Lectures in Comparative Religion By Thomas McElwain 11 Neanderthal Religion Whether religion is a state Of human activity’s rate In earliest of times remains An issue of conflicting trains. Today the argument is wild, Whether religion is the child Of evolution so to take The role of essential in stake Or a mere byproduct of what The population does to strut. Neanderthal graves give us hints Of what faith might have been in tints. Best known of sites are these, I list a view, I want to please: La Chapelle-aux-Saints found in France In La Ferassie, and to dance The Kiik Koba grotto that’s found Upon Crimean sort of ground, Some caves in Palestine, and last Teshik Tash grotto in the blast Of Uzbekistan for a start. After nineteen-o-eight the part Some took was that the grave itself Implied belief in soul, not elf, And so religion had to be. Others suggested that the spree Owed rather to the thought the body Itself had powers of fearful toddy. Whether the one or other, I Say it’s religion to the sky. But more convincing is the fact That animal bones still attract Attention in Mousterian Times, placed in patterns there by man. Bear bones in order have been found In Alpine caves and on the ground In Regourdou in the Dordogne. That’s evidence more than bologna For a bear cult or hunting magic, Or totemism which is tragic Connexion between people and Such animals as find the band. Scant is the evidence, it’s sure, But since no population’s pure, Except the African, of late From the Neanderthalic state, They are the ancestors of some If not of every human bum. In sum, the graves show the belief Either in souls or body’s grief In power to harm or help with care. The bear bones and other beasts’ share Seem to show the incipient Bear cult or hunting magic bent, Or the totemic way to see The oneness of the family Of humankind and the beastly. The ecologic interest then Goes back as far as ancient men, To the Mousterian to date A hundred thousand years not late. Unless Adam comes in to chide A lesser time, we cannot hide From the religions of mankind And womankind too not behind.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 07:14:00 +0000
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