The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon: Animism and Artifact
A lot of attention in animist thought is given to the natural world. This has been taken up by the new animists, who not only develop relationships with birds, animals, etc., but also trees, hills, springs, winds, stones. If one looks at some of the traditional animist cultures in the anthropological literature, one will find there were also personifications of tools, weapons, and dwellings. Remember, the dish ran away with the spoon...
Just read a fascinating post by my friend Fishbowl, Local Deities and Bioregional Cosmology. He talks about the reconciliation of Catholicism and ancient traditional Italian beliefs in a couple of beautiful examples, one of a Catholic priest blessing an oven with a name in a restaurant here in the U.S., and another of a cathedral on an ancient site of Apollo in Italy...and in the cathedral on one side there are statues of the saints, and on the other are statues of the ancient Greek deities. How profound is that?? He also talks about the relationship of Thor and thunder, and how local spirits of place (genii loci, "spirits of place" - pl. of genius locus, "spirit of place" - note the connection to geni/djinn and to genius!) are adapted to local conditions.
But its not just "them dern furriners." I was thinking that we good ol' 'Mericans have always done this too, this personalization of place and place-spirit. Look at Mt. Rushmore. Look at Stone Mountain. Look at Holy Hill in Wisconsin. The White House. Look at the animism of a captain towards his boat or ship. Look at the names we give our hard drives and computers. Look at a good ol' boy's relationship to his car, and to his gun, Davy Crockett's "Betsy" for example. Often the car is given a sweetheart's name and is spoken to tenderly. If you name something, you give it an identity, and in some subtle way, it takes on individuality and often a personality.
People generally think of an artifact as something found at an archaeological site, such as an old arrowhead or bullet. But an artifact is more than that. An artifact is a made object, an object created/transformed by a human being through intention from what are always, ultimately, natural materials. A microchip and a stamp are artifacts; at a larger scale, so are a house and a ship. Animism is generally connected today with the natural world, but in traditional cultures, animism also applied to artifacts in many cases.
There was a comic book story from childhood I was reminded of by my brother the other day. In it, an American soldier in WWII from a rural area has named his M-1 Garand "Betsy" (a frontier traditional name for a rifle). The other soldiers (mostly from urban areas) poke fun at him, but he doesn't care. He sees the rifle as his sweetheart who never lets him down in bad situations. Well, long story short, he gets hit by a German bullet. As he lies there dying, talking to his rifle, a German soldier comes over, says "stupid American, talking to a gun" and takes the rifle...which goes off and kills the German. The last words of the American soldier: "Good girl, Betsy."
Think of the names people give their houses: Manderly, Monticello. The personal presence of certain houses and buildings is palpable, which gain personality...the Overlook Hotel of "The Shining" is such a part of our culture because it reveals something most of us feel...that old places develop personalities.
Hauntings aren't just places occupied by ghosts, hauntings can be places that ARE ghosts themselves. A haunting may be caused by a human spirit...or by the spirit of the house itself (or the land on which the house was built). It could even be a combination of human spirit, house spirit, and land spirit.
I found this outstanding post in my surfing while creating this post:
February 8th is the day of the Broken Needle Festival in Japan. For more than 1500 years, people have come to temples, where in a combination of Shinto animism and Buddhist rituals for the dead, they say prayers to thank and propitiate the souls of needles used throughout the year that have broken. Why say these prayers? The Japanese believe that to simply discard a tool you have used; a tool that has given you good use; a tool that has put its soul to work for you, would be to invite the anger and rage of that soul.
Of course, this belief would mean that Japan is free of discarded consumerist trash. And nothing could be further from the truth. A writer over at 3yen.com noted last year that there should be a ceremony for the souls of discarded toner cartridges. This animist belief in the anger of discarded tools is at the center of one of my favorite Japanese films: "Yokai Dai Senso - The Great Yokai War."
Click to view
In Japanese thought, one group of Yokai are collectively known as Tsukumogami (transformed objects). These are not the same as enchanted items, items that are magical due to spells and such. These are actual spirit-beings: swords, sandals, umbrellas, clocks, clothing, prayer beads, lanterns. Generally they take on this transformation due to great age (typically in their 100th year of existence) or even very quickly, due to anger and bitterness at being ill-used or discarded. Some believe it is not possible for electronic devices such as televisions, i-Pods, or cell phones to become Tsukumogami, due to the electricity as a repeller. However, my own experiences indicate otherwise. You can read more about Tsukumogami here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami
http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit-e/otogi/tsukumo/tsukumo.html
...If as a people, we truly believed in such a soul, the sea would not be filled with plastic trash, choking marine life and soiling our beaches. If as a people, we acted on such a belief, recycling - a kind of reincarnation for our tools - would be commonplace.
Yes, in the U.S. we hold no such beliefs. And in Japan, where they supposedly do hold these beliefs, the problem is only marginally better. In fact, there is little market for anything previously owned in Japan because it is believed that something of the spirit of the previous owner adheres to the object. And the object's soul takes its anger at abandonment out on the new owner. Which is why it's a steal to buy anything second-hand in Japan.
So before you throw anything away today, stop for a moment, even if you are not animist in the least, and take a moment of thanks for what use this object has given you. And consider how to give its remains back to the earth in a way that is respectful of all life on the planet.
(http://www.anotherqueerjubu.com/another_queer_jewish_budd/2009/02/ecological-disaster-consumerism-animism-and-japans-ritual-for-the-souls-of-broken-needles.html)
I don't know though. Throughout my life I see artifact animism embedded in our western culture as well. Not only the cars, rifles, and houses, but in cartoons and kids' books: The dish and the spoon, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Little Engine That Could, Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel, Scuffy the Tugboat...ad infinitum. And that dern little talking paperclip that keeps popping up on my computer screen. Is animism in contemporary rationalistic, materialist culture the elephant in the room?
Laugh if you want to. Talking to your tools, to your house, to your car, to your gun, to your cell phone, to your computer may make people give you funny looks, so don't let 'em hear you do it. But talking sweet and encouragingly to a tool or object, something you are working with, or working on, often seems to have good results. I'll try and remember to do this, next time my computer or television acts up! And think about the relationship, good, bad, indifferent, with all the artifacts in your life...and what you do with them when they are no longer wanted. "Christine," the 1958 Plymouth Fury from Stephen King's book, is an extreme form of what happens when we don't face the animism of the artifact.