Editing Animism (section)

== "Old animism" definitions ==
Earlier anthropological perspectives, which have since been termed the old animism, were concerned with knowledge on what is alive and what factors make something alive.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=xi}} The old animism assumed that animists were individuals who were unable to understand the difference between [[persons]] and [[object (philosophy)|things]].{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=xiv}} Critics of the old animism have accused it of preserving "colonialist and dualistic worldviews and rhetoric".{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=xii}}

=== Edward Tylor's definition ===

[[File:Edward Burnett Tylor.jpg|thumb|[[Edward Tylor]] developed animism as an anthropological theory.]]
The idea of animism was developed by [[anthropology|anthropologist]] Sir [[Edward Burnett Tylor|Edward Tylor]] through his 1871 book ''[[Primitive culture|Primitive Culture]]'',{{sfn|EB|1878}} in which he defined it as "the general doctrine of souls and other spiritual beings in general". According to Tylor, animism often includes "an idea of pervading life and will in nature;"<ref>{{cite book|first=Edward Burnett |last=Tylor |author-link=Edward Burnett Tylor |title=Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom |volume=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AucLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA260 |year=1871 |publisher=J. Murray |page=260}}</ref> a belief that natural objects other than humans have souls. This formulation was little different from that proposed by [[Auguste Comte]] as "[[fetishism]]",<ref name="Kuper 2005 85">{{cite book |last=Kuper |first=Adam |url=https://archive.org/details/reinventionprimi00kupe |title=Reinvention of Primitive Society: Transformations of a Myth |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2005 |edition=2nd |location=Florence, KY, US |page=[https://archive.org/details/reinventionprimi00kupe/page/n97 85] |url-access=limited}}</ref> but the terms now have distinct meanings.

For Tylor, animism represented the earliest form of religion, being situated within an evolutionary framework of religion that has developed in stages and which will ultimately lead to humanity rejecting religion altogether in favor of scientific rationality.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=6}} Thus, for Tylor, animism was fundamentally seen as a mistake, a basic error from which all religions grew.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=6}} He did not believe that animism was inherently illogical, but he suggested that it arose from early humans' dreams and visions and thus was a rational system. However, it was based on erroneous, unscientific observations about the nature of reality.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=8}} Stringer notes that his reading of ''Primitive Culture'' led him to believe that Tylor was far more sympathetic in regard to "primitive" populations than many of his contemporaries and that Tylor expressed no belief that there was any difference between the intellectual capabilities of "savage" people and Westerners.<ref name=stringer/>

The idea that there had once been "one universal form of primitive religion" (whether labelled ''animism'', ''totemism'', or ''shamanism'') has been dismissed as "unsophisticated" and "erroneous" by archaeologist [[Timothy Insoll]], who stated that "it removes complexity, a precondition of religion now, in ''all'' its variants."{{sfn|Insoll|2004|p=29}}

=== Social evolutionist conceptions ===
Tylor's definition of animism was part of a growing international debate on the nature of "[[Urgesellschaft|primitive society]]" by lawyers, theologians, and philologists. The debate defined the field of research of a new science: ''[[anthropology]]''. By the end of the 19th century, an orthodoxy on "primitive society" had emerged, but few anthropologists still would accept that definition. The "19th-century armchair anthropologists" argued that "primitive society" (an evolutionary category) was ordered by kinship and divided into exogamous [[kinship|descent groups]] related by a series of marriage exchanges. Their religion was animism, the belief that natural species and objects had souls.

With the development of private property, the descent groups were displaced by the emergence of the territorial state. These rituals and beliefs eventually evolved over time into the vast array of "developed" religions. According to Tylor, as society became more scientifically advanced, fewer members of that society would believe in animism. However, any remnant ideologies of souls or spirits, to Tylor, represented "survivals" of the original animism of early humanity.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kuper |first=Adam |title=The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an illusion |year=1988 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |location=London |pages=6–7}}</ref>

{{quote box
| quote = The term ["animism"] clearly began as an expression of a nest of insulting approaches to indigenous peoples and the earliest putatively religious humans. It was and sometimes remains, a colonialist slur.
| source = —[[Graham Harvey (religious studies scholar)|Graham Harvey]], 2005.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=xiii}}
| align = left
| width = 25em
}}

=== Confounding animism with totemism ===
In 1869 (three years after Tylor proposed his definition of animism), Edinburgh lawyer [[John Ferguson McLennan]], argued that the animistic thinking evident in [[fetishism]] gave rise to a religion he named ''[[totemism]]''. Primitive people believed, he argued, that they were descended from the same species as their totemic animal.<ref name="Kuper 2005 85"/> Subsequent debate by the "armchair anthropologists" (including [[Johann Jakob Bachofen|J. J. Bachofen]], [[Émile Durkheim]], and [[Sigmund Freud]]) remained focused on [[totemism]] rather than animism, with few directly challenging Tylor's definition. Anthropologists "have commonly avoided the issue of animism and even the term itself, rather than revisit this prevalent notion in light of their new and rich [[ethnographies]]."<ref name="Bird-David 1999 S68">{{harvnb|Bird-David|1999|p=S68}}</ref>

According to anthropologist [[Tim Ingold]], animism shares similarities with totemism but differs in its focus on individual spirit beings which help to perpetuate life, whereas totemism more typically holds that there is a primary source, such as the land itself or the ancestors, who provide the basis to life. Certain indigenous religious groups such as the [[Australian Aboriginals]] are more typically totemic in their worldview, whereas others like the [[Inuit]] are more typically animistic.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ingold |first=Tim |author-link=Tim Ingold |date=2000 |chapter=Totemism, Animism, and the Depiction of Animals |title=The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill |location=London |publisher=[[Routledge]] |pages=112–113}}</ref>

From his studies into child development, [[Jean Piaget]] suggested that children were born with an innate animist worldview in which they [[Anthropomorphism|anthropomorphized]] inanimate objects and that it was only later that they grew out of this belief.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=14}} Conversely, from her ethnographic research, [[Margaret Mead]] argued the opposite, believing that children were not born with an animist worldview but that they became acculturated to such beliefs as they were educated by their society.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=14}}

Stewart Guthrie saw animism—or "attribution" as he preferred it—as an evolutionary strategy to aid survival. He argued that both humans and other animal species view inanimate objects as potentially alive as a means of being constantly on guard against potential threats.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=15}} His suggested explanation, however, did not deal with the question of why such a belief became central to the religion.{{sfn|Harvey|2005|p=16}} In 2000, Guthrie suggested that the "most widespread" concept of animism was that it was the "attribution of spirits to natural phenomena such as stones and trees."{{sfn|Guthrie|2000|p=106}}