The Apo-Dios Concept in Northern Luzon
The problem of translating the word “god,” the bane of most missionaries seeding to render Christian Scripture into the language of non-Christian people, is readily solved among some of the pagan tribes of Northern Luzon by the existence of a local term for the word and, presumably, a concept to mat...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1961
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| In: |
Practical anthropology
Year: 1961, Volume: 8, Issue: 5, Pages: 207-216 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The problem of translating the word “god,” the bane of most missionaries seeding to render Christian Scripture into the language of non-Christian people, is readily solved among some of the pagan tribes of Northern Luzon by the existence of a local term for the word and, presumably, a concept to match. This is the term Apo-Dios, in current use by pagan apologists along the center and western slope of the Gran Cordillera to dignify one or another of their deities as the equivalent of the Judeo-Christian supreme being. “That's our apo-dios,” they say, and their Christian relatives second the notion out of broadminded good will and to lessen the shock of relegating their forebears to complete perdition. Missionaries and scientists have frequently accepted these claims at face value, and for fifty years have been publishing references to such a Montane “supreme deity” and even an Igorot monotheism. If such a pagan apo-dios actually existed in indigenous pre-Christian religions, we can expect him to meet some minimal standards of divinity and supremacy. Such a deity ought at least to be both the creator and sustainer of the world, to exercise control over his creatures, and to receive their worship. We submit in this article that there is no divine personality known in native Mountain Province religions who enjoys all or even most of these attributes, and that the apo-dios concept in Northern Luzon is rather the result of religious acculturation. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Practical anthropology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/009182966100800503 |