Central and South American Shamanism Glenn H. Shepard Jr. In: Walter, M.N. and E.J.N. Fridman (Eds.). 2004. Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture, Vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 365-370. Geographical and Historical Background Vast and rich, harboring tremendous biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity, and heirs to a glorious and tragic history, Central and South America have given rise to some of the most ancient, enduring, and spectacular examples of shamanistic practice documented. The Asiatic peoples who migrated to the Americas during the Pleistocene appear to have brought with them a ritual complex that integrated religious and medical functions, centered around trance states, and may have involved hallucinogenic plant use. As in the case of the Siberian cultures to whom we owe the etymology of the term “shaman,” native societies throughout Central and South America distinguish ritual specialists who enter trance to commune with the spirits for purposes of healing, divination, and other matters of individual and collective well-being. Because of the presumed Asian origins of Amerindians, and partly because the Siberian term happened to gain wide usage, certain west Asian traditions and similar Arctic and North American examples have been treated as original or more “pure” versions of shamanism than their Central and South American counterparts. Yet recent archeological and genetic evidence suggests a much more ancient date for the arrival of humans in the Americas than had previously been assumed. Keeping this fact in mind, native Central and South American shamanism should be seen not as derivative of or secondary to “classic” Asian shamanism, but rather parallel, largely independent, and equally ancient bodies of practice that have evolved and diversified in response to heterogeneous ecological, sociocultural, and historical conditions. 1 Evidence for shamanism in pre-Columbian America is scant and sometimes speculative, but suggests a certain continuity of practice from ancient through contemporary times and throughout large geographic areas. Some consider geometric designs and animal motifs in ancient rock art in South America and elsewhere in the world as evidence of shamanistic practices in Paleolithic times (Williams 1993). Spectacular artistic and religious iconography at Chavín, cradle of Andean civilization, includes representations of the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus, suggesting an ancient and ongoing importance of hallucinogens and shamanism in highland and coastal Peruvian societies. Snuff kits and tablets containing hallucinogenic plants have been found at archeological sites throughout South America, echoing shamanistic practices documented in historical and ethnographic accounts (Torres 1998). Prehispanic artwork and early colonial manuscripts from Mexico depict hallucinogenic mushroom and plant species in ritual and mythological contexts; the importance of Bufo toads in Aztec and Mayan art and symbolism has been interpreted as evidence for the ritual use of hallucinogenic toad toxins in ancient Mesoamerican religion (Davis 1998, 232). Artwork and heiroglyphic writings of the ancient Maya describe trance states induced by fasting, bloodletting, and perhaps hallucinogenic preparations (see entry by B. Tedlock in this volume). From the early days of the Conquest, explorers and missionaries observed and commented on the religious and medical practices of native societies. Having destroyed hundreds of priceless Aztec codices (painted books) documenting all aspects of life in ancient Mesoamerica, Spanish priests nonetheless continued to write their own accounts of indigenous worship, divination, healing and other “pagan customs.” Juan de Córdova, a Dominican friar, was sent to live among the Zapotec of Oaxaca in the middle of the sixteenth century to investigate their “idolatrous rites,” and was able to document surviving prehispanic customs such as a hierarchical priesthood, ritual bloodletting, and religious uses of tobacco, Datura, and hallucinogenic mushrooms (Marcus and Flannery 2 1978). Spanish natural historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo describes the “very evil [vice]” of tobacco smoking among indigenous peoples of Hispaniola island (modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), who were mostly extinct by the time his book was published in 1535 (Narby and Huxley 2001, 11). Political and spiritual leaders among the Hispaniola islanders smoked large pipes of tobacco to commune with the spirits, heal the sick and secure bountiful harvests or victory in warfare. French priest André Thévet visited coastal Brazil in the mid-16th century and provides a similar account about tobacco-consuming prophets (the term shaman did not enter the literature until much later) among the Tupinamba known as pagé: “impostors...people of evil custom,” and “ministers...who...serve the Devil,” in the good priest’s opinion (Narby and Huxley 2001, 13). The pagé isolated themselves and abstained from sex and social contact in order to carry out secretive healing and divining ceremonies during which they chanted (and probably consumed hallucinogens) to invoke spirits. Writing in the same period about Peru, Spanish priest Bernabé Cobo describes achuma, the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus, as being “the plant with which the devil deceived the Indians of Peru in their paganism...Transported by this drink, the Indians dreamed a thousand absurdities and believed them as if they were true” (Davis 1998, 172). Despite their cultural bias, such early accounts provide us a glimpse into the shamanistic practices of societies that are now extinct or completely assimilated. Condescension and a disparaging attitude toward shamans continue to color the writings of missionaries, travelers, naturalists, and early anthropologists at least through the first decades of the 20th century, when more sophisticated ethnographic accounts became available. Shamanism and Gender Shamanism in Central and South America has been most frequently documented as a male profession, however women are by no means excluded. One of the earliest 3 written records of shamanism in the Americas is from a Classic Mayan inscription concerning a noblewoman of Yaxchilan who, as shaman-priestess, carried out bloodletting rites and had visions of snakes and ancestor spirits (Schele et al. 1993). Among the historical Carib, women shamans could sometimes surpass their male counterparts in importance; among the tribes of Patagonia, male shamans dressed as women (Dixon 1908), reminiscent of cross-dressing (“berdache”) in some North American and Siberian shamanic traditions. Maria Sabina, a female Mazatec shaman of Oaxaca, initiated American banker and mushroom enthusiast Gordon Wasson into the mysteries of the divine mushroom, and thus helped spark