Animals and Ancestors

An Ethnography
1. Auflage 2000
ISBN: 978-1-85973-491-9
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 380 g

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. This companion volume to Morris' 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. 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morris, Brian

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Public Health, Gesundheitsmanagement, Gesundheitsökonomie, Gesundheitspolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Arbeit/Sozialpädagogik Community Care, Bildung, Freizeit, Freiwilligenarbeit
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Präventivmedizin, Gesundheitsförderung, Medizinisches Screening

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 Introduction 2 Animals, Humans and Personhood 3 Rituals of Childbirth and Womanhood 4 Boys' Initiation and the Nyau Fraternities 5 God and the Rain Deities 6 The Ancestral Spirits

Über Autor(innen)

Brian Morris Emeritus Professor of Anthropology,Goldsmiths College, University of London