Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life: Expressions of Belief Ed. by Marion Bowman and Ülo Valk (review)

In his studies of vernacular religion, Leonard Primiano focuses on the inductive approach to studying religion as it is practiced. Primiano calls for scholars to examine the experiences and perceptions of believers in order to develop methods and theories of analysis. This collection of essays selected by Marion Bowman and Ülo Valk follows Primiano’s dictum closely, asking that the reader consider emic perspectives of particular believers and, remarkably at times, the inner experience of the folklorist as well. Eighteen essays—many taken from the 2005 conference of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research—explore the ground-level practice of religion, incorporating cosmological, narrative, and psychological tools into field studies and reflections. Much of the material focuses on Central and Eastern European groups and individuals, with notable exceptions such as Bowman’s piece on Arthurian spiritual experiences at Glastonbury. The editors break the collection into five parts, which look at relationships in religious practice between believers and their objects of devotion, the interpersonal expression of religion, and religious communities at large. The final section, which includes Valk’s essay and an afterword by Primiano, further develops the discussion in relation to vernacular religious theory.

Several of the essayists in this collection write about evolving religious traditions, ones which take on new dimensions as they encounter a new era. Maria Inés Palleiro’s piece on Argentinian folk narratives draws parallels between supernatural religious tales of ghosts and hauntings with later UFO stories. She also notes the overlapping space between traditional Hispanic Catholic cosmology and an emerging New Age culture, and a similar theme of crossover between Christian and neo-pagan communities appears in Bowman’s work on Glastonbury. In “Angels in Norway: Religious Border-Crossers and Border-Makers,” Ingvild Saelid Gilhus examines the blurred boundary between the typical angelology of the traditional Norwegian Church and the ever-growing presence of angels as New Age spiritual helpers and guides. She focuses on Princess Märtha Louise’s involvement with the Astarte Education Center, which regards angels as “lightbeings” and associates their incorporation into healing practices with other alternative therapies such as Reiki. “In Norway,” Gilhus says, “people have not been much accustomed to private enterprises in the religious field. Religious services are paid through the tax bill. When the princess sells angel education, she gives the education credibility” (p. 239). A similar crossover in angelology appears in an essay on a Hungarian folk healer by Judit Kis-Halas. “Komi Hunter Narratives,” by Art Leete and Vladimir Lipin, ties the evolving tradition of using light narratives, jokes, and incomplete truths to older beliefs about hunting charms. The hunters’ use of story to determine caste within the group becomes personal to Leete when he demonstrates considerable shooting prowess to his hunting companions and then reveals that he is the former Estonian shooting champion. The hunters’ indignant response is countered by Leete’s claim that if the hunters knew he was a good shooter, they would have teased him about it, to which they respond: “Yes, that was our plan but it is not fair, anyway!” (p. 291). Many authors presented here enter into the vernacular practices examined just as Leete does. They become part of the religious narrative of those being interviewed.

Several scholars attempt to place cosmology firmly within practice. Marja-Liisa Keinänen’s “Everyday, Fast & Feast” looks at the domestic calendar of women in the Russian borderland of Karelia. She takes Nancy Munn’s concept of a “practice-oriented view of time” and moves it into the household realm, drawing sharp distinctions between Orthodox festivals and the rhythm of daily work. She asserts that “women’s daily work, i.e. household chores that were both continuous and repetitive, would provide a far more comprehensive basis for a study of the social production of time” than any examination of calendric activities or religious feasts (p. 23). Alexander Panchenko’s essay on shrine...