and animatism is impersonal; whereas animism
shows us individuals with special spiritual charac-
teristics or traits, animatism simply exists as a force
in the universe in a generalized sense. Of course, it
should also be clear to the reader that Africans have
rarely characterized their societies in this way. Both
concepts, derived from European anthropology,
have been applied to African societies as a way
to explain a complex phenomenon to Western
readers.
Molefi Kete AsanteSee alsoAnimism
Further Readings
Asante, M. K., & Nwadiora, E. (2007).Spear Masters:
An Introduction to African Religion. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Scheub, H. (2000).A Dictionary of African Mythology.
New York: Oxford University Press.
ANIMISM
The word animismcomes from the Latin term
anima, which means breath. The term animism
was first used in reference to African cultures by
the British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor
in his book Primitive Culture in 1871. Tylor
defined the term as a general belief in spiritual
beings. After Tylor, other anthropologists used the
term to refer to African religion, usually contend-
ing that all African religions have as a minimum
the idea of material and immaterial things having
breath or a soul. This minimum constituted for
these authors the idea of a religion that was one of
the oldest forms of belief on the Earth. Some even
tried to date its origin to prehistoric times on the
African continent.
The idea that a soul existed in every object, ani-
mate or inanimate, appeared to represent the sine
qua non of religion. A particular soul, in this con-
struction, would exist or did exist as a part of an
immaterial soul and was therefore universal and
eternal.
Most believers in the animism idea share the
notion that all religions, African, Western, or
Eastern, have some form of this belief in the spirit,
soul, or breath force existing in all things. This
belief is referred to as animitism. Because humans
seem to have this belief transversally, it means that
the idea of shadows, spirits, souls, or breath is
responsible for the general perception in religion
that humans are activated by this life force. Some
people have conceived this force as a vapor or
shadow that can move from one body to another,
passing between humans or between humans and
plants or animals. Indeed, it is also possible for
inanimate objects to have this vapor.
According to the animist theories, humans
came to this belief in shadows, souls, and spirits to
explain the experiences of sleep, dreams, and even
death. How does one distinguish between a per-
son who is sleep and one who is awake?
Furthermore, what is the meaning of a person
being alive and one who is not alive? It is at this
juncture that the minds of humans, according to
the theories of animism, created the idea of spirit
forces. The fact that these ideas appeared quite
prominently in the experiences of Africans caused
the earliest authors, following Tylor, to concede
that Africans had indeed formulated the first
responses to the problem of different states of
consciousness. This concession by Tylor meant
that the so-called primitive religion was the
fundamental reason for the concept of soul,
spirit, shadow, vapor, and breath of life in other
religions.
Animism would be criticized by British
anthropologist Robert Marett, who believed that
it was not possible for Africans to have con-
ceived of this notion of breath, soul, and spirit,
as promoted by Tylor. In Marett’s judgment,
“primitive” people did not have the capacity to
recognize the idea of animism within animate
and inanimate objects. If Africans came to this
position, in the argument of Marett, it was sim-
ply an “emotional” response to the environment
and not a rational one. Of course, it could be
debated how early Africans came to believe in
the spirit or soul as existing in objects, but
one thing is certain, they believed it. This is a
historically accurate fact.58 Animism