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An ecological approach to religion

a
Äke Hultkrantz
a
Stockholm
Published online: 20 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Äke Hultkrantz (1966) An ecological approach to religion, Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 31:1-4,
131-150, DOI: 10.1080/00141844.1966.9980980

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 An Ecological Approach to Religion

ÄKE HULTKRANTZ
Stockholm
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Ecology has become a topical concept and methodological tool in

many modern natural and social sciences. It is the present author's
conviction that even a humanistic discipline such as comparative
religion may use this concept with advantage, viz. in so far as it
deals with the religions of the so-called primitive peoples. To this
end the outlines of a religio-ecological method will be presented in
this article.
The importance of the approach here proposed lies in the sug-
gestion that by establishing types of religion instead of tracing reli-
gious complexes and historically delimited religions, we may arrive
at both a fuller understanding of religious facts in their interactions
with Nature and a more comprehensive knowledge of the religious
past of pre-literate societies. Specifically, the religio-ecological method
as defined below invites the co-operation of archaeologists in the
reconstruction of religious history.
Most historians of religions studying the so-called primitive reli-
gions would probably agree that there is a need for a revision of the
methods used when coping with the historical past of these religions.
It is now several decades since the old unilinear evolutionistic meth-
ods were abandoned in comparative religion and religious ethnol-
ogy. They were followed, in some quarters, by new hypothetical
constructions based on the historico-geographic diffusion of important
religious, social and even economic facts (the schools of Graebner
and Schmidt in Germany and Austria, of Elliot-Smith and Perry in
England]. In other quarters, and particularly in France, Great
Britain and Anglo-America, structural and functional points of view

131
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

were put forward which more or less substituted investigations in

social integration for the historical perspective. Historical inquiry is
still being carried on, but with less energy and more moderation, and
with a cautious, almost sceptical, attitude which has become a virtue
in itself. This reticence affects, of course, first of all research on the
religious history of primitive peoples. In archaeology, for instance,
many scholars shy away from the reconstructions of religious devel-
opments suggested by the finds if these cannot be supported by
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documentary evidence. Their hesitation is a natural reaction to the

over-indulgence in hypotheses of former days. At the same time,
however, it shows evidence of a certain helplessness.
The time thus seems to be ripe for a re-evaluation of our pos-
sibilities of arriving at broad historical conclusions in this particular
field. Actually, the necessary prerequisites are at hand. Theoretical
discussions in the disciplines concerned—ethnology, archaeology and
comparative religion—have in recent years provided us with tools
which, if brought together in a meaningful constellation, might help
us on our way. Modern interest in ecology—human, social and cul-
tural—has resulted in a new appraisal of the creative force of en-
vironment in its impact upon culture. This in turn leads to the
recognition of fixed types and regularities in the process of cultural
development, regularities which should not be considered as laws
but as natural recurrences in similar situations. Since religion is a
part of culture, it also shares, directly or indirectly, some of the
effects which environment has on culture. The implication is that
environment furnishes us with certain clues to religious interpreta-
tion, and therefore enables us to trace religious configurations of the
past in the same natural setting. There are certain conditions which
must be taken into consideration, foremost among these being, as we
shall see later, the technical level of the culture concerned. But in
the main, this is how the new approach, which I should like to call
the religio-ecological method, may be summarized.

I
There have been many efforts in comparative religion as well as in
cultural anthropology to associate religious expressions with Nature
and influences of Nature. Mythology, it has been said, was inspired

132
 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

by experiences of natural phenomena; it is sufficient to remind the

reader of Tylor's "Nature-mythology"/ or Max Müller 's and Cox's
solar mythology/ to mention the best known examples. Religious
beliefs, it has been asserted, passed through a stage in which the
phenomena of Nature were worshipped; in Lubbock's evolutionistic
system, for instance, this stage was called "fetichism" (so spelled).*
Religious patterns, finally, were organized in scientific treatises in
close correspondence to economic, and therewith natural, conditions;
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the best presentations of this view are to be found in Meinhof's inter-

pretation of African religions* and,, of course, in the writings of
the marxistic ethnologists in the Soviet Union.5 However, even a
Catholic scholar like Father Schmidt postulated a relation between
economic activities and religious forms.6 The direct and indirect in-
fluence which Nature (and not just economics) exerts on religion
has, however, never been formulated in an empirically sound way.
It was as a result of his own field research, and of his compara-
tive studies of North American Indian religion, that the present
author became convinced of the fundamental importance of natural
(environmental) conditions to religious development. The traditional
religion of the Wind River Shoshoni in Wyoming was found to
correlate with two religious patterns, a western and an eastern,
which had been moulded not only by historical tradition but also by
ecological process. Moreover, the organization of the Wind River
religious system reflected ecological conditions in the tribal area.1
My observations in these matters were of course highly facilitated by

