Home›Polytheistic (Animist)›Status Today›Living tradition, practised todayBrowse ByLiving tradition, practised todayThis page groups religions by their current standing, from a thriving global faith to one with only a small surviving community. Wikipedia notes that the Mandaeans, for example, "are the last surviving Gnostics from antiquity," a status very different from a religion still actively converting new adherents. Browsing by status today lets a visitor tell a living, growing tradition apart from one that survives only as a small remnant.FactsLearn MoreLiving tradition, practised todaySourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsOverviewWhat Defines This GroupingWell-attestedTraditions that honour many deities and hold that spirit is distributed through the world itself - in rivers, mountains, animals, ancestors and made objects - so that the sacred is met in the landscape and not only in temples. 2Peoples and Traditions CoveredWell-attestedUnrelated traditions grouped by resemblance, not by descent: Akan, Dogon, Yoruba and Zulu in Africa; Inuit and Sami in the Arctic; Lakota, Dine and other Native American nations; Aboriginal Australian and Polynesian traditions; Shinto, Korean Muism, Bon, Tengrism and Siberian traditions in Asia. Each names its own world in its own terms. 2StatusStatus TodayWell-attestedLiving: the traditions grouped here are practised today, several of them after long periods of suppression, and are described in the present tense. 2Standing as a Comparative CategoryWell-attestedContested: the evolutionary scheme the word was coined to serve has been abandoned. It survives in current work as a description of relational ways of being in the world, not as a class of religions. 2DirectoryCategoryWell-attestedReligions 1OriginsWhose Classification This IsWell-attestedAnimism as a comparative category is E. B. Tylor's, set out in Primitive Culture in 1871 as the earliest stage of religion in an evolutionary scheme. It is an analytic coinage: no tradition grouped here calls itself animist. 3Learn MorePolytheistic and Animist Religions This group holds religions of a polytheistic-animist character, traditions that recognise many deities and also a world densely inhabited by spirits present in nature, place, ancestor and object. This is the largest classification among the religions covered here and spans many cultures. The browser will find indigenous and traditional religions from across the world grouped by this shared outlook. The entries describe each in its own terms; the atlas presents these as living or historically living traditions, not as a single system.Living tradition, practised todayFilter Results59 entriesPlace of OriginAllCentral Asia (1)China (1)Indian Subcontinent (1)North America (2)Siberia (1)Tibet (1)United States (4)West Africa (1)West Africa and the Caribbean (1)Yorubaland (1)DenominationsAllFolk Shinto (1)Sect Shinto (1)Shrine Shinto (1)ScripturesAllKogo Shui (1)Kojiki (1)Kumulipo (1)Nihon Shoki (1)The Ifa Literary Corpus (1)Where PractisedAllCentral Asian Steppe (1)Congo (1)East Asia (1)Himalayas (1)Japan (1)Oceania and Australia (2)Polynesia (1)Siberia (1)Southern Africa (2)Tibet (1)Origin EraAll-50000 (1)-1000 (2)-300 (1)700 (1)1400 (1)1799 (1)1880 (1)Revival EraAll1990 (2)Conception of the DivineAllAncestor-centred (20)Animist: persons and powers in land, water and living things (29)Duotheistic: a divine pair (1)Henotheistic: a supreme being above served lesser divinities (14)Monotheistic: one God (1)Polytheistic: many gods (8)Establishment StatusAllDisestablished (1)Closed Practice StatusAllClosed ceremonial knowledge, described but not reproduced (6)Entered only through an initiated priesthood (1)Held within an initiatory society (1)Living, and practised in varied local forms (2)Partly restricted: some elements are closed to outsiders (5)Giving Obligation EnforceabilityAllCustomary Norm (1)Kind of TraditionAllSyncretic (Indigenous-Christian) (1)Show ResultsBrowseCompareSelect all 59Akan ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayAmazonian VegetalismoLiving tradition, practised todayAnishinaabe ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayArrernte ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayAustralian Aboriginal ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayBagisu Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayBemba Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayBonLiving tradition, practised todayBugis Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayCherokee Religious TraditionLiving tradition, practised todayChewa Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayCheyenne Religious TraditionLiving tradition, practised todayDiné (Navajo) ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayDogon ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayHaudenosaunee Longhouse ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayHerero and Himba Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayHmong ShamanismLiving tradition, practised todayHopi ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayHuichol (Wixarika) Religious TraditionLiving tradition, practised todayIjaw Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayInuit ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayKalash ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayKirat MundhumLiving tradition, practised todayKongo ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayKorean MuismLiving tradition, practised todayKrobo Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayLakota ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayMalagasy Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayMande Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayMende Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayMijikenda ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayMuscogee (Creek) Religious TraditionLiving tradition, practised todayNative American ChurchLiving tradition, practised todayNative American ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayNaxi Dongba ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayOdinaniLiving tradition, practised todayPhilippine Indigenous Religion (Anitism)Living tradition, practised todayPohnpeian ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayPolynesian ReligionLiving tradition, practised todaySan ReligionLiving tradition, practised todaySantal ReligionLiving tradition, practised todaySatsana Phi (Lao Spirit Belief)Living tradition, practised todaySenufo Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayShintoLiving tradition, practised todayShipibo-Conibo Religious TraditionLiving tradition, practised todayShona Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todaySiberian ShamanismLiving tradition, practised todaySwazi Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayTaos Pueblo ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayTengrismLiving tradition, practised todayTlingit and Haida ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayTrobriand ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayVodun (West African)Living tradition, practised todayWarlpiri ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayWestern Apache ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayXhosa Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayYorùbá Religion (Ifá)Living tradition, practised todayZulu Traditional ReligionLiving tradition, practised todayZuni ReligionLiving tradition, practised todaySources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 12. Encyclopedia of Religiontier 1Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. AnimismView the Source3. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Customtier 1Edward Burnett Tylor, Murray, 1871vol. 1, ch. 11View the SourceDivinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.