Magic</dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Coral_Gardens_and_Their_Magic" title="Coral Gardens and Their Magic">Coral Gardens and Their Magic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_sur_les_apparitions_des_esprits_et_sur_les_vampires_ou_les_revenans_de_Hongrie,_de_Moravie,_%26c." title="Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c.">Treatise on the Apparitions of<br />Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Enchanted_Feminism" title="Enchanted Feminism">Neo-Paganism</a></li></ul> <dl><dt>Ritual</dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Angakkuq" title="Angakkuq">Angakkuq</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Babaylan" class="mw-redirect" title="Babaylan">Babaylan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bobohizan" title="Bobohizan">Bobohizan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bomoh" title="Bomoh">Bomoh</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bora_(Australian)" title="Bora (Australian)">Bora</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dukun" title="Dukun">Dukun</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Miko" title="Miko">Miko</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Jh%C4%81kri" title="Jhākri">Jhākri</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pawang" title="Pawang">Pawang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Slametan" title="Slametan">Slametan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wu_(shaman)" title="Wu (shaman)">Wu</a></li></ul> <dl><dt>Revitalization movements</dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cargo_cult" title="Cargo cult">Cargo cult</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ghost_Dance" title="Ghost Dance">Ghost Dance</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Handsome_Lake" title="Handsome Lake">Handsome Lake</a></li></ul></div></div></td> </tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content"> <div class="sidebar-list mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"><div class="sidebar-list-title" style="color: var(--color-base)"><div class="sidebar-list-title-c">Related articles</div></div><div class="sidebar-list-content mw-collapsible-content nowraplinks hlist"> <ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/The_Elementary_Forms_of_the_Religious_Life" title="The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life">The Elementary Forms<br />of the Religious Life</a></i></li> <li><i><a href="/wiki/Purity_and_Danger" title="Purity and Danger">Purity and Danger</a></i></li> <li><a class="mw-selflink selflink">Myth and ritual</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Archaeology_of_religion_and_ritual" title="Archaeology of religion and ritual">Archaeology of religion and ritual</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ceremonial_pole" title="Ceremonial pole">Poles in mythology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lived_religion" title="Lived religion">Lived religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Elite_religion" title="Elite religion">Elite religion</a></li></ul></div></div></td> </tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content"> <div class="sidebar-list mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"><div class="sidebar-list-title" style="color: var(--color-base)"><div class="sidebar-list-title-c">Major theorists</div></div><div class="sidebar-list-content mw-collapsible-content nowraplinks hlist"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Antoine_Augustin_Calmet" title="Antoine Augustin Calmet">Augustin Calmet</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Akbar_Ahmed" title="Akbar Ahmed">Akbar S. Ahmed</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Talal_Asad" title="Talal Asad">Talal Asad</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Joseph_Campbell" title="Joseph Campbell">Joseph Campbell</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mary_Douglas" title="Mary Douglas">Mary Douglas</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim" title="Émile Durkheim">Émile Durkheim</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mircea_Eliade" title="Mircea Eliade">Mircea Eliade</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Arnold_van_Gennep" title="Arnold van Gennep">Arnold van Gennep</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard" title="René Girard">René Girard</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/E._E._Evans-Pritchard" title="E. E. Evans-Pritchard">E. E. Evans-Pritchard</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/James_George_Frazer" title="James George Frazer">James Frazer</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Numa_Denis_Fustel_de_Coulanges" title="Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges">Fustel de Coulanges</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Clifford_Geertz" title="Clifford Geertz">Clifford Geertz</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Robin_W._G._Horton" title="Robin W. G. Horton">Robin Horton</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss" title="Claude Lévi-Strauss">Claude Lévi-Strauss</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Robert_Ranulph_Marett" title="Robert Ranulph Marett">Robert Marett</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Steven_Ozment" title="Steven Ozment">Steven Ozment</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Roy_Rappaport" title="Roy Rappaport">Roy Rappaport</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Saba_Mahmood" title="Saba Mahmood">Saba Mahmood</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Marshall_Sahlins" title="Marshall Sahlins">Marshall Sahlins</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Melford_Spiro" title="Melford Spiro">Melford Spiro</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Stanley_Jeyaraja_Tambiah" title="Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah">Stanley Tambiah</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Victor_Turner" title="Victor Turner">Victor Turner</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Edward_Burnett_Tylor" title="Edward Burnett Tylor">Edward Burnett Tylor</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Daniel_Martin_Varisco" title="Daniel Martin Varisco">Daniel Martin Varisco</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Anthony_F._C._Wallace" title="Anthony F. C. Wallace">Anthony F. C. Wallace</a></li></ul></div></div></td> </tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content"> <div class="sidebar-list mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"><div class="sidebar-list-title" style="color: var(--color-base)"><div class="sidebar-list-title-c">Journals</div></div><div class="sidebar-list-content mw-collapsible-content nowraplinks hlist"> <ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/The_Folklore_Society" title="The Folklore Society">Folklore</a></i></li> <li><i><a href="/wiki/The_Hibbert_Journal" title="The Hibbert Journal">The Hibbert Journal</a></i></li> <li><i><a href="/wiki/The_Journal_of_Religion" title="The Journal of Religion">The Journal of Religion</a></i></li> <li><i><a href="/wiki/Oceania_(journal)" title="Oceania (journal)">Oceania</a></i></li></ul></div></div></td> </tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content"> <div class="sidebar-list mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"><div class="sidebar-list-title" style="color: var(--color-base)"><div class="sidebar-list-title-c"><a href="/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions" title="List of religions and spiritual traditions">Religions</a></div></div><div class="sidebar-list-content mw-collapsible-content nowraplinks hlist"> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Ethnic_religion" title="Ethnic religion">Ethnic</a> and <a href="/wiki/Folk_religion" title="Folk religion">folk religions</a></dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Afro-American_religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Afro-American religion">Afro-American religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Alaska_Native_religion" title="Alaska Native religion">Alaska Native religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Anito" title="Anito">Anito</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Atua" title="Atua">Atua</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mongolian_shamanism" title="Mongolian shamanism">Böö mörgöl</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_folk_religion" title="Chinese folk religion">Chinese folk religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hanitu" title="Hanitu">Hanitu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hausa_animism" title="Hausa animism">Hausa</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kejaw%C3%A8n" title="Kejawèn">Kejawèn</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Native_American_religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Native American religion">Native American religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Noaidi" title="Noaidi">Noaidi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Korean_shamanism" title="Korean shamanism">Shindo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shamanism_in_Siberia" title="Shamanism in Siberia">Shamanism in Siberia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shinto" title="Shinto">Shinto</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tengrism" title="Tengrism">Tengrism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Traditional_African_religions" title="Traditional African religions">Traditional African religions</a></li></ul> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Buddhism" title="Buddhism">Buddhism</a></dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Mahayana" title="Mahayana">Mahayana</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nichiren_Buddhism" title="Nichiren Buddhism">Nichiren</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism" title="Pure Land Buddhism">Pure Land</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shingon_Buddhism" title="Shingon Buddhism">Shingon</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theravada" title="Theravada">Theravada</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tiantai" title="Tiantai">Tiantai</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhism" title="Tibetan Buddhism">Tibetan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Vajrayana" title="Vajrayana">Vajrayana</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zen" title="Zen">Zen</a></li></ul> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Christianity" title="Christianity">Christianity</a></dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Adventism" title="Adventism">Adventism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Anglicanism" title="Anglicanism">Anglicanism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Armenian_Apostolic_Church" title="Armenian