This dissertation discusses the divided theoretical approach to how reincarnation, animism, spirits, and general religious beliefs occur within societies cross-culturally. Matlock offers evidence to support Tyler, contradicting the generally accepted Durkheimian approach, arguing that the belief about souls and spirits may originate in dreams and other empirical experiences, in turn informing and shaping social organization. Durkheim argued the opposite, claiming that religious beliefs reflect social organization such as the clan and kinship. The author states 33 quantitative hypotheses to be tested using 30 of the first 60 sample societies available in the HRAF Probability Sample.

Using 57 cultures from the Human Relations Area Files database, this paper examines the function and effectiveness of the belief of punitive ancestors in small-scale societies. The authors found that belief in dangerous ancestral entities is widespread and common and that harm is preventable through ritualized mortuary practices. The authors concluded that the fear of ancestral spirits did not promote social cooperation or inhibit self-interest behavior, contrary to the supernatural punishment hypothesis.

Authors suggest that in a majority of studied societies, kin of the deceased tend to engage ritually in risky prolonged and intimate preparation behaviors with corpses. This occurs namely in visual exposure and tactile interaction. Authors hypothesize that this extended contact not only allows true confirmation of death (through exposure to many cues), but also facilitates acceleration of a grieving process that returns the bereaved to a normal state of social functioning.

This book examines naming practices cross-culturally. The author posits that naming practices help to both reflect and create conceptions of personal identity. Several correlations between name meanings and practices and various sociocultural variables are presented.

This study focuses on death symbolism in relation to matrilineal descent. Findings suggest that matrilineal societies are more likely than patrilineal or bilateral societies to believe in ancestral spirits, reincarnation, and a quality of afterlife unconditioned on individual’s behavior.

This article presents a replication of Somersan's (1984) study of the relationship between death symbolism and descent group. The unsuccessful replication is attributed to sampling error. Codes are included.

What is the evolutionary sequence of beliefs in hunter-gatherers? The authors attempt to answer this question by reconstructing the development of various traits in traditional societies using phylogenetic and linguistic source trees. Testing for correlated evolution between this reconstruction and population history as proxied by linguistic classification suggests the presence of animism at profound time depth, aligning with classical anthropological religious theory put forth by E.B. Tylor. Coevolutions between other religious concepts including shamanism, ancestor worship, active ancestor worship, high gods, active high gods, and belief in an afterlife are also examined.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural findings on the status of women in relation to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

This book investigates individual and group responses to death and the problems that death can create in a society. Several hypotheses regarding grief and mourning, as well as their variation with other societal variables, are supported with cross-cultural tests.

This study tests a cultural materialist theory for variation in concepts of the afterlife. Results suggest that subsistence production (a measure of infrastructure) is associated with a judgmental (rather than non-judgmental) form of individual eschatology. Regional distribution is examined and a logistic regression is presented.