Examples of animism in the following topics:
-
- Many works of art seemed to revolve around shamanic practices and the transformation of humans into animals -- particularly birds, wolves, bears, and deer.
- This may indicate a belief that objects depicting certain animals could impart those animals' qualities to the wearer or holder.
- They also hunted animals for meat, particularly deer, elk, black bear, woodchuck, beaver, porcupine, turkey, trumpeter swan, and ruffed grouse.
-
- In addition
to hunting large animals, these families would also live on nuts, berries,
fish, birds, and other aquatic mammals, but during the winter, coastal fishing
groups moved inland to hunt and trap fresh food and furs.
- Eventually, late Ice Age climatic changes caused plant
communities and animal populations to change.
- Clothing was made from a variety of animal hides that were also used
for shelter construction.
- Instead, they employed a
mixed foraging strategy that included smaller terrestrial game, aquatic animals,
and a variety of flora.
-
- Paleolithic peoples utilized
habitats near water sources like rivers, swamps, and marshes, which had an
abundance of fish and attracted birds and game animals.
- Many of the tribes
that made up the Southwest Culture practiced animism and shamanism.
- At the same time, animism encompasses the beliefs that there is no separation
between the spiritual and physical (or material) world, and that souls or spirits exist
not only in humans, but also in some other animals, plants, rocks, and geographic
features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural
environment, including thunder, wind, and shadows.
- Although at present there are a variety of contemporary cultural traditions that exist in the greater
Southwest, many of these traditions still incorporate similar religious aspects
that are found in animism and shamanism.
-
- When sons married, fathers gave them gifts of land, livestock, or farming equipment; daughters received household goods, farm animals, and/or cash.
- For instance, German immigrants were renowned for their skill with animal husbandry, and unlike women in New England, women in German immigrant communities worked in the fields.
-
- They were then rounded up in the fall, with the mature animals driven to market and the breeding stock brought close to the ranch headquarters for greater protection in the winter.
- Cattle stocked on the open range created a tragedy of the commons as each rancher sought increased economic benefit by grazing too many animals on public lands that "nobody" owned.
- Thus, after this time, ranchers also began to fence off their land and negotiated individual grazing leases with the American government so that they could keep better control of the pasture land available to their own animals.
-
- They were then rounded up in the fall, with the mature animals driven to market and the breeding stock brought close to the ranch headquarters for greater protection in the winter.
- Cattle stocked on the open range created a tragedy of the commons as each rancher sought increased economic benefit by grazing too many animals on public lands that "nobody" owned.
- Thus, after this time, ranchers also began to fence off their land and negotiated individual grazing leases with the American government so that they could keep better control of the pasture land available to their own animals.
-
- German farmers were renowned for their highly productive animal husbandry and agricultural practices.
-
- Many works of art revolved around shamanic
practices and the transformation of humans into animals, especially birds,
wolves, bears, and deer, indicating a belief that objects depicting certain
animals could impart those animals’ qualities to the wearer or holder.
- Alternatively, the efficiency of bows and arrows in hunting may have decimated the large game animals, forcing tribes to break apart into smaller clans to better use local resources, thus limiting the trade potential of each group.
-
- He remarks, "While many of these tales were brought over to the South, the African element appears most clearly in the animal tales. " Southern slaves often included African animals like elephants, lions and monkeys as characters in their folk tales.
-
- He pointed out how, in numerous animal societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by co-operation, and how that substitution results in the development of intellectual and moral faculties which secure for the species the best conditions for its survival.
- In many animal societies, struggle is replaced by cooperation.