Apostolic Church">Armenian Apostolic Church</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Baptists" title="Baptists">Baptists</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Calvinism" class="mw-redirect" title="Calvinism">Calvinism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Catholic_Church" title="Catholic Church">Catholic Church</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Coptic_Orthodox_Church" title="Coptic Orthodox Church">Coptic Orthodoxy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church" title="Eastern Orthodox Church">Eastern Orthodoxy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ethiopian_Orthodox_Tewahedo_Church" title="Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church">Ethiopian Orthodoxy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Church" title="Greek Orthodox Church">Greek Orthodoxy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lutheranism" title="Lutheranism">Lutheranism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Methodism" title="Methodism">Methodism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nestorianism" title="Nestorianism">Nestorianism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Oriental_Orthodoxy" class="mw-redirect" title="Oriental Orthodoxy">Oriental Orthodoxy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pentecostalism" title="Pentecostalism">Pentecostalism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Protestantism" title="Protestantism">Protestantism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Quakers" title="Quakers">Quakers</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Church" title="Russian Orthodox Church">Russian Orthodoxy</a></li></ul> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Hinduism" title="Hinduism">Hinduism</a></dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Hindu_denominations" title="Hindu denominations">Hindu denominations</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shaivism" title="Shaivism">Shaivism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shaktism" title="Shaktism">Shaktism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Smartism" class="mw-redirect" title="Smartism">Smartism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Vaishnavism" title="Vaishnavism">Vaishnavism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ayyavazhi" title="Ayyavazhi">Ayyavazhi</a></li></ul> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Islam" title="Islam">Islam</a></dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ahmadiyya" title="Ahmadiyya">Ahmadiyya</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ibadi" class="mw-redirect" title="Ibadi">Ibadi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mahdavia" class="mw-redirect" title="Mahdavia">Mahdavia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Non-denominational_Muslim" title="Non-denominational Muslim">Non-denominational</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Quranism" title="Quranism">Quranists</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shia_Islam" title="Shia Islam">Shia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sufism" title="Sufism">Sufism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sunni_Islam" title="Sunni Islam">Sunni</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yazd%C3%A2nism" title="Yazdânism">Yazdânism</a></li></ul> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Judaism" title="Judaism">Judaism</a></dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Conservative_Judaism" title="Conservative Judaism">Conservative</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Haredi_Judaism" title="Haredi Judaism">Haredi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hasidic_Judaism" title="Hasidic Judaism">Hasidic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Haymanot" title="Haymanot">Haymanot</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Karaite_Judaism" title="Karaite Judaism">Karaite</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism" title="Orthodox Judaism">Orthodox</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Reform_Judaism" title="Reform Judaism">Reform</a></li></ul> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Jainism" title="Jainism">Jainism</a></dt></dl> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Digambara" title="Digambara">Digambara</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/%C5%9Avet%C4%81mbara" title="Śvetāmbara">Śvetāmbara</a></li></ul> <dl><dt><a href="/wiki/Sikhism" title="Sikhism">Sikhism</a></dt></dl></div></div></td> </tr><tr><td class="sidebar-below" style="padding-top:0.15em;"> <a href="/wiki/Social_anthropology" title="Social anthropology">Social</a> and <a href="/wiki/Cultural_anthropology" title="Cultural anthropology">cultural anthropology</a></td></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-navbar"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1129693374" /><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1239400231">.mw-parser-output .navbar{display:inline;font-size:88%;font-weight:normal}.mw-parser-output .navbar-collapse{float:left;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .navbar-boxtext{word-spacing:0}.mw-parser-output .navbar ul{display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;line-height:inherit}.mw-parser-output .navbar-brackets::before{margin-right:-0.125em;content:"[ "}.mw-parser-output .navbar-brackets::after{margin-left:-0.125em;content:" ]"}.mw-parser-output .navbar li{word-spacing:-0.125em}.mw-parser-output .navbar a>span,.mw-parser-output .navbar a>abbr{text-decoration:inherit}.mw-parser-output .navbar-mini abbr{font-variant:small-caps;border-bottom:none;text-decoration:none;cursor:inherit}.mw-parser-output .navbar-ct-full{font-size:114%;margin:0 7em}.mw-parser-output .navbar-ct-mini{font-size:114%;margin:0 4em}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .navbar li a abbr{color:var(--color-base)!important}@media(prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .navbar li a abbr{color:var(--color-base)!important}}@media print{.mw-parser-output .navbar{display:none!important}}</style><div class="navbar plainlinks hlist navbar-mini"><ul><li class="nv-view"><a href="/wiki/Template:Anthropology_of_religion" title="Template:Anthropology of religion"><abbr title="View this template">v</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-talk"><a href="/wiki/Template_talk:Anthropology_of_religion" title="Template talk:Anthropology of religion"><abbr title="Discuss this template">t</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-edit"><a href="/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:Anthropology_of_religion" title="Special:EditPage/Template:Anthropology of religion"><abbr title="Edit this template">e</abbr></a></li></ul></div></td></tr></tbody></table> <p><b>Myth and ritual</b> are two central components of religious practice. Although <a href="/wiki/Myth" title="Myth">myth</a> and <a href="/wiki/Ritual" title="Ritual">ritual</a> are commonly united as parts of <a href="/wiki/Religion" title="Religion">religion</a>, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars. One of the approaches to this problem is "the myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory," held notably by the so-called <a href="/wiki/Cambridge_Ritualists" title="Cambridge Ritualists">Cambridge Ritualists</a>, which holds that "myth does not stand by itself but is tied to ritual."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal61_1-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal61-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> This theory is still disputed; many scholars now believe that myth and ritual share common <a href="/wiki/Paradigmatic_analysis" title="Paradigmatic analysis">paradigms</a>, but not that one developed from the other.<sup id="cite_ref-Meletinsky117_2-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Meletinsky117-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <meta property="mw:PageProp/toc" /> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Overview">Overview</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Overview"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The "<a href="/wiki/Myth_and_ritual_school" class="mw-redirect" title="Myth and ritual school">myth and ritual school</a>" is the name given to a series of authors who have focused their <a href="/wiki/Philological" class="mw-redirect" title="Philological">philological</a> studies on the "ritual purposes of myths."<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Some of these scholars (e.g., <a href="/wiki/W._Robertson-Smith" class="mw-redirect" title="W. Robertson-Smith">W. Robertson-Smith</a>, <a href="/wiki/James_George_Frazer" title="James George Frazer">James George Frazer</a>, <a href="/wiki/Jane_Ellen_Harrison" title="Jane Ellen Harrison">Jane Ellen Harrison</a>, <a href="/wiki/S._H._Hooke" title="S. H. Hooke">S. H. Hooke</a>) supported the "primacy of ritual" hypothesis, which claimed that "every myth is derived from a particular ritual and that the <a href="/wiki/Syntagmatic" class="mw-redirect" title="Syntagmatic">syntagmatic</a> quality of myth is a reproduction of the succession of ritual act."<sup id="cite_ref-Meletinsky117_2-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Meletinsky117-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Historically, the important approaches to the study of <a href="/wiki/Mythological" class="mw-redirect" title="Mythological">mythological</a> thinking have been those of <a href="/wiki/Giambattista_Vico" title="Giambattista Vico">Vico</a>, <a href="/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_Joseph_Schelling" title="Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling">Schelling</a>, <a href="/wiki/Schiller" class="mw-redirect" title="Schiller">Schiller</a>, <a href="/wiki/Carl_Jung" title="Carl Jung">Jung</a>, <a href="/wiki/Freud" class="mw-redirect" title="Freud">Freud</a>, <a href="/wiki/Lucien_L%C3%A9vy-Bruhl" title="Lucien Lévy-Bruhl">Lucien Lévy-Bruhl</a>, <a href="/wiki/L%C3%A9vi-Strauss" class="mw-redirect" title="Lévi-Strauss">Lévi-Strauss</a>, <a href="/wiki/Northrop_Frye" title="Northrop Frye">Frye</a>, the <a href="/w/index.php?title=Soviet_school&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Soviet school (page does not exist)">Soviet school</a>, and the Myth and Ritual School.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>In the 1930s, Soviet researchers such as <a href="/w/index.php?title=Jakov_E._Golosovker&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jakov E. Golosovker (page does not exist)">Jakov E. Golosovker</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=Frank-Kamenecky&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Frank-Kamenecky (page does not exist)">Frank-Kamenecky</a>, <a href="/wiki/Olga_Freidenberg" title="Olga Freidenberg">Olga Freidenberg</a>, <a href="/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin" title="Mikhail Bakhtin">Mikhail Bakhtin</a>, "grounded the study of myth and ritual in <a href="/wiki/Folklore" title="Folklore">folklore</a> and in the <a href="/wiki/World_view" class="mw-redirect" title="World view">world view</a> of <a href="/wiki/Popular_culture" title="Popular culture">popular culture</a>."