Song Paths The Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge
Graham Townsley
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnography |
|---|---|
| Population | Yaminahua people of south-eastern Peru |
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Key findings | Argues that Yaminahua shamanism is better understood as a set of techniques for producing knowledge from visionary experience than as the expression of a "symbolic structure." The author contends that shamanic thought is built from notions of the person, spirits, and the non-human world, and analyzes the metaphors and songs shamans use to relate these domains. |
Abstract
onstatant que le chamanisme des Yaminahua du Perou sud-oriental s'est considerablement developpe en depit de l'erosion de son contexte socio-culturel, l'A. met en cause l'interpretation du rituel chamanique comme moyen d'exprimer une « structure symbolique », a fortiori traditionnelle, preferant aborder le chamanisme comme un ensemble de techniques pour elaborer une connaissance a partir de l'experience visionnaire du chamane. L'accent est mis sur le chamanisme comme maniere de connaitre plutot que comme corps de connaissance. L'A. montre que l'espace de pensee ou se deploie le chamanisme est construit a partir de notions cles concernant la personne, les esprits et le monde non humain; il analyse les metaphores et les chants par lesquels les chamanes disent mettre en rapport ces differents domaines.
Comparable studies
Other qualitative studies on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Plantas con madre": plants that teach and guide in the shamanic initiation process in the East-Central Peruvian Amazon. Curanderos, apprentices, and herbalists in East-Central Peru, including Mestizo,... | 2011 | Qualitative study | n = 36 |
| Purging and the body in the therapeutic use of ayahuasca Healers and participants in shamanic tourism contexts of the Peruvian Amazon and... | 2019 | Ethnography with literature review | n = 227 |
| The Globalization of Ayahuasca Shamanism and the Erasure of Indigenous Shamanism Western tourists and indigenous peoples in Iquitos, Peru | 2016 | Ethnography | |
| Shamanism and Rock Art in Far Western North America Historic hunter-gatherer cultures of California and the Great Basin | 1992 | Ethnographic review and analysis | |
| Working with “La Medicina”: Elements of Healing in Contemporary Ayahuasca Rituals Ayahuasqueros and Western participants in shamanic tourism in Iquitos, Peru | 2012 | Ethnography |
Citations in the library
Cited by 20
- The socialization of hallucinations: Cultural priors, social interactions, and contextual factors in the use of psychedelics. Transcultural Psychiatry October 1, 2022
- Substances, relationships and the omnipresence of the body: an overview of Ashéninka ethnomedicine (Western Amazonia) Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine November 10, 2006
- ‘Whatever you want to believe’: kaleidoscopic individualism and ayahuasca healing in Australia The Australian Journal of Anthropology July 14, 2015
- Anaconda-becoming: Huni Kuin image-songs, an Amerindian relational aesthetics Horizontes Antropológicos August 1, 2018
- [The Yawanáwa medical system and its specialists: healing, power, and shamanic initiation]. Cadernos de Saúde Pública March 1, 2001
and 15 more in the library