Animals and Ancestors

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Animals and Ancestors

An Ethnography

Social and cultural anthropology Traditional African religions and spiritual beliefs

Author: Brian Morris

Dinosaur mascot

Language: English

Published by: Routledge

Published on: 21st May 2020

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 3 Mb

ISBN: 9781000180671


Introduction to Human-Animal Relations

Ever since the emergence of human culture, people and animals have co-existed in close proximity. Humans have always recognized both their kinship with animals and their fundamental differences, as animals have always been a threat to humans' well-being. The relationship, therefore, has been complex, intimate, reciprocal, personal, and -- crucially -- ambivalent. It is hardly surprising that animals evoke strong emotions in humans, both positive and negative.

The Companion Volume to The Power of Animals

This companion volume to Morris's important earlier work, The Power of Animals, is a sustained investigation of the Malawi people's sacramental attitude to animals, particularly the role that animals play in life-cycle rituals, their relationship to the divinity and to spirits of the dead.

Significance of Human-Animal Relationships

How people relate to and use animals speaks volumes about their culture and beliefs. This book overturns the ingrained prejudice within much ethnographic work, which has often dismissed the pivotal role animals play in culture, and shows that personhood, religion, and a wide range of rituals are informed by, and even dependent upon, human-animal relations.

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