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Some thoughts on Dwarven religion. Please note, this is all speculation and interpretation – we don’t seem to know that much about Dwarven religion because, as with so many things, Tolkien just wasn’t as interested in the Dwarves! I’ve done a lot of thinking about it, though, and come up with what seems to make sense.
The most important thing, I think, is their creation story. That sets everything in motion, and defines their relationships with their gods – and it also creates the basis of what it means to be a Dwarf.
Eru Ilúvatar is the highest power, of course, and all life flows through him. No good Dwarf would ever lack in respect for that – but I don’t think they have much of a personal relationship with him. I don’t see any evidence for the kinds of organized worship that marks so many human religions in Middle Earth. The Elves sing to Elbereth, but it’s reverence and devotion, not prostrate worship. I don’t see much in the way of fealty and sacrifice in Elvish circles, but then I think that’s the way of the Elves. Having lived with the Valar in Valinor, many Elves would probably have a very clear-eyed view of the Valar, and look on them more as exalted people than distantly-removed god figures. They sing their history. Many of the figures who would be holy stories in human religion are, well, memories – people they knew personally, sometimes intimately. When we hear stories of Gilgalad or Eärendil, those aren’t distant legends. They’re family history.
The Dwarves, though – we know they revere Mahal, and I do think their religion would have more of a worshipful component. I think Dwarves like things to be in their right places, and the idea of hierarchy and order makes sense to them. Ilúvatar foremost, then Mahal, then the Fathers of the Dwarves, then themselves, their descendants. I DO think a bit more fealty and reverence would be seen in Dwarven religion.
Think about their creation. Mahal created them with his own hands, from the desire to have children of his own he could teach and guide. That’s LOVE, overwhelming and astounding and personal. The Dwarves were made in love – and in secret. They treasure that, I think – that they were born of the secret heart of their great Maker, and that he risked so much to bring them about. He embodies them with strength and an unwillingness to yield or to be dominated – but also with the appreciation of beauty, and with his own inherent desire to create. They’re made in his image, and meant to carry on his knowledge and heart.
When Ilúvatar found what he had done, Mahal was willing to destroy the children he had created because of the immensity of what he had done against Ilúvatar’s plan – and that’s critical, too. Love is important, but so is duty and honor and fealty – and that’s woven into Dwarven DNA from their creation, I think, through the example of their creator. He would have mourned his children bitterly, but he was willing to sacrifice them (shades of Biblical Abraham and Isaac, perhaps?) But Ilúvatar gave them spirits of their own, a spark of the Secret Fire to animate them, and they showed their life by demonstrating that they were afraid, and so they were spared. There is a depth of emotion to the Dwarves that is not always appreciated – but it’s there from the start.
So love and duty are critical – and then the importance of knowledge and creation. Mahal gives them a language of their own, and what do the Dwarves do? Treasure it! Keep it secret, and sacred! They do not allow one iota of change to that sacred language. It is their gift, and it is treated with great reverence – to the point that many aspects of Dwarven culture are centered around the keeping of the language. This is a race with unfathomable respect for the gifts of their maker. I think the same is true of the desire to create that he places in them. There’s a reason that the things the Dwarves create are beautiful, enduring – and so often SECRET. They share their maker’s faults, too – impatience, independence to the point of stubborn willfulness, pride that can get in the way of their best desires – but the best parts of them are reflections of Mahal and his gifts.
And then we come to their relationships with their gods and with other races. Ilúvatar shows mercy to the Fathers of the Dwarves, and accepts them as his adopted children. They carry a spark of the Secret Fire, set in them by his mercy, and I do not doubt that he loves them. But they are not his creation. He tells Mahal that since they were created outside the Music of the Ainur, they would find strife between them and the Elves. “They shall be to thee as children,” he tells Mahal, “and often strife shall arise between thine and mine, the children of my adoption and the children of my choice.” It’s not just personality clashes – they are inherently, irrevocably different creations.