the psychedelic revolution of the late 1950s (Narby and Huxley 2001, 141). Nonetheless, menstruating women are considered anathema to the shaman's practice in many traditions, as the odor and impurity of menstrual blood repel the deities or guardian spirits. Prolonged abstinence from sex and avoidance of contact with menstruating women are fundamental to the shaman's ethic, especially during initiation and immediately before and after trance rituals. Shamanism in Lowland South America In an important survey, Métraux (1949) reviews three centuries of Western writings about shamanism in lowland South America, recovering important factual information while finding much irony in the unenlightened denunciations of some writers. Far from being impostors or ministers of evil, shamans are dedicated and indeed pious practitioners of native religion who perform important social, spiritual, and medical functions and are often held in high esteem by their fellows. Though widespread, shamanism according to Métraux is not universal among tropical forest tribes, being absent or extremely reduced among most Gé-speaking groups of central Brazil, for example. Where shamanism is practiced, a series of common themes and elements are found throughout large areas and in culturally and linguistically diverse groups. 4 Natives peoples of the West Indies, Guyanas, Amazon basin, and as far south as Paraguay recognize ritual specialists known as piai (or pagé), a word of Tupi and Carib origin that is similar in meaning to the Siberian term shaman. The piai passes through an arduous period of apprenticeship that requires fasting, sexual abstinence, dancing, and the consumption of large amounts of tobacco. Among Tupi and Carib groups, the novice is subjected to painful ant stings. In some groups, emetic or psychoactive teas are consumed. By undergoing these privations, the apprentice shaman frees the soul from the physical body and is able to fly to distant realms or ascend the heavens by means of a twisted ladder, making contact with spirits in animal, human, or other forms. From among the available pantheon, the novice seeks out a more intimate association with one or more spirits who serve as guardians or guides for the shaman from then on. In some cases, only people who receive a spiritual calling through dreams, visions or severe illness undergo a shamanic initiation. In other traditions, especially those involving group consumption of pyschoactive plants, a substantial part of the population (especially young men) may undergo basic shamanic initiation rites, but only those who attain special visions or show exceptional virtuosity and healing skill go on to become master shamans. In most cases, the novice’s apprenticeship is supervised by an older, more experienced master. An important aspect of the South American shaman’s training is the acquisition of esoteric songs, chants, and other invocations that are used to contact specific spirits, relate myths, recall the wayward souls of people who are ill, or describe sensations and adventures in the spirit world. Among the Akawaio of Colombia, songs are believed to be the wings of the shaman’s magical flight; various bird spirits lend the shaman their “wings,” in the form of specific songs, during trance. Healing songs of Kuna shamans of Panama employ symbols derived from myths to situate illness in the cosmos and address its underlying etiology (Lévi-Strauss 1963). In those shamanic traditions involving hallucinogenic plant use, songs and other auditory cues play an important role in guiding 5 initiates or patients and manipulating the content of personal and collective trance experience. Rattles or packets of rustling leaves are widely used as a percussive accompaniment to the singing and as an auditory signal of the comings and goings of the shaman’s winged soul. The Yaminahua of Amazonian Peru and Brazil consider songs to be the shaman’s most prized possessions and the essence of his power, knowledge, and ability to heal. Yaminahua songs employ “twisted,” metaphorical language to build complex narratives that act like paths, guiding the shaman safely through the trance experience and the ambiguous, dangerous spirit world (Townsley 1993). Shamanic songs of the Matsigenka of southeast Peru come directly from the spirits, and are difficult to translate or interpret, as they contain much onomatopoeic, archaic, and other nonordinary language. Most songs are not rehearsed, remembered, or fully intelligible in ordinary states of consciousness, and seem to derive their power largely from their acoustic properties augmented by hallucinogenic trance (Shepard 1999). Among the Shipibo of the Ucayali River, shamanic songs in conjunction with hallucinogens generate a multifaceted synesthesia, or mixing of the senses. Shipibo shamans in trance are able to perceive people’s auras, lace-like patterns of interlocking geometric designs that become visually distorted and malodorous during illness. The shaman sings, smells, and visualizes geometrically patterned, “fragrant songs” to correct the deformed aura and thereby restore health (Gebhart-Sayer 1986). The shaman’s power is often attributed to the presence of a magical substance in or around his body or on his person, variously described as stones, crystals, arrows, darts, or a black or luminous phlegm-like matter (Métraux 1949; Chaumeil 1993). The magical substance is an embodiment of the spirit helpers, and often materializes or is transformed during trance to be manipulated in special ways, serving as both a shield and a weapon, a medicine and a poison. Matsigenka shamans of the Peruvian Amazon carry small stones or carved human figures known as serepito (“tobacco stones”), totem-like representations of invisible spirit helpers to which tobacco is continually fed (Baer 1992). Desana 6 shamans of Colombia guard precious quartz crystals imbued with magical power and a complex symbolism uniting myth, mind, and the cosmos (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1979). Among the Jivaro of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the shaman gets his power from spirit helpers in the form of invisible darts (tsentsak) which are passed from master to apprentice and stored in the mouth, stomach, or elsewhere in the body (Harner 1973). Sorcerers cause illness and death by throwing tsentsak at victims, while healing shamans use their own tsentsak to suck out, absorb, and return sorcery darts. Though widely considered vital for the collective well-being, shamans and their spirit allies also occupy a position of moral ambiguity. Undoing sorcery requires an intimate understanding of the black arts, and often involves firing the pathogenic factor back at the perpetrator. Most South American societies have terms to distinguish between good or “healing shamans” and sorcerers or “killing shamans.” In practice, however, the distinction is not so clear, as the same