In animistic thought, the human spirit or soul is often identified with the shadow or the breath. This identification between the soul and the shadow can be seen in Tasmania, North and South America, as well as classical Europe. Similarly, the Basutus of Lesotho hold that a man walking by the brink of a river may lose his life if his shadow falls on the water, since a crocodile may seize his soul and draw him into the current.
More familiar to Europeans is the connection between the soul and the breath. This identification is found both in Indo-European and within the linguistic roots of the words in Semitic languages: In Latin, breath is spiritus , in Greek pneuma , in Hebrew ruach , and in Sanskrit prana , all words which also have spiritual connotations.
This idea extends to many other cultures in Australia, America and Asia. Other common conceptions identify the soul with the liver, the heart, the blood or even with the reflected figure outwardly visible in the pupil of the eye. As the soul is often understood as a metaphysical, indwelling presence, it is not surprising that, for many animist cultures, unconsciousness is explained as being due to the absence of the soul.
In South Australia, wilyamarraba , a term that refers to the state of being without a soul, is also the term used for that which cannot be perceived with the senses. Similarly, the auto-hypnotic trance of the magician or shaman is causally attributed to their visit to distant regions of the netherworld: they are in a senseless trance because their souls are literally elsewhere.
Similarly, sickness is often explained as occurring due to the absence of the soul, requiring a healer to take measures to lure back this vagrant spirit. In Chinese tradition, when a person is at the point of death, their soul is believed to have left their body. If the bamboo begins to turn round in the hands of the relative who is responsible for holding it, it is regarded as a sign that the soul of the patient has returned.
More common than these aforementioned phenomena is the importance placed upon the daily period of sleep in animistic traditions.
The frequent images included within dreams are interpreted in many cultures to illustrate the fact that the soul journeys while the body rests. Dreams and hallucinations were likely central to the development of animistic theory in general.
Seeing the phantasmic figures of friends and other chimaeric, night-time apparitions may have led people to the dualistic separation of soul and body that is common within animistic traditions.
Of course, hallucinatory figures, both in dreams and waking life, are not necessarily those of the living. From the reappearance of friends or enemies, dead or living alike, primitive man was likely led to the belief that there existed an incorporeal part of man, which existed apart from the body.
Furthermore, if the phenomena of dreams were of such great importance for the development of a theory of human souls, this belief was also expanded into an overall philosophy of nature. Not only human beings but animals and objects are seen in dreams, and therefore it is possible that animists concluded that these entities also had souls. In many animistic cultures, peoples respect and even worship animals, often regarding them as relatives.
In some cases, animals were seen as the spiritual abodes of dead ancestors. It is probable that animals were regarded as possessing souls early in the history of animistic beliefs. The animist may attribute to animals the same sorts of ideas and the same mental processes as himself or they may also be associated with even greater power, cunning, or magical abilities. Dead animals are sometimes credited with knowledge of how their remains are treated, and potentially with the power to take vengeance on the hunter if he is disrespectful.
Among the Inuit people of Northern Canada, for example, various precautions are taken in all stages of a hunt so as not to offend the hunted animal. Such an offense could lead to bad luck in the future of the hunter who carried out the improprietous kill, furthering the notion that—at least in some animistic cultures—animals may possess spirits independent of their bodies, comparable to those attributed to humans.
Just as souls are assigned to animals, so too are trees and plants often credited with souls, both human and animal in form. All over the world, agricultural peoples practice elaborate ceremonies explicable within the framework of animistic principles.
In medieval Europe, for example, the corn spirit was sometimes viewed as immanent within a crop, while other times seen as a presiding deity whose life did not depend on that of the growing corn.
Further, this spirit was often conceived in some districts as taking the form of an ox, hare or cock, while in others taking that of an old man or woman. In the East Indies and Americas, the rice or maize mother is a corresponding figure; in classical Europe and the East we have in Ceres and Demeter, Adonis and Dionysus, and other deities linked to vegetation whose origin is most likely similar to that of the corn spirit.
Forest trees, no less than cereals, were also seen, by some cultures, as having their own indwelling spirits. In Bengal and the East Indies woodcutters endeavor to propitiate the spirit of any tree which they have cut down.
As well, in many parts of the world trees are regarded as the abode of the spirits of the dead. Just as a process of syncretism has given rise to cults of animal gods, tree spirits tend to become detached from the trees, which are thenceforth only considered to be their abodes. Here again it is evident that animism has begun to pass into forms of polytheism.
Some cultures do not make a distinction between animate and inanimate objects. Natural phenomenon, geographic features, everyday objects, and manufactured articles may also be seen as possessing souls.
