Religion from the Viewpoint of Tradition Ecology – Lauri Honko’s (1932–2002) Contribution to Comparative Religion

Matti Kamppinen

doi:10.33356/temenos.46247

Abstract

In this article I propose to analyze Lauri Honko’s contribution in comparative religion in terms of tradition ecology, the general research framework Honko himself saw – at least in retrospect – as the unifying theme in his work. My aim is to provide an analytical account of his theoretical contribution in the study of religion that started already in his dissertation Krankheitsprojektile (1959) and culminated in his last major work, Textualising the Siri Epic (1998). Lauri Honko’s research topics ranged from folk beliefs, myths and rituals to ethnomedicine, oral epics and cultural identity. Yet religion, understood as culturally mediated interaction with the culturally postulated supernatural entities, remained one of his constant objects of interest. Moreover, I will argue that the fluid nature of contemporary post-secular religiosity is well captured by the tradition-ecology tools developed by Honko. I will end up by discussing the contribution of Honko’s doctoral students in comparative religion and folkloristics.

Highlights

In this article I propose to analyze Lauri Honko’s contribution in comparative religion in terms of tradition ecology, the general research framework Honko himself saw – at least in retrospect – as the unifying theme in his work
Émile Durkheim and Franz Boas accepted a commonsense concept of religion as their starting point: religions are about supernatural entities like gods, evil spirits and gnomes
This commonsense concept of religion enabled Honko to focus on the issues of context and use, instead of theorizing on the issue of how to demarcate religion from other cultural phenomena

Summary

The Concept of Religion

The pioneers in anthropologically oriented study of religion like Bronislaw Malinowski, E. In the long orientating introduction to Geisterglaube, Honko described the mechanisms of culture that would sustain and modify the content of barn spirit, and the cognitive mechanism that was fine-tuned to find human-like features in the environment In this field, Honko anticipated later theories about anthropomorphism, influential in the cognitive study of religion (Guthrie 1993). After Lauri Honko took up the position as Director of the Nordic Institute of Folklore in the 1970s, and became involved in the UNESCO program for the safeguarding of folklore, he became profiled more and more as a folklorist, and less as a scholar in comparative religion His contributions in tradition ecology, study of identity and especially his work on the oral Siri epic testify to the fact that his contribution in comparative religion was a life-long project. Let us look at the framework of tradition ecology, which served the unifying role in Honko’s comparative religion and theory of culture in general

Tradition Ecology

Origins of Tradition Ecology

Examples of Tradition Ecology

Migration of Cultural Contents

Folklore Process and Religious Contents

Religion in Tradition Ecology