Q: I was watching a rather unique view of life on Animal Planet where people were furries and humanimals. It was unusual and strangely fascinating. http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Furry http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=humanimal
A: Many foraging peoples (also known as hunters and gatherers, an awkward phrase, if you ask me) believe that their ancestor was an animal and they are related to animals of this type. Thus, they never eat this animal. Or else they eat it only upon some very sacred, unusual occasion. This is called a totem in anthropology. It may have been what lay behind the ancient Egyptians putting animal heads on so many of their pictures of gods -- who were otherwise human. It may also have been behind many of the depictions of animals in the Paleolithic (the Old Stone Age) throughout the world. The shaman, or medicine man (or woman) may have gone into a trance, and in visions sought the souls of animals that had spiritual significance for the local band or tribe of people -- to heal the sick, to control the weather, to predict where desirable game animals would be. When the shaman woke from the trance he or she painted the vision on the walls of the cave. This is one theory. So perhaps people thinking of furries and humanimals goes very far back indeed -- to the Pleistocene (the Ice Age) -- and beyond!
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