Hanscom - Ritual and Sacrifices

In the film that we watched in class about the Navajo Indians, we learned that they would offer sacrifices to the spirits and perform certain rituals to ensure their land would be fruitful and that their health would be sustained. For example, one of the older Navajo women taught the younger generations to wake up when the sun rises to stay in good health. I found it very interesting the Navajo believed without a shadow of a doubt that their lives would be longer if they rose at dawn. The Navajo would also perform rituals like bathing in a steam room, and afterwards rub loose soil on their bodies as a sacrifice to the spirits or gods. I believe they performed this ritual to ensure that their surrounding environment (weather, animals, insects like bees) worked out for their advantage.

In The Spell of the Sensuous by Abram, he discusses a ritual that the tribal culture in eastern Bali would perform to ensure they had a harmonious relationship with the environment around them. Abram was staying at a house where his hosts would offer bowls of rice as a sacrifice or offering to the "spirits". The "spirits" Abram's hosts were speaking of were ants. The people gave regular sacrifices to the ant "spirits" because they built their property on top of a lot of ant hills. The structure is used mostly for cooking, and the people wanted to ensure they weren't disrupting the ant's supply of food. The Bali people believed, like the Navajo, that sacrifices had to be made to the "spirits" in order to create a peaceful, interdependent relationship with the environment.

I think this is a very interesting philosophy of life, and I wish we as Americans understood how to have a better relationship with the environment. I think we could all make sacrifices (without the spiritual connotation) to create a better world to live in.

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