commonsense explanations for the origin of each particular aspect
of our environment, but all these explanations do is "pass the
buck" to some other process or agent. However, people feel that
the buck has to stop somewhere... and uncreated creators like
God or the first ancestors or some cultural heroes fulfil this
function.- Religion explains evil and suffering. It is a common human
characteristic that misfortune cries out for explanation. Why is
there misfortune or evil in general? This is where the concepts of
Fate, God, devils and ancestors are handy. They tell you why and
[12] how evil originated in the world (and sometimes provide recipes
for a better world).
What is wrong with these accounts? There are several problems with
them. We say that the origin of religious concepts is the urge to provide
certain general aspects of human experience with a satisfactory explana-
tion. Now anthropologists have shown that (i) explaining such general
facts is not equally pressing in all cultures and that (ii) the explanations
provided by religion are not at all like ordinary explanations.
Consider the idea that everybody wants to identify the general cause
of evil and misfortune. This is not as straightforward as we may think.
The world over, people are concerned with the causes of particularevils
and calamities. These are considered in great detail but the existence of
evilin general is not the object of much reflection. Let me use an exam-
ple that is familiar to all anthropologists from their Introductory
courses. British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard is famous for his
classic account of the religious notions and beliefs of the Zande people
of Sudan. His book became a model for all anthropologists because it
did not stop at cataloguing strange beliefs. It showed you, with the help
of innumerable details, how sensible these beliefs were, once you under-
stood the particular standpoint of the people who expressed them and
the particular questions those beliefs were supposed to answer. For
instance, one day the roof of a mud house collapses in the village where
Evans-Pritchard is working. People promptly explain the incident in
terms of witchcraft. The people who were under that roof at the time
must have powerful enemies. With typical English good sense, Evans-
Pritchard points out to his interlocutors that termites had undermined
the mud house and that there was nothing particularly mysterious in its
collapse. But people are not interested in this aspect of the situation. As
they point out to the anthropologist, they know perfectly well that ter-
mites gnaw through the pillars of mud houses and that decrepit struc-
RELIGION EXPLAINED