<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Following World War II, the <a href="/wiki/Semantic" class="mw-redirect" title="Semantic">semantic</a> study of myth and ritual, particularly by <a href="/wiki/Bill_Stanner" class="mw-redirect" title="Bill Stanner">Bill Stanner</a> and <a href="/wiki/Victor_Turner" title="Victor Turner">Victor Turner</a>, has supported a connection between myth and ritual. However, it has not supported the notion that one preceded and produced the other, as supporters of the "primacy of ritual" hypothesis would claim. According to the currently dominant scholarly view, the link between myth and ritual is that they share common <a href="/wiki/Paradigmatic_analysis" title="Paradigmatic analysis">paradigms</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Meletinsky117_2-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Meletinsky117-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Ritual_from_myth">Ritual from myth</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Ritual from myth"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>One possibility immediately presents itself: perhaps ritual arose from myth. Many religious rituals—notably <a href="/wiki/Passover" title="Passover">Passover</a> among Jews, <a href="/wiki/Christmas" title="Christmas">Christmas</a> and <a href="/wiki/Easter" title="Easter">Easter</a> among Christians, and the <a href="/wiki/Hajj" title="Hajj">Hajj</a> among Muslims—commemorate, or involve commemoration of, events in religious literature. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="E._B._Tylor">E. B. Tylor</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: E. B. Tylor"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Leaving the sphere of historical religions, the ritual-from-myth approach often sees the relationship between myth and ritual as analogous to the relationship between science and technology. The pioneering anthropologist <a href="/wiki/Edward_Burnett_Tylor" title="Edward Burnett Tylor">Edward Burnett Tylor</a> is the classic exponent of this view.<sup id="cite_ref-Segal63_6-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal63-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> He saw myth as an attempt to explain the world: for him, myth was a sort of proto-science.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Ritual is secondary: just as technology is an application of science, so ritual is an application of myth—an attempt to produce certain effects, given the supposed nature of the world: "For Tylor, myth functions to explain the world as an end in itself. Ritual applies that explanation to control the world."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal63_6-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal63-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> A ritual always presupposes a preexisting myth: in short, myth gives rise to ritual. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Myth_from_ritual_(primacy_of_ritual)"><span id="Myth_from_ritual_.28primacy_of_ritual.29"></span>Myth from ritual (primacy of ritual)</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: Myth from ritual (primacy of ritual)"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Against the intuitive idea that ritual reenacts myth or applies mythical theories, many 19th-century anthropologists supported the opposite position: that myth and religious doctrine result from ritual. This is known as the "primacy of ritual" hypothesis. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="William_Robertson_Smith">William Robertson Smith</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: William Robertson Smith"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>This view was asserted for the first time by the bible scholar <a href="/wiki/William_Robertson_Smith" title="William Robertson Smith">William Robertson Smith</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Meletinsky19_8-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Meletinsky19-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The scholar <a href="/wiki/Meletinsky" class="mw-redirect" title="Meletinsky">Meletinsky</a> notes that Smith introduced the concept "dogmatically."<sup id="cite_ref-Meletinsky19_8-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Meletinsky19-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In his <i>Lectures on the Religion of the Semites</i> (1889), Smith draws a distinction between ancient and modern religion: in modern religion, doctrine is central; in ancient religion, ritual is central.<sup id="cite_ref-Segal61_1-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal61-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> On the whole, Smith argues, ancients tended to be conservative with regard to rituals, making sure to pass them down faithfully. In contrast, the myths that justified those rituals could change. In fact, according to Smith, many of the myths that have come down to us arose "after the original, nonmythic reason [...] for the ritual had somehow been forgotten."<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>As an example, Smith gives the worship of <a href="/wiki/Adonis" title="Adonis">Adonis</a>. Worshipers mourned Adonis's mythical death in a ritual that coincided with the annual withering of the vegetation. According to Smith, the ritual mourning originally had a nonmythical explanation: with the annual withering of plants, "the worshippers lament out of natural sympathy [...] just as modern man is touched with melancholy at the falling of autumn leaves."<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-10"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>10<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Once worshipers forgot the original, nonmythical reason for the mourning ritual, they created "the myth of Adonis as the dying and rising god of vegetation [...] to account for the ritual."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal63_6-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal63-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Stanley_Edgar_Hyman">Stanley Edgar Hyman</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: Stanley Edgar Hyman"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>In his essay "The Ritual View of Myth and the Mythic", (1955) Stanley Edgar Hyman makes an argument similar to Smith's: </p> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1244412712">.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 32px}.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;margin-top:0}@media(min-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .templatequotecite{padding-left:1.6em}}</style><blockquote class="templatequote"><p>"In Fiji [...] the physical peculiarities of an island with only one small patch of fertile soil are explained by a myth telling how Mberewalaki, a culture hero, flew into a passion at the misbehavior of the people of the island and hurled all the soil he was bringing them in a heap, instead of laying it out properly. Hocart points out that the myth is used aetiologically to explain the nature of the island, but did not originate in that attempt. The adventures of Mberewalaki originated, like all mythology, in ritual performance, and most of the lore of Hocart's Fijian informants consisted of such ritual myths. When they get interested in the topology of the island or are asked about it, Hocart argues, they do precisely what we would do, which is ransack their lore for an answer."<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-11"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>11<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></p></blockquote> <p>Here Hyman argues against the etiological interpretation of myth, which says that myths originated from attempts to explain the origins (<a href="/wiki/Etiology" title="Etiology">etiologies</a>) of natural phenomena. If true, the etiological interpretation would make myth older than, or at least independent of, ritual—as E.B. Tylor believes it is. But Hyman argues that people use myth for etiological purposes only after myth is already in place: in short, myths didn't originate as explanations of natural phenomena. Further, Hyman argues, myth originated from ritual performance. Thus, ritual came before myth, and myth depends on ritual for its existence until it gains an independent status as an etiological story. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="James_Frazer">James Frazer</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=7" title="Edit section: James Frazer"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The famous anthropologist <a href="/wiki/Sir_James_George_Frazer" class="mw-redirect" title="Sir James George Frazer">Sir James George Frazer</a> claimed that myth emerges from ritual during the natural process of religious evolution. Many of his ideas were inspired by those of <a href="/wiki/Robertson_Smith" class="mw-redirect" title="Robertson Smith">Robertson Smith</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Meletinsky19_8-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Meletinsky19-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In <i><a href="/wiki/The_Golden_Bough" title="The Golden Bough">The Golden Bough</a></i> (1890; 1906–1915), Frazer famously argues that man progresses from belief in magic (and rituals based on magic), through belief in religion, to science.<sup id="cite_ref-Frazer711_12-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Frazer711-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> His argument is as follows. </p><p>Man starts out with a reflexive belief in a natural law. He thinks he can influence nature by correctly applying this law: "In magic man depends on his own strength to meet the difficulties and dangers that beset him on every side. He believes in a certain established order of nature on which he can surely count, and which he can manipulate for his own ends."<sup id="cite_ref-Frazer711_12-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Frazer711-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>However, the natural law man imagines—namely, magic—does not work. When he sees that his pretended natural law is false, man gives up the idea of a knowable natural law and "throws himself humbly on the mercy of certain great invisible beings behind the veil of nature, to whom he now ascribes all those far-reaching powers which he once arrogated to himself."