What do you think?
Rate this book
Anthologie Du Chamanisme (Collections Spiritualites)
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 Lévi-Strauss, Black Elk, Carlos Castaneda, and Frank Boas, it provides an awesome glimpse into the incredible shamanic practices of cultures around the world.
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 Lévi-Strauss, Black Elk, Carlos Castaneda, and Frank Boas, it provides an awesome glimpse into the incredible shamanic practices of cultures around the world.
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 23, 2001
36 people are currently reading
980 people want to read
About the author
Francis Huxley
29 books3 followersIn the early 1950s the anthropologist Francis Huxley, who has died aged 93, undertook pioneering fieldwork among the Urubu people of the Amazon basin. The resulting book, Affable Savages (1956), adopted a new, “reflexive” approach to the study of culture in which the author’s encounters with the “other” are reflected as much in personal reactions as in objective descriptions.
Francis was a pioneer of this form of anthropological writing – a style that much suited his lifelong interest in shamanism and the altered states of consciousness often experienced by religious healers. While this novelesque way of writing was largely shunned by his contemporaries, eventually it became commonplace.
Sign up for Lab Notes - the Guardian's weekly science update
Read more
In the meantime, apart from a period as a lecturer and research fellow at St Catherine’s College, Oxford (1962-68), Francis followed his own path outside the academic mainstream. In The Invisibles: Voodoo Gods in Haiti (1969), he described vividly his encounter with possession, magic and psychic healing; and in The Way of the Sacred (1974) he expanded this personal perspective on healing to include the study of myths, religious rites and sacred symbolism. While Francis’s interests were diverse – The Raven and the Writing Desk (1976) was a study of the riddles of Lewis Carroll – his fascination with sacred healing remained constant. With his fellow anthropologist, Jeremy Narby, he co-edited Shamans Through Time (2001), a collection of five centuries of writing on the subject.
Francis was also an activist for the indigenous peoples he studied and loved. A Sunday Times article by Norman Lewis in 1969 had pointed to the killing of the native peoples of the Amazon basin and the taking of their land, prompting Francis, along with several other anthropologists and the explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison, to found Survival International, an NGO devoted to protecting the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. Over the years Survival International has provided a platform for exposing genocide, violence, slavery and exploitation.
In 1972 Francis was a member of a four-person mission, sponsored by the Aborigines’ Protection Society and aided by the Brazilian government, to investigate the plight of Native South American tribes. Their report, Tribes of the Amazon Basin in Brazil (1973), identified groups threatened by Brazilian economic expansion and described the sad impact on their religious, spiritual and psychological health and wellbeing.
Born in Oxford, Francis was the son of Julian Huxley, the noted biologist and first director general of Unesco, and his Swiss wife, Juliette (nee Baillot), a writer and sculptor. He joined a remarkable dynasty that included Julian’s brother, the author Aldous Huxley, and half-brother, the physiologist and Nobel laureate Andrew Huxley. Francis was also the great-grandson of Charles Darwin’s friend Thomas Henry Huxley, and as a child knew such luminaries as Bertrand Russell and TE Lawrence.
Educated at Gordonstoun, the school in Moray, Scotland founded in 1934 by the educationist Kurt Hahn after he left Germany, Francis joined the Royal Navy in 1943 as assistant navigating officer on HMS Ramilles. In 1946 he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained a degree in zoology, working under Peter Medawar, who regretted that Francis did not continue in that field.
In 1958, while undertaking an anthropological study of Weyburn hospital, Saskatchewan, Francis participated in Humphrey Osmond’s research on the therapeutic value of LSD for alcohol addiction. Indeed, Francis was the family’s true pioneer of the psyche, counting the radical psychoanalyst RD Laing amongst his closest friends. As director of studies at Laing’s London-based Philadelphia Association (1972-82), Francis acted as teacher, supervisor, therapist, and writer. In 1984 he returned to Oxford to give a well received lecture on Psychoanalysis and Anthropology.
He ret
Francis was a pioneer of this form of anthropological writing – a style that much suited his lifelong interest in shamanism and the altered states of consciousness often experienced by religious healers. While this novelesque way of writing was largely shunned by his contemporaries, eventually it became commonplace.