1
E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (3rd ed., London 1891), vol. I, pp. 284ff. For
the concept of "nature-myths", see op. cit., pp. 316 ff.
2
Cf. the article by R. M. Dorson, The Eclipse of Solar Mythology (in: Myth,
A Symposium, ed. by Th. A. Sebeok, Bloomington 1958), pp. 15 ff.
3
J. Lubbock, The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man
(London 1870), p. 119.
4
C. Meinhof, Die Religionen der Afrikaner in ihrem Zusammenhang mit dem
Wirtschaftsleben (Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, Oslo 1926).
5
For a characteristic example, see G. A. Menowtschikow, Wissen, Religiöse Vor-
stellungen und Riten der Asiatischen Eskimos (Glaubenswelt und Folklore der
Sibirischen Völker, ed. by V. Diószegi, Budapest 1963), pp. 463 ff.
6
W. Schmidt, Handbuch der Vergleichenden Religionsgeschichte (Münster in
Westfalen 1930); cf. pp. 231 ff. with pp. 277 ff.
7
See e. g. A. Hultkrantz, Kulturbildningen hos Wyomings Shoshoni-indianer
(Ymer, vol. 69:2, 1949); idem, Configurations of Religious Belief among the
Wind River Shoshoni (Ethnos, vol. 21:3-4, 1956).

133
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

my previous theoretical studies of North American Indian culture

areas. The culture-area taxonomy has, as easily appears from Wiss-
ler's and Kroeber's expositions on the subject, an ecological founda-
tion (although in practice the culture area has been conceived as a
historical configuration).'
Another opening to the ecological perspectives was made through
the phenomenological approach to religion applied by myself and my
colleague Ivar Paulson." Phenomenology means, as is well known,
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different things in different circles of historians of religion. Our inter-

pretation is that it implies the description and typological classifica-
tion of religious phenomena within an areal context. Since the ethnic
groups we study are pre-literate peoples we are careful not to draw
premature historical inferences from our materials. On the other
hand, our classification device lends itself in a natural way to
ecological considerations (which may secondarily open up certain
historical perspectives, as emerges from this paper) •
Finally, it must be admitted that outstanding works on primitive
religion written by modern anthropologists show a significant aware-
ness of ecological factors.10 In so doing they serve as a source of
inspiration for every endeavour to tackle the problems of religious
ecology.
The basic concepts for the developing of a religio-ecological
method were, however, derived from cultural ecology as shaped by
certain American anthropologists.
8
C. Wissler, The American Indian (3rd ed., New York 1950), p. 220; A. L.
Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America (Berkeley 1939),
pp. 6 f.; R. H. Lowie, The Culture Area Concept as Applied to North and
South America (in: Proceed, of the 3 and Intern. Congr. of Americanists, Copen-
hagen 1958), p. 77.
9
See in particular I. Paulson, Schutzgeister und Gottheiten des Wildes (der
Jagdtiere und Fische) in Nordeurasien (Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis,
Stockholm Studies in Comp. Rel., vol. 2, Stockholm 1961); idem, The Animal
Guardian: A Critical and Synthetic Review (Hist, of Rel., vol. 3:2, 1964),
pp. 202 ff.; A. Hultkrantz, The Owner of the Animals in the Religion of the
North American Indians: Some General Remarks (in: The Supernatural Owners
of Nature, ed. by A. Hultkrantz, Stockholm Studies in Comp. Rel., vol. 1, Stock-
holm 1961), pp. 53 ff.; idem, Les Religions des Indiens primitifs de l'Amérique:
Essai d'une synthèse typologique et historique (Stockholm Studies in Comp. Rel.,
vol. 4, Stockholm 1963), pp. 136 ff.
10
See for instance E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford 1940), and Nuer
Religion (Oxford 1956). For a Scandinavian example, se R. Numelin, Landskap
och religionsformer (Finsk Tidskrift 1961: 8), pp. 382 ff.

134
 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

II
Ecology is certainly not a new concept in the study of society, cul-
ture and religion. We are acquainted with the efforts made at the
turn of the century to explain culture in all its aspects (and thus
also in its religious dimension) as largely a product of environment.
The proponents of this unrestricted "environmentalism" were in
England and America Huntington and Semple, in France Le Play,
in Germany Ratzel. Human geography or, as it was called in German-
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speaking countries, anthropo-geography, launched a deterministic

viewpoint which tended to neglect the importance of historical tra-
dition and cultural accumulation, not to speak of social structure.
Ecology, a term and concept taken over from the biological sciences,
means "adaptation to environment", and to the most radical deter-
minists almost every cultural achievement appeared as a result of
such an adaptation. To be true, they were more hesitant in claim-
ing this causality for social and religious developments.
The reaction against environmental determinism was, as we recol-
lect, very intense right from the beginning. Marett for instance
stated that "environment, in fact, can only give the hint; and man
may not be ready to take it".11 He proceeds: "Geographical facts
represent a passive condition, which life, something by its very
nature active, obeys, yet in obeying conquers. We cannot get away
from the fact that we are physically determined. Yet physical deter-
minations have been surmounted by human nature in a way to which
the rest of the animal world affords no parallel."" The same idea,
that environment has a passive and prohibitive influence on the
creativity of man, has been repeatedly emphasized by later anthro-
pologists. Daryll Forde declares that "physical conditions have both
restrictive and permissive relations to human activities"," and Haw-
ley finds that the weight of evidence forces the conclusion that "the
physical environment exerts but a permissive and limiting effect".14
According to this line of reasoning, which still dominates much of
anthropology, sociology and comparative religion, human creativity
11
R. R. Marett, Anthropology (London 1912), p. 108.
12
Marett, op. cit., p. 129.
13
C. D. Forde, Habitat, Economy and Society (7th ed., London 1949), p. 463.
14
A. H. Hawley, Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure (New-
York 1950), p. 90.

