Religion
The Dong people are traditionally polytheistic with many elements of animism (Geary 2003). Totems include turtles, snakes, and dragons, and worshipped ancestors include the mythical figures of Song Sang, Song En, Zhang Liang, and Zhang Mei (Geary 2003:149-151). The Dong people also use rice grains, bamboo roots, snails, and chicken bone, eyes, blood, and eggs for divination. Today, Taoism, Buddhism, and to a lesser extent Christianity are also practiced by the Dong people.
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Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Never has any one been less a priest than Jesus, never a greater enemy of forms, which stifle religion under the pretext of protecting it. By this we are all his disciples and his successors; by this he has laid the eternal foundation-stone of true religion; and if religion is essential to humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine rank the world has accorded him.”
—Ernest Renan (1823–1892)
“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.”
—Josephine Baker (1906–1975)
“Both Socrates and Jesus were outstanding teachers; both of them urged and practiced great simplicity of life; both were regarded as traitors to the religion of their community; neither of them wrote anything; both of them were executed; and both have become the subject of traditions that are difficult or impossible to harmonize.”
—Jaroslav Pelikan (b. 1932)