Re: Conreligion

>> The Tokana believe that before the Universe began, nothing was
>> different
>> from anything else, and everything was nothing.  But then Old Eagle
>> Woman
>> entered through a hole in the nothingness and began beating her drum.
>> The beats of her drum became Light, and the silences between the beats
>> became Darkness, and that's how the Heartbeat of the Universe started.
>>
>Wouldn't they worship the Old Eagle Woman as being the creator of
>everything they know of?  Is there a reason why they don't?

They *revere* Old Eagle Woman, but they don't *worship* her.  There's
a difference.  They don't sacrifice to her, or pray to her, or entreat
her to bring rain, or anything like that.  In fact, they don't view
themselves as having a personal relationship with her at all.  Her
existence is just a fact, something that they know (or think they know)
about how the world works:  The Universe began when she started beating
her drum, and it will end when she stops, and that's all there is to it.
The Tokana attitude toward Old Eagle Woman is thus closer to the secular
humanist's attitude toward the Big Bang than the Judeo-Christian's
attitude to God.

Matt.

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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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