135
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

is in a high degree provoked and formed by culture, society and

religion. This standpoint has been very adequately expressed by
Forde: "Between the physical environment and human activity there
is always a middle term, a collection of specific objectives and
values, a body of knowledge and belief: in other words, a cultural
pattern."15 Similar pronouncements have been made by, i.a., Linton
and Gayton." Culture, a concept particularly cherished in American
anthropology, where it sometimes takes on a "superorganic" slant
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Ccf. Kroeber, and White's "culturology"), enters here as the decisive

factor. "Cultural pattern" is a holistic reinterpretation of culture in
terms of structure and values."
It is interesting to watch how this culture-oriented theory affects
the idea of the interrelations between religion and Nature. Since in
its traditional forms of manifestation religion obviously belongs within
the sphere of culture, it should be bound to act as a filtering and
deciding force upon environmental conditions. Forde, for instance,
stresses the importance of "the restrictions placed by social patterns
and religious concepts on the utilization of certain resources or on
adaptations to physical conditions".15 He further states that "the
tenure and transmission of land and other property, the development
and relations of social classes, the nature of government, the religious
and ceremonial life—all these are parts of a social superstructure,
the development of which is conditioned not only by the foundations
of habitat and economy, but by complex interactions within its own
fabric and by external contacts, often largely indifferent to both the
physical background and to the basic economy alike".19 It is obvious
that religion here functions as an integrating part of the cultural
web.
Forde's position is in general agreement with what is tacitly
assumed by most students of religion. Indeed, some of the latter go

15
Forde, op. cit., ibidem.
16
R. Linton, The Study of Man (New York 1936), p. 467; A. H. Gayton, Cul-
ture-Environment Integration: External References in Yokuts Life (Southw.
Journ. of Anthrop., vol. 2:3, 1946), p. 267.
17
See the definitions and explanations of the quoted terms in the author's
General Ethnological Concepts (The International Dictionary of Regional Euro-
pean Ethnology and Folklore, vol. I, Copenhagen 1960).
18
Forde, op. cit., ibidem.
19
Forde, op. cit., p. 465.

136
 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

so far that they reduce the environmental influence on religion to

almost nothing.20 The present author has earlier taken a more positive
stand in this question." Whereas I find myself in essential conformity
with For de 's opinion that Nature manifests its influence through a
religious (and cultural) filter, I consign to Nature not only a restric-
tive and permissive, but also a promotive force. Actually, the trend
in recent years within anthropology has on the whole been to
revert to a more positive appreciation of the influence of environ-
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ment. The old environmentalism is certainly dead, but a new trend,

"cultural ecology", is appearing in its stead.
Cultural ecology is largely a product of the 1950's, its main
initiator and probably best theorist being Julian H. Steward." A
good summary of the new approach was recently published in the
American Anthropologist." Its chief object is the study of culture
and environmental adaptation, but there is no agreement among the
students concerned as to whether this means that attention should
be paid primarily to the process of adaptation or to culture as an
outcome of environmental adaptation. The latter view is taken
by the anthropologist Charles Frake, who states: "Ecology is the
study of the workings of ecosystems, of the behavioral interdepend-
ences of different kinds of organisms with respect to one another
and to their nonbiotic environment. Cultural ecology is the study
of the role of culture as a dynamic component of any ecosystem of
which man is a part."2* Steward, on the other hand, defines cultural
ecology as "a methodological tool for ascertaining how the adapta-
tion of a culture to its environment may entail certain changes".25
The present author finds the latter viewpoint theoretically and prac-
tically more important. Whereas it is obvious that cultures should be

20
Cf. G. Th. Renner, Primitive Religion-in the Tropical Forests: A Study in
Social Geography (Ph.D.-dissertation, Columbia Univ., New York, 1927).
21
A. Hultkrantz, The Indians and the Wonders of Yellowstone: A Study of the
Interrelations of Religion, Nature and Culture (Ethnos, vol. 19: 1-4, 1954).
22
J. H. Steward, Theory of Culture Change (Urbana 1955), pp. 5, 30 ff. Cul-
tural ecology ought to be separated from the earlier approaches, social ecology
and human ecology, which do not stress the rôle played by culture in the inter-
actions between the human agents and Nature.
23
Ecology and Anthropology: A Symposium (Amer. Anthrop., vol. 64:1, 1962).
24
Ch. O. Frake, Cultural Ecology and Ethnography (Amer. Anthrop., vol. 64:1,
1962), p. 53.
25
Steward, op. cit., p. 42.

