Shamans Through Time

A survey of five centuries of writings on the world's great shamans-the tricksters, sorcerers, conjurers, and healers who have fascinated observers for centuries. This collection of essays traces Western civilization's struggle to interpret and understand the ancient knowledge of cultures that revere magic men and women-individuals with the power to summon spirits. As written by priests, explorers, adventurers, natural historians, and anthropologists, the pieces express the wonder of strangers in new worlds. Who were these extraordinary magic-makers who imitated the sounds of animals in the night, or drank tobacco juice through funnels, or wore collars filled with stinging ants? Shamans Through Time is a rare chronicle of changing attitudes toward that which is strange and unfamiliar. With essays by such acclaimed thinkers as Claude Lvi-Strauss, Black Elk, Carlos Castaneda, and Frank Boas, it provides an awesome glimpse into the incredible shamanic practices of cultures around the world.

Auteur

Jeremy Narby, Ph.D. is the author of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. He lives in Switzerland.

Contenu

Note to Readers Introduction: Five Hundred Years of Shamans and Shamanism - Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley Part One: The Christian View: "Ministers of the Devil" 1. "Devil Worship: Consuming Tobacco to Receive Messages from Nature" (1535) - Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo 2. "Ministers of the Devil Who Learn About the Secrets of Nature" (1557) - André Thévet 3. "Evoking the Devl: Fasting with Tobacco to Learn How to Cure" (1664) - Antoine Biet 4. The Shaman: "A Villain of a Magician Who Calls Demons" (1672) - Avvakum Petrovich Part Two: The Humanist View Becomes Rationalist: From "Esteemed Jugglers" to "Imposters" 5. "The Savages Esteem Their Jugglers" (1724) - Joseph François Lafitau 6. "Shamans Deserve Perpetual Labor for Their Hocus-Pocus" (1751) - Johann Georg Gmelin 7. "Blinded by Superstition" (1755) - Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov 8. "Shamans Are Imposters Who Claim They Consult the Devil-And Who Are Sometimes Close to the Mark" (1765) - Denis Diderot and colleagues 9. Misled Imposters and the Power of Imagination (1785) - Johann Gottfried Herder Part Three: Enter Anthropologists 10. Animism Is the Belief in Spiritual Beings (1871) - Edward B. Tylor 11. A White Man Goes to a Peaiman (1883) - Everard F. Im Tburn 12. The Angakoq Uses a Peculiar Language and Defines Taboos (1887) - Franz Boas 13. The-Man-Who-Fell-from-Heaven Shamanizes Despite Persecution (1896) - Wenceslas Sieroshevski 14. Shamanism Is a Dangerously Vague Word (1903) - Arnold Van Gennep 15. "Doomed to Inspiration" (1904) - Waldemar Bogoras 16. Ventriloquist and Trickster Performances for Healing and Divination (1908) - Vladimir Ilich Jochelson 17. "A Motley Class of Persons" (1908) - Roland B. Dixon 18. Seeking Contact with Spirits Is Not Necessarily Shamanism (1910) - Franz Boas 19. "The Shaman Practices on the Verge of Insanity" (1914) - Marie Antoinette Czaplicka Part Four: The Understanding Deepens 20. Near-Death Experience (1929) Ivalo and Knud Rasmussen 21. Seeking Knowledge in the Solitude of Nature (1930) - Igjugârjuk and Knud Rasmussen 22. Summoning the Spirits for the First Time (1932) - Black Elk and John G. Neihardt 23. The Shaman's Assistant (1935) - Sergei M. Shirokogoroff 24. Shamans Charm Game (1938) - Willard Z. Park 25. Climbing the Twisted Ladder to Initiation (1944) - Alfred Métraux 26. Aboriginal Doctors Are Outstanding People (1945) - Adolphus Peter Elkin 27. Shamans as Psychoanalysts (1949) - Claude Lévi-Strauss 28. Using Invisible Substances for Good and Evil (1949) - Alfred Métraux 29. The Shamanin Performs a Public Service with Grace and Energy (1955) - Verrier Elwin 30. "The Shaman Is Mentally Deranged" (1956) - George Devereux 31. Clever Cords and Clever Men (1957) Ronald Rose 32. Singing Multifaceted Songs (1958) - Vilmos Diószegi 33. !Kung Medicine Dance (1962) - Lorna Marshall Part Five: The Observers Take Part 34. Smoking Huge Cigars (1956) - Francis Huxley 35. "I Was a Disembodied Eye Poised in Space" (1957) - R. Gordon Wasson 36. Fear, Clarity, Knowledge, and Power (1968) - Carlos Castaneda 37. "I Found Myself Impaled on the Axis Mundi" (1974) - Barbara Myerhoff 38. A Shaman Loses Her Elevation by Interacting with Observers (1977) - Maria Sahina and Alvaro Estrada 39. "I Felt Like Socrates Accepting the Hemlock" (1980) - Michael Harner 40. Experiencing the Shaman's Symphony to Understand It (1987) - Holger Kalweit Part Six: Gathering Evidence on a Multifaceted Phenomenon 41. A Washo Shaman's Helpers (1967) - Don Handelman 42. Magic Darts, Bewitching Shamans, and Curing Shamans (1968) - Michael Harner 43. "Remarkably Good Theater" (1973) - John T. Hitchcock 44. Two Kinds of Japanese Shamans: The Medium and the Ascetic (1975) - Carmen Blacker 45. Music Alone Can Alter a Shaman's Consciousness, Which Itself Can Destroy Tape Recorders (1975) - Dale A. Olsen 46. Shamans Are Intellectuals, Translators, and Shrewd Dealers (1975) - Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff 47. Shamans, Caves, and the Master of Animals (1979) - Walter Burkert 48. "Plant Teachers" (1984) - Luis Eduardo Luna 49. A Shaman Endures the Temptation of Sorcery (and Publishes a Book) (1990) - Fernando Payaguaje 50. Interview with a Killing Shaman (1992) - Ashok and Peter Skafte 51. Invisible Projectiles in Africa (1994) - Malidoma Patrice Somé Part Seven: Global Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge Come Together and Remain Apart 52. Science and Magic, Two Roads to Knowledge (1962) - Claude Lévi-Strauss 53. Shamans, "Spirits," and Mental Imagery (1987) - Richard Noll 54. Dark Side of the Shaman (1989) - Michael F. Brown 55. Shamans Explore the Human Mind (1990) - Roger Walsh 56. Training to See What the Natives See (1992) - Edith Turner 57. "Twisted Language," a Technique for Knowing (1993) - Graham Townsley 58. Magic Darts as Viruses (1993) - Jean-Pierre Chaumeil 59. Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: Tourists and Pseudo-Shamans (1994) - Marlene Dobkin de Rios 60. Shamans and Ethics in a Global World (1995) - Eleanor Ott 61. Shamans as Botanical Researchers (1995) - Wade Davis 62. Shamanism and the Rigged Marketplace (1995) - Piers Vitebsky 63. An Ethnobotanist Dreams of Scientists and Shamans Collaborating (1998) - Glenn H. Shepard 64. Shamans and Scientists (2000) - Jeremy Narby Envoi References and Permissions Notes on the Editors' Commentaries and Further Reading Topical Index Acknowledgments About the Editors