Animal Spirits: The Shared World Sacrifice, Ritual & Myth Animal Souls & Symbols

by Nicholas J. Saunders

Drawing upon a range of traditions from ancient forms of animal worship and myth-making to the living beliefs of tribal and nomadic peoples, this book explores the innumerable ways in which animals have resonated with the human mind. It covers such themes as the ethos of hunting and vegetarianism, the notion of the animal soul, and scientific and pre-scientific concepts of animal intelligence and behaviour. The central part of the book is a bestiary of both real and mythological creatures, looking at the associations of each one in different cultures at different periods, and relating mythical and symbolic meanings to known biological and ecological facts. A documentary reference section is included with a regional gazetteer which looks at the conservation and cultural status of animals across the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Spirituality, Reference, History

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Nicholas J. Saunders is the world’s leading authority on the anthropological archaeology of the First world war. A lecturer in the department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol, he undertook the first-ever study of Great war material culture as a British Academy Senior Research Fellow at University College London between 1998 and 2004. His exhibition of trench art from the war was for five years a centrepiece of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, Belgium. He has published more than twenty-five books, including Trench Art, Killing Time, Alexander’s Tomb and Matters of Conflict, and has appeared in documentaries for the BBC, the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel. He co-directs two major Great war archaeological projects, in Jordan and Slovenia, and lives in west Sussex.

Reviews

[Jordan]

I was not expecting this book to be as interesting as it was. I honestly found so much interesting information from this book, and I really loved learning about different cultures and how they percieved animals, espcially the Aboriginal Australians. This is my first non fiction book that was a 'section by section'and stricly informational, unlike other books like Wordslut and recounts like Girl, Interrupted. This book was quite niche and was a gifted to me from an old woman in a nusing home, so like all niche books it was either going to be really good or really bad, and this was really good.

[Ellwood Francis Abigail]

Lots of interesting tidbits

[Saskia (Smitie)]

Interesting tidbits about the role of animals in religion, myths and believes. The information never goes deeper than surface level, but the many pictures with explanations make it fun to read.