137
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

understood in relation to ecosystems, no true assessment of this

relationship can be achieved unless due attention is paid to the
ways in which a culture responds to environmental variations, i. e.
to changes in cultural forms and contents corresponding to en-
vironmental settings.
A further difference in the application of culture-ecological
methods is shown in the range of conclusions drawn from the studies
of ecological adaptation. Meggers, for instance, tries to reveal uni-
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versal laws of environmental limitation on culture," whereas Steward

seeks "to explain the origin of particular cultural features and pat-
terns which characterize different areas rather than to derivé general
principles applicable to any cultural-environmental situation"." The
first approach is unmistakably evolutionistic in the old sense of this
word, the second is a more cautious study of process, evolutionistic
in its final aim but more restrictive in scope. The shortcoming of
the method suggested by Meggers has been convincingly demon-
strated by Hester." Meggers proposes the following law: "The level
to which a culture can develop is dependent upon the agricultural
potentiality of the environment it occupies."" This "law" is obviously
a fallacy, for, as Hester points out, agriculture is not everywhere
the primary cause of population density, which latter, as demonstrated
by Kroeber, has a direct bearing on cultural intensity. Furthermore,
the use of a certain environment depends on the technology of the
people concerned. Hester's reformulation of the environmental law
therefore runs, "The level to which a culture can develop is depen-
dent upon the food resources utilized within the area it occupies
with the technology possessed by that culture."30 Meggers' law might,
as Hester suggests, be applicable to Culture as a whole, but in that
case it is of limited practical value.
Of all the theories on cultural ecology so far published, Steward's

26
B. J. Meggers, Environmental Limitation on the Development of Culture
(Amer. Anthrop., vol. 56: 5, 1954), pp. 801 ff.
27
Steward, op. cit., p. 36.
28
J. J. Hester, A Comparative Typology of New World Cultures (Amer. An-
throp., vol. 64: 5, 1962).
29
Meggers, op. cit., p. 815.
30
Hester, op. cit., p. 1004; cf. also E. N. Ferdon, Jr., Agricultural Potential
and the Development of Cultures (Southw. Journ. of Anthrop., vol. 15:1, 1959),
p. 3.

138
 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH T O RELIGION

seems to offer the best and most adequate guide to the assessment
of a specified culture's adaptation to environment. Steward deals
with multilinear but not universal evolution, and he substitutes
cultural regularities for cultural laws; his interest is in historical
process, not in conjectural and hypothetical evolutionary series. It is
within the frame of this general empirical program that Steward
discusses the ecology of particular cultures and offers a key to
culture-ecological research. He postpones the seeking for universal
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laws: "Until the processes of cultural ecology are understood in the

many particulars exemplified by different cultures in different parts
of the world a formulation of universal processes will be impos-
sible.""
In contradistinction to Forde and other students mentioned above
Steward considers that ecological adaptations do not only constitute
prohibitive or permissive, but also creative processes. Their effect,
however, is dependent upon, and primarily concerns the basic traits
of the culture investigated, by Steward called the "cultural core":
"the constellation of features which are most closely related to sub-
sistence activities and economic arrangements." "The core includes
such social, political, and religious patterns as are empirically deter-
mined to be closely connected with these arrangements."82 Two con-
clusions may be drawn so far. First, that this theory of cultural
ecology does not subscribe to any environmental or economic deter-
minism; the "cultural filter" which we have mentioned earlier plays
an active rôle also in Steward's system. Second, that primary atten-
tion is paid to those features which according to all the evidence are
most closely bound up with the utilization of environment. Cultural
change in different environments is thus shown to be "basically trace-
able to new adaptations required by changing technology and pro-
ductive arrangements"."
The creative force of environment in a situation of ecological
adaptation emerges clearly in the following case, adduced by Ste-
ward as a working example. The cultural core is that of a hunting
society which is equipped with bows and arrows, spears etc. and has
recourse to snares, traps, surrounds and other hunting devices, but
31
Steward, op. cit., p. 34.
32
Steward, op. cit., p. 37.
33
Steward, op. cit., ibidem.

139
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

the environmental conditions differ. Where the principial game

occurs in large herds there is advantage in co-operative hunting,
and great numbers of people therefore stay together in multifamily
or multilineage groups. On the other hand, if the game lives in small
and scattered groups, it will be hunted by small groups of men joined
in local patrilineal lineages or bands."a Settlement and social orga-
nization are here seen as directly or indirectly affected by the fauna."
The ecologist's first task is according to Steward to analyse the
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interrelationship of exploitative or productive technology and en-

vironment. Next, he should investigate the behaviour patterns
associated with the technology referred to, and finally he has to
ascertain the extent to which these behaviour patterns affect other
aspects of culture—for instance, society and religion." Through a
cross-cultural examination the ecologist can arrive at the formulation
of a "cultural type", a concept that underlines the regularities of a
culture-environmental symbiosis at an identical level of social and
cultural integration in different ethnic groups. In Steward's own
words: "A cultural type consists of core features that, first, are de-
termined by cross-cultural regularities of cultural ecological adapta-
tion and second represent a similar level of sociocultural integra-
tion."" By the latter phrase Steward means that tribes should be
compared with tribes, classes with classes, nations with nations, etc."