<sup id="cite_ref-Frazer711_12-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Frazer711-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In other words, when man loses his belief in magic, he justifies his formerly magical rituals by saying that they reenact myths or honor mythical beings. According to Frazer, </p> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1244412712" /><blockquote class="templatequote"><p>"myth changes while custom remains constant; men continue to do what their fathers did before them, though the reasons on which their fathers acted have been long forgotten. The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice."<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-13"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>13<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></p></blockquote> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Jane_Ellen_Harrison_and_S._H._Hooke">Jane Ellen Harrison and S. H. Hooke</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: Jane Ellen Harrison and S. H. Hooke"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The classicist <a href="/wiki/Jane_Ellen_Harrison" title="Jane Ellen Harrison">Jane Ellen Harrison</a> and the biblical scholar <a href="/wiki/S._H._Hooke" title="S. H. Hooke">S. H. Hooke</a> regarded myth as intimately connected to ritual. However, "against Smith," they "vigorously deny" that myth's main purpose is to justify a ritual by giving an account of how it first arose (e.g., justifying the Adonis worshipers' ritual mourning by attributing it to Adonis's mythical death).<sup id="cite_ref-Segal71_14-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal71-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Instead, these scholars think a myth is largely just a narrative description of a corresponding ritual: according to Harrison, "the primary meaning of myth ... is the spoken correlative of the acted rite, the thing done."<sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-15"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>15<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Harrison and Hooke gave an explanation for why ancients would feel the need to describe the ritual in a narrative form. They suggest that the spoken word, like the acted ritual, was considered to have magical potency: "The spoken word had the efficacy of an act."<sup id="cite_ref-16" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-16"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>16<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Like Frazer, Harrison believed that myths could arise as the initial reason a ritual was forgotten or became diluted. As an example, she cited rituals that center on the annual renewal of vegetation. Such rituals often involve a participant who undergoes a staged death and resurrection. Harrison argues that the ritual, although "performed annually, was exclusively initiatory";<sup id="cite_ref-Segal71_14-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal71-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> it was performed on people to initiate them into their roles as full-standing members of society. At this early point, the "god" was simply "the projection of the euphoria produced by the ritual."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal71_14-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal71-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Later, however, this euphoria became personified as a distinct god, and this god later became the god of vegetation, for "just as the initiates symbolically died and were reborn as fully fledged members of society, so the god of vegetation and in turn crops literally died and were reborn."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal71_14-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal71-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In time, people forgot the ritual's initiatory function and only remembered its status as a commemoration of the Adonis myth.<sup id="cite_ref-Segal71_14-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal71-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Myth_and_ritual_as_non-coextensive">Myth and ritual as non-coextensive</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: Myth and ritual as non-coextensive"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Not all students of mythology think ritual emerged from myth or myth emerged from ritual: some allow myths and rituals a greater degree of freedom from one another. Although myths and rituals often appear together, these scholars do not think every myth has or had a corresponding ritual, or vice versa. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Walter_Burkert">Walter Burkert</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=10" title="Edit section: Walter Burkert"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The classicist <a href="/wiki/Walter_Burkert" title="Walter Burkert">Walter Burkert</a> believes myths and rituals were originally independent.<sup id="cite_ref-Segal76_17-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal76-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>17<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> When myths and rituals do come together, he argues, they do so to reinforce each other. A myth that tells how the gods established a ritual reinforces that ritual by giving it divine status: "Do this because the gods did or do it."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal76_17-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal76-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>17<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> A ritual based on a mythical event makes the story of that event more than a mere myth: the myth becomes more important because it narrates an event whose imitation is considered sacred.<sup id="cite_ref-Segal76_17-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal76-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>17<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Furthermore, Burkert argues that myth and ritual together serve a "socializing function."<sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-18"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>18<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> As an example, Burkert gives the example of hunting rituals. Hunting, Burkert argues, took on a sacred, ritualistic aura once it ceased to be necessary for survival: "Hunting lost its basic function with the emergence of agriculture some ten thousand years ago. But hunting ritual had become so important that it could not be given up."<sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-19"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>19<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> By performing the ritual of hunting together, an ancient society bonded itself together as a group, and also provided a way for its members to vent their anxieties over their own aggressiveness and mortality.<sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-20"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>20<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Bronisław_Malinowski"><span id="Bronis.C5.82aw_Malinowski"></span>Bronisław Malinowski</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=11" title="Edit section: Bronisław Malinowski"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Like William Smith, the anthropologist <a href="/wiki/Bronis%C5%82aw_Malinowski" title="Bronisław Malinowski">Bronisław Malinowski</a> argued in his essay <i>Myth in Primitive Psychology</i> (1926) that myths function as fictitious accounts of the origin of rituals, thereby providing a justification for those rituals: myth "gives rituals a hoary past and thereby sanctions them."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal2004p73-21"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>21<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> However, Malinowski also points out that many cultural practices besides ritual have related myths: for Malinowski, "myth and ritual are therefore not coextensive."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal2004p73-21"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>21<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In other words, not all myths are outgrowths of ritual, and not all rituals are outgrowths of myth. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Mircea_Eliade">Mircea Eliade</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=12" title="Edit section: Mircea Eliade"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Like Malinowski, the religious scholar <a href="/wiki/Mircea_Eliade" title="Mircea Eliade">Mircea Eliade</a> thinks one important function of myth is to provide an explanation for ritual. Eliade notes that, in many societies, rituals are considered important precisely because they were established by the mythical gods or heroes.<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-22"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>22<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Eliade approvingly quotes Malinowski's claim that a myth is "a narrative resurrection of a primeval reality."<sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-23"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>23<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Eliade adds: "Because myth relates the <i>gesta</i> [deeds] of Supernatural Beings [...] it becomes the exemplary model for all significant human actions."<sup id="cite_ref-24" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-24"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>24<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Traditional man sees mythical figures as models to be imitated. Therefore, societies claim that many of their rituals were established by mythical figures, thereby making the rituals seem all the more important. However, also like Malinowski, Eliade notes that societies use myths to sanction many kinds of activities, not just rituals: "For him, too, then, myth and ritual are not coextensive."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal2004p73-21"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>21<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Eliade goes beyond Malinowski by giving an explanation for why myth can confer such an importance upon ritual: according to Eliade, "when [ritually] [re-]enacted myth acts as a time machine, carrying one back to the time of the myth and thereby bringing one closer to god."