An Unstable “Religion”
The Oxford Handbook of the Anthropology of Religion February 19, 2026 DOI: 10.1093/9780191822285.003.0010 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that shamanism and perspectivism in Amazonia were historically unrecognized as religion and that conversion to Christianity and an objectified notion of culture transforms these indigenous practices. |
Abstract
Abstract It is known that the first Europeans to arrive in Amazonia did not recognize Indigenous ritual practices as religious. Only in the nineteenth century, with the advent of anthropology, especially with the Taylorian conceptualization of animism, did shamanism, a practice associated with this ontology and widespread in the Amazonian world, begin to be recognized in the literature as constituting local religion. The chapter deals with shamanism and especially the “perspectivism” related to it, analyzing it in counterpoint to the classical notion of animism. In its conclusion, it explores the modes and effects of the conversion of these perspectivist peoples to Christianity and to an objectified notion of “culture,” often brought by the missionaries themselves.