33
a Steward speaks preferably of patrilineal bands even w h e n t h e elementary
kin groups which constitute their nuclear basis are bilateral.
34
A serious criticism of Steward's theory of ecological adaptation is presented
in M. Freilich, T h e Natural Experiment, Ecology and Culture (Southw. Journ. of
Anthrop., vol. 1 9 : 1 , 1963), p p . 21 ff. Freilich tested Steward's hypothesis o n
t h e cultural adaptation of East Indians and Negroes in Trinidad, w i t h a negative
result. His procedure is, however, scarcely correct. His error is t h a t he has
extended t h e concept cultural core t o cover features which are determined b y
historical tradition. A nice example of h o w a common ecology transforms
heterogeneous cultures and stimulates t h e growth of a rather unitary cultural
p a t t e r n may be found in Plains equestrian culture. See S. C. Oliver, Ecology
and Cultural Continuity as Contributing Factors in t h e Social Organization of
the Plains Indians (Univ. of Calif,, Publ. in Amer. Archaeol. and Ethnol., vol. 48,
Berkeley and Los Angeles 1962); H . C. Wilson, A n Inquiry into t h e Nature of
Plains Indian Cultural Development (Amer. Anthrop., vol. 6 5 : 2 , 1963), p p .
355 ff.
35
Steward, op. cit., pp. 40 ff.
36
Steward, op. cit., p. 89; also p. 42.
37
Concerning the, in the present author's view, equally important concept of
"cultural level", see below.

140
 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

As an example of a cultural type he mentions the patrilineal bands

of Bushmen, Australians, Tasmanians, Fuegians, Southern Califor-
nians etc., among whom the cultural core is largely the same, the
environment and subsistence technology roughly corresponding and
the level of sociocultural integration about identical.38 As a taxo-
nomical concept the culture type is an excellent instrument for
ecological research, just as the culture area is for diffusionistic
research.
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On the whole, Steward's culture-ecological theory provides us

with a clear-cut tool for measuring the impact of environment on
culture.

Ill
In an appraisal of the possible contribution of ecology to cultural
theory the American anthropologist Paul Baker says, among other
things : "This frame of reference ( : ecology) reminds us that neither
man's biology, his culture, nor his physical and biotic environment
exist in isolation from each other; instead each affects the other.
We cannot, at the present time, fully utilize this concept in our
interpretations of human behavior, but its implications are clear.
It may be convenient to study the role of the priestly class on
temple forms in a culture, but a better understanding of this rela-
tionship will be gained by remembering that the topography of the
land, its climate, the genetics of the people, etc. are all involved in
that same temple form."" Baker here indirectly suggests that ecology
might supplement the sociological and "culturalistic" analysis of reli-
gion, indeed, that it might give the best clue to certain manifesta-
tions of religion. This is probably to say too much, but there is no
doubt that an ecological approach can clarify many problems which
otherwise would remain obscure for us.
It is the present writer's opinion that we can create a sound and
empirical religio-ecological method if we proceed from the general
thesis of the cultural ecologists and Julian Steward's methodological
devices, and develop these tools further so that they will be adapted
38
Steward, op. cit., pp. 122 ff.
39
P. T. Baker, The Application of Ecological Theory to Anthropology (Amer.
Anthrop., vol. 64:1, 1962), p. 21.

141
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

to religious facts and religious functions. By "the general thesis of the

cultural ecologists" I understand their acknowledgement of the posi-
tive, creative influence of environment on culture. This influence
is undeniable, and it is obvious also in the sphere of religion. Let us
try to find out how environment stimulates religious forms.
A certain caution is immediately motivated. More than any other
cultural aspect religion belongs to what Steward calls the "secondary
features" of culture, i.e., it is to a large extent transmitted by tradi-
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tion and is therefore to the same extent outside the cultural core.
For instance, the concept of a High God can not be revealed by the
study of ecological adaptation; it may be coloured by the adaptation
process, as when a zoomorphical Supreme Being occasionally occurs
in a hunting culture and a lofty sky-god appears in a nomadic
pastoral culture, but this process does not account for the presence
or absence of the concept as such. Furthermore, no religion grows
out of ecological, economic or technical circumstance. It is only the
religious forms that may be determined by such impulses, at least
partly—we must not forget that religious forms are also moulded by
cultural and religious tradition. Religion as such, the religious senti-
ment etc., cannot be coped with ecologically, it springs from sources
associated with the psychological make-up of man.
As I have stated elsewhere,40 the influence of environment on
culture is either direct, i.e. is independent of every expression of
cultural activity, "a strictly mechanical process", or indirect, i.e. con-
ditioned by culture. Seen from an uncompromising culture-ecological
point of view, however, both processes may be described as prin-
cipally indirect, since the level of cultural achievement determines
the quantity and quality of environmental effects. In any case,
religion does not enter those cultural aspects which are directly
coloured by environmental conditions. As pointed out above it is to
a large extent dependent on culture, or cultural tradition. This is
particularly true of religion in its mythological aspect," whereas prac-
40
Hultkrantz, op. cit., p. 35.
41
The conservative tendency of mythology, and the more flexible and adaptable
character of religious beliefs, have been demonstrated in my paper Religion und
Mythologie der Prärie-Schoschonen (Akten des 34. Internationalen Amerikanisten-
kongresses, Wien 1962), pp. 552 f.
42
A case study will be found in my article The Indians and the Wonders of
Yellowstone, referred to above.