<sup id="cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Segal2004p73-21"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>21<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> But, again, for Eliade myth and ritual are not coextensive: the same return to the mythical age can be achieved simply by retelling a myth, without any ritual reenactment. According to Eliade, traditional man sees both myths and rituals as vehicles for "eternal return" to the mythical age (see <a href="/wiki/Eternal_return_(Eliade)" title="Eternal return (Eliade)">Eternal return (Eliade)</a>): </p> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1244412712" /><blockquote class="templatequote"><p>"In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic <a href="/wiki/Hero" title="Hero">hero</a>, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time."<sup id="cite_ref-25" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-25"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>25<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></p></blockquote> <p>Recital of myths and enactment of rituals serve a common purpose: they are two different means to remain in sacred time. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=13" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p><b>General</b> </p> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Comparative_mythology" title="Comparative mythology">Comparative mythology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mythology" class="mw-redirect" title="Mythology">Mythology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ritology" title="Ritology">Ritology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Religion_and_mythology" title="Religion and mythology">Religion and mythology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Magic_and_religion" title="Magic and religion">Magic and religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Etiology" title="Etiology">Etiology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Anthropology_of_religion" title="Anthropology of religion">Anthropology of religion</a></li></ul> <p><b>People</b> </p> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Walter_Burkert" title="Walter Burkert">Walter Burkert</a></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Notes">Notes</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=14" title="Edit section: Notes"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1239543626">.mw-parser-output .reflist{margin-bottom:0.5em;list-style-type:decimal}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .reflist{font-size:90%}}.mw-parser-output .reflist .references{font-size:100%;margin-bottom:0;list-style-type:inherit}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-2{column-width:30em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-3{column-width:25em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns{margin-top:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns ol{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns li{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-alpha{list-style-type:upper-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-roman{list-style-type:upper-roman}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-alpha{list-style-type:lower-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-greek{list-style-type:lower-greek}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-roman{list-style-type:lower-roman}</style><div class="reflist reflist-columns references-column-width reflist-columns-2"> <ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-Segal61-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Segal61_1-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal61_1-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal 2004, p. 61</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Meletinsky117-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Meletinsky117_2-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Meletinsky117_2-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Meletinsky117_2-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Meletinsky, p. 117</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Encyclopædia Britannica entries on <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-400991/Myth-and-Ritual-School">Myth and Ritual School (religion)</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Guy Lanoue, Foreword to Meletinsky, p. viii</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-5">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Meletinsky, pp. 109–110</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Segal63-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Segal63_6-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal63_6-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal63_6-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal 2004, p. 63</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-7">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal, p. 14</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Meletinsky19-8"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Meletinsky19_8-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Meletinsky19_8-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Meletinsky19_8-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Meletinsky pp. 19–20</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-9"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-9">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal, p. 62</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-10"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-10">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Smith, p. 392</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-11"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-11">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>The Journal of American Folklore</i>, Vol. 68, No. 270, <i>Myth: A Symposium</i> (1955), p. 91.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Frazer711-12"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Frazer711_12-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Frazer711_12-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Frazer711_12-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Frazer, p. 711</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-13"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-13">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Frazer, p. 477</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Segal71-14"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Segal71_14-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal71_14-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal71_14-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal71_14-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal71_14-4"><sup><i><b>e</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal 2004, p. 71</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-15"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-15">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Harrison; quoted in Segal (no specific text cited), p. 72</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-16"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-16">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Hooke; quoted in Segal (no specific text cited), p. 72</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Segal76-17"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Segal76_17-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal76_17-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal76_17-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal 2004, p. 76</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-18"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-18">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal, p. 77</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-19"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-19">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Burkert (1979), p. 55</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-20"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-20">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal, p. 78</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Segal2004p73-21"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Segal2004p73_21-3"><sup><i><b>d</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Segal 2004, p. 73</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-22"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-22">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Eliade, "Myth and Reality," p. 7</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-23"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-23">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Malinowski, "Myth in Primitive Psychology" (1926; reprinted in "Magic, Science and Religion" [New York: 1955], pp. 101, 108), quoted in Eliade, "Myth and Reality," p. 20</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-24"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-24">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Eliade, "Myth and Reality," p. 6</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-25"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-25">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Eliade, "Myths, Dreams and Mysteries," p. 23</span> </li> </ol></div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=15" title="Edit section: References"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>Burkert, W. (1979). <i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=APcX1KKHF9wC">Structure and history in Greek mythology and ritual</a></i>. Sather classical lectures, v. 47. Berkeley: University of California Press</li> <li>Eliade, Mircea: <ul><li><i>Myth and Reality</i>. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.</li> <li><i>Myths, Dreams and Mysteries</i>. Trans. Philip Mairet. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.</li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/James_G._Frazer" class="mw-redirect" title="James G. Frazer">Frazer, James G.</a> <i><a href="/wiki/The_Golden_Bough" title="The Golden Bough">The Golden Bough</a></i>. New York: Macmillan, 1922.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Eleazar_Moiseevich_Meletinsky" class="mw-redirect" title="Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinsky">Meletinsky, Eleazar Moiseevich</a> <i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=E5oa-sE8FzYC">The Poetics of Myth</a></i> (Translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky, foreword by Guy Lanoue) 2000 Routledge <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238218222">.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free.id-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited.id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration.id-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription.id-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-size:contain;padding:0 1em 0 0}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#085;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}</style><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-415-92898-2" title="Special:BookSources/0-415-92898-2">0-415-92898-2</a></li> <li>Sebeok, Thomas A. (Editor). <i>Myth: A Symposium</i>. