Wherever there are Nayaka, there are also devaru, for Nayaka want to have them and always find them. karriyen ''Animism'' Revisited The concept of animism, which E. B. Tylor developed Personhood, Environment, and in his 1871 masterwork Primitive Culture, is one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first. 2 The in-Relational Epistemology 1 tellectual genealogy of central debates in the field goes back to it. Anthropology textbooks continue to introduce it as a basic notion, for example, as ''the belief that inside ordinary visible, tangible bodies there is nor-by Nurit Bird-David mally invisible, normally intangible being: the soul. .. each culture [having] its own distinctive animistic beings and its own specific elaboration of the soul concept'' (Harris 1983:186). Encyclopedias of anthropology ''Animism'' is projected in the literature as simple religion and a commonly present it, for instance, as ''religious beliefs failed epistemology, to a large extent because it has hitherto involving the attribution of life or divinity to such natubeen viewed from modernist perspectives. In this paper previous ral phenomena as trees, thunder, or celestial bodies'' theories, from classical to recent, are critiqued. An ethnographic example of a hunter-gatherer people is given to explore how ani-(Hunter and Whitten 1976:12). The notion is widely mistic ideas operate within the context of social practices, with employed within the general language of ethnology attention to local constructions of a relational personhood and to (e.g., Sahlins 1972:166, 180; Gudeman 1986:44; Descola its relationship with ecological perceptions of the environment. 1996:88) and has become important in other academic A reformulation of their animism as a relational epistemology is offered. disciplines as well, especially in studies of religion (as belief in spirit-beings) and in developmental psychology (referring to children's tendency to consider things as nurit bird-david is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Haifa (Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel). living and conscious). Moreover, the word has become Born in 1951, she was educated at Hebrew University of Jerusaa part of the general English vocabulary and is used in lem (B.A., 1974) and at Cambridge University (Ph.D., 1983). She everyday conversations and in the popular media. It aphas been Research Fellow of New Hall and Smutz Visiting Felpears in many dictionaries, including such elementary low at Cambridge and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University. Her publications include ''The Giving Environment'' (current anthro-ones as the compact school and office edition of Webpology 31:189-96), ''Beyond 'The Original Affluent Society': A ster's New World Dictionary (1989), which defines it as Culturalist Reformulation'' (current anthropology 33:25-47), ''the belief that all life is produced by a spiritual force, ''Hunter-Gatherers' Kinship Organization: Implicit Roles and or that all natural phenomena have souls.'' It is found Rules,'' in Intelligence and Interaction, ed...