This paper presents information on the shamanic religious system practiced among the Tu ethnic group of Qinghai Province in Northwest China. After presenting ethnographic information on the spirit beliefs, rituals, and shamanic specialists of the Tu, the paper will use a systemic definition of religion to (1) identify changes that have occurred in the focus of Tu shamanism and the role of the...
Abstract The issue raised in the present article is shamanists’ ideas about why there should be unity in drinking in the shamanic community. In the framework of the shamanic worldview, each act of drinking, not only ritual acts but also everyday acts, can comprise the features of worshipping the spirits and making an offering to them. Hence there is the need to make an offering during any...
Healing through ritual has often been a common facet of shamanic traditions. Catching “shamanic illness” is recognised as a sign of a candidate in many cultures. However, among the Horchin Mongols ...
Religious practices centered on controlled trance states, such as Siberian shamanism or North African zar, are ubiquitous, yet their characteristics vary. In particular, cross-cultural research finds that female-dominated spirit possession cults are common in stratified societies, whereas male-dominated shamanism predominates in structurally flatter cultures. Here, we present an agent-based...
This ethnographic study examines the magico-spiritual identity work and sensegiving, carried out by five indigenous South American shamans engaged in selling and delivering ayahuasca ceremonies. Although ayahuasca tourism is the most popular and pervasive form of psychoactive tourism, shamans are routinely stigmatised from selling indigenous knowledge, either as demonic witch doctors from their...
This article considers the purpose of shamanism in the postmodern age. It explores why Western tourists travel to the shamans of the Amazon to participate in the shamanic ritual with ayahuasca. The field research focuses mainly on a description of Amazon shamanism from the perspective of both the shamans and the tourists. The practical work focuses primarily on the motives of passengers...
Since the beginning of this century more and more people in Europe and USA make use of a shamanic product based on the secretion of an Amazonian frog, the Phyllomedusa bicolor.This secretion contains a great number of bio-active peptides and is administered in a ritual via a fresh burn created on the skin of forearm or leg.The desired effects are related to acute intoxication and consist...
Shamanism and possession are central concepts in the religious practices of many “premodern” societies, with substantial similarities manifested across cultures and time that reflect their basis in human nature. Shamans and possession both involve ritual alteration of consciousness but differences between them are illustrated by cross‐cultural studies and the distinctive experiential features...
The path of healing, self-discovery, and tackling the existential questions as to why people use drugs is addressed in this chapter. The chapter outlines the healing concepts within the Quero tradition, as these peoples were direct descendants of the Inca from ancient Andean Peru. The cosmology and oral traditions through healing motifs are timeless irrespective of cultural and chronological...
Kapata ArkeologiJuly 30, 2018Irsyad Leihitu, R. C. E. Permana4 citations
Gambar cadas adalah fenomena arkeologi yang tersebar di seluruh dunia. Umumnya, seni prasejarah ini terdiri atas berbagai bentuk, motif, dan juga makna. Artikel ini membahas gambar cadas Indonesia, khususnya di wilayah Maros-Pangkep, Sulawesi Selatan. Menurut teori David Lewis-Williams dan David S. Whitley tentang pendekatan neuropsikologi terhadap gambar cadas, mereka mendeskripsikan...
To choose a terminology for an investigation of shamanism in contemporary Norway is not entirely without problems. Many shamans are adamant in rejecting the term religion in connection with their practices and choose broader rubrics when describing what they believe in. When shamanism was approved as an official religion by the Norwegian government in 2012, the tensions ran high, and many...
In this essay the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the concept ‘religion’ is analysed in relation to how it was applied to the so-called shamanism of the indigenous peoples of the Soviet North. The point of departure is the correspondence between the head of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults in the Soviet Far East and his superior in Moscow. Further, the legal consequences of the...
Abstract This article explores a performance called Salvation: Shamanic Striptease. It considers how my co-creation of this spiritual–erotic work with white South African performer Daniel P. Cunningham1 has elaborated ‘shamanic striptease’ – an emergent practice through which he seeks to discover movement and vocalization (words and song) that yield deep significance for him (as performer) and...
What are the implications of a Starbucks bag tied on a tree as an offering to village gods or a Buddhist chant intoned in place of a shamanic invocation? This article re-considers the cultural meanings of practical material changes in Jeju shamanism in relation to its rapid urbanization since the early 2000s. Though often romanticized as an idyllic rural paradise or a bastion of shamanic...
One of the purposes of this study is to outline the research problem related to the wizard called táltos and a hypothesized shamanism in the pagan, pre-Christian religion of the Hungarians. Another purpose is to present the results of new research on this issue. The first part of the study is the analysis of the activities of a weather wizard called táltos from the 16th to the 21st century, as...
The assessment of the talent of the Delphic Pythia was ambiguous among Greeks. On the one hand, they emphasized the role of Apollo in the process, saying that becoming a Pythia requires no special ability or education. On the other hand, they admitted that the Pythia infl uences the poetic quality of the oracle. Despite the modern popular view, the Delphic oracles did not require a secondary...
The final chapter discusses a number of post-1960s developments, focusing particularly on the ideas of two influential thinkers who were shaped in different ways by the psychedelic revolution, Carlos Castaneda and Terence McKenna. Central to the thought of both of them was the significance of shamanism. The chapter also discusses the emergence of interest in constructing contemporary indigenous...
South Africa is one of some few countries where sizeable communities of black and white people live together which have preserved their distinct cultures. Other than in the Americas, South Africa has a black majority with the Bantu African languages and cultural institutions largely preserved – and it has the most marked history of segregation. Thus few elements of Bantu cultures have been...
Ayahuasca, a psychoactive plant decoction, has spread from indigenous communities in South America to urban areas in the Americas, Europe, and Australia where it is used in neoshamanic rituals. This paper draws on ethnography of Australian ayahuasca ceremonies to examine the ways that individualism shapes the structure of ayahuasca rituals, the interpretation of visionary experiences, and...
The immanent power of charisma surfaces in the revival of shamanism. An undifferentiated and monistic cosmos is embodied in shamanic practices that enable full participation in the unfolding of phenomena. As the most archaic of religious practices, shamanism makes the web of cosmic connections concretely present in, and inseparable from, charisma. Communication between the visible and invisible...