Shamans Through Time

Table Of Contents

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