• Title/Summary/Keyword: syncretism

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Religious Syncretism as Outer Civilization: Comparative Study in Burma, Vietnam and Japan (외부문명에서 유입된 종교 혼합주의: 미얀마, 베트남, 일본의 비교연구)

  • Tamura, Katsumi
    • SUVANNABHUMI
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    • v.4 no.1
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    • pp.27-43
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    • 2012
  • 본 연구에서는 미얀마, 베트남, 일본에서 외부문명의 영향을 받은 것으로 여겨지는 정령숭배의 특징에 대하여 논하고자 한다. 우선, 각 국가의 전승을 비교해볼 때 정령숭배에 있어서 충격적인 상황 속에서 사망한 이들에 대한 신앙이 중요하다는 점을 지적하였다. 다음으로 정령의 형성에 있어서 정치적 역할이 개입되었다는 사실을 논하였다. 마지막으로 종교 혼합주의는 성(性, gender)과 관련되어 있음을 주장하였다.

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Religious Syncretism in Yakutia: A Case of the Building 'Archie Jiete' (야쿠트의 종교혼합 현상에 대한 고찰: '아르치 지에테'(Archie Jiete)의 건립을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Tschung-Sun
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.25
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    • pp.131-158
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    • 2011
  • In the Sakha(Yakutia) Republic, culture and politics continue to be interwined. Shamanism recently has come out of hiding after Soviet repression, and into fashion. Images of the shaman are changing in villages, where traditional healers have maintained their practices in difficult conditions, and in cities, where a resurgence of spirit belief and healing has led to the revitalization of their nationalism. Shamans and folk healers manipulate their own images, and in turn are changed by the upheavals of politicized cultural revitalization. In this complex and interactive context, folklore about traditional shamans has become especially rich and accessible. I argue here that religion has become an idiom through which competing definitions of homeland and national pride are being shaped. Until September 2002, Yakutsk had never had a 'temple' devoted to the practice of traditional shamanic beliefs. Indeed the whole concept that a building 'Archie Jiete' could contain or represent the beliefs, values and rituals of the Sakha people was new, and highly controversial.

The economic ethics of Japanese traditional religion - On the case of Shimhak (일본(日本) 전통종교(傳統宗敎)의 경제윤리(經濟倫理) -심학(心學)을 중심으로)

  • Nam, Chun-Mo
    • Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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    • v.19
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    • pp.165-192
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    • 2005
  • The purpose of this paper is to make clear the relation of traditional religion with economic ethics and attitude in Japan. I selected Shimhak(心學) of Japanese traditional religions to analyze because it has been said that Shimhak was related to the modern ethics of merchants in Japan. The contents of this paper is composed of two parts. First, the religious character of Shimhak is discussed. I will analyze the relation of Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism to Shimhak to certify the syncretism of Japanese religion. Second, the economic ethics of Shimhak is discussed. I will make clear the historical significance of Shimhak in modern Japan, and the relation of the economic ethics of Shimhak with the spirit of Japanese capitalism. This paper will be useful to make out the social influence of Japanese traditional religion, to estimate the sustaining mode of traditional value and ethics in Japan in the future.

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The Cultural Characteristics and Meanings of the Rite of Passage among Malays in Malaysia (말레이시아 말레이인 일생의례의 문화적 특징과 의미)

  • HONG, Seok Joon
    • SUVANNABHUMI
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    • v.1 no.1
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    • pp.27-50
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    • 2009
  • Although Malaysia chooses Islam as national religion, the nation has really shown a variety of belief systems among which we would find Hinduism, Buddhism, and Animism. Most scholars having studied them regarded the aspect of Malay traditional belief systems as syncretism. This trait of the belief systems in Malaysia is revealed well in the sphere specifically as the rite of passage, to which I do rather prefer the rite of "life" from the sense of emphasizing the rituals varied by the cycle of life time. Under the perspective this paper examines the real phases of the rite of passage, or life of Malays. I will argue here the fact that in performing the rite of passage, Malays mobilize various arts on the basis of the syncretic faith accepting the supernatural, or keramat, with almighty power. Therefore, from the study of the rite of passage we can exactly scrutinize how Malays have altered and adjusted their belief systems in real world.

