Animals and ancestors (An ethnography)
Editorial BERG PUBLISHERS
Mainland Spain
- Publisher BERG PUBLISHERS
- ISBN13 9781859734919
- ISBN10 185973491X
- Type Book
- Pages 287
- Published 2000
- Bookbinding Rustic
Sections
Anthropology. General ThemesAnimals and ancestors (An ethnography)
Editorial BERG PUBLISHERS
Mainland Spain
Book Details
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, andcruciallyambivalent. 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.
Author Biography: Brian Morris is Professor of Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, Universiy of London.