The book "The World Religion's" by Huston Smith, delves into primal religions and try's to explain the values and sacred aspects of indigenous religions and people. In doing so he was able to compare the views and ideas with modern religions, or as he called them "historical religions", and gave an accurate representation of the people who followed the earliest religions of man. .
There are many essential aspects of primal though, that go into religion, which need to be explained in order to see the world through the eyes of a primal person. Primal people view the world as a spiritual place, that everything from the animal they eat to the grass that they walk on has a spirit, that God is in everything. And the though process that goes with the idea that everything has a spirit is vastly important to understanding their religion and everyday life. If something were to happen, for instance if a coconut falls on their head, the more modern religions would view this as a misfortune and a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time but not as the victims fault because we know that a falling coconut is not that uncommon, however in primal religions since everything has a spirit the initial though is that they have upset the God(s) in some way. In virtually every culture there is the though process that everything happens for a reason, the difference here is that for primal religions the reason is spiritual whereas in modern culture/religion the reason is more scientific based. In primal religions there is a belief that differentiates between place and space. "Space is abstract, place is concrete." (pg. 370) The idea that everything sacred has its place is common in modern religions as well, but it is not held nearly as high in importance as in primal religions. .
When studying primal religions the first thing that is apparent in their difference to modern religion is that primal religions are orally transmitted.