In this paper, I question the view that prehistoric animism(s) were solely peaceful ideologies with a focus on caring for the environment and its non-human co-inhabitants. While this is true in many cases when surveying the ethnographic materials for analogies, the same materials also show a different side of animism(s) that legitimise human violence and warfare. By analysing the ethnohistory in relation to the ethnolinguistics and the material culture of northwestern Siberia, I argue that archaeologists must rethink the notion of human animation and consider the complexity of animism(s) that includes both peaceful and violent aspects which, based on archaeological materials, also existed within prehistoric animism(s).