ABSTRACT
The number of anthropologists who have written on the clan, for example, is large, but only a tiny fraction of those writers have paused in their work to say exactly what they mean by the term or even to compare their own usage to that of other scholars. Some anthropologists have taken what might be termed a generic approach, accepting without debate the dictionary definition as applicable to anthropology as to any other discipline. This chapter shows that perhaps the most commonly held definition of religion is that it deals with the supernatural. From the perspective of contemporary anthropology, this is a most laudable approach: The field ethnographer studies a culture in terms of its institutional subdivisions. In any case, there are of course many scholars who subscribe to the view that a belief in some superhuman power is the defining feature of religion.
