| animism | Belief in souls or doubles.
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| cargo cults | Postcolonial, acculturative religious movements, common in Melanesia, that attempt to explain European domination and wealth and to achieve similar success magically by mimicking European behavior.
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| communal religions | In Wallace’s typology, these religions have, in addition to shamanic cults, communal cults in which people organize community rituals such as harvest ceremonies and rites of passage.
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| communitas | Intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness; characteristic of people experiencing liminality together.
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| leveling mechanism | A custom or social action that operates to reduce differences in wealth and thus to bring standouts in line with community norms.
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| liminality | The critically important marginal or in-between phase of a rite of passage.
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| magic | Use of supernatural techniques to accomplish specific aims.
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| monotheism | Worship of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent supreme being.
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| Olympian religions | In Wallace’s typology, develop with state organization; have full-time religious specialists—professional priesthoods.
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| polytheism | Belief in several deities who control aspects of nature.
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| religion | Belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces.
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| revitalization movements | Movements that occur in times of change, in which religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or revitalize a society.
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| rites of passage | Culturally defined activities associated with the transition from one place or stage of life to another.
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| ritual | Behavior that is formal, stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped, performed earnestly as a social act; rituals are held at set times and places and have liturgical orders.
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| shaman | A part-time religious practitioner who mediates between ordinary people and supernatural beings and forces.
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| syncretisms | Cultural mixes, including religious blends, that emerge from acculturation—the exchange of cultural features when cultures come into continuous firsthand contact.
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| taboo | Set apart as sacred and off-limits to ordinary people; prohibition backed by supernatural sanctions.
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| mana | Sacred impersonal force in Melanesian and Polynesian religions.
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