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 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

tical, everyday faith may be, if not deserted, definitely altered

through a clash of Nature with the inherited value system." In
other words, those aspects of religion which are less tinged with rigid
tradition are more affected by environmental changes, but the in-
fluences of the latter always pass through the filter of established
value patterns and other cultural manifestations.
The indirect and complicated way in which environment can in-
fluence religion has been aptly illustrated by Steward: "Land use by
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means of a given technology permits a certain population density.

The clustering of this population will depend partly upon where
resources occur and upon transportational devices. The composition
of these clusters will be a function of their size, of the nature of
subsistence activities, and of cultural-historical factors. The owner-
ship of land or resources will reflect subsistence activities on the one
hand and the composition of the group on the other. Warfare may
be related to the complex of factors just mentioned. In some cases,
it may arise out of competition for resources and have a national
character. Even when fought for individual honors or religious pur-
poses, it may serve to nucleate settlements in a way that must be
related to subsistence activities."" This example was introduced by
Steward in order to show how the behaviour patterns entailed in
exploiting the environment affect other aspects of culture, for in-
stance, religion, and how only a genuinely holistic approach can give
us a true insight into the complicated web of cause and effect.
The indirect, culture-conditioned influences of Nature on religion
may be classified in the following way.
CO Environment provides materials for religious actions and
religious conceptions. It is a well-known fact that primitive religions
to a great extent reflect the prevailing natural conditions. Rites,
beliefs and myths make use of the natural setting in different ways:
Ca) Rites are directly associated with the economic progress or
prosperity of the society, and they thus present activities which refer
to existing flora or fauna. For instance, a hunting society has recourse
to religious or magic rites aiming at the increase of edible animals—
or rather, of animals which according to the current value standard
are fit for consumption." In the enactment of the rites the priests,
43
Steward, op. cit., p. 42.
44
In many places taboos restrict the choice of food animals. Cf., for instance,

143
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

dancers etc., often make use of objects associated with the purpose
in view, in animal rites horns, feathers, skulls and hides of the animal
which is supplicated. Sacred shrines—sacrificial groves, offering
lodges, temples etc.—in which ceremonies are held reflect in their
construction the geographical, geological, climatic and biological con-
ditions of their surroundings (particularly if the culture they re-
present is not technically advanced and if traditional architecture
introduced from another area does not conflict with the character of
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the natural resources).

(b) Beliefs concerning the supernatural world are more or less
modelled upon environmental, social and cultural features appearing
in the world of the senses. Nature in the afterworld shows the same
picture as Nature in the world of the living, although ethical, social
and other values may inspire the selection of some traits and the
obliteration of others (of the type: no snakes in paradise, but many
in hell). Spirits may take the form of important animals in a hunting
religion, and depict in that case only the animals of the region:
kangaroos in Australia, bears in the Arctic, buffaloes on the North
American Plains. Tradition, of course, transmits the idea of animal
spirits to later generations or other societies for which the animals
do not play any dominant rôle in the economic life; cf. for instance
the vegetation deities in agrarian Middle Europe as described by
Mannhardt. The ways by which animals originally entered religious
conceptions may have differed, but one very important gate has
to all appearances been the dream or the vision.
(c) Myths, as stated above, are to a very large extent determined
by tradition—hence the prevailing tendency of folklorists to seek
their origins by diffusionistic methods. Nevertheless, they not infre-
quently reflect the general scene and the animals of the country
surrounding the raconteurs. The story-teller, in other words, alters
the details of the mythical picture to suit his listeners; or he reinter-
prets the tale unconsciously, to enhance its reality value. In the latter
case dreams may pave the way, as Roheim and other myth psychol-
ogists have suggested. In any case, the explanations by the exponents
of the so-called nature-mythological school according to which myths

the taboo on horse-flesh in northern Europe, or on fish among the Plains Indians
of North America.

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 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

directly reflect the events in Nature, do not stand up to closer

examination." Several myths which have been judged as giving aitia
for natural phenomena may, as Radin suggests, represent psychic
processes that secondarily employ the picture of the sun's rising and
setting." On the other hand, the predominance of certain natural
phenomena in the mythologies of certain areas often relates to the
predominant influence these phenomena exert in these areas. It is
certainly no coincidence that uranic and astral mythology is particu-
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larly rife among the nomads on the open plains.

