Placeholder text

Go to cart

Animals and Ancestors

By Brian Morris

Product Image: Animals and Ancestors

Animals and Ancestors

By Brian Morris

0 - Default Title
Description
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.
Product details
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
300
Release Date:
2000-10-01
Publication Date:
2000-10-01
Publisher:
Routledge
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1859734863
ISBN13:
9781859734865
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
511 g
Height:
145 cm
Width:
222 cm
Thickness:
20 cm
Buy on Amazon
Currently sold out