"A brief additional note about Hallowell's phrase "other than human persons"

From Graham Harveys Web Page on Animism



"A brief additional note about Hallowell's phrase "other than human persons"
I'm not alone in finding Hallowell's phrase - rooted in his learning from the Ojibwa of Beren's River - powerful, evocative and invaluable. However, although it is clearly a vast improvement over phrases like 'non-human' or 'superhuman', it might not be entirely accurate. Hallowell's phrase might intervene detrimentally between the members of Ojibwe clans (totems), which are interspecies kin groups (i.e. given associations of human and other-than-human persons such as beavers or bears). It might suggest that all humans are alike in a way that is not clear in these clan relationships. If the Ojibwe are Anishinaabeg, 'persons', they might question whether other humans, even other indigenous humans, are 'persons' in the same, fully relational, way. Similarly, Amazonian 'persons' might include jaguars and anacondas before it includes the humans down the road. If the term 'person' is relational and key to the whole project of animism, it is also contested by the possibility of non-relationship. If the Jivaro are not 'persons' to the Wari but anacondas are (as might be the case, I'm not sure), then Hallowell's phrase needs care. Just as Europeans wondered about the humanity of most (?) of the 'others' they encountered in their colonial expansion, so indigenous peoples often privilege the personhood of themselves in contrast to the less certain or decidedly negative status of their 'others'.
This is not a rejection of Hallowell's phrase, nor a new thought, but a refinement of a point already made by Hallowell and others who've found the phrase useful. That is, the phrase is necessarily relational: it is only useful in conversation with other humans. If there are human- and other-than-human persons there are also eagle- and other-than-eagle persons. But IF, and this is the point, some humans are uncertain about the personhood of some other humans, then perhaps we need to drop the word 'human' and talk instead about specific Ojibwe- and other-than-Ojibwe persons ...
Nonetheless, to resonate with comments I've already made in my book (albeit briefly), the chief value of Hallowell's phrase is in teaching us to pause each time we say 'person' and wonder if we are unduly privileging humans. I remain unconvinced by those who have tried to persuade me (in the nicest possible way, usually) that 'person' IS a primarily a reference to humans and only works as a projection or by extension to animals and so on. I continue to think that 'person' means a relational being, or a being who is relating, an actor or agent in communicative encounters with other beings who respond, sometimes reciprocally, sometimes violently, but always relationally. If 'person' means this (well, I insist that it does, but I'm a fan of Humpty Dumpty linguistics) then it only refers to humans when they/we are actively relating too. 'Person' does not refer to interiority (as the devotees of Western epistemology and ontology might assert) but to relationality."