Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Animal Myths and Metaphors in South America

4/5 ( ratings)

What similarities and differences do humans see between themselves and animals? Why do people commonly make metaphorical comparisons between human beings or social groups and animals, and to what degree are people’s attitudes and beliefs about animals parallel to or contingent upon their attitudes and beliefs about human beings and human society? This collection of articles considers these issues. The issues are basic in any study of "totemism," or human and animal relationships, and they have been discussed in anthropological literature since the time of Lewis Henry Morgan’s work on Iroquois social organization.

The contributors to this anthology have not limited themselves to the notion that clans and moieties are the only sources and objects of metaphorical comparisons between humans and animals. They suggest a shift in perspective that has metaphorical comparisons generated by conceived similarities and differences between animals and particular types of human beings. Some examples of this include macaw fledglings as adolescents; pumas as fully initiated men, and foxes as young married men. With this shift of emphasis, a significantly different analytic focus in the study of human-animal relations is produced.

Language: English

Pages: 336

Format: Paperback

Publisher: University of Utah Press

Release: December 27, 1985

ISBN: 0874802059

ISBN 13: 9780874802054

Animal Myths and Metaphors in South America

4/5 ( ratings)

What similarities and differences do humans see between themselves and animals? Why do people commonly make metaphorical comparisons between human beings or social groups and animals, and to what degree are people’s attitudes and beliefs about animals parallel to or contingent upon their attitudes and beliefs about human beings and human society? This collection of articles considers these issues. The issues are basic in any study of "totemism," or human and animal relationships, and they have been discussed in anthropological literature since the time of Lewis Henry Morgan’s work on Iroquois social organization.

The contributors to this anthology have not limited themselves to the notion that clans and moieties are the only sources and objects of metaphorical comparisons between humans and animals. They suggest a shift in perspective that has metaphorical comparisons generated by conceived similarities and differences between animals and particular types of human beings. Some examples of this include macaw fledglings as adolescents; pumas as fully initiated men, and foxes as young married men. With this shift of emphasis, a significantly different analytic focus in the study of human-animal relations is produced.

Language: English

Pages: 336

Format: Paperback

Publisher: University of Utah Press

Release: December 27, 1985

ISBN: 0874802059

ISBN 13: 9780874802054

More books from Gary Urton

Inca Myths: The Legendary Past

3.5/5 ( ratings)

The Social Life of Numbers: A Quechua Ontology of Numbers and Philosophy of Arithmetic

4.1/5 ( ratings)

At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: An Andean Cosmology

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America

4.2/5 ( ratings)

The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Inkas

جهان اسطوره‌ها ۲

Inka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources

4.2/5 ( ratings)

The Development of the Inca State

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Encyclopedia of the Incas

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Khipus of Laguna de los Cóndores = Los khipus de la Laguna de los Cóndores (2007 Paperback)

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?