Mechanically, as I think Julian and I just said, all options are available. That's just the way HQ works. Chris seems to already have a good set of animist rituals. Propiation should protect the group from bad spirits by buying them off. Banishment fights a spirit and casts it out. Placation, which is getting something to leave once it's already there (but not fighting it) and his mystery box, which is aggressively preparing to shield against it. Mechanically, those give you bonuses to that aspect. So that's settled.
But ok, let's see if anything else can be helpful.
Peter has suggested that, like the Orlanthi theist rituals, a "fighting Mallia" ritual is a heroquest and therefore you don't have a "we fought a little Malia spirit". You recreate a myth, basically, and live with the consequences. (At least that's the impression I got. I am sure he will correct me.)
So are we talking about rituals that are basically heroquests, or are we talking about rituals to do specific things? It seems to me that animism rituals absolutely require the presence of spirits. You can't do magic in a vacuum. That means two possibilities - go find a spirit or bring the spirit to you. I suspect the vast majority of rituals involve the former, although this can vary wildly from different traditions.
You summon a spirit and then confront it according to the traditional rites. This can be a fight, a bribery, a negotiation, a riddling contest, whatever. That will depend on the spirit in question of course. You then claim your benefit. It could be magic for the wyter (I have no idea what the culture in question calls their spirit guardian community power thing but I think it's generally agreed all communities have one in some form or another.) It could be charms for the clan. (or just you) Perhaps a spirit companion. It could be a boon from that spirit, getting it to do something directly with its magic without giving you a charm or such. (Oakfed, I give you that elven forest to burn. <--- I wouldn't really recommend trying that one.)
Option two, you go out and have to find the spirit, and then the confrontation proceeds much the same way.
The Orlanthi Sacred Time rituals seem to be about maintaining the integrity of the world. I don't know if other cultures specifically do that in Sacred Time. The "We broke it, we fixed it" attitude is central to the Orlanthi mythology, but I'm not sure it is in others. The Wastes of Prax strike me as likely to have a re-swearing of the various oaths and agreements with the various spirits. Someone more familiar with their mythology might suggest a more central myth for them to do in Sacred Time. If it is a litany of renewing of the agreements then it seems you would have to go through all the forms of rituals Chris suggested, as you re-establish the rules of the tradition.
I've tended to view the rules-mechanic definition of the different categories of animist as fairly applicable to many cultures. You have people who learned some specific spirit ritual. You have lay people of the tradition, who have some spirit sight, might know some small negotiations to use, but basically have no direct power over spirits - just some solid knowledge of how to act around them. Then you have the level where people know how to fight, negotiate, deal with the spirits in a more direct method. These used to be divided by Practice, with only power over those practice spirits. Perhaps in some cases it is broader than that. Regardless, the distinction is "knows how to deal with the spirits known to the Tradition/Practice". In other words, if they know the rules, they can effectively interact with that spirit. The last class is dealing with the spirits even if the spirits aren't obeying the rules, are completely unknown, etc. etc. These are the Shamans.
In reality, the first three form a continuum and the last is quite apart. The first three are "learn the rules of the spirits we know and deal with them appropriately" with various levels of depth of knowledge. The last is "Deal with the unknown" side of things.
One could probably develop sub-groups within that if one tried, but I'm not sure it would be very helpful.
Do Animists perform divination? I'm not sure. I can see it happening, although more directly asking spirits for what they've seen or what they know than you see in the Orlanthi tradition. I'm not sure that changes anything mechanically, although the flavour is quite different. Curses? Sure - I'd view that as sending spirits to plague your enemies.
Does spirit possession exist? It could in some traditions. How would this work differently than the normal charm/fetish based version of the magic? I could see this being something like heroforming in the Orlanthi tradition, but that doesn't seem quite right. Feats seem to require a very specific narrowing of your options. That could be the case with spirits, but I'm far from convinced. I think the spirit doesn't have to do a rote action, but can do anything that is within its normal behaviour. I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction. If the spirit is in charge, you aren't. So perhaps as long as you act exactly like the spirit would, the spirit resides in you and acts with its powers. Do you have to make some kind of roll to regain control when you want? That would make this extremely dangerous. Unlike the Orlanthi heroforming/feat approach, you can't simply decide to drop the feat in order to switch behaviours. (Of course, the passage on p83 implies Narrators can make you roll to break behaviour in the Orlanthi tradition as well, so maybe there really isn't a mechanical difference.)
LC
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