Home›Birds›Sacred ToBrowse BySacred ToThis page groups spirit animals by the practical rule their sacred standing produces. Wikipedia notes that "the belief that an animal is sacred frequently results in dietary laws prohibiting their consumption." Browsing by sacred-to lets a visitor find every spirit animal bound to the same kind of rule.FactsLearn MoreSacred ToSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsContested UseContested or Appropriated Modern UseWell-attested"Spirit animal" is a twentieth-century English coinage of the neoshamanic movement, from Michael Harner's core shamanism (1980) and the popular animal dictionaries that followed. It is not an Indigenous term, though it is routinely marketed with Indigenous associations; the meanings recorded here belong to the named traditions. 3OverviewWhat Defines This GroupingWell-attestedSpirit-animal entries whose subject is a bird in modern zoological classification. The class is a browsing frame only: traditions sort animals by their own criteria - edible and inedible, clean and unclean, wild and domestic, kin and stranger - and not by biological class. 2DirectoryCategoryWell-attestedAnimals & Totems 1OriginsWhose Classification This IsWell-attestedModern zoological classification: Aves, a class named by Linnaeus in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae (1758). 4Learn MoreBirds as Spirit Animals This group holds the birds among the spirit animals, creatures that, by their power of flight and their song, have long served as symbols of the soul, of messages between worlds, and of freedom, vision or omen in the lore of many peoples. The browser will find the bird spirit animals the atlas gathers. The entries describe each bird's symbolic associations, distinguishing traditional cultural meanings from the modern popular notion of the spirit animal.Sacred ToFilter Results6 entriesDomain / FunctionAllBeauty (1)Childbirth (1)Craft, metalwork and smithing (1)Death (1)Fertility and generation (1)Justice, law and oaths (1)Kingship and sovereignty (3)Love and desire (1)Magic and sorcery (2)Marriage and the household (1)Moon (1)Music and poetry (1)Sky (1)Storm and thunder (1)Tutelary of a place or community (1)War and battle (2)Weaving and textile craft (1)Wisdom and counsel (3)Writing, scribes and learning (1)Era of Attestation End YearAll400 (5)1200 (1)Era of Attestation Start YearAll2400 BCE (1)1400 BCE (3)800 BCE (1)100 (1)GenderAllFemale (3)Male (3)HistoricityAllLegendary: known from narrative tradition, not the historical record (3)Not a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being (3)Pantheon FamilyAllAesir (1)Status Within the TraditionAllNot formally addressed by this tradition (2)TheologyAllPolytheistic: many gods (6)Veneration TodayAllHistorically attested; no continuous cult (6)Show ResultsBrowseCompareAphroditeSacred To1 entryAthenaSacred To1 entryHeraSacred To1 entryOdinSacred To1 entryThothSacred To1 entryZeusSacred To1 entrySources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 12. Encyclopedia of Religiontier 1Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005the article on animals in religionView the Source3. The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western Imaginationtier 1Andrei A. Znamenski, Oxford University Press, 2007on Michael Harner and the making of core shamanismView the Source4. Systema Naturae, 10th editiontier 1Carl Linnaeus, Laurentius Salvius, 1758the tenth edition, 1758Divinity 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.