Interfaith Center at the Presidio of San Francisco:

Interfaith Archives

Return to Archives Index

Interfaith Center Sponsors the "Lost & Endangered Religions" Project
April 20, 2003 – Published in the Interfaith Center’s Spring 2003 Interfaith Newsnotes

Interfaith Center at the Presidio board member Don Frew, traveling through eastern Turkey in 1998, visited a religious community called the Yezide. A religious minority, they have been forced repeatedly to flee their homes to escape persecution from dominant religious groups. Over dinner with a Yezidi elder, through a translator, Don learned that four generations earlier, during such a flight, the community had lost the ‘black book’ containing their religious scriptures.

A collector of sacred books, Don returned home to discover the Yezidi scripture in his personal library, collected by a scholar publishing in the late 1800s. He photocopied the scripture, posted it to the Yezide, then turned a coincidence into a program.

Many indigenous religions today face serious threats to their survival. For some, sacred texts or artifacts have been lost. For others, traditional songs, dances, and stories are in the hands of a few remaining elders. The Lost & Endangered Religions Project – now a program of the Interfaith Center – seeks to find, safeguard, and restore sacred texts and oral traditions whose survival is threatened. Disarmingly simple rescue tactics are planned.

One is tracking down and copying materials currently archived at universities. At minimal expense, a university duplicates tapes of songs, films of ceremonies, and transcripts of stories, returning copies to the indigenous communities which created them. Ownership is restored, and the originals remain in a safe place for posterity.

The project is also on the alert for religions about to become extinct. When no one is available to learn from an elder holding the tradition, project staff will locate satellite communities nearby to assist. The project may also hold sacred material in trust for a community until someone is found locally to preserve the religious heritage for future generations.

To reduce future threats, the project will locate collections of indigenous religious data that are not safe and secure, connecting the owners with academic institutions that can copy and preserve the records.

The Lost & Endangered Religions Project’s underlying purpose will be to engender friendly cooperative relationships between academia and at-risk, often indigenous peoples. An internet-linked volunteer team is forming. It will include professors of anthropology, religion, geography, and political science; electronic librarians; indigenous religious leaders in Africa, Asia, and North America; representatives from United Nations NGOs; and graduate students here and abroad.

As fiscal sponsor of the project, the Interfaith Center happily accepts designated tax-deductible donations supporting the project. For more information, call 415-561-6871 or e-mail paul@interfaith-presidio.org.

to top