A sample entry from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (London & New York: Continuum, 2005) Edited by Bron Taylor © 2005 All Rights Reserved 78 Animism slaughter. Although killing a cock is allowed, the Prophet religious belief originated in the primordial mistake of forbade reviling this fowl because it served the faithful by attributing life, soul, or spirit to inanimate objects. awakening them to perform their religious duty; the same Although it has generally been dismissed in the academic rule applies to fleas “who awakened a prophet.” study of religion as an obsolete term for describing the All three scriptures further condemn any manifestation belief systems of indigenous people who hold that natural of cruelty per se toward animals, which are recognized phenomena have souls or spirits, animism has neverthe- as creatures of God; however, Judaism, Christianity, and less persisted in popular usage and academic theory to Islam also encourage an instrumental approach to raise problems about the meaning and value of materiality animals, at best, while allowing their arbitrary killing, at in religion. worst. Perhaps this was the natural sequence in the process Tylor’s theory of animism was premised on a kind of of turning the human race into the apex of divine creation, materialism, since he assumed that materiality by defini- a creed that does not allow any partners of equal status at tion was “dead” matter, but his theory was also framed in the side of human beings. Furthermore, teachers from terms of an ideology of European progress, underwritten these traditions condemn the practice of pet keeping, by evolutionary science, which bore a strange contra- relegating the most favorite among the pets, especially diction. Although Europeans supposedly represented the dogs, to the status of unclean or maligned animals. Such pinnacle of evolutionary development, they could only antagonism may result from the apprehension of ecclesi- know that by comparing themselves to a baseline repre- astical persons that attachment to pets – which bestows on sented by others who had supposedly not evolved. Like human beings a complete mastery over these creatures other social evolutionists, Tylor found his evolutionary and, in consequence, may bring about higher self-esteem baseline, the “primitive,” in reports submitted by European – might have detrimental consequences for the submission travelers, missionaries, and colonial agents about of the faithful to an almighty God. No less important, the indigenous people, the “savage,” on the periphery of emotional linkage between a person and his/her pet may empire. While Europeans according to Tylor’s evolution- weaken human dependence on God’s representatives on ary scheme had progressed along a developmental trajec- Earth, the clergy. tory through animism, polytheism, and monotheism to reach the highest achievements of science, evolving from Sophia Menache primitive to civilized, indigenous people of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific had supposedly Further Reading been left behind by evolution, standing over as savage Houston, Walter. Purity and Monotheism: Clean and “survivals” of the primitive. Unclean Animals in Biblical Law. Sheffield: J.S.O.T. Although Tylor was only interested in contemporary Press, 1993. indigenous religions as data for building a theory of the Isaacs, Ronald H. Animals in Jewish Thought and Tradi- original, primordial, or primitive animism, his term tion. Northvale: Jason Aronson, 2000. caught on to such an extent that it became commonplace Maccoby, Hyam. Ritual and Morality: The Ritual Purity in European inventories of the religions of the world to System and Its Place. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- identify contemporary adherents of indigenous religions versity Press, 1999. as animists. A recent guidebook for Christian missionaries, Menache, Sophia. “Dogs: A Story of Friendship.” Society for example, asserts that 40 percent of the world’s popu- and Animals 6:1 (1998), 67–86. lation is animistic (Van Rheenan 1991: 30). While this Menache, Sophia. “Dogs: God’s Worst Enemies?” Society characterization has often been experienced by indigen- and Animals 5:1 (1997), 23–44. ous people as denigrating, it has occasionally been See also: Animal Rights in the Jewish Tradition; adopted as a term of self-identification. In Indonesia and Animals; Christianity and Animals; Dogs in the Abra- Nigeria, for example, representatives of indigenous reli- hamic Traditions; Dogs in the Islamic Tradition; gions, struggling in a political arena dominated by Muslim Elephants; Francis of Assisi; Hunting and the Origins of and Christian interests, have sought formal recognition as Religion; Hyenas – Spotted; Islam, Animals, and Vege- animists. At the same time, animism