ABSTRACT
Preliterate and traditional societies possessed (and where they continue to exist, still possess) an organic world view in which the ‘other’ world, the natural world and the human world were intimately connected. Gods, spirits, plants, animals and people were seen as essential and equivalent elements in a harmonious whole, with any failure to acknowledge and respect the balanced interdependence of parts likely to lead to chaos and disaster. Thus gods were honoured and propitiated, the land was blessed and appreciated for its bounty, rain was greeted with ceremonial thanksgiving, and the sacrifi ce of animals for food was endowed with ritual signifi cance. And above all, people accepted as preordained reality the need to live with each other and the land in a symbiotic relationship of trust, esteem, restraint and humility: a relationship of which they were daily reminded through myth, symbol, and the disposition and design of their artefacts.
