As is well known large parts of native North America with the Prairies and Plains in the middle of the continent as the centre of diffusion have constituted, since the end of the last century, the scene of a nativistic Indian movement, the so-called peyote cult. The peyote cult—or, as it should have been called, the peyote religion — is named after its central cultic action, the consumption (by...
The Spirit Lodge is a variety of shamanism characterized by its divining functions. Herein lie its limitations: the shamanistic trance is there, and so are the helping spirits, but the curing activity so typical of shamanism is absent, or principally absent. The act of divining shows a certain affinity with the shamanistic pole-climbing performances and may originally have been related to...
Shamanism has not been restricted to northern Eurasia and the American Arctic, although it was here that it received its most remarkable forms. It is thus central to consider whether the drum is an integrative part of shamanism and should be examined against a general, and not a regional background. It is important to distinguish Arctic shamanism from other forms of shamanism. Arctic shamanism...
Often the saiva (or saivo) spirits have been defined as the guardian and helping spirits of the shaman. In this way, Saami shamanism appears as a counterpart to shamanism in Siberia and North America where guardian-spirit beliefs have similarly played a distinctive role. These beliefs should be considered as one of the constituent elements of shamanism. However, the concept of guardian spirits...