POST5 Overall Overview

    Over the course of 3 posts, I have explained the mythology(773), various sacred objects and places (778), and their spirits and gods (776) of the Zulu. Sami. and Zapotec peoples. In this final blog post, I would like to compare and contrast these aspects of religion between the three cultures I have studied. In addition, I will also compare these three cultures to my own culture and religion (Catholicism) as well.

    Starting with mythology, the three cultures I studied had greatly different stories and sagas so it would be somewhat difficult to find similarities between them. The Zulu believe that their supreme god, iNkosi, placed the first man on Earth as a punishment for his crime of ridding the Sky God's favorite bull. This does remind me of how in the catholic tradition, Adam and Eve were the first humans on Earth as a punishment from God. As the Zapotec also follow Catholicism, they believe this as well. To continue, Sami mythology usually centers around natural structures, the most prominent being mountains. It is in the mountains where trolls lived, an enemy in Sami mythology.

    When comparing these three cultures' deities and sprites, I would describe the Zulu and Sami as polytheistic and the Zapotec as monotheistic. The Zulu have many deities associated with objects, animals, and phenome in nature. They have deities linked to the sky, wind, and thunder. Some deities as depicted as animals like birds and snakes. To carry on, the Sami do have multiple deities like Paive, the Sun God, Beive-Neida, the Sun Goddess, and Mano, the Moon God. The Sami have many more spiritual beings in their religion that are not seen as deities. These are usually depicted as animals. To continue, the Zapotec only believe in one God, Jesus Christ. As a catholic myself, I also believe in this. One aspect of the Zapotec that makes them unique is that they praise more saints than my version of Catholicism does. Most of these are patron saints of towns in Mexico and are not canonized by the Catholic Church. One such saint they worship is Santa Muerte, the saint of death and the afterlife.

    To conclude, the sacred objects and places will be the last topic I will be looking over for these three cultures and my own as well. It is interesting to discover that the Zulu, Sami, and Zapotec all view mountains as sacred places. To go even further, the Zulu and Sami mythologies have stories to explain why lighting constantly hits mountains. The sacred objects of these three cultures are very different. The Zulu use ceremonial spears and medicines to amplify their religious ceremonies. The Sami have seidis, wooden or stone monuments that celebrate nature. The Zapotec use candles and wax in a specific ceremony where women pray to saints in order to be blessed with a child. I am not a practicing catholic, so I am not well versed in what the sacred places and objects of my religion are. If I had to guess it would have to be places in the middle east associated with Jesus like the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.

    In conclusion, researching the cultural and religious aspects of the Zulu, Sami, and Zapotec peoples are giving me a greater understanding of these cultures. These posts overall have left me a good impression of the field of anthropology. I hope my viewers have left with something new they have learned about the Zulu, Sami, and Zapotec peoples.

Works Cited:

Berglund, Axel-Ivar. 1976. “Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism.” In Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia, 402. Uppsala: Swedish Institute of Missionary Research. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fx20-008.

Cohen, Jeffrey H. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10, no. 4 (2004): 948–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3803903.

“File:Sami Storehouse.jpg - Wikimedia Commons.” Wikipedia Commons. Norsk Folkemuseum, October 7, 2010. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sami_Storehouse.jpg.

   Flikke, Rune. 2018. “Healing in Polluted Places: Mountains, Air, and Weather in Zulu Zionist Ritual Practice.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture 12 (1): 76–95. doi:10.1558/jsrnc.33646.

Forster, Christopher. “File: Sámi Mythology Shaman Drum Samisk Mytologi Schamantrumma 079.Png.” Wikimedia Commons, 3 June 2011, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S%C3%A1mi_mythology_shaman_drum_Samisk_mytologi_schamantrumma_079.png. 

Karsten, Rafael. The Religion of the Samke: Ancient Beliefs and Cults of the Scandinavian and Finnish Lapps. E.J. Brill, 1955, https://ehrafworldcultures-yale-edu.northernkentuckyuniversity.idm.oclc.org/document?id=ep04-005.

Loeffler, David. “Surreptitious Sámi--Suppressive Swedes: Maintaining Sámi Identities through the Use of Religion and Stone Circles.” Arctic Anthropology, vol. 52, no. 2, Feb. 2015, pp. 67–80. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.northernkentuckyuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=113584806&site=eds-live. 

Norget, Kristin. 2021. “Popular-Indigenous Catholicism in Southern Mexico.” Religions 12 (7): 531. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=151588874&site=eds-live.

Parsons, Elsie Worthington Clews. 1970. “Mitla, Town of the Souls and Other Zapoteco-Speaking Pueblos of Oaxaca, Mexico.” In The University of Chicago Publications in Anthropology ; Ethnological Series, 19, 590 , 51 plates. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://ehrafworldcultures-yale-edu.northernkentuckyuniversity.idm.oclc.org/document?id=nu44-003.

Raber, Rebecca. “Rare 18th Century Mexican Texts Acquired by Haverford Libraries.” Haverblog, 20 Nov. 2015, https://haver.blog/2015/11/20/rare-18th-century-mexican-texts-acquired-by-haverford-libraries/.

“Zulus, Arseny Priests, Oil, Painting ... - Pxfuel.com.” Pxfuel. Accessed October 4, 2021. https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-javec.