It's basic but it's also way old.
http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/15_2_PDFs/01_Halverson_05.pdf
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Animism.html
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/animism.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism