Religion
Before American missionaries came to the area comprising the modern Kachin state, the majority of the Kachin were Animists. Some worship various gods as well as the spirits of their ancestors. The ancestor of all the Jingpo, who is worshipped as a spirit or god, is held to be named Madai. Jingpo Animists believe that spirits reside everywhere, from the sun to the animals, and that these spirits bring good or bad luck. For the Jingpo, all living creatures are believed to have souls. Rituals are carried out for protection in almost all daily activities, from planting of crops to warfare.
Nowadays, most Jingpo people are Christians. There are also small groups of Buddhists and Animists.
Read more about this topic: Jingpo People
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)
“If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism—at least in the sense of this work—is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.”
—Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872)
“The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador’s chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)