Andreas Öberg, History of Religion, Stockholm University

Between Theory and Empirical data. A Study of the History of Ideas Regarding Ancestor Worship in Research into Old Norse Religion

2007-2012

The original aim of the project was to analyze the relationship between theory and empirical evidence in Old Norse religious research both from an interdisciplinary perspective and from the perspective of the history of ideas by studying how the issue "pre-Christian ancestor worship" have been treated within archaeology, the history of religions and historical folkloristics throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The goal was to investigate how the often contradictory views on the phenomenon "ancestor worship" held by the various disciplines in Scandinavia derive from differences in the empirical source materials, from theoretical historical divergences or other, exogenous, factors. One further aim was to demonstrate that "redundant" theories and interpretations might implicitly play a greater role for more recent research than is generally accepted.
The study ranges up to the situation within research today, but since its purpose was to investigate how the question, from the perspective of the history of ideas, developed in different directions within the various disciplines, greatest weight has been put on that most formative period for humanist research from the last third of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. Quite early in the research process it became clear that the issue "ancestor worship" could not be studied in isolation but must be put into the perspective of other development of research, particularly those in Germany and Scandinavia. The project finally came to comprise three basic lines of thought, theoretically linked up with three 19th century hypotheses of the origin of religion: that ur-indoeuropean, Germanic and Old Norse religion had developed from cults of the dead, sun worship and vegetation cults.

Results:

1. There is a history of divergent opinions between representatives of the history of religion and archaeologists regarding the role of the ancestor worship in Old Norse religion. In part, these disagreements arise from the fact that the different disciplines work with different source materials and in part on the differing theoretical starting points on the perception of what the category ancestor cult actually entails. In terms of the history of ideas, the source of this difference can be traced back to the quest by evolutionistic research in the later part of the 19th century to find the origin and emergence of religion. Seen as a theory within the history of religions, the hypotheses that the dead constitute the origin of all religion ensues from Edward Tylor (animism) and Herbert Spencer (manism). Tylor followed an anthropological line differentiating between a general death cult (primarily burial rites) and an ancestor worship, while Spencer, a sociologist; equated both categories. Generally speaking, Tylor had a greater influence on the history of religion than Spencer but it was the latter's use of the category "ancestor worship" which was adopted by researchers interested in Indo-European, German and Old Norse religion (often under the German designation "Seelenkult" or the Swedish "själskult"). During the course of the 20th century the anthropological differentiation between death cult and ancestor worship became, in principle, accepted within the history of religion and it was stated early on that there was no source material which could confirm that the ancestor worship, in its true meaning, had developed in pre-Christian Scandinavia. At the same time, researchers within the field of archaeology have implicitly held on to the much more inclusive use of the category ancestor worship advocated by Spencer. The divergence of opinion within these disciplines on the role of the ancestor worship in pre-Christian Scandinavia largely harks back to the question of how categories were defined within evolutionistic research of religion at the end of the 19th century.
2. The primarily Anglo-Saxon evolutionistic anthropology of religion worked from a global perspective. At the same time, German-speaking researchers of religion were somewhat skeptical to pure evolutionism. Their approach to research was rooted in the ideas of romanticism, focusing more on "nature mythological" philology, and their studies were usually limited to the so called Indo-European peoples. Max Müller, the leading proponent of nature mythology at the time, found the origin of religion to be in the wonderment experienced at the magnificent drama of the rising sun. Regardless of the fact that this theory obviated the manistic/animistic hypothesis of the origin of religion, it became, largely through the auspices of Tylor, integrated into the broader systems of evolutionary development. In this composite form the death cult and solar/sky worship began, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, to be perceived as the original form of Indo-European religion by a new generation of scholars in German and Old Norse history and culture. This interpretation was even adopted by certain Scandinavian archaeologists (firstly Jens Worsaae and Oscar Montelius) who adapted the philological methods of the solar mythology so that they could be applied to archaeological iconographic material. This combination of manism/animism and solar mythology has survived in this archaeological form throughout the 20th century as a specific school of the archaeology of religion closely linked to the study of Bronze Age religion.
3. The issue "ancestor worship" was to meet a different fate in early religious history and folkloristics. During the 19th century the first Scandinavian pioneers were in general influenced by the nature romanticism of their time but, during the last decades of the century, Tylor's animist theories in particular became increasingly popular. Consequently, many "lower" beings in folk belief such as Swedish "tomten" (the brownie), "älvor" (the elfs), "vättar" (the goblins), etc., began to be regarded as pre-Christian survivals of original death spirits within folk belief. At the beginning of the 20th century these interpretations began to be challenged, through the work of folklorists influenced by the nature animistic hypotheses which had been launched by Wilhelm Mannhardt and James Frazer some decades earlier. The "lower" beings of folk belief were now seen by some as nature spirits and thus there was no survivals from pre-Christian ancestor worship in the religious folk customs, which were interpreted mainly as fertility cults. The early part of the 20th century witnessed a heated debate between representatives for these schools of thought. It was of decisive importance that those who founded the Swedish Folk Lore Archives and who first undertook the systematic collection of data on the folk beliefs of the late peasant society represented the nature animism school. These collections were quite broadly inclusive and, besides vegetation cults, major collections were made regarding for example general practices connected with death and burial. However, few efforts were made to collect data on or research into the explicit question as to whether there were residual elements in the late peasant society of (pre-Christian or Catholic) distinct cults of the dead (which also could have been an important source of material in the debate between manism and nature animism). The question of the ancestor worship or, for that matter, the Catholic cult of the dead was, therefore, not investigated by folklorists of the history of religion in Sweden. The debate was of major significance throughout the whole of Scandinavia. When the Norwegian historian of religion, Emil Birkeli, published a series of studies on the Norwegian "fedrekult" during the 1930's and 1940's they were largely regarded as anomalies.