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958.</li> <li>Segal, Robert A. <i>Myth: A Very Short Introduction</i>. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.</li> <li>Smith, William Robertson. <i>Lectures on the Religion of the Semites</i>. First Series, 1st edition. Edinburgh: Black, 1889. Lecture 1.</li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Further_reading">Further reading</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Myth_and_ritual&action=edit&section=16" title="Edit section: Further reading"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>Ackerman, Robert (2002) <i><a href="/w/index.php?title=The_Myth_and_Ritual_School&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="The Myth and Ritual School (page does not exist)">The Myth and Ritual School</a>: J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists</i>, Routledge, <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222" /><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-415-93963-1" title="Special:BookSources/0-415-93963-1">0-415-93963-1</a>.</li> <li>Burkert, W. (1983) <i><a href="/wiki/Homo_necans" class="mw-redirect" title="Homo necans">Homo necans</a>: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth</i>, trans. Peter Bing, Berkeley: University of California Press. <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222" /><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-520-03650-6" title="Special:BookSources/0-520-03650-6">0-520-03650-6</a>.</li> <li>Burkert, W. (2001). <i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=awwccCCL4YMC">Savage energies: lessons of myth and ritual in ancient Greece</a></i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.</li> <li>Kwang-chih Chang, <i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=91wi7XDF7ywC">Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China</a></i>. 1983.</li> <li>Segal, Robert A. (1998). <i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4_p4yf48N5QC">The myth and ritual theory: an anthology</a></i>. Malden, Mass: Blackwell.</li> <li>Watts, A. (1968). <i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SysVuR-3bjcC">Myth and ritual in Christianity</a></i>. Boston: Beacon Press.</li> <li>Clyde Kluckhohn, <i>Myths and Rituals: A General Theory</i>. The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1942), pp. 45–79</li> <li>Lord Raglan, <i>Myth and Ritual</i>. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 68, No. 270, Myth: A Symposium (Oct.–Dec., 1955), pp. 454–461 doi 10.2307/536770</li> <li>WG Doty, <i>Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals</i>. University of Alabama Press, 1986.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Stephanie_W._Jamison" title="Stephanie W. Jamison">Stephanie W Jamison</a>, <i>The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India</i>. 1991.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Christopher_A._Faraone" title="Christopher A. Faraone">Christopher A. Faraone</a>, <i>Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual</i>. 1992.</li> <li>R Stivers, <i>Evil in modern myth and ritual</i>. University of Georgia Press Athens, Ga., 1982</li> <li>SH Hooke, <i>The Myth and Ritual Pattern of the Ancient East</i>. Myth and Ritual, 1933.</li> <li>HS Versnel, <i> Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual</i>. Brill, 1993.</li> <li>Barthes, Roland, <i><a href="/wiki/Mythologies_(book)" title="Mythologies (book)">Mythologies</a></i> (Paladin, 1972, London) translated by Annette Lavers</li> <li>Wise, R. Todd, The Great Vision of Black Elk as Literary Ritual, in <i>Black Elk Reader</i>, Syracuse University Press, June 2000.</li></ul> <div class="navbox-styles"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1129693374" /><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1236075235">.mw-parser-output .navbox{box-sizing:border-box;border:1px solid #a2a9b1;width:100%;clear:both;font-size:88%;text-align:center;padding:1px;margin:1em auto 0}.mw-parser-output .navbox .navbox{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .navbox+.navbox,.mw-parser-output .navbox+.navbox-styles+.navbox{margin-top:-1px}.mw-parser-output .navbox-inner,.mw-parser-output .navbox-subgroup{width:100%}.mw-parser-output .navbox-group,.mw-parser-output .navbox-title,.mw-parser-output .navbox-abovebelow{padding:0.25em 1em;line-height:1.5em;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .navbox-group{white-space:nowrap;text-align:right}.mw-parser-output .navbox,.mw-parser-output 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colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Asian0" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em">Asian</div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ainu_religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Ainu religion">Ainu</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Altaic_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Altaic religion (page does not exist)">Altaic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Manchu_shamanism" title="Manchu shamanism">Manchu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mongolian_shamanism" title="Mongolian shamanism">Mongolian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tengrism" title="Tengrism">Tengrism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Turkic_mythology" title="Turkic mythology">Turkic</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Austroasiatic_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Austroasiatic religion (page does not exist)">Austroasiatic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sarnaism" title="Sarnaism">Sarnaism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Vietnamese_folk_religion" title="Vietnamese folk religion">Vietnamese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mythology_of_Indonesia" title="Mythology of Indonesia">Indonesia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Parmalim" title="Parmalim">Parmalim</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kaharingan" title="Kaharingan">Kaharingan</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Momolianism" class="mw-redirect" title="Momolianism">Momolianism</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kejaw%C3%A8n" title="Kejawèn">Kejawèn</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Malaysian_folk_religion" title="Malaysian folk religion">Malay</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Indigenous_Philippine_folk_religions" title="Indigenous Philippine folk religions">Philippine</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Indigenous_religious_beliefs_of_the_Tagalog_people" class="mw-redirect" title="Indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagalog people">Tagalog</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Marapu" title="Marapu">Marapu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sunda_Wiwitan" title="Sunda Wiwitan">Sunda Wiwitan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_folk_religion" title="Chinese folk religion">Chinese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hinduism" title="Hinduism">Hinduism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hindu_mythology" title="Hindu mythology">Hindu mythology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dravidian_folk_religion" title="Dravidian folk religion">Dravidian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Tamil_mythology" title="Tamil mythology">Tamil</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kalash_religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Kalash religion">Kalash</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Punjabi_folk_religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Punjabi folk religion">Punjabi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Historical_Vedic_religion" title="Historical Vedic religion">Vedic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shinto" title="Shinto">Shinto</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ryukyuan_religion" title="Ryukyuan religion">Ryukyuan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Korean_shamanism" title="Korean shamanism">Korean</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Miao_folk_religion" title="Miao folk religion">Miao</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Tai_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tai religion (page does not exist)">Tai</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ahom_religion" title="Ahom religion">Ahom</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mo_(religion)" title="Mo (religion)">Mo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tai_folk_religion" title="Tai folk religion">Satsana Phi</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Tibeto-Burman_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tibeto-Burman religion (page does not exist)">Tibeto-Burmese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bathouism" title="Bathouism">Bathouism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Benzhuism" title="Benzhuism">Benzhuism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bimoism" title="Bimoism">Bimoism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bon" title="Bon">Bon</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mun_(religion)" title="Mun (religion)">Bongthingism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Burmese_folk_religion" title="Burmese folk religion">Burmese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Donyi-Polo" title="Donyi-Polo">Donyi-Polo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Heraka" class="mw-redirect" title="Heraka">Heraka</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kirat_Mundhum" title="Kirat Mundhum">Kiratism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Qiang_folk_religion" title="Qiang folk religion">Qiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sanamahism" title="Sanamahism">Sanamahism</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="European0" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em">European</div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Albanian_folk_beliefs" class="mw-redirect" title="Albanian folk beliefs">Albanian</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Anatolian_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anatolian religion (page does not exist)">Anatolian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Hittite_mythology_and_religion" title="Hittite mythology and religion">Hittite</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lydian_religion" title="Lydian religion">Lydian</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Phrygian_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Phrygian religion (page does not