Contemporary Pagans: Indigenous or Not?

A kerfuffle over who said what about which flavors of Paganism at the just-concluded Parliament of the World’s Religions is summarized over at The Wild Hunt.

This year’s parliament in Melbourne listed “Reconciling with the Indigenous Peoples” as one of its key topics.

Some contemporary Pagans have been playing the “indigenous card” since the 1970s, when Oberon Zell and other Green Egg writers argued that Wicca was a form of “indigenous European shamanism.”

The same claim has been made by some British Pagans in controversies over the management of megalithic sites in the UK and the treatment of prehistoric remains.

So are today’s revived and re-created Pagan traditions “indigenous.” I think not—not because they lack ancient roots, but because they are not generally connected to land claims and other current political issues.

In academia, in the world of [Fill in the Blank] Studies, “indigenous” has a more limited—and more political—meaning.  Hang around the people teaching, for example, Native American religion, and you may be told that the descriptor “indigenous” can only be applied to people who are or have been oppressed or colonized.

This claim might seem illogical. After all, were the ancient British not oppressed, and thus not “indigenous,” until the Romans came and created the province of Britannia—at which point they were colonized. And then when the Roman legions left, they were not “oppressed” anymore, so not “indigenous.”

Forget it. This is all about political issues now.

If you cut through the rhetoric, what is really at stake in discussions of who is “indigenous” is land—and sometimes related issues of political power, reparations, and trying to avoid sharing the guilt for how screwed-up the modern world is.

Most Anglosphere contemporary Pagans do not directly connect following an “earth-based religion” with political control of acreage itself, but in other places that connection is the underlying concern.

Particularly in eastern Europe, today’s revived Pagans have made “blood and soil” arguments, saying that their approach is truer to the land than is Orthodox Christianity.

Anglosphere Pagans may invoke a sort of metaphorical or historical “indigeneity,” talking about people who followed polytheistic religions a millennium or two in the past. In the West, our connections with our Pagan ancestors are intellectual (based on books) and theological.

We can talk about prejudice and Christian hegemony—but being blocked from giving a prayer at the county commissioners’ meeting is not “oppression” in the sense that the Australian Aboriginals suffered, for example.

Islam, too, has its “death to the polytheists!” passages in the Qu’ran. Indeed,  I think anyone who opened a Pagan bookstore, etc., in Cairo or Islamabad would be oppressed in a hurry. Is anyone brave enough to revive the worship of Ishtar in Iraq?

In our religious views and practices, we have much in common with the tribal religions of the world.  In the academic study of religion, common ground is being found between “indigenous” and “Pagan.”

In that limited sense, it is useful to show contemporary Paganisms’ (that is a plural possessive) roots in pre-modern, polytheistic,  or “indigenous” cultures.

But before playing that card, we have to understand that it is usually connected to issues of land rights, grievances over such issues as removal of children into government boarding schools, and other current political struggles.

In those instances, the typical Wiccan, Heathen, etc., is probably going to be on the sidelines.

Cue the tablas and whale music

My title is lifted from Charles Blow’s column in the New York Times, noting that the recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report on American religiosity shows that things are pretty darn heterodox in the pews (no pun intended).

When 28 percent of Roman Catholics say that they believe in reincarnation (really?!), or nearly a fifth of Americans say they have seen a ghost, then perhaps American religion is “a mash-up of traditional faiths, fantasy and mythology.”

Sounds almost Pagan.

Cannibalism in ‘Old Europe’?

Archaeologists have found evidence of possible long-term cannibalism at a 7,000-year-old Neolithic settlement in what is now southern Germany.

Human sacrifice at Herxheim is a hypothesis that’s difficult to prove right now, but we have evidence that several hundred people were eaten over a brief period,” [Bruno] Boulestin says. Skeletal markings indicate that human bodies were butchered in the same way as animals.

Other researchers suggest that the people were merely cleaning up the bones of the dead for a ceremonial reburial. But vultures, etc., would do that job for free–and still do in some parts of the world.

But wait, this is Marija Gimbutas’ Old European Culture, the peaceful ancient matriarchies. Were they eating each other?

I think that it is safe to assume that prehistory was much more complicated than we imagine when we look at it through lenses of theory.

Pagan Thoughts at the Parade of Lights

Last fall I looked for Pagan virtues in a small-town “Pioneer Day” parade.

Similar thoughts ran through my mind last night watching an even smaller town’s “Parade of Lights.”

