ABSTRACT
Religion concerns all beliefs, rituals, and symbols, which imply a relation between man and supposed supernatural beings or forces. There is a 'constellation' involving religion and latent symbolic categories which form a world-view. The whole constellation forms the 'ideological superstructure' of society: in plain language: a constellation of knowledge, belief, and emotion, common to all Tio, which exercises a deep influence on their social life. The beliefs came to life in everyone's mind when rituals were held or misfortunes discussed, in concrete given situations of planting and harvesting, giving birth, hunting, falling ill, in accidents, and death. An internal study of ritual could start from a morphology of the various rituals existing. Typical of rituals was that charms especially for furthering fortune were found at the individual level and used only by men, whereas praying-sacrifice was associated with social groups, and with rituals to correct misfortune. The realism of ritual action seems to exclude metaphorical symbolic action.
