Soul hunters : hunting, animism, and personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs / Rane Willerslev.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Willerslev, Rane, 1971-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Yukaghir--Hunting--Russia (Federation)--Siberia.

Yukaghir.

Animism--Russia (Federation)--Siberia.

Animism.

Yukaghir--Russia (Federation)--Siberia--Folklore.

Ethnology--Russia (Federation)--Siberia.

Ethnology.

Hunting.

Russia (Federation)--Siberia.

Siberia (Russia)--Social life and customs.

Siberia (Russia).

Russia (Federation).

Genre:

Folklore.

Physical Description:

xvi, 229 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2007]

Summary:

This is an insightful, highly original ethnographic interpretation of the hunting life of the Yukaghirs, a little-known group of indigenous people in the Upper Kolyma region of northeastern Siberia. Basing his study on firsthand experience with Yukaghir hunters, Rane Willerslev focuses on the practical implications of living in a "hall-of-mirrors" world--one inhabited by humans, animals, and spirits, all of whom are understood to be endless mimetic doubles of one another. In this world human beings inhabit a betwixt-and-between state in which their souls are both substance and nonsubstance, both body and soul, both their own individual selves and reincarnated others. Hunters are thus both human and the animals they imitate, which forces them to steer a complicated course between the ability to transcend difference and the necessity of maintaining identity.

Contents:

1 Animism as Mimesis 1

2 To Kill or Not to Kill: Rebirth, Sharing, and Risk 29

3 Body-Soul Dialectics: Human Rebirth Beliefs 50

4 Ideas of Species and Personhood 73

5 Animals as Persons 89

6 Shamanism 119

7 The Spirit World 141

8 Learning and Dreaming 159

9 Taking Animism Seriously 181.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-219) and index.

ISBN:

9780520252165

0520252160

9780520252172

0520252179

OCLC:

74941371