Animism - Examples of Animist Traditions

Examples of Animist Traditions

• Shinto, the traditional religion of Japan, is highly animistic. In Shinto, spirits of nature, or kami, are believed to exist everywhere, from the major (such as the goddess of the sun), which can be considered polytheistic, to the minor, which are more likely to be seen as a form of animism.
• Many traditional beliefs in the Philippines still practised to an extent today are animist and spiritist in origin in that there are rituals aimed at pacifying malevolent spirits or are apotropaic in nature. An extension of this is the sacred cockfight, ”a popular form of fertility worship among almost all Southeast Asians” considered by some in the Judeo-Christian ethic as a form of ’fertility worship’ or Baalim. These beliefs have persisted despite (and have been influenced by) the introduction of Islam and Catholicism to the islands in the 13th and 16th centuries, respectively.
• There are some Hindu groups which may be considered animist. The coastal Karnataka has a different tradition of praying to spirits (see also Folk Hinduism). Likewise a popular Hindu ritual form of worship of North Malabar in Kerala, India is the Tabuh Rah blood offering to Theyyam gods, despite being forbidden in the Vedic philosophy of sattvic Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, Theyyam deities are propitiated through the cock sacrifice where the religious cockfight is a religious exercise of offering blood to the Theyyam gods.
• Many traditional Native American religions are fundamentally animistic. See, for example, the Lakota Sioux prayer Mitakuye Oyasin. The Haudenausaunee Thanksgiving Address, which can take an hour to recite, directs thanks towards every being - plant, animal and other.
• The New Age movement commonly purports animism in the form of the existence of nature spirits.
• Modern Neopagans, especially Eco-Pagans, sometimes like to describe themselves as animists, meaning that they respect the diverse community of living beings and spirits with whom humans share the world/cosmos.
• New tribalist American author Daniel Quinn identifies himself as an animist and defines animism not as a religious belief but a religion itself, though with no holy scripture, organized institutions, or established dogma. He considers animism the first worldwide religion, common among all tribal societies before the advent of the Agriculture Revolution and its resulting globalized culture, along with the proliferation of this culture's organized, "salvationist" religions. His first discussions of animism appear in his two 1994 books: his novel, The Story of B, and his autobiography, Providence: The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest.
• The Aluk religion in the Toraja society and the people of Tana Toraja, embrace religious rituals such as the funeral ceremony where a sacred cockfight, known as bulangan londong or saung, is an integral part of the ceremony and considered sacred because of the spilling of blood on the earth in spiritual appeasement.