has sometimes been tarianism; Primate Spirituality; Serpents and Dragons. adopted as a term of self-identification in New Age, neo-pagan, or environmentalist movements. Without addressing those appropriations of the term, this entry Animism concentrates on the history, rationale, and consequences of animism as a theory of religion. Coined by the anthropologist E.B. Tylor (1832–1917), the term “animism” refers not to a type of religion but to a History of Animism theory of religion. Asserting a minimal definition of During the nineteenth century, European social scientists religion as “belief in spiritual beings,” Tylor argued that developed different terms – fetishism, totemism, and Animism 79 animism – for the original religion of humanity, but even if it was a “childish philosophy” enveloped in each term carried the same allegation that “primitives” or “intense and inveterate ignorance” (Tylor 1871: I, 22–3). “savages” were incapable of assessing the meaning and Where did Tylor get his evidence to support this find- value of material objects. ing? Instead of observing dogs, Tylor collected accounts The term, “fetish,” for example, emerged out of about indigenous people, the “savages” who appeared intercultural trading relations in West Africa in which in reports from European travelers, missionaries, and European traders argued that Africans, unlike European colonial agents. Arguably, Tylor’s most important source Christians, had no stable system of value in which they was an account of Zulu religion from South Africa, could evaluate objects. Overvaluing apparently trifling The Religious System of the Amazulu, which had been pub- objects such as feathers, bones, and cloth used in lished under the authorship of the Anglican missionary ritual, Africans undervalued the trade goods brought by Henry Callaway, although the Zulu Christian convert, Europeans. In this context, European Christians referred to Mpengula Mbande, actually provided most of the reports African ritual objects as “fetishes,” a term derived from the collected in the book. Tylor praised The Religious System Portuguese feitiço, referring to nefarious instruments of of the Amazulu for providing “the best knowledge of the magic and witchcraft (Pietz 1985). The term, “totemism,” lower phases of religious belief” (1871: I, 380). according to John Ferguson M’Lennan, referred to com- Certainly, Tylor found evidence of an active dream munal alliances under the sign of an animal or an object life among Callaway’s Zulus. Zulus often saw the shade that combined fetishism with exogamy, mixing the or shadow of deceased ancestors in dreams. However, inability to evaluate materiality with regulations govern- Callaway’s volume included a detailed account about ing sexuality (M’Lennan 1870). Arguably, the term, one Zulu man, an apprenticed diviner, who had become “animism,” mixed fetishism not with human sexuality but so overwhelmed with visions of spirits that he had with animal psychology. The psychology of dogs, in described his own body as “a house of dreams” (Callaway particular, provided the key to a theory of religion based 1868–1870: 228, 260, 316). According to Tylor, all on attributing animation to inanimate objects. Zulus, as “savage” survivals of the “primitive,” were In his popular survey of human evolution, The Origin of subject to dream visions, but “as for the man who is Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man, John passing into the morbid condition of the professional Lubbock explained that religion originated as the result of seer, phantoms are continually coming to talk to him the primitive tendency to attribute animation to inanimate in his sleep, till he becomes as the expressive native objects. To illustrate this primitive “frame of mind,” phrase is, ‘a house of dreams’ ” (1871: I, 443). Although Lubbock cited evidence from southern Africa, relying on Tylor appropriated him as an archetype of the the early nineteenth-century report from the traveler “primitive,” this particular Zulu man, who served Tylor as Henry Lichtenstein that the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape a “savage” survival of the original “house of dreams” assumed that an anchor cast ashore from a shipwreck was from which religion originated, was James Mbande, actually alive. In a footnote, Lubbock observed, “Dogs the brother of the Christian convert, Mpengula Mbande. appear to do the same” (Lubbock 1889: 287). As Lubbock’s Like his brother, James was torn between the Christian friend and mentor, Charles Darwin, maintained, religion mission and indigenous tradition. While Mpengula went could be explained in terms of dog behavior. Like one way, becoming a catechist for the mission, James Lubbock, Darwin observed that dogs characteristically struggled in the other direction, striving