Sacred Plants and Animals in Central Asia

Sacred Plants and Animals in Central Asia

While conducting the research that led to his famous work Death Among the Altaic Turks, Jean-Paul Roux discovered that the lives of the Altai Turks and the natural world surrounding them were filled with a vast and complex universe of meanings. Their perceptions of death, he realized, were in fact a reflection of how they understood life itself.

Sacred Plants and Animals in Central Asia is a work that Roux found himself compelled to write about the Altai Turks and the plants and animals that constituted their world. Although he had not originally intended to undertake such a study, the richness of his material seemed to demand it.

In this book, Roux presents a historical anthropology of nomadic communities whose ontology does not permit modern dualisms such as body and soul, individual and society, or inside and outside. In doing so, he seeks to show how an entirely different mode of existence can be understood. He explores the ancient idea of the “Unity of Life,” a concept that lies beyond the boundaries of our own experience. He also demonstrates the distinctive ways in which the sacred is understood outside the framework of the Abrahamic religions.

This remarkable study examines the fluid relationships between humans, animals, and plants within the social cosmology of the Altai Turks, particularly through the roles of shamans and sacred figures. Going far beyond modern species-centered notions of sociality, it opens the door to a vision of interspecies life and coexistence.

Series: History

Dimensions: 16.5 × 23.5 cm

Page Count: 456

ISBN: 978-625-6839-08-3

Publication Year: October 2023

Translators: Aykut Kazancıgil, Lale Özcan