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A study on the perception of faith in St. Mary of Guadalupe (과달루뻬 성모 신앙에 대한 인식 연구)

  • PARK, Chong-Wook
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.25
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    • pp.185-212
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    • 2011
  • The faith in St. Mary of Guadalupe is supposed to be concerned not as reminiscence of historical events or legends, but organic product of having nowness. It's an organism that can not be stay in a fixed type. From the perspectives of syncretism the coexistence of heterogeneous elements (Symbiosis) between Catholicism and Aztec's religion has been changed constantly depending on the necessity and function of the subjects who have dreamed the social integration. It's fundamentally clear that the faith in St. Mary of Guadalupe is still valid phenomenon in the modern Mexican society and that the faith is an aspect of popular catholicism which includes the remaining elements of the religion of the Aztecs. This is to understand the meanings of the perception of the contemporary mexicans on the phenomenon for the faith in St. Mary of Guadalupe. Through in-depth interviews, it is revealed that a high rate of sharing of the information does not mean the proportional acceptance of the history. It's a interesting point to see that the mexicans consider the faith in St. Mary of Guadalupe catholic belief, having a feeling of strong tie between themselves and the Aztec's religion. In spite of the historical conflicts over the veracity of St. Mary of Gaudalupe, the majority of the contemporary mexicans consider the faith positive element to consolidate the nationality and socio-cultural identity of $M{\acute{e}}xico$ against the socio-political and ethnic conflicts in the Mexican Society.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH AND RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM IN SOUTH KOREA (한국개신교와 종교 혼합주의)

  • Kim, Eun-Gi
    • Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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    • v.19
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    • pp.125-143
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    • 2005
  • This study offers an analysis of how Protestant Christianity in South Korea incorporated many beliefs and practices of Korean traditional religions in order to make the new faith more appealing to the masses. The paper also examines the way in which specific Protestant doctrines and practices were modified or accentuated to suit the disposition of the Korean people. In agreement with Confucianism, for example, Protestant churches in general emphasized the values of diligence, self-cultivation, righteous living, and, most importantly, filial piety. By overtly and subtly permitting ancestral rites to be conducted by Christians, moreover, Protestant Christianity evaded successfully the potential alienation of the tradition-bound Koreans. From Buddhism, Protestant Christianity syncretized such elements as the daily dawn prayer and all-night prayer as well as the practices of baekilgido ("a hundred-day prayer") and chunilgido ("a thousand-day prayer"). Hundreds of prayer centers that exist deep in the mountains also manifest a Buddhist influence. Shamanistic influences are also evident in Korean Protestantism, replete with the latter's emphasis on this-worldly success (health, prosperity, long life, etc.), faith healing, and conceptualization of God as being merciful and generous. What all of this reveals is that Christian conversion in South Korea did not involve an exclusivistic change of religious affiliation, meaning that it did not require the repudiation of traditionally held beliefs. Instead, millions of South Koreans eagerly embraced Protestant Christianity precisely because the new faith was advanced as an extension or continuation of traditional religious practices.

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Implantation of Protestant Methodist in Gangwha Islands and Cultural Change (개신교 감리교의 강화도 전래와 문화변동)

  • Oak, Han Suk
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.49 no.5
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    • pp.705-715
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    • 2014
  • Acculturation is caused with contact by two different cultures. This study investigates a cultural change of Gangwha society with Hagok confusianism influenced by implantation of methodism. At early periods methodism diffused rapidly and relocated toward marine routes. Lately hierarchical diffusion and contagious diffusion was typical, centering on the Gangwha Jungang Church. This successful acception was influenced with confusianism's acculturation. One of the reason why Gangwha people could accept the Christianity was reinterpretation and selective strategy by Hagok fraction that became one of confusinism, It seemed that several cultural elements of Hagok fraction was coincided with some elements of methodism. However, A methodist church transferred by clan's shrine, which family relationship was coerced, was split into it's members. This segregation other than social intergretation influenced establishment of a or more church per each village.

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Us thinketh hem wonder nyce and straunge: where form and meaning collide

  • Moon, Kyung-Hwan
    • Lingua Humanitatis
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.93-127
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    • 2002
  • This paper deals with a class of Middle English impersonal constructions that involve verbs of two-place argument structure. As is generally understood, the term 'impersonal' is notoriously murky, and after all those researches that have been performed in this area, quite a few issues still remain controversial. The issues we center around in the present study concern the following two. In the type of impersonal constructions we consider, the two arguments-Cause and Experiencer-are both expressed in oblique case, posing the problem of determining which of them functions as the grammatical subject. The issue, however. is not how an argument in oblique case can be taken as the subject: it is well blown that the so called 'dative subject Experiencer' already occurred in Old English. The real issue is why both of the arguments are syntactically realized as nonnominative. The other issue concerns the 3rd-person singular form of the verb. Here again, the crux of the problem may be blurred by the fact that impersonal construction is often defined as one in which the verb has 3rd-person singular form with no apparent nominative W controlling verb concord. But this definition is more nebulous than clear because the notion 'subjectless' is itself highly controversial. Thus, for an expression like me thinketh that-S, it may well be that the verb thinketh ('seems') is 3rd-person singular because the that-clause is the subject. What should be explained of the data brought up here is why the impersonal verb is 3rd-person singular when neither of the NPs associated with it is 3rd person or singular. I argue that we can account for our paradigm examples by looking upon them as 'mixed construction' in which semantic interpretation conflicts with syntactic parsing as a result of case syncretism and gradual establishment of SVO word order. This amounts to saying that the peculiarities of the construction originate with the confused use of impersonal verbs between the sense of 'give an impression' and that of 'receive and impression.'