In the north of Europe, in ancient Greece, and in China, the water or river spirit is horse or bull-shaped. The water monster in serpent shape is an even more pervasive image of the spirit of the water. The spirit of syncretism manifests itself in this department of animism too, turning the spirit immanent within natural forces into the presiding djinn or local gods which arose at later times.
Beside the doctrine of separable souls with which we have so far been concerned, there also exists the animist belief in a great host of unattached spirits. Religious practice promotes the well-being of individuals, families, and the community.
Religious worship also leads to a reduction in the incidence of domestic abuse, crime, substance abuse, and addiction. In addition, religious practice can increase physical and mental health, longevity, and education attainment. Tradition and ecclesial traditions The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglican churches distinguish between what is called Apostolic or sacred tradition and ecclesiastical traditions.
In the course of time ecclesial traditions develop in theology, discipline, liturgy, and devotions. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Social studies How did animism affect society? Social studies. Their danger is compounded by the fact that Waorani shamans relate to jaguar-spirits like adopted children who will reciprocate care to their masters. Consciousness and motivation in animistic societies is attributed not just to animals, but also to certain places.
Spring is the season when grebes arrive and defecate in the water; it is also when ringed seals come and their blood soaks the ocean as predators attack. Similarly, consciousness and motivation can be found in the fires of sacred hearths, which must be treated with respect as spirits reside in and around them.
Among the Nenets tundra dwellers of the Siberian Yamal peninsula, women of reproductive age do not cross through the sacred space by the fireplace or hang clothes to dry above it that would be worn on the lower part of their bodies Skvirskaja Nenets men, however, store their possessions in this sacred space that serves as the place for hosting respected visitors.
Moreover, in animistic societies, places may be imbued with memory. In a related light, the Western Apache of North America consider that certain locations contain memories and the wisdom to help people to make the right decisions.
Building upon the findings of historians, folklorists, travellers, traders, missionaries, and expedition members about the religious lives of peoples around the globe, Edward B. Tylor introduced the study of animism within anthropology. Like Stahl, Tylor wanted to discuss the relationship between the soul and all forms of life.
According to Tylor, animism is a form of religion in which the spirits and souls of humans and other beings are considered necessary for life. He illustrates how human spirits appear in dreams or visions through numerous examples, like this one of the Zulu in Southern Africa:. According to Tylor, experiences such as these suggest that human beings have a soul that can appear to them. Through his extensive catalogue of dreamt phenomena, Tylor showed that persons dream of animal souls []: , plant souls []: , and even the souls of objects []: , see also On this basis, he suggested that persons who attribute souls to human beings, animals, plants, or objects gradually consider that the soul is not only a vital force to specific beings but is pervasive throughout the cosmos and imbued in all beings.
Thus, he argued that the souls of humans, animals, plants, and objects survive death and bodily decay in an animistic cosmos, while inhabiting a world that is populated with spirits and deities Tylor []: The influence of social evolutionism waned in anthropology in the early twentieth century, as anthropologists started to undertake their own fieldwork and obtained findings that cast serious doubt on the idea that societies represent levels of linear human progress.
Despite extensive criticisms of it, social evolutionism never entirely disappeared from anthropology or from popular understandings in Euro-American societies about human cultures. Moreover, since Tylor presented his study of animism as evidence for the social evolutionary approach, the two became synonymous for some time.
However, it is possible to study animism without the comparative evolutionary angle. Contemporary anthropological approaches show that modern technologies and science are also incorporated into animistic worlds. Technological items can become people in the Chewong world through the assistance of shamans, who use the same word to refer to their spirit-guides and their consciousness. Japanese airplanes, for example, became recognised as new spirit-guides that have consciousness after they flew over Chewong forests during World War II.
Like many other robots, the famous ASIMO Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility was made by Honda in Japan to resemble children so that its human creators and owners would engage with it as a cute, non-threatening, and childlike being.
Relating to other beings as though they were kin is, then, a pervasive theme in current studies of animism Bird-David , But to stand the test of time, animistic relationships to other beings or things often need to be maintained.
What these studies suggest is the importance not only of thinking about different animisms in the plural, but of recognising — as Morten Pedersen suggests for peoples across North Asia, from Siberia to Mongolia — that animistic sensibilities often only come into focus in the right circumstances, contexts, and moments His study shows that Ojibwe do not attribute animistic qualities to all beings or things at all times, but that they are open to finding that some beings or things may have animistic qualities in certain moments.
Thus, Hallowell observes that while some Ojibwe have seen certain stones move in ceremonies, stones usually do not move and many people do not see them move. Ojibwe consider that people are especially open to perceiving animistic beings in dreams, where they routinely encounter them. This does not mean that ethnography always took the lead in anthropological studies on ontologies, some of which have instead been built upon philosophical or theoretical considerations inspired by ethnography compare to Scott Each animistic being has a shared interior quality, such as a soul or vital life force.
