Review of César Enrique Giraldo Herrera, Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings. Engages with wider scholarship about historical and contemporary shamans and animists in the Carbbean, Central and South America. Argues the medical and epidemeological knowledge aids better understanding of what shamans do. In particular, the biology of eyes and relationships with microbes propels an argument for the...
A remarkable array of people have been called shamans, while the phenomena identified as shamanism continues to proliferate. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Shamanism contains with examples from antiquity up to today, and from Siberia (where the term “shaman” originated) to Amazonia, South Africa, Chicago and many other places. Many claims about shamans and shamanism are...
Few religious traditions have generated such diversity and stirred imaginations as shamanism. In their engagements with other worlds, shamans have conversed with animals and ancestors and have been empowered with the knowledge to heal patients, advise hunters, and curse enemies. Still other shamans, aided by rhythmic music or powerful plant helpers, undertake journeys into different realities...