set of techniques, powers, and spirits that allow the shaman to heal also allow him to kill and commit sorcery. Shamans, even those generally considered to be healers, are often prime suspects for sorcery accusations. In some cases, shamans may become targets for revenge killings by the families of sorcery victims (Brown 1978). Mesoamerican Shamanism Shamanistic practices among contemporary indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America share many general similarities with those of South American societies; most of the circum-Caribbean indigenous groups who represented a direct link between the two culture areas were exterminated or assimilated. As in South America, Mesoamerican shamans may receive an initiatory calling through dreams or severe illness, or enter the profession by choice. In other cases, candidates for shamanism may be identified through inheritance, by surviving a lightning strike, or due to auspicious omens or calendrical indications at the time of birth. Mesoamerican shamans also 7 generally undergo a prolonged period of apprenticeship, and tobacco and other psychoactive plants play an important role in many traditions. As in South America, chanting and singing are a key part of healing ceremonies and the trance experience. Divination is an important function of Mesoamerican shamans, since their contact with the world of spirits allows them to see things that are hidden from ordinary vision. As in South America, quartz crystals are important items in the shaman’s toolkit. Huichol shamans are said to be able to capture the souls of sick people or the dead in quartz crystals, while Mayan shamans gaze into crystals or cast them as lots for purposes of divination (see entries in this volume). The contemporary Mexican and Central American indigenous societies where shamanism has been studied tend to be larger, more sedentary and more hierarchical than their counterparts in lowland South America, though they are comparable in many ways to Andean societies. The distinction between shamans and priests in such hierarchical Amerindian societies becomes somewhat artificial, as shaman-healers may also officiate as priests in religious festivals and life-cycle ceremonies. To a greater extent than in lowland South America, native Mesoamerican and Andean religion and shamanism are inextricably blended with Spanish folk Christianity, echoing with five centuries of political, economic, and religious colonization. Indigenous shamans in Mexico and Guatemala as well as highland Peru and Bolivia often invoke native deities and Catholic saints in the same breath, and their syncretic personal altars and community churches blend indigenous and Christian symbols. Healing Functions Healing is a key function performed by Central and South American shamans. For many societies, shamans are the only hope for curing certain categories of illness, especially those associated with sorcery, spirit attack, and soul-loss. Keystone features of shamanic healing throughout Central and South America are: the calling back of 8 wayward souls, usually through singing or chanting; the identification of harmful spirits or sorcerers who inflict illness, usually through visions in dream or trance; and the removal from the patient’s body of intrusive objects believed to cause illness, usually through sucking, massage, or transference to some ritual object or sacrificial animal. The examination, diagnosis, and curing of the patient often take place in prolonged, elaborate, group-attended rituals during which the shaman enters trance through drug use or other means, sings or performs dramatically, handles symbolically potent objects, and manipulates the patient. Many groups distinguish between therapy that relies primarily on contact with the spirits (i.e., shamanism) and that which employs plants and other empirical cures (herbalism, bone-setting, etc.). (Note that this distinction does not necessarily imply a dichotomy between supernatural vs. natural etiology or mental vs. physical ailments. Medicinal plants may be used to treat spiritual ills, while the “spirit” illnesses treated by shamans sometimes include introduced Western diseases). The Cashinahua of the Peruvian Amazon describe two kinds of healers: those who possess “sweet medicine” (dau bata) and those who possess “bitter medicine” (dau muka; Kensinger 1974). Sweet medicine consists of wild and cultivated herbs as well as animal glands usually administered to the patient by a family member, sometimes but not always in consultation with a specialized herbalist. Bitter medicine is the esoteric domain of shamans who use bitter, hallucinogenic plants to enter trance and address the spiritual cause of illness. The Warao of the Orinoco delta make a similar distinction: male shamans belonging to three classes -- white shamans, black shamans, and priest-shamans -- perform elaborate rituals to treat illnesses caused by the attack of spirits known as hebu (Wilbert 1996). Warao herbalists, exclusively women, use medicinal plants for treating illnesses caused by other means, and administer their medicines without ritual accoutrements. Nonetheless, shamanism and herbal therapy overlap in some traditions. Like shamans, herbal healers as well as bone-setters and midwives among the Maya of Mexico 9 and Guatemala receive an initiatory call from spirits during dreams or illness. Krahó shamans gain their considerable knowledge about plant medicines from animal spirits (Melatti 1974). Kamsá and Inga shamans of the Sibundoy valley in Colombia claim to have learned their extensive knowledge of medicinal plants directly from the plants themselves during drug-induced visions (Schultes and Raffauf 1990). In a similar vein, urban shamans or vegetalistas of Amazonian Peru obtain information about herbal medicines from plant spirits, perceived in dreams and other altered states as doctors, teachers, or mother spirits (Luna 1986). The Matsigenka shaman visits the realm of the guardian spirits to obtain new medicinal plant varieties and other cultigens (Shepard 1998). Sacred plants used by shamans to enter trance often have mundane, medicinal uses as well. Other Functions Though an important and sometimes primary role, diagnosis and healing of illness is not the only function of the shaman. Shamans may also interpret omens, predict the future, charm game animals, control the natural elements, preside over ceremonies, perceive events occurring at distant locations, and kill enemies at a distance. In Mesoamerican societies, shamans often occupy formal positions of political and religious authority. Though lowland South American indigenous societies tend to be less hierarchical, shamans there may also wield some degree of political power. In diverse Central and South American cultures, powerful shamans are said to control the elements and other natural forces, and have the ability to change into