Sign up for Lab Notes - the Guardian's weekly science update
Read more
In the meantime, apart from a period as a lecturer and research fellow at St Catherine’s College, Oxford (1962-68), Francis followed his own path outside the academic mainstream. In The Invisibles: Voodoo Gods in Haiti (1969), he described vividly his encounter with possession, magic and psychic healing; and in The Way of the Sacred (1974) he expanded this personal perspective on healing to include the study of myths, religious rites and sacred symbolism. While Francis’s interests were diverse – The Raven and the Writing Desk (1976) was a study of the riddles of Lewis Carroll – his fascination with sacred healing remained constant. With his fellow anthropologist, Jeremy Narby, he co-edited Shamans Through Time (2001), a collection of five centuries of writing on the subject.
Francis was also an activist for the indigenous peoples he studied and loved. A Sunday Times article by Norman Lewis in 1969 had pointed to the killing of the native peoples of the Amazon basin and the taking of their land, prompting Francis, along with several other anthropologists and the explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison, to found Survival International, an NGO devoted to protecting the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. Over the years Survival International has provided a platform for exposing genocide, violence, slavery and exploitation.
In 1972 Francis was a member of a four-person mission, sponsored by the Aborigines’ Protection Society and aided by the Brazilian government, to investigate the plight of Native South American tribes. Their report, Tribes of the Amazon Basin in Brazil (1973), identified groups threatened by Brazilian economic expansion and described the sad impact on their religious, spiritual and psychological health and wellbeing.
Born in Oxford, Francis was the son of Julian Huxley, the noted biologist and first director general of Unesco, and his Swiss wife, Juliette (nee Baillot), a writer and sculptor. He joined a remarkable dynasty that included Julian’s brother, the author Aldous Huxley, and half-brother, the physiologist and Nobel laureate Andrew Huxley. Francis was also the great-grandson of Charles Darwin’s friend Thomas Henry Huxley, and as a child knew such luminaries as Bertrand Russell and TE Lawrence.
Educated at Gordonstoun, the school in Moray, Scotland founded in 1934 by the educationist Kurt Hahn after he left Germany, Francis joined the Royal Navy in 1943 as assistant navigating officer on HMS Ramilles. In 1946 he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained a degree in zoology, working under Peter Medawar, who regretted that Francis did not continue in that field.
In 1958, while undertaking an anthropological study of Weyburn hospital, Saskatchewan, Francis participated in Humphrey Osmond’s research on the therapeutic value of LSD for alcohol addiction. Indeed, Francis was the family’s true pioneer of the psyche, counting the radical psychoanalyst RD Laing amongst his closest friends. As director of studies at Laing’s London-based Philadelphia Association (1972-82), Francis acted as teacher, supervisor, therapist, and writer. In 1984 he returned to Oxford to give a well received lecture on Psychoanalysis and Anthropology.
He ret
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 28, 2011
so much knowledge has been lost due to our own indifference to things we have not understood. This book was humbling in the sense that so much of my heritage has been part of the discrimination and destruction of such valuable teachings through the ages.
April 19, 2013
This is an excellent book that one can either dip in and out of or go right through the history of how shamanic practices have been represented.
Narby is an anthropologist with extensive knowledge of Amazonian shamanism but the book takes a much broader view by going through hundreds of years of history and offering the reader clear snapshots from different people's perspectives.
These range from early missionary accounts, where the shaman is presented as doing diabolical things on behalf of the devil to up-to-date situations where scientists have been given the shamanic potion ayahuasca and as a result had breakthroughs in their research. Between these two extreme are an incredibly broad range of perspectives and this allows the reader to not only give insight into shamanism but also into how our societies have transformed and become more appreciative of 'traditional' approaches to healing and spirituality.
The book is a good sized and manages to get lots of eras and perspectives in but it is easy to read. Those interested in particular chapters can follow-up this reading by finding the original depictions on which the book hangs.
Narby is an anthropologist with extensive knowledge of Amazonian shamanism but the book takes a much broader view by going through hundreds of years of history and offering the reader clear snapshots from different people's perspectives.
These range from early missionary accounts, where the shaman is presented as doing diabolical things on behalf of the devil to up-to-date situations where scientists have been given the shamanic potion ayahuasca and as a result had breakthroughs in their research. Between these two extreme are an incredibly broad range of perspectives and this allows the reader to not only give insight into shamanism but also into how our societies have transformed and become more appreciative of 'traditional' approaches to healing and spirituality.
The book is a good sized and manages to get lots of eras and perspectives in but it is easy to read. Those interested in particular chapters can follow-up this reading by finding the original depictions on which the book hangs.
February 10, 2017
There are tons of glowing 4- and 5-star reviews on this one, and I guess I'm the odd one out, because I (to my surprise) did not enjoy this much at all.
It's a collection of essays throughout the ages about shamanism – but all from outsiders' points of view. It was an especially hard read because it goes chronologically, and essays from the 1500s right up to about the 1950s or so all denigrate the topic and approach it with such disdain and cluelessness. It taught me nothing except how assholish and self-aggrandizing people can be.
We actually start to learn and gain some great insight once we see essays from people who actually respected the topic and/or participated in shamanic practices themselves. Unfortunately, we don't see any of that until nearly the end of the book.
This might be great for historians or academics, but if you're actually interested in insight into shamanic practices, there are better books out there.
It's a collection of essays throughout the ages about shamanism – but all from outsiders' points of view. It was an especially hard read because it goes chronologically, and essays from the 1500s right up to about the 1950s or so all denigrate the topic and approach it with such disdain and cluelessness. It taught me nothing except how assholish and self-aggrandizing people can be.
We actually start to learn and gain some great insight once we see essays from people who actually respected the topic and/or participated in shamanic practices themselves. Unfortunately, we don't see any of that until nearly the end of the book.
This might be great for historians or academics, but if you're actually interested in insight into shamanic practices, there are better books out there.
Want to read
August 13, 20111) "Devil Worship: Consuming Tobacco to Receive Messages from Nature" (1535); de Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernandez
2) "Ministers of the Devil Who Learn about the Secrets of Nature" (1557); Thevet, Andre
3) "Evoking the Devil: Fasting with Tobacco to Learn How to Cure" (1664); Biet, Antoine
4) The Shaman: "A Villain Who Calls Demons" (1672); Petrovich, Avvakum
5) "The Savages Esteem Their Jugglers" (1724); Lafitau, Joseph Francois
6) "Shamans Deserve Perpetual Labor for Their Hocus-Pocus" (1751); Gmelin, Johann Gmelin
7) "Blinded by Superstition" (1755); Krasheninnikov, Stepan Petrovich
8) "Shamans are Impostors Who Claim They Consult the Devil--And Who Are Sometimes Close to the Mark" (1765); Diderot, Denis
9) Misled Impostors and the Power of Imagination (1785); Herder, Johann Gottfried
10) Animism Is the Belief in Spiritual Beings (1871); Tylor, Edward B.
11) A White Man Goes to a Peaiman (1883); Thurn, Everard F. Im
12) The Angakog Uses a Peculiar Language and Defines Taboos (1887); Boas, Franz
13) The-Man-Who-Fell-From-Heaven Shamanizes Despite Persecution (1896); Sieroshevski, Wenceslas
14) Shamanism is a Dangerously Vague Word (1903); Gennep, Arnold Van
15) "Doomed to Inspiration" (1904); Bogoras, Waldemar
16) Ventriloquist and Trickster Performances for Healing and Divination (1908); Johelson, Vladimir Ilich
17) "A Motley Class of Person" (1908); Dixon, Roland B.
18) Seeking Contact with Spirits Is Not Necessarily Shamanism (1910); Boas, Franz
19) "The Shaman Practices on the Verge of Insanity" (1914); Czaplicka, Marie Antoinette
20) Near-Death Experience (1929); Rasmussen, Ivalo and Knud Rasmussen
21) Seeking Knowledge in the Solitude of Nature (1930); Rasmussen, Igjugarjuk and Knud Rasmussen
22) Summoning the Spirits for the First Time (1932); Elk, Black and John G. Neihardt
23) The Shaman's Assistant (1935); Shirokogoroff, Sergei M.
24) Shamans Charm Game (1938); Park, Willard Z.
25) Climbing the Twisted Ladder to Initiation (1944); Metraux, Alfred
26) Aboriginal Doctors Are Outstanding People (1945); Elkin, Adolphus Peter
27) Shamans as Psychoanalysts (1949); Levi-Strauss, Claude
28) Using Invisible Substances for Good and Evil (1949); Metraux, Alfred
29) The Shamanin Performs a Public Service with Grace and Energy (1955); Elwin, Verrier
30) "The Shaman Is Mentally Deranged" (1956); Devereux, George
31) Clever Cords and Clever Men (1957); Rose, Ronald
32) Singing Multifaceted Songs (1958); Dioszegi, Vilmos
33) !Kung Medicine Dance (1962); Marshall, Lorna
34) Smoking Huge Cigars (1956); Huxley, Francis
35) "I Was a Disembodied Eye Poised in Space" (1957); Wasson, R. Gordon
36) Fear, Clarity, Knowledge, and Power (1968); Castaneda, Carlos
37) "I Found Myself Impaled on the Axis Mundi" (1974); Myerhoff, Barbara
38) A Shaman Loses Her Elevation by Interacting with Observers (1977); Sabina, Maria and Alvaro Estrada
39) "I Felt Like Socrates Accepting the Hemlock" (1980); Harner, Michael
40) Experiencing the Shaman's Symphony to Understand It (1987); Kalweit, Holger
41) A Washo Shaman's Helper (1967); Handelman, Don
42)Magic Darts, Bewitching Shamans, and Curing Shamans (1968); Harner, Michael
43) "Remarkably Good Theater" (1973); Hitchcock, John T.
44) Two Kinds of Japanese Shamans: The Medium and the Ascetic (1975); Blacker, Carmen
45) Music Alone Can Alter a Shaman's Consciousness, Which Itself Can Destroy Tape Recorders (1975); Olsen, Dale A.
46) Shamans are Intellectuals, Translators, and Shrewd Dealers (1975); Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo
47) Shamans, Caves, and the Master of Animals (1979); Burkert, Walter
48) "Plant Teachers" (1984); Luna, Luis Eduardo
49) A Shaman Endures the Temptation of Sorcery (and Publishes a Book) (1990); Payaguaje, Fernando
50) Interview with a Killing Shaman (1992); Skafte, Ashok and Peter Skafte
51) Invisible Projectiles in Africa (1994); Some, Malidoma Patrice
52) Science and Magic, Two Roads to Knowledge (1962); Levi-Strauss, Claude
53) Shamans, "Spirits," and Mental Imagery (1987); Noll, Richard
54) Dark Side of the Shaman (1989); Brown, Michael F.
55) Shamans Explore the Human Mind (1990); Walsh, Roger
56) Training to See What the Natives See (1992); Turner, Edith
57) "Twisted Language," a Technique for Knowing (1993); Townsley, Graham
58) Magic Darts as Viruses (1993); Chaumeil, Jean-Pierre
59) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: Tourists and Pseudo-Shamans (1994); de Rios, Marlene Dobkin
60) Shamans and Ethics in a Global World (1995); Ott, Eleanor
61) Shamans as Botanical Researchers (1995); Davis, Wade
62) Shamanism and the Rigged Marketplace (1995); Vitebsky, Piers
63) An Ethnobotanist Dreams of Scientists and Shamans Collaborating (1998); Shepard, Glenn H.
64) Shamans and Scientists (2000); Narby, Jeremy
2) "Ministers of the Devil Who Learn about the Secrets of Nature" (1557); Thevet, Andre
3) "Evoking the Devil: Fasting with Tobacco to Learn How to Cure" (1664); Biet, Antoine
4) The Shaman: "A Villain Who Calls Demons" (1672); Petrovich, Avvakum
5) "The Savages Esteem Their Jugglers" (1724); Lafitau, Joseph Francois
6) "Shamans Deserve Perpetual Labor for Their Hocus-Pocus" (1751); Gmelin, Johann Gmelin
7) "Blinded by Superstition" (1755); Krasheninnikov, Stepan Petrovich
8) "Shamans are Impostors Who Claim They Consult the Devil--And Who Are Sometimes Close to the Mark" (1765); Diderot, Denis
9) Misled Impostors and the Power of Imagination (1785); Herder, Johann Gottfried
10) Animism Is the Belief in Spiritual Beings (1871); Tylor, Edward B.
11) A White Man Goes to a Peaiman (1883); Thurn, Everard F. Im
12) The Angakog Uses a Peculiar Language and Defines Taboos (1887); Boas, Franz
13) The-Man-Who-Fell-From-Heaven Shamanizes Despite Persecution (1896); Sieroshevski, Wenceslas
14) Shamanism is a Dangerously Vague Word (1903); Gennep, Arnold Van
15) "Doomed to Inspiration" (1904); Bogoras, Waldemar
16) Ventriloquist and Trickster Performances for Healing and Divination (1908); Johelson, Vladimir Ilich
17) "A Motley Class of Person" (1908); Dixon, Roland B.
18) Seeking Contact with Spirits Is Not Necessarily Shamanism (1910); Boas, Franz
19) "The Shaman Practices on the Verge of Insanity" (1914); Czaplicka, Marie Antoinette
20) Near-Death Experience (1929); Rasmussen, Ivalo and Knud Rasmussen
21) Seeking Knowledge in the Solitude of Nature (1930); Rasmussen, Igjugarjuk and Knud Rasmussen
22) Summoning the Spirits for the First Time (1932); Elk, Black and John G. Neihardt
23) The Shaman's Assistant (1935); Shirokogoroff, Sergei M.
24) Shamans Charm Game (1938); Park, Willard Z.
25) Climbing the Twisted Ladder to Initiation (1944); Metraux, Alfred
26) Aboriginal Doctors Are Outstanding People (1945); Elkin, Adolphus Peter
27) Shamans as Psychoanalysts (1949); Levi-Strauss, Claude
28) Using Invisible Substances for Good and Evil (1949); Metraux, Alfred
29) The Shamanin Performs a Public Service with Grace and Energy (1955); Elwin, Verrier
30) "The Shaman Is Mentally Deranged" (1956); Devereux, George
31) Clever Cords and Clever Men (1957); Rose, Ronald
32) Singing Multifaceted Songs (1958); Dioszegi, Vilmos
33) !Kung Medicine Dance (1962); Marshall, Lorna
34) Smoking Huge Cigars (1956); Huxley, Francis
35) "I Was a Disembodied Eye Poised in Space" (1957); Wasson, R. Gordon
36) Fear, Clarity, Knowledge, and Power (1968); Castaneda, Carlos
37) "I Found Myself Impaled on the Axis Mundi" (1974); Myerhoff, Barbara
38) A Shaman Loses Her Elevation by Interacting with Observers (1977); Sabina, Maria and Alvaro Estrada
39) "I Felt Like Socrates Accepting the Hemlock" (1980); Harner, Michael
40) Experiencing the Shaman's Symphony to Understand It (1987); Kalweit, Holger
41) A Washo Shaman's Helper (1967); Handelman, Don
42)Magic Darts, Bewitching Shamans, and Curing Shamans (1968); Harner, Michael
43) "Remarkably Good Theater" (1973); Hitchcock, John T.
44) Two Kinds of Japanese Shamans: The Medium and the Ascetic (1975); Blacker, Carmen
45) Music Alone Can Alter a Shaman's Consciousness, Which Itself Can Destroy Tape Recorders (1975); Olsen, Dale A.
46) Shamans are Intellectuals, Translators, and Shrewd Dealers (1975); Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo
47) Shamans, Caves, and the Master of Animals (1979); Burkert, Walter
48) "Plant Teachers" (1984); Luna, Luis Eduardo
49) A Shaman Endures the Temptation of Sorcery (and Publishes a Book) (1990); Payaguaje, Fernando
50) Interview with a Killing Shaman (1992); Skafte, Ashok and Peter Skafte
51) Invisible Projectiles in Africa (1994); Some, Malidoma Patrice
52) Science and Magic, Two Roads to Knowledge (1962); Levi-Strauss, Claude
53) Shamans, "Spirits," and Mental Imagery (1987); Noll, Richard
54) Dark Side of the Shaman (1989); Brown, Michael F.