The procession was about one block long: two pieces of fire apparatus, the local mountain search-and-rescue group (yellow jackets, hard hats, head lamps), another flatbed truck or two, various kids and dogs.

On the sidewalk, Father Christmas greeted spectators and drinkers.

Even though the American Thanksgiving holiday was established during the Great Depression to signal the start of the holiday shopping season, many towns now re-celebrate that spending spree with a “Parade of Lights,” a secular solsticial event.

Most seem to be sponsored by downtown merchants’ associations. (You can’t have a traditional parade at a shopping mall.) Stores stay open late hoping to sell things to the spectators.

Some years ago, a Pagan group had a float in Colorado Springs’ Parade of Lights, a first in that city, often jokingly called “Fort God” for its combination of military bases and big-name Protestant “ministries,” like Focus on the Family.

Maybe the frankly secular and capitalist nature of the event was a plus. Pay your entry fee, get a place in the parade.

Other parades, such as those on St. Patrick’s Day or Columbus Day, have their definite sense of “ownership.” Sponsoring organizations are pickier about who they permit to march.

I wrote “frankly secular,” but we Pagans see a brave display of light against the incoming darkness–not to mention the cold wind sweeping down from the mountains ahead of today’s snowstorm.

We are used to the dichotomy of light and dark, of order and chaos, Apollo and Dionysus–or their equivalents. Perhaps commerce and gift-giving are another pair.

These pairs will contend with each other forever.

Father Christmas Works the Bar Crowd


Father Christmas makes his way through the bar after a small-town Parade of Lights (of which more later). No, that was Santa on the fire engine. Different demigod.

Pagan Social Media and the Parliament of the World’s Religions

Jason Pitzl-Waters posts a round-up of blogs, video, and other social media from the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

I clicked the links, and so far what I have seen is pretty bland. Talking-heads video is bland even when they are our talking heads. But maybe we will see some more engaged and personal writing as the event progresses and as people reflect on it.

Although it’s not my scene, I applaud those Pagans who want to do this kind of work. I could see myself note-taking at some of the sessions, for my own writing purposes.

And wow, what what a great place to play Flowing Robes Bingo. I wonder if anyone brought the bingo cards.

This Blog Post is Inappropriate

Edward Skidelsky nails it: the smarmy bureaucratic coercion of the word “inappropriate”.

From Arts & Letters Daily, in the blogroll.

Pagan Studies Call for Papers, AAR 2010

This post is for anyone who has not already seen the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group’s call for papers for next year’s AAR meeting in Atlanta posted on some e-list or other.

For details on paper submission, see the AAR’s page for that meeting. Note that some information will not be posted until later in December.

The Contemporary Pagan Studies Group invites papers that address one of the following topics:

1.  For session with Men’s Studies in Religion Group, Pagan Masculinities: Male Identity, Gender Injustice and Power Relations. Who are the Pagan men, how is their understanding of masculinity constituted, and how are they affected by the   emphasis on the feminine in Pagan spirituality?

2. Paganism, Ethnicity and Ultra-Nationalism. The Right has increased representation in the European Parliament and some of those elected are Pagans with concerns about boundaries, immigration and ethnicities. We welcome papers that investigate this growing phenomenon and the contentious issues that arise from it.

3. Idolatry and Tangible Sacrality: The Conversation Continues. This panel generated such excellent discussion at the 2009 meeting that we felt it important to explore it further.

4. For session with the New Religious Movements Group,  papers on African-inspired religious traditions, such as Santeria, Vodun, Yoruba, and Candomble,
especially as those in the southeastern United States.

Blog It and They Will Come. But Why?

Real search-engine queries that brought Web visitors to this blog:

Is Depeche Mode synonymous with homosexuality? [I don’t know; I missed the 80s.]

Booty shaking videos of Muslim women

Arvol Looking Horse fraud youtube [he is an American Indian activist on the “cultural appropriation” issue]

make shinto priest hat

food placed in creek for religion
[I have made food offerings at a crossroads, but in the creek??]

intercessory prayer for halloween sacrifice

sex colors for witches

Of course, now the Googlebot will index all those terms here . . .

It’s Thanksgiving-Put Your Mask On

I have a long-standing interest in masks and masked ritual, going back to when I helped Evan John Jones with Sacred Mask Sacred Dance.

So consider than on the East Coast a century ago, Thanksgiving (or at least the last Thursday in November), rather than Halloween, was the time for masking and trick-or-treating.

Thanksgiving itself was a sort of irregular, off-and-on holiday until it was deliberately fixed to mark the start of the Christmas shopping season during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration.