animism

Animism (from , meaning , , or ) is the worldview or perception that various types of natural phenomena, including non-human organisms and often even landforms and inanimate objects, possess distinct spiritual essences, souls, or personhood. Animism assumes a wide view about which entities may be considered animate, thus typically perceiving animals, plants, rivers, weather systems, and other natural entities, plus in some cases human handiwork and words, as all having some degree of agency, life, and will. Animism is used in anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of many indigenous peoples in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion"). The term "animism" is an anthropological construct. A 2016 comparative study found that the oldest religious belief, present in the most recent common ancestor of hunter-gatherer groups, was animism, which would influence the later development of human religions in unseen forces, realms and spiritual beings.…

Animism (from , meaning , , or ) is the worldview or perception that various types of natural phenomena, including non-human organisms and often even landforms and inanimate objects, possess distinct spiritual essences, souls, or personhood. Animism assumes a wide view about which entities may be considered animate, thus typically perceiving animals, plants, rivers, weather systems, and other natural entities, plus in some cases human handiwork and words, as all having some degree of agency, life, and will. Animism is used in anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of many indigenous peoples in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion"). The term "animism" is an anthropological construct. A 2016 comparative study found that the oldest religious belief, present in the most recent common ancestor of hunter-gatherer groups, was animism, which would influence the later development of human religions in unseen forces, realms and spiritual beings. Largely due to such ethnolinguistic and cultural discrepancies, opinions differ on whether animism refers to an ancestral mode of experience common to indigenous peoples around the world or to a full-fledged religion in its own right. The accepted definition of animism was developed only in the late 19th century (1871) by Edward Tylor. It is "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first". Animism encompasses beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no categorical distinction between the spiritual and physical world, and that soul, spirit, or sentience exists not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features (such as mountains and rivers), and other entities of the natural environment. Examples include water sprites, vegetation deities, and tree spirits, among others. Animism may further attribute a life force to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology. Some members of the non-tribal world also consider themselves animists, such as author Daniel Quinn, sculptor Lawson Oyekan, and many neopagans. chiefs in the 19th century. It was anthropological studies of Ojibwe religion that resulted in the development of the "new animism".|upright=1.2 The new animism emerged largely from the publications of anthropologist Irving Hallowell, produced on the basis of his ethnographic research among the Ojibwe communities of Canada in the mid-20th century. For the Ojibwe encountered by Hallowell, personhood did not require human-likeness, but rather humans were perceived as being like other persons, who for instance included rock persons and bear persons. For the Ojibwe, these persons were each willful beings, who gained meaning and power through their interactions with others; through respectfully interacting with other persons, they themselves learned to "act as a person." Hallowell's approach to the understanding of Ojibwe personhood differed strongly from prior anthropological concepts of animism. He emphasized the need to challenge the modernist, Western perspectives of what a person is, by entering into a dialogue with different worldwide views. Hallowell's approach influenced the work of anthropologist Nurit Bird-David, who produced a scholarly article reassessing the idea of animism in 1999. Seven comments from other academics were provided in the journal, debating Bird-David's ideas. village, Mopti, Bandiagara, Mali, in 1972|upright=1.2 Stewart Guthrie expressed criticism of Bird-David's attitude towards animism, believing that it promulgated the view that "the world is in large measure whatever our local imagination makes it." This, he felt, would result in anthropology abandoning "the scientific project." Like Bird-David, Tim Ingold argues that animists do not see themselves as separate from their environment: Rane Willerslev extends the argument by noting that animists reject this Cartesian dualism and that the animist self identifies with the world, "feeling at once within and apart from it so that the two glide ceaselessly in and out of each other in a sealed circuit". The animist hunter is thus aware of himself as a human hunter, but, through mimicry, is able to assume the viewpoint, senses, and sensibilities of his prey, to be one with it. Shamanism, in this view, is an everyday attempt to influence spirits of ancestors and animals, by mirroring their behaviors, as the hunter does its prey. " in the literature|upright=1.2 There is ongoing disagreement (and no general consensus) as to whether animism is merely a singular, broadly encompassing religious belief or a worldview in and of itself, comprising many diverse mythologies found worldwide in many diverse cultures. This also raises a controversy regarding the ethical claims animism may or may not make: whether animism ignores questions of ethics altogether; or, by endowing various non-human elements of nature with spirituality or personhood, it in fact promotes a complex ecological ethics. In his 1992 book entitled Columbus and Other Cannibals, American historian Jack D. Forbes wrote that the animism of native and folk religious beliefs of Africa, Asia and the Americas was synonymous with "life-ism", and that "perhaps that is what we need, 'lifeism', more respect for life, more respect for the living, more respect for all forms of life." In the 2012 book The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science it is noted that "the European tradition of referring to Native world-views as forms of animism is quite correct, if understood non-reductively, since the term "animism" can literally be understood as "life-ism." – the Great Banyan tree revered by the people of Indian-origin religions such as Hinduism (including Vedic, Shaivism, Dravidian Hinduism), Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism|upright=1.2 festival, married women tie threads around a banyan tree in India.|left|upright=1.2 The banyan is considered holy in several religious traditions of India. The Ficus benghalensis is the national tree of India. Vat Purnima is a Hindu festival related to the banyan tree, and is observed by married women in North India and in the Western Indian states of Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat. For three days of the month of Jyeshtha in the Hindu calendar (which falls in May–June in the Gregorian calendar) married women observe a fast, tie threads around a banyan tree, and pray for the well-being of their husbands. Thimmamma Marrimanu, sacred to Indian religions, has branches spread over five acres and was listed as the world's largest banyan tree in the Guinness World Records in 1989. In Hinduism, the leaf of the banyan tree is said to be the resting place for the god Krishna. In the Bhagavat Gita, Krishna said, "There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down, and the Vedic hymns are its leaves. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas." (Bg 15.1) In Buddhism's Pali canon, the banyan (Pali: nigrodha) is referenced numerous times. Typical metaphors allude to the banyan's epiphytic nature, likening the banyan's supplanting of a host tree as comparable to the way sensual desire (kāma) overcomes humans. Mun (also known as Munism or Bongthingism) is the traditional polytheistic, animist, shamanistic, and syncretic religion of the Lepcha people. Sanamahism is an ethnic religion of the Meitei people of in Northeast India. It is a polytheistic and animist religion and is named after Lainingthou Sanamahi, one of the most important deities of the Meitei faith. Musok, the native Korean belief, has many animist aspects. While gods in Musok generally incarnate as humans, they will at times appear in the natural landscape, which some have compared to animism. priestess in the Philippines making an offering to an apdel, a guardian anito spirit of her village that reside in the water-worn stones known as pinaing |upright=1.2

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