55) Shamans Explore the Human Mind (1990); Walsh, Roger
56) Training to See What the Natives See (1992); Turner, Edith
57) "Twisted Language," a Technique for Knowing (1993); Townsley, Graham
58) Magic Darts as Viruses (1993); Chaumeil, Jean-Pierre
59) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: Tourists and Pseudo-Shamans (1994); de Rios, Marlene Dobkin
60) Shamans and Ethics in a Global World (1995); Ott, Eleanor
61) Shamans as Botanical Researchers (1995); Davis, Wade
62) Shamanism and the Rigged Marketplace (1995); Vitebsky, Piers
63) An Ethnobotanist Dreams of Scientists and Shamans Collaborating (1998); Shepard, Glenn H.
64) Shamans and Scientists (2000); Narby, Jeremy
March 4, 2014
I had to read this book for my Anthropology class, and I found it quite interesting. It amazing how Shamans have been viewed. Some view them as "actors", others view them as true healers in their societies. This compilation of essays does a nice job of showing you the various views of anthropologists, adventurers and explorers. The early essays show how shamanism is viewed as hoaxes to devil worship; whereas, the later essays show how shamanism is viewed as a "remarkable system of spiritual knowledge and practice."
August 20, 2016
This is a nice edited collection of of the convoluted writings on "shamans," throughout history. One gets a good sense of the superior attitudes Europeans held for a long time which helps in gleaning the ways those attitudes continue to shape people's current attitudes even when they think they are favorably disposed toward indigenous peoples' practices around the world. The concept remains a problem.
December 8, 2017
A compilation of the literature about shamans and shamism beginning with authors from the 16th century up until the present day. At first I found the excerpts annoyingly short but as I continued to read an overall picture of the evolution western thought as it related to shamism and traditional societies was painted. So well written and organised that I feel like I have learnt a lot without any effort.
September 12, 2012
This was an excellent book, with many accounts of what shamans have said themselves. As it is written for our culture there are, of course, some parts which have a difficult and unhelpful energy for people with psychic/shamanic gifts to read, but on the whole this is one of the best books I've found. I do recommend it highly.
June 22, 2008
Interesting insight into how the Shamans were viewed in the olden days.
November 6, 2014
My 4th favorite book about shamans.
November 20, 2020
It’s a good reading. If you are interested in details and history, it’s your book. Written by two anthropologists, it covers a significant period of study of shamanism from as early as 1887 till 2000 year. Book has a lot of analysis of transcripts and descriptions of interactions with real shamans. It describes the shamanism as a new phenomenon and shows how it was handled in different parts of the world such as Amazon, Siberia, Africa, Australia, parts of Asia etc. It does not teach you any shamanic songs or rituals, so if you are into that, then probably it’s not your book. I enjoyed the reading and highly recommend it to readers who want to develop knowledge in the area with a scientific approach.
June 30, 2019
I really enjoyed this book and found the written content to be a rich source of inspiration as part of my research as an artist. Also it seemed to be quite a thorough compilation of writings from many different viewpoints on shamanism across the globe since the turn of the century. I'm ready to read it again!
August 30, 2021
Interesting collection of excerpts from various writers on the topic of "shamanism." Not really sure who it's for though. Academics in the field are probably more interested in complete texts and lay people are probably more interested in either more detailed descriptions or a discussion of the academic evolution. While it is interesting I'm not sure what purpose it serves.
September 9, 2023
It's ok. More like pieces of other's work based on their perception of Shamen. It is great to see the evolution of an anthropologist's perspective on witch doctors. It seems like we are heading in the right direction and hopefully we can indigenous knowledge alive.
August 18, 2020
I found this book a very Interesting read as it gave a great insight into the shaman world.
April 25, 2021
Great collection that scratches the surface very well.
November 2, 2024
An interesting compilation of essays on the topic of shamanism.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews