Animism
Etymology
From Latin “anima” (breath, life, soul), plus “-ism.” The term was coined and popularized by the anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor in his 1871 book “Primitive Culture,” who proposed it as the earliest form of religion. The label is a scholarly construct imposed from outside; the traditions it describes rarely called themselves anything of the kind.
noun · /AN-uh-miz-um/
The belief that natural things — animals, plants, places, objects — possess a spirit or soul.
What it names
A worldview in which the whole environment is alive and personlike, common across indigenous traditions worldwide.
Example
A quiet animism ran through her grandmother’s habits — thanking the river, apologizing to a felled tree.
Related idea
Polytheism organizes the sacred into distinct named gods; animism spreads spirit diffusely through ordinary beings, places, and things.