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Animist religion for Thai shrines #3063
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https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/religion=animist is used but quite rarely, documented at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key%3Areligion Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism reveals that topic is quite tricky, I need to learn a bit to have some basic knowledge about this topic. |
Hmm, animist is not really a religion, as much as "monotheism" is not a religion (but a category of religions).
But ok.
Are you referring to things like all those little spirit houses in front of many buildings? If yes, I was under the impression that this animist practice was rather looked as as a mere aspect of Thai (folk) Buddhism, not something separate.
F.e., the owner of a house that put up such a little spirit house, if asked about his religion, would he answer "Animist"? Or rather "Buddhist"? I am quite sure it would be the latter.
After all, isn't it Bhuddist monks that consecrate a new house with their spirit house and isn't it monks that trade with lucky charms at temples?
Buddhism as practiced by the people differs quite a bit from country to country, incorporates elements of animism, ancestral worship or hinduism here and there. And anyway differs somewhat from the "pure teachings".
But that is completely normal and is the case with every major religion. As Christianity in Europe incorporated some pagan rites, so does Christianity in Central America incorporate other rituals that are reminiscent of things that came before Christianity.
…On July 13, 2021 11:31:14 AM GMT+02:00, Mateusz Konieczny ***@***.***> wrote:
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/religion=animist is used but
quite rarely, documented at
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key%3Areligion
Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism reveals that topic is
quite tricky, I need to learn a bit to have some basic knowledge about
this topic.
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#3063 (comment)
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So I'd rather see this as |
@westnordost I did a survey in Thai groups to ask which religion they would identify spirit houses would belong to and 70% responded "local religion" which translates to animism. This is the general consensus in the Thai community forum as well. https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=73213 |
Cool, thanks for starting a discussion there. Note though that most people active on the forum are farangs. I'll also try to get another opinion from a few acquaintances. Regarding
Maybe StreetComplete should instead not ask for the religion of shrines that have a |
Although most Thais call themselves Buddhist, I don't think that all of their rituals should be classified as Buddhism, folk Buddhism, or something similar. Most Buddhist monks won't do anything at the spirit house, but a Brahmin (Hindu priest) will. According to some scholars, Thai belief was a mixture of Phut, Phram, and Phi (Buddhism, Hinduism, and Animism). Although a mixture is common, we can distinguish the main belief at each place of worship. To compare, in Japan we have
This is a shrine of Brahma, a hindu god, so |
Look at the large list of "others" in the religion key. So the |
Still Even if used widely, |
Right, good point, @stephankn , what counts is how the tag If animism were to be added, what would be a reasonable icon though? Maybe something with eyes, to symbolize the belief that spirits inhere in things, thus are aware, i.e. see? |
The spirit house should come as a preset with a fixed tagging. So no need to select the religion. See google image search for "Thai Spirit House" to get an impression about the typical look. |
This Ticket is about the "what religion does this shrine have?" quest that is asked for all shrines in the world that have none tagged. |
I.e. your comment is not applicable |
Ah, I get the context. Maybe the quest is not fully matching here. So instead of asking for a religion, the right question would be whether that wayside shrine is a Thai Spirit House. And if yes, you would apply the tagging. If not, you could ask for other details. Can you make quests location aware? So that a historic=wayside_shrine without religion tag in Thailand results in other questions/order of questions than the same missing tag in for example Germany? In Thailand, they are most probably Spirit houses. So you could ask for this first. In Germany probably something religion=christian. And in that case you might be interested in knowing denomination as well. |
Maybe there could be an answer "It's a spirit house", similiar to "It's a picnic table" for the bench backrest quest? |
Even though possible, I'd not want to make this that complicated. Basically, it comes down to this question: What would a Thai answer to the question "What is the religion of this shrine?" when asked for a spirit house? If it is "Animist", then we need to add "Animist" as a religion. In the meantime, I asked someone who graduated in Thai studies. She said that it is a difficult topic as on one hand, also monks participate in things like the inauguration of spirit houses, administer those colorful ribbons around trees, the tattoos and lucky charms but at the same time, she was quite sure that at least the higher ups in the church hierarchy would say that these practices are not at all part of Buddhism. She mentioned that exorcism for example was also a somewhat pagan practice and still is somehow attributed to Christianity. Nowadays, at least in Europe, Christians would say that this belief is superstition, but does that change the fact that it was practiced by Christian priests in the past (and elsewhere probably still), i.e. was/is part of the religion? Would a blessing given by a Christian priest, or a crucifix on the door, to ward off demons be considered Animist? Not so long ago, it was common to put grotesque faces on the facade of buildings in Europe, citation:
In English, also known as Gargoyles and those can be found on churches too, right? In any case, she said, that it will very likely depend on who is asked. People that somewhat think that such practices are superstition would probably answer that it is an animist practice. But the others, maybe not. She promised me that she would ask a few of her Thai friends - which are all academics though. Edit: My impression so far is that if there is no clear answer to this, we should not make this about the religion. I.e. if it is not super easy for the surveyor to give an answer - or that answer may differ from person to person - , then it is the wrong question to ask. As @stephankn and @nitinatsangsit hinted at, the question should rather be, is this a spirit house or a shrine? |
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Seems we are struggling here with the key "religion", which is according to the wiki already in use for spiritual beliefs which are not really considered a religion. A spirit house matches very well the definition of a wayside shrine. and as these are in OSM then sub-classified by the religion key, this will then probably the right one to use. Wikipedia gives some hints. Compare the description of the different languages, as it hints what it is about: They all agree that these are from animist beliefs, which are tolerated by Buddhism and coexists in south-east asia. They are not Buddhist, even with a larger part of the population having one. |
We can assume that a "spirit house" is an animist shrine. |
Ok, so any ideas for an icon? Or just no icon at all? |
I have no idea about an icon. General icon for wayside_shrine might be ok. |
Many shrines in Thailand should be tagged religion=animist, I would like to request this as an option in the app.
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