jaguars, pumas, wolves, eagles, hummingbirds, or other animals. Shamanism is often intimately associated with hunting, and in some cases, agriculture. The deer hunt among the Huichol of Mexico is an important occasion laden with shamanistic rituals and symbolism, for the deer is a deity that relays messages between the shaman and the gods; Mayan shamans bless maize seeds at the time of planting and harvest (see entries in this volume). For the Matsigenka, 10 shamans created biological diversity in the mythical past, maintain the genetic diversity of crops through the present, and ensure the ongoing availability of game animals (Shepard 1998). Former shamans among the Tupi-speaking Tapirapé of central Brazil were able to locate game animals in their dreams, and performed public trance rituals during which they acted out fierce battles with spirits, enemy tribes, and dangerous natural forces such as thunder storms (Baldus 1974). In many Amerindian societies, collective well-being represents cosmological and ecological balance that can be upset when humans exceed their bounds and Nature settles her scores. The shaman serves as a kind of ambassador who negotiates with the spirits and the forces of nature in order to restore or redefine the equilibrium of the cosmos-asecosystem. The Matsigenka believe shamans to be immortal, joining at the time of their physical death an invisible society of guardians who use magical powers and natural forces (lightning, earthquakes, river dynamics) to keep illness, demons, and the forces of evil at bay. Among the Kogi of Colombia’s coastal mountains, mamas are priest-like specialists whose constant ritual interventions are necessary to bring fertility, ensure the continuity of natural processes, and guarantee the order of the universe. The mamas do not practice healing, and are thus not considered shamans in the strict sense. But echoing the practices of shamans elsewhere, mamas make frequent use of a narcotic preparation (coca) and pass through a long initiation period during which they live in darkness, mastering techniques of breathing and meditation that allow them to enter trance and see the true nature of reality beyond the distractions of ordinary vision (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1976). Psychoactive Plant Use One striking aspect of Central and South American shamanism is the frequent use of hallucinogens, stimulants, narcotics, and other psychoactive substances for entering into contact with the spirit world. The most widespread of these is tobacco (Nicotiana 11 tabacum, N. rustica), among the first plants to be domesticated in the New World (Wilbert 1987). Tobacco is mentioned in historical and modern accounts of native Central and South American religion and ritual in a myriad of forms, preparations, and modes of ingestion: snuffed, chewed, drunk, inhaled or swallowed as smoke, dripped in the nose, eaten as a concentrated paste, and even taken as an enema. Tobacco is especially important in the initiation of the novice shaman, who may consume huge doses in order to obtain an initiatory vision involving a spirit guide or helper. For the Matsigenka, tobacco and shamanism are synonymous: the word for shaman, seripigari, means literally, "the one intoxicated by tobacco" (Baer 1992). The master shaman among the Matsigenka swallows a quid of tobacco paste, regurgitates it, and gives it mouth-tomouth to the apprentice, thus passing his magical substance and his shaman’s soul (isure) through his tobacco (isere; Shepard 1998). The dedicated shaman comes to crave tobacco as much as food, and may become so involved in the relationship with spirits that he withdraws from social affairs, eats little, and loses interest in sex (Kensinger 1974). Tobacco smoke is intimately associated with the notion of the shaman's magical breath, blown on patients to heal them or at enemies to kill them (Métraux 1949). Datura meteloides, Datura stramonium (“jimpson weed”), and other naturally occurring nightshades belong, like tobacco, to the Solanaceae family, and were once used widely by indigenous peoples of North and Central America to induce profound, sometimes death-like states of trance in rituals of initiation, divining and healing. Brugmansia is essentially a domesticated Datura, and numerous species and varieties are cultivated by indigenous populations throughout Central and South America for medicinal, narcotic, and hallucinogenic properties. Like the closely related Datura, Brugmansia contains potent bioactive and psychoactive tropane alkaloids. Widespread medicinal uses, for example setting broken bones and resolving difficult childbirth, recall similar biomedical applications of tropane alkaloids atropine and scopolamine. Ingested in moderate doses by shamans, sick people, or victims of misfortune who seek healing or 12 revelatory visions, Brugmansia embarks the user on a journey in which reality and hallucination are utterly indistinguishable. Depending on the dose, the narcotic effects may last for one night, several days, or many weeks; excessive doses can cause insanity or death (Shepard 1998). Among the Aguaruna Jivaro of Peru, the name for Brugmansia refers to a mythic hero, Bikut, from whose bones sprang three Aguaruna cultivars of the plant: “enemy bikut,” used by warriors to obtain killing visions that bring luck in warfare; “tranquility bikut,” used by shamans to obtain visions for healing and general prosperity; and “remedy bikut,” valued for its medicinal properties in setting bones and curing other illnesses, but which can confer witchcraft darts if taken frequently (Brown 1978). Other nightshade relatives are used for various medicinal, divinatory, and psychoactive purposes and as admixtures for hallucinogenic plants (Schultes and Raffauf 1990; Shepard 1998). Natural hallucinogenic compounds used ritually in Mesoamerican religions became a focus of scientific and popular attention beginning in the 1950s, and many were appropriated for recreational use. Known to the Aztecs as teonanacatl, “flesh of the gods,” hallucinogenic mushrooms of the genera Panaeolus and Psilocybe have been used widely among indigenous groups of Mexico since ancient times. The Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca consider these mushrooms to be divine entities that travel to the earth on thunderbolts (Wasson 1990). The sacred drink of the Aztecs, ololiuqui, was prepared from the seeds of a morning glory (Turbina corymbosa) containing hallucinogenic compounds closely related to LSD. The peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) contains dozens of psychoactive alkaloids including mescaline. The Huichol, Tarahumara, and other indigenous groups of the deserts of Northern Mexico gather and consume peyote in communal rituals, and their shamans use peyote to gain access to aspects of knowledge and power not attainable through other means. For the Huichol in particular, not only the cactus itself but also the mythical landscape of the peyote desert stand at the center of religion, cosmology and spirituality (Furst 1990). 