Animism: Respecting the Living WorldGraham Harvey applies the new use of the term 'animism' to the religious worldviews of communities and cultures such as Ojibwe, Maori, Aboriginal Australian and eco-Pagan to introduce the diversity of ways of being animist. The book explores what role deities, creators, tricksters, shamans, cannibals totems and elders play in these religious traditions and relationships? The book also touches on the 'animist realism' of West African literatures, the 'perspectivism' of Amazonian shamans, and the relational ethics of South and Central Asian communities. The notions that 'animism' is about 'beliefs in spirits' are rejected in favour of a nuanced and positive evaluation of indigenous and environmentalist understandings that the world would be a better place if humans celebrated their relationships with the whole of life. |
Contents
FROM DEROGATORY TO CRITICAL TERM | 1 |
From Primitives to Persons | 3 |
Humes sentiments | 4 |
Frazers trees | 5 |
Huxleys antagonism | 9 |
Maretts powers | 10 |
Durkheims totems | 11 |
Mausss gift | 12 |
Animals might be human too | 114 |
Death | 115 |
Hunting and domesticating | 116 |
Death is a transformation | 117 |
Death rituals and myths | 118 |
Spirits Powers Creators and Souls | 121 |
Faeries and other spirits | 122 |
Ancestors | 125 |
Piagets development | 14 |
Guthries anthropomorphism | 15 |
Philosophers panpsychism | 17 |
Anthropologists revisitation | 20 |
Kohdks trees | 22 |
Goodalls chimpanzees | 24 |
Garubas literature | 25 |
Quinns leavers | 26 |
Environmentalists participation | 27 |
Recognising animisms | 28 |
ANIMIST CASE STUDIES | 31 |
Ojibwe Language | 33 |
Grammar | 34 |
Stones | 36 |
Thunder | 38 |
Seasonal stories | 40 |
Ceremonies | 42 |
Tobacco greetings | 43 |
Waswagoning | 45 |
Legs and whats between them | 46 |
Living well | 48 |
Maori Arts | 50 |
All our relations | 52 |
Violence and passion | 54 |
Tapu and noa | 55 |
Maraeatea | 57 |
Whare nui | 58 |
Whare kai | 60 |
Ancestral cannibalism | 61 |
Animist construction | 63 |
Enacting animism | 64 |
Aboriginal Law and Land | 66 |
Expressing the Dreaming | 71 |
Subjects and objects | 73 |
Time and events | 76 |
Visiting Alice | 77 |
EcoPagan Activism | 82 |
Defining Paganism | 84 |
Defining Paganisms nature | 85 |
EcoPaganism on the road | 88 |
Paganism off the road | 90 |
Knowing nature | 92 |
Gods fairies and hedgehogs | 94 |
ANIMIST ISSUES | 97 |
Signs of Life and Personhood | 99 |
Animals are people too | 100 |
Bird persons | 102 |
Fish persons | 103 |
Plant persons | 104 |
Stone persons | 106 |
The Elements | 107 |
Places | 109 |
Humans are animals too | 113 |
Creators and tricksters | 128 |
Life forces | 129 |
Witchcraft substances and energies | 132 |
Souls | 135 |
Embodiment and spirituality | 137 |
Shamans | 139 |
Shamanic cosmologies | 140 |
States of consciousness | 142 |
Ecstasy trance and possession | 144 |
Hallucination or vision? | 145 |
Eating souls | 146 |
Killing life | 147 |
Surviving death | 148 |
Shamans as mediators and healers | 149 |
Animists antagonists | 150 |
Cultural nature and shamans as seers | 151 |
Cannibalism | 153 |
Real cannibals? | 154 |
Arens myth | 155 |
Compassionate cannibalism | 157 |
Eating enemies | 160 |
Cannibals as monsters consumers and carers | 162 |
Animism and cannibalism | 163 |
Totems | 164 |
Ojibwe clans | 165 |
Updating the old totemism | 166 |
Revisiting otherthanhumans | 168 |
Elders and Ethics | 169 |
The good life | 171 |
Wisdom | 173 |
ANIMISMS CHALLENGES | 177 |
Environmentalisms | 179 |
Depths of green | 180 |
Ecofeminist particularity | 182 |
Sitting and listening | 184 |
Consciousness | 187 |
Consciousness matters | 188 |
Cyberconsciousness | 191 |
Knowing bodies matter | 192 |
Relational consciousness | 193 |
Philosophers and Persons | 195 |
Personalist persons | 196 |
Phenomenological persons | 197 |
Feminist and queer persons | 198 |
Free and wilful ethical persons | 200 |
Quantum persons | 202 |
Postdualist persons | 203 |
Conclusion | 205 |
Recognising animism | 208 |
Depth and breadth turtles and hedgehogs | 210 |
213 | |
237 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal academic alive Amazonian ancestors and/or animism animist animist worldviews anthropomorphism artefacts Bird-David body cannibalism celebrate ceremonies challenge chapter Chiuta Circle Sanctuary citing consciousness considered construction context continue Core Shamanism cultures death debates deep ecology dialogue discourse discussion diversity Dreaming dualism ecology embodiment encounters engage ethnography everyday example experience expressed forms further gender gifts Hallowell 1960 Hallowell's human and other-than-human important inanimate indigenous kind Kohák label Lac du Flambeau lands living Maori marae modernity nature notion objects Ojibwe Ojibwe grammar Ojibwe language ontological other-than-human persons Pagans panpsychism participation particular performance perhaps personhood philosophers Plant persons plants possible recognise reference relational relationality relationships religion require respect responsible rocks shamans significant Similarly social sometimes souls speak spirits stones stories term theory things totemism traditional transformation trees Tylor understanding various Viveiros de Castro Wari Western whare nui white-lipped peccaries Wicca worldviews and lifeways