Hobbits and religion ?

[Starflower]

Did hobbits have religion? Do you think the Valar had any hand in their making? If the Dwarves had Aule, and the Elves were specially beloved to the Valar, who cared for the hobbits?
i don't think there is anything published in this matter, so I'm really looking for your opinions and ideas :)



Starflower

[Celebthôl]

I'd say that had no religion (hence they had such good lives :p).
And i'd take a guess that they were the favourite of Ilúavatar, along with Men ;)

[Niniel]

I believe the idea was that Hobbits were a special branch of Men that had grown smaller, so I think they would be counted as Men.

[Lantarion]

Whoa! I agree that Men and Hobbits are closely related genetically, and that Hobbits evolved (or 'devolved'! :D) from Men at some point, but to call them one and the same is going too far IMO! After all there are very few similarities persisting in Hobbit tradition and culture from their earlier intermingling with Men.

Anyway, Tolkien seems to be ambiguous in the extreme, perhaps on purpose, on the matter of religion in M-e. No gods are ever mentioned, prayed to or called to (except in one instance by Frodo), and any mention of them (except by Gandalf) seems to dismiss them as myths and ancient outdated legends.

[Goro Shimura]

Tolkien is intentionally ambiguous in The Lord of the Rings, but nevertheless there is an incredibly detailed cycle of myths that underlies the book. (These myths are all detailed in The Silmarillion.)

Hobbits were culturally compatible enough with men that that could be part of the kingdom of the exiled Numenoreans.... but in spite of Frodo and Sam's knowledge of Elven society and song, they were ignorant of the "blessing" that Faramir asked before their meal together. Even though Frodo did not know much of the practice of taking a moment of silence while facing West, at the end of the book he would find himself on a boat headed in that direction for an extended stay in the mythical (but real) Undying Lands.

Tolkien's world was created by a monotheistic 'God' Iluvatar that seems to be loosely based on the God of the Bible. However, He employed angelic servants (the Valar) that were similar to the gods of the pagan pantheons.

Elves and Numenoreans had first hand knowledge of these supernatural beings, but the hobbits of Frodo's day seem to have forgotten whatever they once knew of them.

[Inderjit S]

gods are ever mentioned, prayed to or called to (except in one instance by Frodo)

Both Sam and Mablung utter what can be seen as 'prayers'. Sam when confronted by the Two Watchers and Mablung asks the Valar to turn aside the Mumakil.

An example of a holy ritual is the Haladin's hallowing of the ground when a moot took place. They took this practice from the Elves and named Namo and Manwe. This is mentioned in Wanderings of Hurin (HoME 11.)

Also note the sacred oaths sworn between Elendil and Gil-Galad, Cirion and Eorl and Aragorn and Eomer. We also hear in The New Shadow (HoME 12) that some of the Gondorians knew of the Music of the Ainur. This was set in the Fourth Age.

[Starflower]

everything you say is true Inderjit, but the question was Do hobbits have religion?
After some more reading...it seems that thye didn't have any kind of organised religion, I'm sure they were aware of the Valar, after all they knew that the Elves went over the Sea to Valinor. Also as Aragorn and Faramir especially show piety and talk about the far West, the hobbits show no signs of not knowing what they talk about. So maybe the conclusion is that they didn't have any religion on their own, but did have knowledge of the religious practises of those around them.

[Narya]

If I may add...Tolkien himself stayed away from injecting the concept of religion in his works. His idealogy behind the Valars is I think tinged a bit by the concept of higher beings, but then again science, not just religion, has the same concept. Like intelligent aliens. The hobbits are on that same plateau, they are aware of such beings but do not recognize them as a higher authority nor as a divinity that they should be devoted nor answer to. They just clasify them as that, another kind of elf, though they are in awe when seeing one, that doesn't mean that they would worship them, as people are in awe when they see aliens (theoretically). So to answer your question if they have a religion, in my humble opinion, they do not.

Did I make sense, or are you confused even more?:(

[Inderjit S]

The hobbits are on that same plateau, they are aware of such beings but do not recognize them as a higher authority nor as a divinity that they should be devoted nor answer to. They just clasify them as that, another kind of elf, though they are in awe when seeing one, that doesn't mean that they would worship them, as people are in awe when they see aliens

I really don't think the Hobbits had ever had any contact with any Ainur except for Gandalf, though few knew who he was.

