Animatism is a term coined by British anthropologist Robert Marett (The Threshold of Religion, 1909) to refer to ” a belief in a generalized impersonal power over which people have some measure or control” . Marett argues that certain cultures believe “people, animals, plants, and inanimate objects were endowed with certain powers, which were both impersonal and supernatural”.
Mana , Marett state , is a concentrated form of animatistic force found within any of these objects that confer power , strength , and success. To various cultures, animatism and mana are visible through the success and failures of these various objects. Success equals a high amount of animatism , or mana whereas failure is the result of animatism , or mana , being lost.
Tylor’s theories were criticized by Marett, who claimed that primitives could not have been so intellectual and that religion must have had a more emotional, intuition origin in animism. He rejected Tylor’s theory that all objects were regarded as being alive. Marett thought that primitive peoples must have recognized some lifeless objects and probably regarded only those objects that had unsual qualities or behaved in some seemingly unpredictable or mysterious way as being alive. He held , moreover that the ancient concept of aliveness was not sophisticated enough ‘to include the notion of a soul or spirit residing in the object. Primitive peoples treated the objects they considered animate as if these things had Iife , feeling, and a will of their own, but did not make a distinction between the body of an object and a soul that could enter or leave it . Marett called this view ” animatism” or “preanimism”. and he claimed that animism had to arise out of animatism , which may even continue to exist alongside more highly developed animistic belief.