Most of the believers may it be Catholics or Protestants believe in visual piety, and they consider them as not just carvings but something sacred. I agree with David Morgan that people are often entitled to the theologies that they choose, and it is hard to change their minds. These images gain their popularity based on the manner in which they answer the needs of devout (Morgan 11). I do not believe the theological critics that depict that numerous devotional piety shrinks the Creator as an idolatrous human. Most of the believers of these images associate them with salient features such as accessibility, sympathy, and tenderness, which offer them a personal relationship with them. I would say that here divine mercy appears more crucial than divine sovereignty.
I have come across various images that are used by different religions. These images are very important not because of their appearance, but they believe that they hold to their believers. For example, John Drewal in his discussion says that the African people from Senegal and Tanzania worship Mami Wata known as “Mother of Water”. This water believed to be foreign whereby those people take ideas and images from them and interpret them according to their indigenous precepts (Drewal 112). They invest these images with new meanings and then represent and recreate them in new and dynamic ways that often serve their devotional, aesthetic, and social needs. I strongly agree by Drewal that these images are used by believers to shape their lives since they hold a particular meaning to them. For the Mami Wata followers communicating with spirits is only possible using these images. I somehow disagree that these images guide someone in doing something. Where Drewal tells about a girl who was rescued by fishermen, I consider it as being compelled by some other spirits. When her father took the girl to the priest, she was initiated to become Mami Wata priesthood. After the girl collected clay from three rivers she was instructed by Mami Wata to take them to the shore. When the girl reached the shore water parted and gave her a way. Some beliefs are strong, but I disagree that they can show themselves physically and how they command nature.
What I have learned from Dana Rush, India spirits often come from the sea. The India spirits are associated with their arts and experiences that are inexhaustible. I have a similar question like that posed in Chromolithographs in Vodun if powers are vested to the images, how are they made to work? It is evident, and I agree that these imageries are open-ended structures, which are richly suggestive. This is what allows people from India and other places to embody them with diverse beliefs, legends, ideas, histories, and themes. That is how those specific body markings, animals, foods, jewelry, drinks, and accoutrements become sacred and they represent various spirits (Hawley 19). I was contracted by Rush where he said that those Indian gods are not combined with the local gods, but they are local gods. I know that visual piety is very important for the Indian believers since they hold specific meanings and beliefs, which help the believers to boost their faith. I was interested in the fact that these chromolithographs may change in names, they may change their meaning, and even the powers that reside in them may change depending on how they are used. These chromolithographs are outwardly mobile and easily transported, reproduced, and copied. In his discussion, Rush has helped to get the understanding of how images can be relevant to their believers through the meanings that they hold.
Work Cited
Morgan, David. “Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images.” Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Pp. 1-27.
Hawley, John C., ed. India in Africa, Africa in India: Indian Ocean Cosmopolitanisms. Indiana University Press, 2008. Pp. 2-33.
Drewal, J. H. “Interpretation, Invention, and Re-Presentation in the Worship of Mami Wata.” Journal of Folkrole Research. Volume 25, No. ½. 1988. Pp. 101-139.
