ANIMISM

ANIMISM (from Latin anima – soul, spirit) is the belief in existence of souls and spirits, supernatural, supersensible images that appear as active objects and phenomena of the material world in religious thinking. Souls and spirits couldbeamorphous,phitomorphous,zoomorphous, anthropomorphous creatures, however they always had a consciousness, will and other human features.

Ideas about host­spirits of objects and natural phenomena were the most ancient animistic beliefs of Bashkortostan peoples (Bashkirs, Maris, Russians, Chuvashes, Udmerts, etc.) Many spirits, the majority of which were not anthropomorphous, were not connected with an element. It was obligatory to respect them, make sacrifices with a disrespectful attitude to them could bring trouble to people. People used to wear amulets to protect themselves from evil spirits (see Ablasty, Pyariy, Ubyr, etc.). The highest form of A. was the belief that a soul is a relatively independent substance. According to different beliefs, a person’s soul could leave his body for some time (during sleep, illness, blackout, etc.) or forever (death), that is why it was prohibited to wake up a sleeping person abruptly as the soul could not come back into the person’s body and he could die. The ideas about spirits and souls of the dead transformed into the cult of ancestors (see Cults). Development of animistic beliefs transformed into the idea that a person’s soul is his replica, which makes him animated and alive; eventually it was considered as a spiritual substance. The soul substance of a dead person was thought to transform into the image of a butterfly, bird, animal, etc. The belief that a soul is able to transform into animals is the basis of totemic cults (see Totemism).