Old Magic: Lives of the Desert Shamans

by Nicholas Clapp

For a thousand generations, desert shamans of the far West sought order in the stars and in the mysteries and wonder of their grand, if unforgiving landscape. When summoned, they doctored the stricken, be they stoic elders or frightened little children. They conjured rains. Taking leave of reality, they rode whirlwinds and soared in magical flight. They epitomized a Native American ability to relate to the land in ways beyond a Western way of thinking. Theyre gone now. But there remain telling accounts of how, day-to-day, they lived: how omens foretold a shamans destiny, how he learned his craft, how he could exercise his power for both good and evil. How a shaman could travel to the land of the dead and (hopefully) return. Drawing on the lore of a dozen tribes, Old Magic conjures the year-to-year life of a shaman a life of service to his people, a life fraught with torment and danger, a life often taking a man or woman to the edge of madness.

Genres: Religion

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

An immense amount of work must have gone into this book. It uses the folklore and interviews of a dozen or so tribes as it builds a diverse picture of the desert shaman's world, from dreamscape and tribal interactions to desert and mountain landscapes and their influence upon the overall approach of shaman ceremonies.

Gorgeous photographs in this book! Photos of landscapes, along with photos of relics and early recorded shaman imagery (petroglyps), pair with discussions that blend history and folklore with an analysis of the spiritual belief systems of the desert shaman.

[Gary Reger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who reads the old ethnographic literature on Native Americans of the West will inevitably come across passages that describe the "shamans" who manipulated magical powers of healing, warfare, and other realms. Shamanism comes from Russian discussions of Siberian and Central Asian figures who derived their powers from dangerous visits to the spirit world; their bodies disassembled, their bones scattered, and then put back together, shamans carried back from their adventures extraordinary abilities that lent them great respect and authority among their peoples.

American ethnographers borrowed this congeries of characteristics to explain the healers--often also called "medicine men"--found in virtually all Native American groups. Compounding and building on this idea, and borrowing from work done in South Africa and Europe, a school of prehistorians has argued vigorously that the petrogylphs that decorate thousands of rock surfaces throughout the West depict visions shamans experienced during their journeys, many comprised of entoptic figures said to be universally seen by people in trance (triggered by repetitive drumming, dance, or psychotropic chemicals).

Nicholas Clapp's Old Magic. Lives of the Desert Shamans takes this ethnography seriously. In interviews, reviews of some scholarly literature, and a magnificent range of truly stunning photos, Clapp purports to offer us entree into the secretive, mysterious, and magical world of former and a few still living Indian shamans.

The trouble here is that the shaman theory of Native American culture has been thoroughly demolished. Whatever one makes of Siberian and Central Asian shamanism, it is very different from the social role played by the figures said to be analogous in Native American societies. In them the figures who've been called shamans are mostly much more properly called healers, many of whom--unlike the Asia shamans--are highly specialized, healing, for instance, only rattlesnake bites. As for the petrogylphs and their entoptic imagery, this too has been pretty completely discredited.

So the central thesis of Clapp's book cannot be taken seriously. It's a shame, because, as I said, the photos are truly extraordinary, and he has collected some stories from very old--and now, very few--healers of various tribes.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Old Magic: Lives of the Desert Shamans belongs in social science and Native American collections alike, examining the lives of the desert shamans of the West and providing important keys to understanding their daily experiences, perspectives and rituals.

Old Magic is no singular production: it uses the folklore of a dozen tribes as it builds a diverse picture of the shaman's world, from dreamscape and tribal interactions to desert and mountain landscapes and their influence upon the overall approach of desert shaman ceremonies.

Color photos of these landscapes, along with photos of relics and early recorded shaman imagery, pair with discussions that blend history and folklore with an analysis of the spiritual belief systems of the shaman.

It would have been all too easy to tailor Old Magic to reach new age audiences alone, but Clapp's focus on documenting the desert shaman's unique approach to nature and human concerns, and the role his environment played in his perspectives, makes for a lively history that will also reach general-interest readers with an interest in Native American culture.