The Valar and Illuvator's Children

[doug*platypus]

Following on from what Morthoron has said about religion being "relatively latent in Middle-earth", there is only one instance of religious ritual in LOTR - when Faramir and the Rangers of Ithilien turned and faced west in a moment of silence before eating:

'So we always do,' he said, as they sat down: 'we look towards Númenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.'

Before the fall of Númenor, I believe the Númenóreans had a place hallowed to Ilúvatar. But I cannot recall for example any instance where the Dwarves "worshipped" Aulë. The elves certainly reverenced the Valar, in particular Elbereth, but I don't believe this ever approached what one in today's terms would call worship.

In the existence of both an omnipotent, single creator as Ilúvatar, as well as that of lesser Valar, each with a realm so to speak of which they were in charge, Tolkien may have been trying to posit through his mythology how monotheism and polytheism could exist in the world. Imagine for a moment that his fiction was actually fact. It could account for why monotheist religions such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam pray to a single, omnipotent creator (as one exists in the form of Ilúvatar) as well as how polytheist forms of belief such as the Greeks and the Norse could have a pantheon of gods, each with their own realm (as Poseidon for the sea or Thor for thunder etc). The only beliefs which would not be encompassed by Tolkien's mythology would be certain eastern philosophies without god(s).

In Maori cosmology, there are atua who have different realms as for the Greeks, for example Tane for the forests. Atua is translated somewhat incorrectly as god; Maori do not "pray" to the atua as say a Christian or a Muslim would pray to God or Allah, but there do exist invocations or rituals when these atua are to be addressed or placated, for instance in pre-European times when a large tree was to be felled for the building of a waka (canoe). It seems to me the same relationship exists between the people of Arda and the Valar.