13 South American shamans make use of a tremendous diversity of psychoactive plants and plant mixtures, containing some of the most potent hallucinogenic compounds known in nature. Shamans of the northwest Amazon use the tryptamine-laden red resin of several Virola species, trees in the nutmeg family, to prepare hallucinogenic powders for purposes of healing and divination. Known locally as paricá or yopo, it is taken as a snuff by Barasana, Cubeos, Kuripakos, Taiwanos, Tukanos, and other tribes of eastern Colombia and northern Brazil. The Bora and Witoto of Peru ingest it in the form of small pellets while the Maku of Brazil consume the resin directly. Shamans and laymen alike among the Yanomami of Brazil and Venezuela inhale Virola snuff, known as epena (“semen of the sun”), at frequent rituals and feasts. During trance, a succession of spirits (hekura) enter the chest and take possession of the ipena user, causing him to dance and gesticulate in ways specific to the possessing spirit. Anadenanthera peregrina (also known as Piptadenia peregrina) is a tree in the legume family whose seeds contains tryptamine alkaloids much like those found in Virola resin. Like Virola, it is used to prepare a hallucinogenic snuff by shamans of Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Restricted in its natural habitat to open grasslands, savannas, and dry forests of the Venezuela-Brazil border area, it appears to have been cultivated in the past throughout a much larger area (Schultes and Raffauf 1990). Banisteriopsis caapi is a liana used in the preparation of a hallucinogenic beverage used widely throughout Amazonian Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and western Brazil, known by various local and indigenous names: ayahuasca, caapi, yagé, natema, kamarampi, vegetal, and hoasca. In most accounts, the pounded liana is boiled with the leaves of one or more species of Psychotria, a shrub in the coffee family, among other admixtures. The principle hallucinogenic component is not provided by the Banisteriopsis itself but rather by Psychotria, containing demethyl tryptamine (DMT), a potent natural hallucinogen. Beta-carbolines in Banisteriopsis potentiate the effects of DMT which otherwise would be inactive via oral administration. Ethnobotanists have 14 been as much intrigued by the vision-inducing qualities of the beverage as by the mystery of how tribal peoples with no knowledge of organic chemistry managed to identify, among the tens of thousands of available species, the synergistic properties of these two plants, neither of which is hallucinogenic when taken alone (Davis 1998, 164). Like peyote, the San Pedro cactus (Trichocereus pachanoi) of highland and coastal Peru contains mescaline and other psychoactive alkaloids. Known in Quechua as huachuma, “cactus of the four winds,” this hallucinogenic plant is found in the art and religious symbolism of ancient Andean civilizations beginning with Chavín in the 2nd millennium BC, and continuing through Nazca, Moche, and Chimú reigns until shortly before the Spanish conquest (Davis 1998, 169-172). Little is known about how San Pedro was used in ancient religious or shamanistic practice. Despite the extinction or cultural assimilation of coastal native civilizations and four centuries of persecution by the Catholic Church, vestiges of the ancient cult seem to have survived in the practice of urban shaman-healers or curanderos in northern Peru (Sharon 1990). The coca plant (Erythroxylum coca), the notorious botanical source of cocaine, was held sacred by the Inca, whose empire once stretched along the Andes from modernday Chile to Colombia. Today, shamans of the Andean region chew coca leaves mixed with alkali-providing ash or lime in order to facilitate meditation or trance when healing and performing other ceremonies. Dried coca leaves are also cast by shamans and priests for purposes of divination. Coca cultivation spread from the Andes to the heart of the Amazon basin, where the plant has been used by lowland indigenous peoples for ritual and social purposes perhaps for centuries. The discovery of LSD and the rediscovery of psychoactive plants in Amerindian religions piqued a growing scientific and popular interest in hallucinogens, provoking a revolution in anthropological and psychological understandings of shamanism. Whereas earlier studies had focused on the supposed psychopathology of shamans, researchers beginning in the 1950s began to appreciate the fundamental role of hallucinogenic 15 compounds and altered states of consciousness in shamanic trance. Describing his first experience with ayahuasca, Harner (1973, 15) writes, “For several hours after drinking the brew, I found myself, although awake, in a world literally beyond my wildest dreams...Transported into a trance where the supernatural seemed natural, I realized that anthropologists, including myself, had profoundly underestimated the importance of the drug in affecting native ideology.” In addition to providing new insights into native belief, firsthand experience of ritual hallucinogens by researchers may lead to profound personal insights and a paradigm-shifting reassessment of world view (Narby and Huxley 2001, 301-305). Although the use of narcotics and hallucinogens is conspicuous among Central and South American shamans, it is by no means universal. Krahó and other Timbira shamans of Brazil, for example, do not use any psychoactive plants during their apprenticeship or normal practice. Instead, they receive their call to the healing profession through a severe illness during which an animal appears, offering healing secrets and other special powers (Melatti 1974). Modern Mayan shamans of southern Mexico do not use the “magic mushrooms” so eagerly sought by foreign tourists, but they do consume tobacco snuff and rum during their curing ceremonies. Other Observations The data from Central and South America help debunk a number of popular misconceptions about shamanism. Contrary to the notion that shamans are only found in archaic hunting societies, shamanism in Central and South America has been documented in a wide range of social systems, including hunting, agricultural, and urban societies in ancient and modern times. While some researchers consider trance and spirit possession to be distinct phenomena, Amerindian shamans do not appear to honor such a distinction. Among the Matsigenka, for example, trance is a form of possession in which the shaman and his brother or twin among the Saangariite spirits switch places: the spirit occupies 16 the body of the shaman on the earthly plane while the shaman takes his brother’s place in the Saangariite village of the spirit world (Shepard 1998). The distinction between shaman and priest is also dubious in some South American and most