Soul HuntersHunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs

Willerslev, Rane

doi:10.1525/california/9780520252165.001.0001

Cited by 334 publications

(101 citation statements)

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“…This fundamental reconfiguration of the conceptual and theoretical space employed to think about animals and their contribution to human lifestyles has opened up a whole new suite of perspectives on human society, past and present (e.g. Willerslev 2007;Ogden 2011;Russell 2012;Hill 2013;Kohn 2013;Ogden, Hall, and Tanita 2013;Sykes 2014). Most importantly, these perspectives have developed conceptual resources to re-insert human sociocultural practice into its wider ecological context (cf.…”

Section: Human-animal Situations and Palaeolithic Lifestylesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gazing at Owls? Human-strigiform Interfaces and their Role in the Construction of Gravettian Lifeworlds in East-Central Europe

Hussain

2018

Environmental Archaeology

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This paper develops a new perspective on human-owl relations in the Pavlovian, a regional group of the early Gravettian of East-Central Europe. It argues that the regular representation of owls in figurative art and ornamentation in this context must be understood as a result of unique conditions of encounter and interaction emerging at the intersection of Southern Moravian early MIS 2-environments, Pavlovian sociocultural practice, and owl presence and behaviour. It is shown that the diverse and tree-rich environments of East-Central Europe, and the Pavlovian Hill region in particular, provided highly favourable living conditions for a rich owl community. In conjunction with Pavlovian settlement behaviour which produced large-scale aggregation sites and seems to have been associated with a more sedentary mode of life, humans were thus particularly exposed to owls that likely dominated the nightly soundscapes of the region. This coincides with the fact that many of the present owl species are resident birds and aligns with compelling evidence for a pronounced 'sense of place' in the region's early Gravettian. The paper therefore suggests considering the saliency of negotiating the owl theme in the Pavlovian as an expression of the general eco-cultural entanglement of humans and owls in this setting. I argue that human-owl relations in the Pavlovian might have ultimately been fashioned by a shared sense of place. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Human-animal Situations and Palaeolithic Lifestylesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gazing at Owls? Human-strigiform Interfaces and their Role in the Construction of Gravettian Lifeworlds in East-Central Europe

Hussain

2018

Environmental Archaeology

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“…It has been argued that the traditional definitions provide a greater understanding of the Western worldview than they do of animism; that rather than the animists projecting their 'self' onto nonhuman entities, it is Westerners who are ironically projecting their own understanding of 'self' onto those they are trying to label (Bird-David, 1999;Willerslev, 2007). The traditional definition is, at best, a misrepresentation, and its implicit assumption that the animists are mistaken has resulted in much of the focus on animism directed towards explaining 'why' they made this mistake rather than 'what' they actually believe.…”

Section: Animismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The traditional definition is, at best, a misrepresentation, and its implicit assumption that the animists are mistaken has resulted in much of the focus on animism directed towards explaining 'why' they made this mistake rather than 'what' they actually believe. Bird-David (1999) and Willerslev (2007) provide comprehensive histories of the attempts to explain this 'mistake', showing how Durkheim and Levi-Strauss portrayed animism as a symbolic representation -an analogy of societal relationships projected onto the natural world.…”

Section: Animismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Animists do not believe that every animal or natural phenomena has personhood -the opposite is true, only those with which they have a relationship with have personhood (Willerslev, 2007). "If the object of modernist epistemology is a totalizing scheme of separated essences, approached ideally from a separated viewpoint, the object of this animist knowledge is understanding relatedness from a related point of view... Against "I think therefore I am" stands "I relate therefore I am" and "I know as I relate" (Bird-David as cited in Garuba, 2012).…”

Section: Animismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…8-9). Willerslev (2007) explains that often these relationships evolved during the process of sourcing food; not always, but frequently, the most important connections the animist has is with the food they eat because it is so central to their life. Animism is most often found amongst hunter-gatherers because of the "'complex, intimate, reciprocal, personal and crucially ambivalent' nature of relationships" between them and their prey (Harvey, 2005, p. 116).…”

Section: Animismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Getting to know your food: the insights of indigenous thinking in food provenance

Reid

Rout

2015

Agric Hum Values

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Abstract:Western consumers are increasingly demanding to know the provenance of their food. In New Zealand, Māori tribal enterprises are engaged in the food producing sectors of farming and fisheries and, like other businesses seeking to remain competitive in global markets, are responding to the demand for provenance through developing systems for communicating the origin of foods to consumers. However, Māori are doing this in their own way, in a manner that authentically reflects their own understanding of place and expresses an indigenous animist perspective. It is argued that an animist approach to provenancing provides an authentic means of connecting Western consumers to nature in circumstances where they have become psychologically and physically abstracted. Animism provides a relational way of understanding the world, through which food products emerge as animated representations of reciprocal placebased relationships. It is considered that this indigenous approach can provide 'an antidote' to the alienating effects of modernity, where food products are experienced as inert compositions of elements that can be replicated and produced anywhere via industrial processes. Furthermore, it can provide a touchstone for differentiating between authentic provenance and the cynical use of provenance marketing that exploits the needs of alienated individuals for connection to place. A case study of indigenous provenance, Ahikā Kai, is offered to explain and illustrate the theoretical perspectives provided.

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2012

The Wiley‐Blackwell Companion to African Religions

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Soul HuntersHunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs

Cited by 334 publications

References 0 publications

Gazing at Owls? Human-strigiform Interfaces and their Role in the Construction of Gravettian Lifeworlds in East-Central Europe

Gazing at Owls? Human-strigiform Interfaces and their Role in the Construction of Gravettian Lifeworlds in East-Central Europe

Getting to know your food: the insights of indigenous thinking in food provenance

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