Primitive “Culture of Belief” and Anthropological Turn

The concept of “primitive religion” which is popular in academic world of today is incorrect for it takes the primitive worship of nature and the worship of ancestors, and their combination, as the connotation of history and humanity in primitive religion. It is to be discussed that Taylor, father of anthropology, identified animism as “the first definition” of religious culture. In fact, the earliest cultural ideology of human beings is the trinity of primitive myth, totem and sorcery, while they have their individual “nature”, which can be summarized with a newly-proposed academic concept of primitive “culture of belief”. This may be a anthropological turn. It is possible to reach academic truth to engage in anthropological studies from the dimensions either in broad sense or in narrow sense. The studies in sorcery culture in China, as it contains the primitive culture of belief, aims to reach a study of the native culture of China, and this may be another possible anthropological turn.