Central American cases. Contrary to the notion of shamans as marginal members of society, shamans in many Central and South American groups have been found to wield considerable political power. Shamans are often rewarded in the case of a successful cure, and may be afforded a degree of social prestige even within egalitarian, small-scale societies. On the other hand, shamans who fail in their cures or predictions may be discredited or, especially in the case of suspected sorcerers, put to death. Yet in some situations, suspected sorcerers may be afforded a certain degree of respect and leeway so as to avoid provoking their wrath. Change and Continuity Beginning with the arrival of Columbus and continuing through the present, the conquest and colonization of the Americas by Europeans has unleashed warfare, epidemic disease, territorial dispossession, and forced cultural assimilation on native societies, leading to the extinction of many, the assimilation of others, and the marginalization and profound transformation of the surviving groups. Among the many aspects of indigenous society affected by these processes, shamanism, religion, and traditional healing are among the hardest hit. Initial contact with novel Western diseases results in virulent epidemics and extremely high mortality rates, often leaving shamans among the dead and undermining the survivors’ faith in traditional healing. Throughout the 20th century, Catholic and Evangelical Protestant missionaries working with native communities have followed the example of their 16th century forebears and vigorously discouraged shamanism and other manifestations of traditional healing and religion. The coincidence between devastating new diseases, the breakdown of the traditional social order, missionary propaganda, and the introduction of firearms -- in conjunction with the 17 inherent moral ambiguity of shaman-sorcerers -- sometimes leads to a witch-hunting paranoia, driving shamans into hiding or extinction (Baldus 1974). Despite such threats, shamanism has survived and even thrived in many native American societies. More than just a therapeutic alternative, shamanism and traditional healing are an expression of indigenous religion, values, and world view, and echo with five centuries of cultural and spiritual resistance. Contemporary Indian shamans of Mexico and Guatemala combine Christian and indigenous elements into a unique and dynamic body of belief and practice. Indigenous federations throughout the Peruvian Amazon have promoted programs to revitalize traditional medicine, resulting in a cultural renaissance of herbal therapy and ayahuasca-based shamanistic healing (Alexiades and Lacaze 1996). Shamanism has flourished in many South American cities and towns, where urban curanderos combine indigenous and Western cosmologies and ancient and modern symbols into a complex, contemporary brand of ecstatic healing. At the same time, native hallucinogens and indigenous as well as not-so-indigenous shamans have become a significant attraction for esoteric and spiritual tourism. While maintaining a healthy skepticism about local shamans and Western intermediaries who "sell out” to the demands of the New-Age tourism market, Joralemon (1990) notes that shamans have always been improvisers and innovators, adapting ancient techniques of ecstasy to fit the unique conditions of their particular society and world-view. Glenn H. Shepard Jr. College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA) and Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (Manaus, Brazil) 18 Central-South American Section Introduction: Geography, Human History and Religion The geographically and culturally diverse region comprising Mexico, Central and South America and the Hispanic West Indies is often referred to as Latin America, in recognition of its predominately Spanish and Portuguese colonial heritage. Strictly speaking, the term Central America refers to the isthmus connecting Mexico (geographically included in North America) and South America, and is comprised of the republics of Guatemala, Belize (formerly British Honduras), Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. However geographers often use the nearly synonymous term Middle America to refer to the larger region of Mexico, Central America, Panama and the West Indies (Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Antilles). In the following regional entries, the term Central America is used in this latter, more inclusive sense. Meso-America, a term used frequently by anthropologists, is generally restricted to southern Mexico and western Central America where the Maya civilizations once flourished. South America is comprised of Portuguese-speaking Brazil, Spanish-speaking Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, the former colonies of Guyana (British) and Suriname (Dutch), and the dependency of French Guyana. Approximately 80% of the Central and South America landmass is located within the tropical zone. High mountains of relatively recent origin are found in the Sierra Madre ranges of central Mexico, the volcanic highlands extending from Chiapas in southern Mexico through the Central American isthmus, and the mighty Andes mountain chain forming a backbone along the entire western extension of South America from northern Colombia to Tierra del Fuego in southern Chile. The combination of tropical life zones punctuated by high mountains gives Central and especially South America an 19 almost unparalleled diversity of climatic and ecological zones, plant and animal life and indigenous cultures and languages. Central and South America were the last continents to be colonized by humans during the late Pleistocene. Traditional archeological estimates dated the arrival of humans to South America at no earlier than 8,000 years ago, but recent, somewhat controversial evidence dates a human occupation in Chile in southernmost South America at more than 12,000 years old. If confirmed, such early dates would help explain the tremendous cultural and linguistic diversity found especially in native South America, where thousands of languages and dialects have been documented and as many as 100 distinct linguistic families have been proposed. No precise information exists concerning the human population of the Americas prior to the Spanish Conquest. Estimates for the combined indigenous of population of North, Central and South America at the time of conquest vary from 8 million to 100 million. Estimates for the Inca Empire (western South America) alone vary from 3 to 32 million. Disease, military conquest and assimilation quickly reduced the native population by over 90%, and many cultural groups especially in coastal regions were extinguished or entirely assimilated. The current population and cultural heritage of Central and South America reflects five centuries of conflict, coexistence and mixing between several distinct and internally diverse peoples: the native inhabitants of the Americas and their descendents, often referred to as Amerindians; people of Iberian (Spanish, Portuguese) origins who made up the vast majority of the initial European colonization; enslaved West Africans and their descendents, brought mostly to northeastern South America (especially Brazil) and the Caribbean beginning in the early 16th century to provide plantation labor when enslaved Amerindians proved unable to resist disease and the privations of slavery; and finally, overseas immigrants of diverse European and Asian origins who began arriving in large numbers in the 19th century when former Spanish colonies achieved independence. 