I think the Dwarves must be keenly aware of this – and aware of the fact that the Elves are the firstborn, and will always be first in the heart of Ilúvatar. He puts the Dwarves to sleep until the Elves have awakened and done what they are meant to – and while they are under the sun, the Dwarves sleep “in the darkness under stone…they shall wait, though long it seem.” They are second, from the start, and in some ways perhaps even less than that. Men and Elves are the Children of Ilúvatar, and the Dwarves are not, and will never be. They cannot become more than they are in his eyes. They will never earn any fuller love or acceptance from him, not until the end of the world. That has to rankle in a heart, and I firmly believe that is one of the chief reasons for the insularity of the Dwarves. They cannot compete with Men and Elves, they will always be lesser – and so why not keep to your mountains and secret places, speaking your own language and doing what your Maker has given you to do? Why struggle for something you can never have? Be the best of what you have been made to be, and leave the rest to the firstborn, the children of Eru’s heart.
But still – they were shown mercy, and they were adopted. I have a pet theory that these are crucial aspects of Dwarf society, though probably not ones that outsiders ever get to see. I theorise that what Thorin does with Fili and Kili – taking on the role of father, though never replacing their natural father in title or in spirit – must be deeply codified into their society. Dwarf children would not be left fatherless. I actually have deep headcanon about this – older Dwarves like Balin are probably fathers or grandfathers to many children, even if they never have any of their own.
And then there’s the whole question of reincarnation, and to be frank, I’m not really certain where this one would fit. We see a very firm belief that Durin at least of the Fathers has returned to his people again and again in times of need – but we don’t see Dwarves calling for his return again, or looking to him as a messianic figure, even in the dark times of Smaug or the War of the Ring. Have Dwarves been reincarnated? I see no reason to doubt it. Are they looking for it to happen, or placing a great deal of faith in it for salvation? I sincerely doubt it.
So then, how might their religion work out in general? Seems fair to assume they don’t shuffle off to church one a week, sing a few lack-luster praise songs and murmur prayers they stopped believing as children, and then shuffle back home to go about their lives. But it also doesn’t seem to me that their religion would be much interested in making them fear damnation after death, or working for salvation. They CERTAINLY aren’t taking it door to door to convert others. So how does it work?
Here’s my take on religious institutions: I don’t think they exist. I would lay odds that all religious instruction is done orally, and probably ONLY in Khuzdul. You use sacred words to talk about sacred things. We know that children are VERY carefully instructed in Khuzdul, and I bet they learn their history and religion at the same time - probably from very wise and venerable old Dwarves (men AND women, if you please!) who are entrusted with keeping tradition alive. Perhaps not priests as such, but the very wise - and Oin with his reading of the portents might be one such figure! Perhaps he’s along on their journey partially in that role?
I firmly believe the MAJORITY of dwarven religion is worked out on an individual level. It’s in the way you pick up your hammer, the way you stoke your fires. It’s murmurings of ancient words, and the way that you swing the hammer, and the patterns you create. You carve the stone as you were carved by the hands of your god; weave the metal the way your soul was woven into your frame. Mahal the Maker created your fathers, and taught them the secrets of fire and stone and metal – and so every swing of a hammer is a prayer, a reiteration of fealty and love and honour. Every word in Kuzdul is sacred, because the words were given as a gift – and every breath that breathes them forth is sacred, an exhalation of life created in love, a product of the Secret Fire granted in mercy. Dwarves live every moment in the execution of their purpose, and Dwarves have nothing to fear from death. And so you fight with the strength of your god, and die secure in the knowledge that you go to the Halls of your maker, there to wait with him and all the Dwarves that have come before, until the remaking of the world – and then you will begin again, picking up your hammer and bringing that which was secret into the open. Mahal told the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves that in the end, Ilúvatar will hallow the Dwarves and give them a place among his Children. And so you know, you who delve in the darkness in the image of your maker – you know what is to come. By your strength and knowledge and craft you will remake the world, and the secrets of Mahal and the Dwarves will make the world right – the world where Elves and Men and Dwarves may finally dwell equally in the light of Eru.