Kangur – totem czy esencja? Dwie koncepcje krajobrazu

The paper analyzes landscapes of indigenous societies. Howard Morphy, in his work focusing on the Aborigines, treated the landscape as a representation of past mythical events. Such an approach involves taking a closer look at the material aspects of landscape and emphasizes the existence of realties between contemporary Aborigines and the past. A different theoretical approach was developed by Tim Ingold, conceptualizing landscape as a human-land relationship based on essence, where all beings derive their essential form and substance directly from the land, which embodies the creative forces of the ancestors. Ingold’s understanding of landscape led me to rethink my research in the Altai Mountains of Southern Siberia, conducted 25 years ago. I argue that the relationship with the land is crucial for the Altaian people. The land’s essence is not changeable and all living beings are its emanation. The landscape is therefore not a record of the past, but an active field in which the relationship between human and non-human subjects and the land is established.