ABSTRACT
Animism is the most ancient, geographically widespread and diverse of all belief systems, adhered to today by some 300 million Indigenous people, and 1.266 billion if Indian Hindus are included. Among the Qiang people, all white quartz rocks are ‘sacred’ because historically they provided guiding markers on their migration route to the Upper Min Jiang river catchment. Although all such rocks are ‘sacred’, only certain rocks are enspirited as a result of human agency. Many Indigenous societies appear to be presided over by spiritual owners-masters of territory, nature, animals or plants and corresponding to what Hultkrantz terms “the supernatural owners of nature”. Supernatural persons may be powerful and operate on the basis of contractual reciprocity with humankind, but they are nevertheless members of the same ‘kincentric’ community in which humans and non-humans are viewed as part of an inter-relational assemblage which is regarded as an extended family.