20 The religions of contemporary Central and South America reflect the tremendous cultural diversity and historical complexity of the region. Hierarchical state religions practiced in pre-Colombian kingdoms and empires such as the Aztec, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Inca were persecuted and extinguished early in the Conquest. Persecution of indigenous religions was especially severe during the Spanish Inquisition, but has continued through the present notably through the practices of Christian missionaries of diverse sects operating in remote, Amerindian-populated areas. The Jesuit Order was especially prominent in its missionary work with Indians during the early Conquest, promoting indigenous languages such as Tupi-Guarani as the lingua franca for Iberian colonies. But the Jesuits were expelled from Spain, Portugal and all American colonies in the mid-1700s, and Franciscan and Dominican Orders came to dominate missionary work in the indigenous-populated hinterlands. In the 20th century, fundamentalist Protestant sects greatly expanded their missionary work with Indians as well as urban peoples of Latin America, aggressively competing over the conquest of souls with established Catholic traditions. Protestant-Catholic conflicts divide numerous indigenous populations of Central and South America, and in some cases these conflicts have turned violent, a recent example being among the highland Maya of Chiapas, where political and religious factors together contributed to the Zapatista uprising. Despite five centuries of missionary work and persecution, diffuse elements of pre-Colombian indigenous religions, including shamanism, survive to this day, in some cases inextricably blended with Iberian folk Catholicism or Protestant Christianity. The recent emergence of urban ayahuasca religions in Brazil attests to the tenacity and adaptability of indigenous-derived shamanistic practices. Another important religious current in Central and South America is the West African-derived religious complex including Santeria, Candomblé, Umbanda and Voudun. Centering on possession and trance, these religions and fragments of the original African languages (notably Yoruba) have survived and flourished in coastal and 21 island regions where the slave trade was most intense. Peripheral European mystical religions such as Spiritism and Theosophy arrived in Latin America during the 1800s and have blended with folk religions and alternative healing traditions in many urban areas. Minority religions brought by more recent immigrants to Central and South America include Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Overview of the Entries: The twenty entries in this section attest to the tremendous cultural diversity, historical depth and philosophical complexity of shamanism throughout an immense region. The entries cover a broad sample of cultural groups from southern Chile to New Mexico, from ancient to modern times, from indigenous forest people to urban dwellers of mixed African, Amerindian and European descent. Despite their broad coverage, the entries are by no means exhaustive or even representative of the totality of shamanistic practices in this vast and diverse area. The regional entry "Native Central and South American Shamanism" includes examples of indigenous shamanistic traditions from a wide range of geographical regions and historical moments, from pre-Colombian and early Conquest times through the present. The entry pays special attention to Amerindian traditions of the western Amazon (Desana, Cashinahua, Jivaro, Matsigenka, Shipibo, Yaminahua, and others) not covered in other entries, while drawing comparisons between Amazonia and other culture areas. Despite the overwhelming cultural and geographical diversity covered, certain common features of native Central and South American shamanism are identified: the shamanic calling, usually communicated during dreams or illness; the shaman's initiation, which often involves the acquisition of a magical substance that embodies the shaman's power and serves as both a defensive and offensive weapon; the moral ambiguity of shamans, who can be both healers and sorcerers; the centrality of singing or chanting and percussion instruments (drum, rattle) during ritual performance; the notion of soul loss, 22 spirit attack and sorcery in illness etiology; the concept of a multi-layered cosmos inhabited by spirits and traversed by the shaman during trance; and the common use of hallucinogenic and narcotic plants, the most widespread being tobacco and other nightshade relatives (Datura, Brugmansia). Such widely shared features attest to the ancient origins of Central and South American shamanism, which should be treated as a unique, parallel and largely independent development, rather than merely an offshoot of "classic" Siberian shamanism. The entry "Huichol (Wixárika) Shamanism" describes the complex world view of this colorful and proud people of the deserts of northern Mexico. Huichol shamans, known as mara'akate, use dreams, tobacco, the hallucinogenic peyote cactus, and other psychoactive plants to commune with Huichol gods, Catholic saints and a variety of animal and plant spirits for purposes of divination and healing. Huichol shamans are also responsible for guiding the spirits of the dead to the sky above the sacred landscape of the peyote desert in San Luis Potosí, visited on periodic pilgrimages and peyote-gathering expeditions. The entry "Tarahumara Shamanism" describes religious and social practices among the linguistically related Rarámuri (more commonly known as the Tarahumara). Early in the Spanish Conquest, the Rarámuri took refuge in the rugged Sierra Madre mountain range and were thus able to persist despite four hundred years of encroachment by Christian missionaries and European invaders. Rarámuri shamanism as well as social, economic and ritual life revolve around the consumption of tesguino, a sacred alcoholic beverage made from fermented maize. Known as owirúame or "medicine makers," Rarámuri shamans are renowned for their ability to drink large amounts of tesguino without losing control of their faculties. The most powerful shamans also consume peyote. In addition to their healing functions, Rarárumi medicine makers preside over religious ceremonies, transmit myths and cosmological knowledge, and wield considerable political power. 