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Originally Posted by sentient
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In new guinea there is a general belief that everything has a spirit, but it's not particularly individualised, more like there is a spirit of a species, and the geological features like mountains, rivers, lakes etc are associated with a human-like totem. Hence when they say the 'devil of the shark', for example, it can mean the spirit of a shark or it can mean the spirit of that species. Otherwise, when they say 'the man of the river' or the 'man of the lake' it's like a spirit that is happy when you treat the geological feature with respect, or becomes angry if you don't. Based on this, there are traditional protocols involved in activities like hunting, fishing that have spiritual overtones, but also contain all the knowledge relevant to the undertaking which are purely pragmatic. In this way human knowledge is placed in the landscape and it is said that the land contains the knowledge, and this is revived in rituals, dances and songs etc. Along with the performance of these is a connection with ancestors and the human-like spirits of the land. In hunting rituals a connection can be made with the amimal spirit, not the individual one but the overarching spirit of that species. Not all cultures have these systems. There are many different cultures in New Guinea, but this is a reasonable overview in a very general sense.