Across the woodlands, deserts and mountains of every continent, animistic worldviews still pulse with life. In North America, tribes such as the Lakota, Haida and Navajo honor mountains, rivers and animals as kin rather than mere resources. Further south, Amazonian peoples like the Yanomami and Asháninka speak of spirits that dwell in every tree, cascade and jaguar’s roar—worlds woven together by unseen threads of vitality.

Across the Pacific, Aboriginal Australians maintain Dreamtime stories where rock formations record ancestral journeys, while Māori protocols in Aotearoa/New Zealand treat forests, rivers and even whales as living ancestors. In Southeast Asia, the Dayak of Borneo and the Mentawai of Indonesia practise rituals to keep river spirits content, even as modern logging and palm-oil plantations impose new challenges.

In the Arctic and sub-Arctic, Saami reindeer herders in Scandinavia and the Evenki of Siberia continue to consult shamanic traditions, hearing messages from wind, snow and herds. On Japan’s northern island of Hokkaidō, the Ainu people reclaim rituals that honor kamuy, the spiritual forces in bears, owls and cedar trees. Meanwhile, on India’s central plateau, Gonds, Santhals and other Adivasi communities celebrate festivals asking forest deities for protection, even as development pressures mount.

Animism also thrives in syncretic forms—Brazil’s Candomblé and Haiti’s Vodou blend African, Indigenous and European streams, treating objects and natural elements as vessels for ancestral presence. In rural China and Korea, local folk religions still whisper of mountain gods (shanling) and household spirits, coexisting with urban modernity.

These living traditions are at the forefront of today’s environmental movements. Indigenous delegates at recent climate summits have reminded the world that when a river is owed legal rights or a forest is recognized as a living entity, it isn’t poetic fancy—it’s centuries-old wisdom surfacing at just the right moment.