(2) Environment stimulates the organization of religious mani-
festations through influence on culture. In this connection there are
particularly two forms of such organization worth mentioning: the
religious structure, and the value pattern.
(a) The religious structure reflects the social structure which in
some respects fulfills ecological demands. The relation of social
organization to ecological and subsistence circumstances was dem-
onstrated above (§ 2). In an ecological situation which does not
allow population density and complicated group formations there
is no place for an elaborate stratified society, and thus no possibility
of the emergence of a hierarchical priesthood. Similarly, collective
rites of a fixed and elaborate character appear above all in societies
where ecological and technical circumstances motivate joint efforts
in economic enterprises. True temples with daily attention to the
symbols of the gods exist only in cultures where permanently resident
"groups have formed as a result of ecological fand technical etc.)
opportunities. Beliefs and myths reflect the social and religious
structure built on ecological premises.
(b) The religious pattern expresses an ideology and a value
system which refer to existing conditions in a society based on a
certain type of ecological adaptation. When new ecological demands
appear, this pattern is shattered, or modified to establish a new
equilibrium. "Nature and its phenomena are judged according to
the system of values established within the social group on the basis
of inherited tradition, internal development, loan from other groups,
and adaptation to the natural environment. It is when the ingrained

45
Cf. Dorson, op. cit.
46
P. Radin, The World of Primitive Man (New York 1953), p. 310.

10 -566-3126
145
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

scale of values, the traditional conceptual material, no longer suffices

that the influence of Nature gets freer play."" An illustrative case
is the way in which the North American Indians reacted to the
sprouting geysers of the present-day Yellowstone National Park:
the fear inspired by these places became neutralized and the places
themselves "socialized" when new religious concepts covering their
phenomena were brought into being and extensive areas became
taboo."
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It is certainly no exaggeration to maintain that in a creative way

Nature influences religion, although this influence is less direct than
that on material culture, particularly economics and technology,
and apparently also less direct than that on social culture (this
question needs, however, further consideration). The quality and
essence of this environmental impact on religion may be assessed
in the same way as in cultural ecology, viz., by the formulation of
the concept type of religion corresponding to Steward's cultural type.
The type of religion contains those religious patterns and features
which belong to or are intimately associated with the cultural core
and therefore arise out of environmental adaptations. The type con-
cept is not restricted to the phenomena of a continuous geographical
area, but takes in phenomena which have a similar ecological in-
tegration in different areas." It presupposes, however, that the
economic and technical level is the same in all the cultural cores
concerned. This level is here, for the sake of simplicity, called "cul-
tural level"." Type of religion may now be defined as a constellation'
of important religious traits and complexes which in different places
have a similar ecological adaptation and represent a similar cultural
level.
Environment, cultural core and cultural level, fundamental reli-
47
Hultkrantz, The Indians and the Wonders of Yellowstone, pp. 35 f. Cf. Radin,
op. cit., pp. 71 f.
48
Hultkrantz, op. cit., p. 66.
49
Concerning the import of "type", see J. A. Ford and J. H. Steward, On the
Concept of Types (Amer. Anthrop., vol. 56:1, 1954), pp. 42 ff., 54 ff.
50
I consider this frame of reference more important than Steward's "level of
sociocultural integration". As is well known, the effect of environment on techno-
logically simpler cultures is considerably greater than on high civilizations. This
is the background of the German and Scandinavian differentiation between
"Naturvölker" and "Kulturvölker". Cf. also Hester, op. cit., p. 1004; Radin, op.
cit., p. 23.

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 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

gious traits—these are the links in the chain which constitutes the
type of religion.
The types of religion may thus be formulated as soon as the cor-
responding cultural types have been defined. Desert nomadism, for
instance, is a fairly well cirmumscribed cultural type/ 1 and desert
nomadic religion is the type of religion belonging to it. Every
historian of religion knows what a rôle the alleged desert pattern
of the primitive Israelites has played in the study of Oriental
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religions."
Another equally well defined cultural type is the Arctic hunting
culture whose corollary is the Arctic hunting religion." Here we find
a religion characterized by its emphasis on concepts and rites asso-
ciated with animals and the hunting of animals: zoomorphical spirits,
often functioning as the masters of the animals; hunting magic and
hunting divination; and animal ceremonialism (e.g., bear rites). We
also perceive a local worship of stones, lakes etc. according to their
ecological importance; a conception of the Universe reflecting the
structure of the dwellings; forms of shamanism and intensity of
shamanism corresponding to environmental demands on the human
practitioner; and burials in forms which have been modified or even
provoked by the severe Arctic conditions. It is also possible to cor-
relate the relative lack of shamanistic specialization and of hier-
archic superimposition of the supernatural powers to the deficiency
of social differentiation (and stratification) due to the limitations
necessitated by the environment.
Whether we speak of desert nomadic religion or Arctic hunting
religion, in both cases the type of religion is in its essence timeless:

51
There are several sub-types of desert nomadism, as this exists in southwestern
Asia. See E. E. Bacon, Types of Pastoral Nomadism in Central and Southwest
Asia (Southw. Journ. of Anthrop., vol. 10: 1, 1954), pp. 44 ff.
52
Cf. for instance H. and H. A. Frankfort, The Emancipation of Thought from
Myth (in: H. Frankfort et al., The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man,
Chicago 1946), pp. 363 ff. Concerning the influence of environment on religions
patterns in the ancient Near East, see S. G. F. Brandon, The Myth and Ritual
Position Critically Considered (in: Myth, Ritual, and Kingship, ed by S. H. Hooke,
Oxford 1958), p. 271.
53
Å. Hultkrantz, Type of Religion in the Arctic Hunting Cultures: A Religio-
Ecological Approach (in: Hunting and Fishing, Nordic Symposium on life in
a Traditional Hunting and Fishing Milieu in Prehistoric Times and up to the
Present Day, ed. by H. Hvarfner, Luleå 1965), pp. 281 ff., 299 ff.