No, Hobbits didn't have religions or a 'god'.

Because such matters had little interest for the Gondorian chroniclers; and also because it was assumed that they had in general remained faithful to the monotheism of the Dúnedain, allies and pupils of the Eldar. Before the removal of most of the survivors of these "Three Houses of Men" to Númenor, there is no mention of the reservation of a high place for worship of the One and the ban on all temples built by hand, which was characteristic of the Númenóreans until their rebellion, and which among the Faithful (of whom Elendil was the leader) after the Downfall and the loss of the Meneltarma became a ban on all places of worship Rivers and Beacon Hills of Gondor

I suppose you could call the lack of religion within the non-Númenórean peoples in Middle-Earth atheism, but they had no knowledge of a 'higher power' so to speak.

[Lantarion]

but they had no knowledge of a 'higher power' so to speak.
So you think that it isn't the innate desire of all human(oid), thinking beings to find a tangible meaning to their life?
Personally I don't believe that Tolkien would have created such socio-religiously one-dimensional characters, but we have to take into consideration that perhaps he did not properly formulate or finish his formulations about the Hobbits' social mannerisms and societal values.

[Inderjit S]

Maybe I shouldn't generalise in saying all non-Númenorean peoples. But I think the Hobbits wouldn't have had a innate desire for a belief in a higher-power. I think they were rather "simple-minded" (Or Samwise ;) ) by nature and even though they knew of the existence of some semi-deity like beings (The Bucklanders knew of Tom Bombadil and of course Gandalf) they had no desire to worship them or anyone else.

Of course they had their own legends (The Fastitcalion, Oliphaunt, Were-worms) but we never get a reference to a god or god-like figure, and I think this is a reflection of the Hobbits simple-minded nature. I really don't see how not believing in a higher power can be seen as one-dimensional, which the Hobbits certainly weren't. I suppose they didn't really care or understand any notion of a higher power.

[Eriol]

The Appendices discuss the Hobbits' calendar, and I'm certain that seasonal celebrations (Mid-summer, harvest, etc.) are mentioned there. These seasonal celebrations almost surely had a character of thanksgiving (and I think this is mentioned in the Appendices...). Perhaps the hobbits didn't know who they were giving thanks to, but they were thankful ;).

[Inderjit S]

The Hobbit calendar was of course based on the Númenorean one, so maybe they had some customs from there. The only festivals I can remember, were on April 6th the significance of which was uncertain, some saying it was Sam's birthday, some claiming it was the Elven new year and some claiming it was when the tree in Bag End first came to grow.

In Buckland they also celebrated the blowing of the Hall of the Mark, the horn given by Éowyn to Merry, which was the starting point of the uprisising of the Hobbits from the tyranny of Saruman and his men, and the scouring of the Shire.

[Eriol]

They had some days 'outside' the calendar, Lithes and Yuledays and so on, which were days of feasting.

[Inderjit S]

It is then, I think as you said, they didn't know what they were celebrating. (Like people think Christmas is about a fat man, with a beard, in a dodgy red suit, giving out presents, coming then your chimney and stealing your beetroot jars, and who has a magic portal to Narnia, but can only come when the power of the White Witch wains ,and...oh wait I must stop blabbering..).

Seriously, they were most likely senseless adoptions from Númenorean traditions. By Frodo's time they would most likely have been forgotten.

[Mouth of Sauron]

I disagree. Those feast days originally marked high points in the year in the real world - Yule was Midwinter and Lithe was Midsummer. They were connected with the changing of the seasons and the fertility of nature. Since Hobbits lived so close to the land, and farming was such a big part of their lives, they must have been pagans in the original sense of the word - "country-dwellers" for whom the division of the year was important for planting and harvesting, and feast days were a celebration of natural cycles. Midwinter was important because it marked the waning of winter and the approach of spring; Midsummer was important because it marked the waning of summer and the coming harvest. (So in one sense I actually do agree with you, or rather with your assertion that these feast days had no religious meaning).