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.

Siberia (Russia)--Social life and customs.

Siberia (Russia).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (247 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

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:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Animism as Mimesis

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

3. Body-Soul Dialectics: Human Rebirth Beliefs

4. Ideas of Species and Personhood

5. Animals as Persons

6. Shamanism

7. The Spirit World

8. Learning and Dreaming

9. Taking Animism Seriously

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612772221

9781282772229

1282772228

9780520941007

0520941004

9781433708787

1433708787

OCLC:

172433041