exist)">Phrygian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Armenian_mythology" title="Armenian mythology">Armenian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Baltic_mythology" title="Baltic mythology">Baltic</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Prussian_mythology" title="Prussian mythology">Old Prussian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Latvian_mythology" title="Latvian mythology">Latvian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lithuanian_mythology" title="Lithuanian mythology">Lithuanian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Basque_mythology" title="Basque mythology">Basque</a></li> <li>Caucasian <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Circassian_paganism" title="Circassian paganism">Circassian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Georgian_mythology" title="Georgian mythology">Georgian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ossetian_mythology" title="Ossetian mythology">Ossetian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Vainakh_religion" title="Vainakh religion">Vainakh</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Celtic_polytheism" class="mw-redirect" title="Celtic polytheism">Celtic</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Irish_mythology" title="Irish mythology">Irish</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Etruscan_religion" title="Etruscan religion">Etruscan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Germanic_paganism" title="Germanic paganism">Germanic</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_paganism" title="Anglo-Saxon paganism">Anglo-Saxon</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Frankish_mythology" class="mw-redirect" title="Frankish mythology">Frankish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Gothic_paganism" title="Gothic paganism">Gothic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Old_Norse_religion" title="Old Norse religion">Norse</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_Greek_religion" title="Ancient Greek religion">Greek</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Hellenistic_religion" title="Hellenistic religion">Hellenistic religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Greek_hero_cult" title="Greek hero cult">Hero cult</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries" title="Greco-Roman mysteries">Sacred mysteries</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries" title="Eleusinian Mysteries">Eleusinian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Orphism" title="Orphism">Orphic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Samothrace_temple_complex" title="Samothrace temple complex">Samothracian</a></li></ul></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Iberian_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Iberian religion (page does not exist)">Iberian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cantabrian_mythology" title="Cantabrian mythology">Cantabrian</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Castro_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Castro religion (page does not exist)">Castro</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Gallaecian_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Gallaecian religion (page does not exist)">Gallaecian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lusitanian_mythology" title="Lusitanian mythology">Lusitanian</a></li></ul></li> <li>Italic <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Camunni_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Camunni religion (page does not exist)">Camunnian</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Ligures_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ligures religion (page does not exist)">Ligurian</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Umbri_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Umbri religion (page does not exist)">Umbrian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Minoan_religion" title="Minoan religion">Minoan</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Nuragic_religion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nuragic religion (page does not exist)">Nuragic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Paleo-Balkan_mythology" title="Paleo-Balkan mythology">Paleo-Balkan</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dacian_religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Dacian religion">Dacian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Illyrian_religion" title="Illyrian religion">Illyrian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Thracian_religion" title="Thracian religion">Thracian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome" title="Religion in ancient Rome">Roman</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cybele" title="Cybele">Cybele</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Gallo-Roman_religion" title="Gallo-Roman religion">Gallo-Roman</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Roman_imperial_cult" title="Roman imperial cult">Imperial cult</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mithraism" title="Mithraism">Mithraism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mysteries_of_Isis" title="Mysteries of Isis">Mysteries of Isis</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Scythian_religion" title="Scythian religion">Scythian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Slavic_paganism" title="Slavic paganism">Slavic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Uralic_languages" title="Uralic languages">Uralic</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Baltic_Finnic_paganism" title="Baltic Finnic paganism">Baltic Finnic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hungarian_mythology" title="Hungarian mythology">Hungarian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mari_Native_Religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Mari Native Religion">Mari</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sami_shamanism" class="mw-redirect" title="Sami shamanism">Sami</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Middle-Eastern_and_North_African0" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em">Middle-Eastern and North African</div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Religions_of_the_ancient_Near_East" title="Religions of the ancient Near East">Ancient Near Eastern</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hurrian_religion" title="Hurrian religion">Hurrian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion" title="Ancient Egyptian religion">Egyptian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Kushite_religion" title="Kushite religion">Nubian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_Mesopotamian_religion" title="Ancient Mesopotamian religion">Mesopotamian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Babylonian_religion" title="Babylonian religion">Babylonian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sumerian_religion" title="Sumerian religion">Sumerian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_Semitic_religion" title="Ancient Semitic religion">Semitic</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Religion_in_pre-Islamic_Arabia" title="Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia">Arabian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Canaanite_religion" title="Canaanite religion">Canaanite</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Iranian_religions" title="Iranian religions">Iranian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Persian_mythology" title="Persian mythology">Persian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Traditional_Berber_religion" title="Traditional Berber religion">Berber</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Punic_religion" title="Punic religion">Punic</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Oceanian_and_Pacific_Islander0" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em">Oceanian and Pacific Islander</div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_religion_and_mythology" title="Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology">Australian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Melanesian_mythology" title="Melanesian mythology">Melanesian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Micronesian_mythology" title="Micronesian mythology">Micronesian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nauruan_indigenous_religion" title="Nauruan indigenous religion">Nauruan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Papuan_mythology" title="Papuan mythology">Papuan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Polynesian_mythology" title="Polynesian mythology">Polynesian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cook_Islands_mythology" title="Cook Islands mythology">Cook Islander</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hawaiian_religion" title="Hawaiian religion">Hawaiian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Religion_of_M%C4%81ori_people" title="Religion of Māori people">Māori</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Rapa_Nui_mythology" title="Rapa Nui mythology">Rapa Nui</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tahiti_and_Society_Islands_mythology" title="Tahiti and Society Islands mythology">Tahitian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tongan_religion" title="Tongan religion">Tongan</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Sub-Saharan_African0" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Traditional_African_religions" title="Traditional African religions">Sub-Saharan African</a></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Akan_religion" title="Akan religion">Akan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bantu_mythology" class="mw-redirect" title="Bantu mythology">Bantu</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Bushongo_mythology" class="mw-redirect" title="Bushongo mythology">Bushongo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kongo_religion" title="Kongo religion">Kongo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lozi_mythology" title="Lozi mythology">Lozi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zulu_traditional_religion" title="Zulu traditional religion">Zulu</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dahomean_religion" title="Dahomean religion">Dahomean</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dinka_religion" title="Dinka religion">Dinka</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Efik_mythology" title="Efik mythology">Efik</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hausa_animism" title="Hausa animism">Hausa</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lugbara_mythology" title="Lugbara mythology">Lugbara</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Maasai_mythology" class="mw-redirect" title="Maasai