NOT ANIMAL, NOT NOT ‐ANIMAL: HUNTING, IMITATION AND EMPATHETIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE SIBERIAN YUKAGHIRS

Rane Willerslev

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Indigenous Studies and Ecology Cultural and Sociopolitical Studies Geographies of human-animal interactions

Abstract

Among the Yukaghirs, a small group of indigenous hunters in northeastern Siberia, it is commonly held that humans and animals can turn into each other by temporarily taking on one another's bodies. However, this is dangerous for a hunter, because he may thus lose sight of his original species identity and undergo an irreversible metamorphosis. He therefore assumes the viewpoint of his prey, but not in any absolute sense, which would mean literally becoming the animal. This article explores the mimetic practice that allows the hunter to be similar to the animal impersonated, yet also different, giving him a ‘double perspective’ by which he can seduce and kill his prey.

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References

1974What Is It Like to Be a Bat?2002The Perception of the Environment 2012The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill 1998Art And Agency 1993Mimesis and alterity: a particular history of the senses 2021The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill 1998Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism 1999Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory

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2017The Ontological Turn 2007The gift in the animal: The ontology of hunting and human–animal sociality 2013Archaeology and the Senses 2007Feasting on People 2013A manifesto for a social zooarchaeology. Swans and other beings in the Mesolithic 2011Thinking like a Fish? Engaging with Nonhuman Difference through Recreational Angling 2013Archaeology and Animal Persons: Toward a Prehistory of Human-Animal Relations

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