Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
New York : Columbia University Press, 2006.
Description
How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.
User reviews
LibraryThing member thudfactor
Graham examines modern animistic practices and how academia treats this religious expression. Often horribly dry, probably requires a pretty good grounding in academic discussion of religion to begin with.
Language
Physical description
xxiv, 248 p.; 21.7 cm
ISBN
9780231137010
Copy notes
Contents: pt. I. From derogatory to critical term -- 1. From primitives to persons -- Stahl's elements -- Hume's sentiments -- Frazer's trees -- Tylor's spirits -- Huxley's antagonism -- Marett's powers -- Freud's projections -- Durkheim's totems -- Mauss's gift -- Piaget's development -- Guthrie's anthropomorphism -- Philosophers' panpsychism -- Hallowell's other-than-human persons -- Anthropologists' revisitation -- Kohák's trees -- Goodall's chimpanzees -- Garuba's literature -- Quinn's leavers -- Environmentalists' participation -- Re-cognising animisms -- pt. II. Animist case studies -- 2. Ojibwe language -- Grammar -- Stones -- Thunder -- Seasonal stories -- Ceremonies -- Tobacco greetings -- Waswagoning -- Legs and what's between them -- Living well -- 3. Maori arts -- All our relations -- Evolving relationships -- Violence and passion -- Tapu and noa -- Marae-atea -- Whare nui -- Whare kai -- Ancestral cannibalism -- Animist construction -- Enacting animism -- 4. Aboriginal law and land -- Dreaming and law -- Expressing the dreaming -- Subjects and objects -- Time and events -- Visiting Alice -- 5. Eco-pagan activism -- Defining paganism -- Defining paganism's nature -- Eco-paganism on the road -- Paganism off the road -- Knowing nature -- Gods, fairies and hedgehogs.
pt. III. Animist issues -- 6. Signs of life and personhood -- Animals are people too -- Bird persons -- Fish persons -- Plant persons -- Stone persons -- The elements -- Places -- Things, artefacts, fetishes and masks -- Humans are animals too -- Animals might be human too -- 7. Death -- Death happens, deliberately -- Hunting and domesticating -- Death is a transformation -- Death rituals and myths -- 8. Spirits, powers, creators and souls -- Faeries and other spirits -- Ancestors -- Creators and tricksters -- Life forces -- Witchcraft substances and energies -- Souls -- Embodiment and spirituality -- 9. Shamans -- Shamanic cosmologies -- States of consciousness -- Ecstasy, trance and possession -- Hallucination or vision? -- Eating 'souls' -- Killing life -- Surviving death -- Shamans as mediators and healers -- Animists' antagonists -- Cultural nature and shamans as seers -- 10. Cannibalism -- Accusations of cannibalism -- Real cannibals? -- Arens' myth -- Compassionate cannibalism -- Eating enemies -- Cannibals as monsters, consumers and carers -- Animism and cannibalism -- 11. Totems -- Ojibwe clans -- Updating the old totemism -- Revisiting totemism -- Revisiting other-than-humans -- 12. Elders and ethics -- The good life -- Wisdom -- Initiation -- pt. IV. Animism's challenges -- 13. Environmentalisms -- Modernity's environmentalism -- Depths of green -- Ecofeminist particularity -- Sitting and listening -- Places -- 14. Consciousness -- Solipsism -- Consciousness matters -- Cyber-consciousness -- Knowing bodies matters -- Relational consciousness -- 15. Philosophers and persons -- Personalist persons -- Phenomenological persons -- Feminist and queer persons -- Free and wilful ethical persons -- Other persons -- Quantum persons -- Post-dualist persons -- 16. Conclusion -- Re-cognising modernity -- Re-cognising animism -- Depth and breadth, turtles and hedgehogs.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-236) and index.
Deep red with green, yellow, and white (detail of songline artwork) wraps.
Laminate coating loosening on foot of wraps, back lower corner mended previously with tape.
pt. III. Animist issues -- 6. Signs of life and personhood -- Animals are people too -- Bird persons -- Fish persons -- Plant persons -- Stone persons -- The elements -- Places -- Things, artefacts, fetishes and masks -- Humans are animals too -- Animals might be human too -- 7. Death -- Death happens, deliberately -- Hunting and domesticating -- Death is a transformation -- Death rituals and myths -- 8. Spirits, powers, creators and souls -- Faeries and other spirits -- Ancestors -- Creators and tricksters -- Life forces -- Witchcraft substances and energies -- Souls -- Embodiment and spirituality -- 9. Shamans -- Shamanic cosmologies -- States of consciousness -- Ecstasy, trance and possession -- Hallucination or vision? -- Eating 'souls' -- Killing life -- Surviving death -- Shamans as mediators and healers -- Animists' antagonists -- Cultural nature and shamans as seers -- 10. Cannibalism -- Accusations of cannibalism -- Real cannibals? -- Arens' myth -- Compassionate cannibalism -- Eating enemies -- Cannibals as monsters, consumers and carers -- Animism and cannibalism -- 11. Totems -- Ojibwe clans -- Updating the old totemism -- Revisiting totemism -- Revisiting other-than-humans -- 12. Elders and ethics -- The good life -- Wisdom -- Initiation -- pt. IV. Animism's challenges -- 13. Environmentalisms -- Modernity's environmentalism -- Depths of green -- Ecofeminist particularity -- Sitting and listening -- Places -- 14. Consciousness -- Solipsism -- Consciousness matters -- Cyber-consciousness -- Knowing bodies matters -- Relational consciousness -- 15. Philosophers and persons -- Personalist persons -- Phenomenological persons -- Feminist and queer persons -- Free and wilful ethical persons -- Other persons -- Quantum persons -- Post-dualist persons -- 16. Conclusion -- Re-cognising modernity -- Re-cognising animism -- Depth and breadth, turtles and hedgehogs.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-236) and index.
Deep red with green, yellow, and white (detail of songline artwork) wraps.
Laminate coating loosening on foot of wraps, back lower corner mended previously with tape.