mythology">Maasai</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Malagasy_mythology" title="Malagasy mythology">Malagasy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mbuti_mythology" title="Mbuti mythology">Mbuti</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Odinani" class="mw-redirect" title="Odinani">Odinani</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/San_religion" title="San religion">San</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Serer_religion" title="Serer religion">Serer</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Somali_mythology" title="Somali mythology">Somali</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Modern_paganism" title="Modern paganism">Modern paganism</a> <br />(<a href="/wiki/List_of_modern_pagan_movements" title="List of modern pagan movements">movements</a>)</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"><div class="navbox-styles"></div><div role="navigation" class="navbox" aria-label="Navbox0" style="padding:3px"><table class="nowraplinks navbox-inner" style="border-spacing:0;background:transparent;color:inherit"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Ethnic0" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Ethnic_religion" title="Ethnic religion">Ethnic</a></div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li>African <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ausar_Auset_Society" title="Ausar Auset Society">Ausar Auset</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Godianism" title="Godianism">Godianism</a></li></ul></li> <li>American <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Mexicayotl" title="Mexicayotl">Mexicayotl</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Native_American_Church" title="Native American Church">Native American Church</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Armenian_Native_Faith" class="mw-redirect" title="Armenian Native Faith">Armenian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Baltic_neopaganism" title="Baltic neopaganism">Baltic</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dievtur%C4%ABba" title="Dievturība">Dievturība</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Romuva_(religion)" title="Romuva (religion)">Romuva</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Caucasian_neopaganism" title="Caucasian neopaganism">Caucasian</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Abkhaz_neopaganism" class="mw-redirect" title="Abkhaz neopaganism">Abkhaz</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Adyghe_Habze" class="mw-redirect" title="Adyghe Habze">Adyghe Habze</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Uatsdin" class="mw-redirect" title="Uatsdin">Uatsdin</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Celtic_Reconstructionist_Paganism" class="mw-redirect" title="Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism">Celtic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Church_of_the_Guanche_People" title="Church of the Guanche People">Canarian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Heathenry_(new_religious_movement)" title="Heathenry (new religious movement)">Heathenry</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hellenism_(religion)" class="mw-redirect" title="Hellenism (religion)">Hellenism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hindu_reform_movements" title="Hindu reform movements">Hindu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Roman_Polytheistic_Reconstructionism" class="mw-redirect" title="Roman Polytheistic Reconstructionism">Italo-Roman</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kemetism" title="Kemetism">Kemetism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zalmoxianism" title="Zalmoxianism">Zalmoxianism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Romani_folklore" title="Romani folklore">Romani</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Semitic_neopaganism" title="Semitic neopaganism">Semitic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Slavic_Native_Faith" title="Slavic Native Faith">Slavic</a></li> <li>Turko-Mongolic <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Burkhanism" title="Burkhanism">Burkhanism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Vattisen_Yaly" title="Vattisen Yaly">Vattisen Yaly</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Uralic_neopaganism" title="Uralic neopaganism">Uralic</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Estonian_neopaganism" title="Estonian neopaganism">Estonian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Finnish_neopaganism" class="mw-redirect" title="Finnish neopaganism">Finnish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hungarian_Native_Faith" title="Hungarian Native Faith">Hungarian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mordvin_Native_Religion" class="mw-redirect" title="Mordvin Native Religion">Mordvin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Udmurt_Vos" title="Udmurt Vos">Udmurt Vos</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Other0" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em">Other</div></th></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Neopagan_witchcraft" title="Neopagan witchcraft">Neopagan witchcraft</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cochrane%27s_Craft" title="Cochrane's Craft">Cochrane's Craft</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Feri_Tradition" title="Feri Tradition">Feri Tradition</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Stregheria" title="Stregheria">Stregheria</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wicca" title="Wicca">Wicca</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Druidry_(modern)" title="Druidry (modern)">Druidry</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/European_Congress_of_Ethnic_Religions" title="European Congress of Ethnic Religions">European Congress of Ethnic Religions</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Goddess_movement" title="Goddess movement">Goddess movement</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Neoshamanism" title="Neoshamanism">Neoshamanism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Polytheistic_reconstructionism" title="Polytheistic reconstructionism">Polytheistic reconstructionism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Secular_paganism" title="Secular paganism">Secular paganism</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%"><a class="mw-selflink selflink">Myth and ritual</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead" title="Veneration of the dead">Veneration of the dead</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bear_worship" title="Bear worship">Bear worship</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bl%C3%B3t" title="Blót">Blót</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tumulus" title="Tumulus">Tumulus</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dying_and_rising_deity" class="mw-redirect" title="Dying and rising deity">Dying and rising deity</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ethos" title="Ethos">Ethos</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Folklore" title="Folklore">Folklore</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Idolatry" title="Idolatry">Idolatry</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Magic_and_religion" title="Magic and religion">Magic and religion</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Megalith" title="Megalith">Megalith</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dolmen" title="Dolmen">Dolmen</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Menhir" title="Menhir">Menhir</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Stone_row" title="Stone row">Stone row</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Myth" title="Myth">Myth</a> <ul><li><a class="mw-selflink selflink">Myth and ritual</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mythology" class="mw-redirect" title="Mythology">Mythology</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Orthopraxy" title="Orthopraxy">Orthopraxy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Reincarnation" title="Reincarnation">Reincarnation</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Religion_and_mythology" title="Religion and mythology">Religion and mythology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ritual" title="Ritual">Ritual</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sacred_grove" title="Sacred grove">Sacred grove</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Holy_well" title="Holy well">Holy well</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sacrifice" title="Sacrifice">Sacrifice</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Animal_sacrifice" title="Animal sacrifice">animal</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Human_sacrifice" title="Human sacrifice">human</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Magic_(supernatural)" title="Magic (supernatural)">Supernatural magic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Trees_in_mythology" title="Trees in mythology">Trees in mythology</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Tree_of_life" title="Tree of life">Tree of life</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/World_tree" title="World tree">World tree</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Totem" title="Totem">Totem</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Virtue" title="Virtue">Virtue</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Witchcraft" title="Witchcraft">Witchcraft</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Animal_worship" title="Animal worship">Animal worship</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Christianization" title="Christianization">Christianization</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Christianity_and_paganism" title="Christianity and paganism">Christianity and paganism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Christianization_of_saints_and_feasts" title="Christianization of saints and feasts">Christianization of saints and feasts</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Constantinian_shift" title="Constantinian shift">Constantinian shift</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Neoplatonism" title="Neoplatonism">Neoplatonism</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Religio_licita" title="Religio licita">Religio licita</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Virtuous_pagan" title="Virtuous pagan">Virtuous pagan</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>    </div><noscript><img src="https://auth.wikimedia.org/loginwiki/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?useformat=desktop&type=1x1&usesul3=1" alt="" width="1" height="1" 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