Two nights ago, I saw a documentary program on TV about the wild fauna of Madagascar, apparently one of the most unusual and biologically diverse places on earth. Near the top of the island’s food chain are the crocodiles, and they can be found everywhere, including hidden in dry caves underneath steep bluffs that dot the eastern part of the landscape.
Animalistic religious beliefs are common among the 17 ethnic sub-groups in Madagascar. One particular tribe has a special reverence for the crocodile. One of their rituals involves a shaman and two children, a boy and a girl, entering a crocodile-infested cave and pouring libation onto a small ceremonial rock. Upon the shaman’s return to the village, he goes into a trance that lasts for up to eight hours, praying for the crocodile god to spare the lives of his fellow tribesmen in their daily journeys across rivers and forests in search of food.
Madagascar must seem to be a very dangerous world to its human natives. It makes sense that tribesmen should try to impose order on their unpredictable world by creating a religion where their greatest fears, such as getting eaten alive by a crocodile, are given a tangible expression in the form of a crocodile god that they can control. They can appease this god by performing rituals and sacrifices. If crocodile attacks become more frequent, the tribesmen can simply interpret this as a sign of divine displeasure, and they can redouble their efforts at ritual and sacrifice until the problem abates.
I will never forget the face of the shaman, in the documentary, as he goes into a trance while earnestly praying for the tribe’s deliverance from the dangers of the world. I believe this is the very essence of religion: an attempt to make sense out of chaos in this world and to forge all of one’s personal fears into what might be called a sword of courage and hope
One of the postulates of modern anthropology is that there is a complete continuity between magical thinking and religion. Of course, most of us now in the 21st century have moved considerably further ahead than the Madagascar natives in science and technology, as well as in the complexity of our socioeconomic infrastructures. And yet religion still figures prominently in our society. This must say something very important about human nature.
Having studied a lot of magic tricks during my childhood, today I do not believe in the supernatural. Having studied and taught physics as a young man, I am not easily swayed by any appeal to authority that would suggest that the laws of physics can be violated at any one’s convenience.
I appreciate that I do not live as a fearful, uninformed native of Madagascar. My world is bigger, thanks to advances in science, but paradoxically I have less to fear. Maybe this is why I do not believe in an intervening god. On the other hand, I think I understand why some of my friends still cling to religious beliefs and rituals. For some, all scientific knowledge is not, and never will be, wide enough to cover their fear and uncertainty about the fringes of our known world.