Essay Example on Mayoruna Tribe: Religiousness and Way of Life

Religiousness is a critical aspect of the people's way of life. It defines how they operate or why they do things in a particular manner. A religious might be global or localized. In most cases, religion within a small group of people with no interference will be confined. The belief adopted for this analysis is from Mayoruna Tribe.

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Mayoruna is one of the Amazonian tribes with approximately a population of 3000 people. The tribe depends on hunting and gathering as the source of their livelihood. Due to their association with animals and plants, they developed a religion known as animalism. Due to a lack of interaction with outside tribes, they have their faith different from even other tribes in the Amazon Forest (Lambek, 2016).

Similar to all other tribes, Mayoruna also has sacred power. They imagine holy power as emanating from plants and possessed by plants. Each plant will have an association with a particular animal spirit. The tribe, however, one powerful god, known as Omama, who they believe created spirits from the wrongdoers (Lambek, 2016).

The Mayoruna has different sacred myths which they use to explain their surrounding and spiritual matters. An example of the tale is about the universe. They argue that the world consists of four layers. The topmost layer is empty, but it used to have people, but they were dropped to the lower tiers. The second layer is the sky, and it is in this layer that spirits of the dead reside. The third layer is where they leave, and the forth is known as the underworld or were spirits that harm human resides (Bjorn, 2017).

The Mayoruna community has various religious rituals, such as revoking animal spirits and offering sacrifice to Omama. Among the simple religious ceremony involving the use of toxic derived from poisonous trees. These poisons are then mixed with burnt animal sacrifice to please Omani, the god of spirits. The tribe also has some shrines, mostly under huge trees which they referrer as sacred for worshipping their god (Lambek, 2016).

While the tribe believes in the essence of good spirits found in the trees with association with animals that bring healing to man, they also believe in evil spirits. They think that there are evil spirits that reside in the underground, and they are responsible for causing misfortune and suffering. However, they also believe that Omani their god would protect the morally upright people form evil spirits while he allows the evil spirit to punish the wrongdoers. These kinds of believe help to shape their morality (Bjorn, 2017). The belief requires them to be kind and caring to each other.

Since this is a small community with less interference, there is no different sect. All the members of the tribe believe in this animist religion. However, they organize themselves in small groups who fellowship in a particular sacred place (Lambek, 2016).

Considering the essence of existence and destiny, the Yanomami community believes that Omama created them, and their purpose is to serve him. However, after their death, their spirit will go to the sky where they will be happy forever, but the wrongdoers' soul will go underground, which is associated with eternal suffering. This group is isolated from other religious faiths. Still, hypothetically they would consider different beliefs as misguided or of no meaning to their life since plants and animals are the only aspects that make meaning to their existence.

References

Bjorn, S. (2017). Matses Native Amazonian Tribe. Retrieved from http://www.matses.info/

Religion and Culture. (2012). Retrieved from http://thelifeoftheyanomami.blogspot.com/2012/11/religion-and-culture.html

Lambek, M. (Ed.). (2016). A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion (Vol. 2). Malden, MA: Blackwell.