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Responses of Javanese Muslims to Islam: Analysis of Three Religious Texts (이슬람의 유입과 자바 무슬림의 능동적 대응: 종교 텍스트에 대한 분석을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Hyung-Jun
    • The Southeast Asian review
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.155-182
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    • 2011
  • The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of Islamization in Java, focusing on religious discourse among Muslim intellectuals. How Islamic tradition and knowledge have been perceived and utilized and how they have interacted with those of non-Islamic origin will be discussed. For this, three Islam-related books written in different phases of Islamization are to be analyzed: Babad Tanah Jawi compiled by Mataram court in the 17th century, Serat Cabolek written by a court poet in the late 18th or early 19th century, and Fikih Anti-korupsi published by reformist and scriptural organization of Muhammadiyah in 2006. Babad portrays conversion to Islam as a process which does not demand a dramatic outward change in religious practice. Scriptural tradition of Islam and the dichotomy between what is Islamic and what is not were not mentioned in order to explain conversion. Spiritual and mystical enlightenment was emphasized heavily, and for this, the importance of non-Islamic traditions was fully acknowledged. Serat tells us that this period was characterized by the surge of scriptural and shariah-minded Islam, maintenance of non-Islamic traditions, clashes between scriptural Islam and old religious traditions, and Javanese efforts to harmonize these. In Fikih, non-Islamic tradition is replaced by scriptural Islam and disappears totally. Interpretations based on the Scriptures, however, do not monopolize it and are used together with mode of analysis from the West. It is too much to call this 'intellectual syncretism', in that Islamic Scriptures and Western knowledge do not mix but stand side by side. Three books under examination reveal that the process of Islamization in Java has not been uniform. It has been conditioned and shaped by local socio-cultural and historical circumstances, where active engagement and intellectual exercise of Javanese Muslims have played key roles. Even Islamization in the last few decades is not an exception. The surge of scripturalism and fundamentalism does not simply bring about a move to Arabization. Interacting with local intellectual and socio-cultural milieu, this has produced a sort of intellectual hybridity, which is unique to Muslim society of Java.

Leslie Marmon Silko's Decolonizing Efforts and Syncretic Vision in Gardens in the Dunes (『모래언덕 위의 정원』에 나타난 레슬리 마몬 실코의 탈식민화 작업과 혼합주의적 비전)

  • Kang, Ja Mo
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.55 no.4
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    • pp.597-618
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    • 2009
  • Leslie Marmon Silko, in her novel Gardens in the Dunes, primarily focuses on revealing the white colonialists' plan to exterminate and destroy American Indians and their culture. In this regard, this novel is clearly an Indian counter narrative to interrogate and abrogate the authority of the oppressive and destructive discourse of the whites who are full of colonialist impulses to sterilize Indians and their culture. However, it should be noted that Silko is very careful not to insist on cultural exclusivism and reverse ethnocentrism, since these only mean a return to the violent colonialists' discourse based on dualism and cultural authenticity which, she believes, has led to the marginalization and eventual deterioration of Indians and their culture. White values and culture are something to recognize and tolerate as long as they are not the products of witchery, also known as the destroyer or evil for Silko, which promotes disruption and antagonism between races and classes. As she reveals in her interview, her major concern in the novel is to dismantle political and/or racial distinctions like Native Americans versus EuroAmericans and thus to enhance the idea of the reconciliation and coexistence of whites and Indians. Silko's Gardens in the Dunes can be regarded as an experiment in the possibility of the universal and homogeneous (at least in its roots) global culture which tolerates all forms of culture. Global culture does not mean a uniform totalitarian culture but a vision of a harmonious world characterized by hybridity and heterogeneity, in which different cultures associate freely without the notion of inferiority or superiority of any one culture. Silko's belief in syncretism emphasizes the spirit of tolerance and exchange between different cultures, dismantling the authority of exclusive ethnocentrism. The ultimate message implied in Gardens in the Dunes is that the syncretic spirit is not only an effective means to correct the white colonialists' hegemonic desire aimed at the extermination of Indians and their culture but also a source of energy for the life and prosperity of modern Indians and their societies.