147
 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

in principle it should occur wherever ecological and technological

conditions of a similar level and integration appear. Historical in-
fluences may create changing patterns by repressing or emphasizing
certain features, but the general frame of reference remains the same.

IV
The concept of the type of religion lends itself to historical re-
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constructions of the religious past. The methods used for these

reconstructions presuppose that it is possible to build up a picture
of an ancient religion from the archaeological material, that we
know the cultural and religious index of the ethnographical present,
and that it is admissible to interpret archaeological material in the
light of the ethnographical present.
Although disputed by some archaeologists (cf. our introduction),
the possibility of drawing inferences to religion from archaeological
material is accepted by many of their colleagues, perhaps most
demonstratively in the United States, where archaeology is a branch
of cultural anthropology. Taylor, for instance, declares that the con-
junctive approach in archaeology "has as its primary goal the elucida-
tion of cultural conjunctives, the associations and relationships, the
'affinities', within the manifestation under investigation. It aims at
drawing the completest possible picture of past human life in terms
of its human and geographic environment"." This functional ap-
proach also involves religion. Taylor insists that careful analysis of
archaeological materials may lead to acceptable inferences concern-
ing religious beliefs and religious organization.58' He is certainly not
mistaken; arrangements of houses within a settlement, for instance,
give some indications of the social structure and therewith also of the
religious structure. But our possibility of making use of these sug-
gestions is entirely dependent upon our knowledge of the primitive
cultures from which, consciously or unconsciously, we draw the
necessary parallels.
The ethnographical material which must be known by the religio-
ecologist is very rich indeed. It is not enough to have a reasonable
54
W. W. Taylor, A Study of Archeology (Amer. Anthrop. Ass., Memoirs, vol.
69, Menasha 1948), pp. 95 f.
55
Taylor, op. cit., p. 188.

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 AKE HULTKRANTZ: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RELIGION

knowledge of the forms religion can take, for religious ecology

depends on the identification of the cultural core and the cultural
type. The functional, holistic view is basic for this kind of scientific
approach.
The main difficulty with this approach remains, however, the
justification of interpreting the archaeological past with reference to
the ethnographic present. Gunter Smolla warns that religious struc-
tures change, and that features which today regularly characterize a
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certain type of structure do appear in other structures when we

turn to the distant past." This may be true if the structures are
determined as historical complexes or cultural levels, but it is not
true if they are understood as ecologically formed structures. For
the rest, interpretations in terms of the ethnographical present are
indispensable to archaeological reconstructions. Ehrich states that
"inferences drawn from archeological material are based on direct
analogies with known ethnological data, or are the product of logical
progressions which start with such analogies"." Ascher has supplied
a device for how archaeological data may be interpreted through
recent ethnographical materials.58
It is obvious that the archaeologist's choice of parallels will be
more to the point if ecological viewpoints are considered. The
present trend is also to combine archaeological interpretations with
an ecological perspective. Swanson's theory of archaeological analysis
is indeed very close to the program of ecological investigation pro-
posed in this paper. Swanson's method is "to establish a model of
cultural and environmental relationships. In doing so, I assume a
continuum of both culture and environment. The consequence of
such a model is that present environments constitute evidence
for past cultures. Thus, if there are multiple environments, we should
expect multiple early cultures, and we should expect, further, that
they too continue to the present day. The number of models will
depend upon the number of environments. The advantage of this
approach is that we should be able to predict what we will find in
56
G. Smolla, Völkerkunde und Vorgeschichte (Völkerkunde, ed. by B. Freuden-
feld, München 1960), pp. 126 ff., 131.
57
R. W. Ehrich, Further Reflections on Archeological Interpretation (Amer. An-
throp., vol. 65: 1, 1963), p. 18.
58
R. Ascher, Analogy in Archaeological Interpretation (Southw. Journ. of
Anthrop., vol. 17: 4, 1961), pp. 317 ff.

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 ETHNOS I 9 6 6

particular areas and thereby test the adequacy of any model. For
example, we should be able to predict the presence of cultural contin-
uums in some archaelogical sites rather than a layer-cake sequence.
In one sense, an archaeological continuum would represent the
ethnological present, regardless of time depth, while the archaeo-
logical layer-cake would express intercultural relationships. Models
of this kind seem particularly useful in areas occupied by food-
collecting peoples, since we may expect close adaptation to the
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natural setting." In order to make himself clear in a vital issue the

author cited expressly denies that an unchanging environment would
necessarily mean an unchanging culture."
The task of religio-ecological research at the present juncture is to
present an acceptable index of types of religions and of patterns and
features which are comprised in them. Unfortunately, there is no
corresponding index of cultural types to proceed from, with one
exception, Hester's survey of American Indian cultural types.60 The
latter might serve as a model for further definitions.
59
E. H. Swanson, Jr., Early Cultures in Northwestern America (Amer. Antiq-
uity, vol. 28:2, 1962), p. 151.
60
Hester, op. cit.

150