New questions of research arising from this project:

The projects long-term perspective also touched upon religious continuity, variation and change which gave rise to a lengthy article in an international anthology (see 2 below).
Furthermore, the project's focus on the ancestor worship, which normally takes place at a burial ground or even more commonly within the confines of the home, raises questions about the category "cult site", which, within archaeology and the history of religion, is often equated with explicit sanctuaries. This too resulted in a lengthy paper.
With the current project as a starting point, a new research project has been formulated, concerning the "divine" in Old Norse religion/religious research. This project is being financed by the Swedish Vetenskapsrådet for the next three years.

The project's two most important publications:

1. (Monografi, preliminär titel) "Fornnordisk religionsforskning mellan teori och empiri: dyrkan av anfäder, solen och vegetationsandar i idéhistorisk belysning". (Under utgivning).
2. (Artikel) "On the question of continuity, change and regional variations in Old Norse religion". I: "Norse Religion - Mythological narratives, Ritual Practices and Regional Distribution". (Eds. Ch. Raudvere & J. P. Schjødt). Lund. 2012

Conferences etc.:
1. Early North European Seminar (ENES). Uppsala universitet 9 maj 2012.
2. Det långa skiftet II, Sigtunastiftelsen 8 maj 2012.
3. Ancestor worship. University of Aberdeen, 8 mars 2012.
4. Det långa skiftet I, Sigtunastiftelsen, 15 november 2011.
5. Den heliga platsen, Mitthögskolan Härnösand 15-18 september 2011.
6. Nathan Söderblom-sällskapet. 7 november 2011.
7. Gods and Goddesses on the Edge: Myth and Liminality. An Interdisciplinary Conference on Nordic Mythology, Reykjavík, 12-13 November 2010.
8. Symposium om kultplatser, Stockholms läns museum, 9 mars 2010.
9. The 14th International Saga Conference, 9-15 augusti 2009.
10. Symposium om vikingatida broar och själabroar, Såstaholm (Stockholms läns museum), 3-4 april 2009.

Publications

1. (Monografi, preliminär titel) ”Fornnordisk religionsforskning mellan teori och empiri: dyrkan av anfäder, solen och vegetationsandar i idéhistorisk belysning”. (Under utgivning).

2. (in print) ”Kultplatser och tolkningsperspektiv i fornnordisk religionsforskning” I: Den heliga platsen (prel. titel).

3. “On the question of continuity, change and regional variations in Old Norse religion”. I: Norse Religion - Mythological narratives, Ritual Practices and Regional Distribution. (Eds. Ch. Raudvere & J. P. Schjødt). Lund. 2012.

4. “Vad är en kultplats?”. I: Fornvännen. 17, 2011.

5. ”Kultplatser, helgedomar och heliga platser.” I: Makt, Kult, Plats. Högstatusmiljöer under den äldre järnåldern. (Stockholms läns museum. Nr. 5), 2011.

6. ”The Grave as a Doorway to the Other World”. I: Temenos 2009.

7. ”Runstenar och själabroar - kyrklig strategi och förkristet gensvar.” I: Bro till evigheten. Brons rumsliga, sociala och religiösa dimension under vikingatid och tidig medeltid. (Red. A. Nordberg och L. Andersson). Stockholm 2009.

8. Under projekttiden men utanför själva projektets vetenskapliga ramar skrevs även uppslagsorden ”Fenrir”, ”Hœnir”, ”Loðurr”, ”Óðinn”, ”Óðr”, ”Starkaðr”, ”Suttungr”, ”Ullr”, ”Váfþrúðnir”, ”Vé”, ”Víðarr”, ”Víkarr” och ”Vili” för det kommande uppslagsverket ”Dictionnaire Universel des Dieux, Déesses et Démons” (les Editions du Seuil, Paris, France).