According to Descola, there are important differences between animistic, totemic, analogic, and naturalistic ontologies. Totemic ontologies are common in Oceania, where persons and nonhuman beings share the same interior quality, such as a soul, and the same bodily substance, such as a physicality inherited through kinship to other-than-human totemic ancestors.
By contrast, Descola suggests that analogic ontologies are common south of Siberia, in parts of Asia where persons and nonhuman beings do not share the same interior quality or the same bodily substance. Animal domestication is a hallmark of analogic ontologies because the use and consumption of animals lends itself to the view that the interior and bodily qualities of humans and nonhumans are different.
Finally, naturalistic ontologies are common across Euro-America, where persons and nonhuman beings do not share the same interior quality, such as a soul, but do share the same bodily substance, namely a physicality traceable to taxonomies of species and evolutionary lines of descent. There have been famous debates, for example, between Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro on animism and perspectivism Latour ; Turner Drawing upon ethnographies of Amerindian peoples in Amazonia, Viveiros de Castro suggests that all beings in a perspectival ontology can adopt a human perspective, albeit under certain circumstances that are conducive for them doing so.
Seen in this light, perspectivism is a kind of philosophy that makes possible an entirely different anthropology shaped by indigenous concepts. Notwithstanding this, the oeuvres of Descola and Viveiros de Castro have been field-setting with good reason. Recent work on ontology has stimulated a re-envisioning of the kinds of beings that might populate any animist cosmos. Bruno Latour showed that technological items may at first appear to be machines without the agency or life force of human beings.
But on closer inspection, machines may take on the qualities of nonhuman hybrids with agency, vitality, a life force, and personhood. What makes these concepts of hybridity, chaos, or fuzzy boundaries useful, then, is that they give a vocabulary for the ways in which animistic and other ontologies blend and blur in real life, thus leading to contradictions or giving rise to contexts in which more than one ontology may be operative.
It is instructive in this regard to see that Eveny hunters live in a world where both totemism and animism are operative. Eveny manipulate this totemic sensibility during the hunt by using children as bait, who lure prey into close range for a kill. But rather than reciprocating this totemic sensibility, hunters relate to prey with an animistic sensibility, that is, as animals with a different bodily substance that is edible. Some key anthropological approaches suggest that animism is not always taken seriously.
Moments later, the elderly hunter burst out laughing and completed the work mirthfully with his hunting partner. Humour, after all, appears vital to Yukaghir hunting luck and success. This playful sense of humour underpins a good deal of New Age animistic practices in Euro-American contexts Lindquist , see also ; Houseman If humour, wonder, and play lie at the heart of animistic practices, then it is well-worth considering the effects that the imagination and creativity have in a variety of animistic worlds.
Ethnographies around the world show that animism is a way of relating and attributing sentience to other beings, forces of nature, things, and even technological items. This entry has explored anthropological approaches to animism, from envisioning it as a philosophy of religion to building upon distinct philosophical, theoretical, and ethnographic sources that suggest animism may be more than a distinct sensibility, tendency, or style of engaging with the world.
It may be an ontology in its own right. Animism is approached from numerous directions in anthropology. It is considered to be an immanent rather than transcendent form of sentience. It is a way of revealing and sometimes manipulating the consciousness, motivation, memories, and powers of animal spirits, animistic places, and items of technology. As an ontology, animism may blend and blur with other ontologies, opening it up to contradictions, humour, creativity, imagination, inspiration, and reflexive awareness.
Due to the diverse forms of animism worldwide, anthropologists have asked whether certain animistic groups may have undergone a history of diminution or disenchantment, which made them only attribute certain beings with an animistic sensibility.
They also relate to animism in distinct ways, as scholars who are not animists, as scholars who advocate identifying with animists, or as scholars who are animists themselves. Cutting across these varied approaches are competing visions of how animistic life-worlds unfold through human, other-than-human, and beyond human sensibilities. What these big questions do is shine a reflexive mirror onto our own humanity, pressing us to articulate what sentience is in the first place and why we relate to others in the ways that we do.
Southeast Asian animism: a dialogue with Amerindian perspectivism. In Animism in Southeast Asia eds K. Sprenger, London: Routledge. Basso, K. Wisdom sits in places: notes on a Western Apache landscape. In Senses of place eds S. Basso, Santa Fe, N. Battaglia, D. Bender, M. Wuwu The Nuosu Book of origins: a creation epic from Southwest China. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Bird-David, N. Current Anthropology 40 S1 , SS Size matters! The scalability of modern hunter-gatherer animism. Quarternary International A , Brightman, M.
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