In 1956, Anthony F. C. Wallace

Anthony F. C. Wallace

Anthony Francis Clarke Wallace is a Canadian-American anthropologist who specializes in Native American cultures, especially the Iroquois. His research expresses an interest in the intersection of cultural anthropology and psychology...

 published a paper called "Revitalization Movements" to describe how culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

s change themselves. A revitalization movement is a "deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture" (p. 265), and Wallace describes at length the processes by which a revitalization movement takes place.

Wallace derived his theory from studies of so-called primitive peoples (preliterate and homogeneous), with particular attention to the Iroquois

Iroquois

The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...

 revitalization movement led by Seneca

Seneca nation

The Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...

 religious leader and prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

 Handsome Lake

Handsome Lake

Handsome Lake was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was also half-brother to Cornplanter....

 (1735-1815). Wallace believed that his revitalization model applies to movements as broad and complex as the rise of Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

, Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

, or Wesleyan Methodism

Wesleyanism

Wesleyanism or Wesleyan theology refers, respectively, to either the eponymous movement of Protestant Christians who have historically sought to follow the methods or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, or to the likewise eponymous...

.

Scholars such as Vittorio Lanternari (1963) and Peter Worsley (1968) have developed and apapted Wallace's insights.

See also

• Ghost Dance
  Ghost Dance
  The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement which was incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times...
  
  : a famous Native American revitalization movement
• Great Awakenings: a controversially named reference to revitalization movements in the USA.
• Revivalism