23 The entries "Mayan Shamanism," "Mayan Cosmology," "Maya Bone Divination" and "Quiche and Zuni Divination" explore multiple facets of religion and healing among diverse Mayan peoples of Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico, currently numbering seven million and speaking 32 different languages. The first two entries demonstrates a clear continuity of shamanistic beliefs and practices through more than two thousand years of history, from ancient Maya civilization through present-day Quiche and Yucatec Maya societies. Quiche healers perform charms, spells, songs, or myths and also engage in hands-on manipulation including bone-setting, massage, herbal remedies and midwifery. Detailed knowledge of the 260-day ritual calendar, a legacy of the ancient Maya, is used for divination, blessing, and various ceremonial purposes by a special class of priest-shamans known as "Keeper of Days" (ajk'ij). Yucatec Maya ritual specialists (h’meno’ob) use their knowledge of the cosmos to alter the acts and intentions of invisible spirits while also helping people to understand and fulfill their own role in the cosmos, thereby achieving good health and good fortune. The third entry describes the practice of "bone arrangers" (wikol baq) among the Tz’utujiil Maya of Guatemala who treat bodily injuries through a combination of magical and physical manipulation. Their powers are channeled through a divinatory object (animal bone, pebble, etc.) revealed to them in dreams or by supernatural means during their initiatory calling. The final entry of this trio compares and contrasts the divinatory functions of shamans among the Quiche Maya and the Zuni of New Mexico. Shamans in both groups divine by gazing into water or crystals, casting lots, reading natural omens, using hallucinogenic drugs or interpreting dreams. Despite certain overall similarities between the two traditions, the Zuni view divination and contact with dead spirits as a life-threatening enterprise, carried out only by a small number of the most powerful priests. The Quiche, on the other hand, view divining and contact with dead spirits as an inborn talent or gift that is not particularly dangerous, and the profession is open to any who receive the proper calling. The entry "Otomí (Ñähñu) Indian Shamanism" provides a description of shamanic practices that appear to be mostly extinct among this native group of the highlands of Hidalgo in central Mexico. Otomi shamanism revolves around two fundamental concepts: zaki, the life force of all beings that move, and rogi, companion animal spirits that are born together with and accompany every person through their life. 24 Otomi shaman prepare paper figures representing animal spirits and the zaki life force for use in healing and divining rituals. Present-day Otomi remember these beliefs and practices in great detail, but few if any practicing shamans remain. The author does not discuss the reasons for this loss, but mentions the presence of "curandero" healers whose practices are less specific to Otomi cosmology, reflecting more widely held Mexican folk beliefs. The entry "Curanderismo (Mexican Healing)" describes this cosmopolitan system of folk healing found in different forms throughout Latin America, Spain and among Hispanic populations in the United States. Representing a fusion of Greekderived humoral theory, 19th century Spiritism, Catholicism, Spanish folk beliefs and indigenous concepts, curanderismo is a diverse body of practice that includes spiritual, psychological and herbal healing. "Funeral Rites and Shamanism" is a comparative study drawn from recent ethnographic work among diverse Amazonian indigenous groups of Brazil (Araweté, Baniwa, Bororo, Nambiquara, Kulina, Krahó, Warí). As healers and diagnosticians, shamans provide patients as well as bereaved family members with a culturally-mediated conceptual framework for understanding illness, misfortune, death, and the fate of the soul. Ritual acts overseen by shamans during and after the funeral chart the course of the dead person's soul away from the land of the living toward the underworld, and may open channels of communication between the living and the dead. Shamanic interventions and interpretations facilitate the mourning process while reaffirming social bonds and cosmological beliefs. The entries "Dark Shamanism" and "Kanaimá Shamanism" draw on ethnographic examples among the Warao of the Orinico delta and the Caribspeaking Patamuna, Akawaio, Makushi and Pemon of the Guyana highlands to illustrate the phenomenon of witchcraft and attack sorcery, also found widely in the Amazon basin. Though many cultural groups have separate words to distinguish between healing shamans and illness-causing "dark shamans," the distinction is not always so clear in practice, as the power to heal entails the power to kill. The indigenous notion of dark shamanism has evolved in response to external forces, such that the shaman's magical violence mirrors the violence of colonialism while also standing in opposition or resistance to it. 25 The entry "Ayahuasca Shamanism" discusses the shamanistic complex surrounding ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic or "psychointegrator" brew consisting of Banisteriopsis vine, Psychotria leaves and other admixtures. Ayahuasca allows shamans to access hidden information about the spirit world and the social and natural environments. Originally an indigenous practice of perhaps limited geographical distribution, ayahuasca use spread throughout the western Amazon especially during the rubber boom (1895-1917) and was adopted by multiple indigenous and non-indigenous groups. Several ayahuasca-based ecstatic religions have emerged in contemporary Brazil, blending indigenous, African, Spiritist and Christian cosmology. Though fraught with questions of ethics and authenticity, the growing popularity of urban curanderos and esoteric tourism has contributed to a cultural renaissance of shamanism in some areas. The entry "Peruvian Shamans" addresses common features found in the diverse indigenous and urban healing traditions of the three distinctive geographical and cultural regions of Peru: the coastal deserts, the Andean mountains and the lowlands of the Amazon basin. As in Meso-America, archeological and historical records demonstrate a persistence of pre-Colombian beliefs and practices despite five centuries of religious persecution and colonial domination. In recent years, shamanistic rituals and trappings have attracted attention as objects of tourist consumption and political propaganda. The entries on "Mapuche Shamanism" and "Toba Shamanism" cover native practices in the quite distinctive cultural and geographic region of the southern cone of South America. The Mapuche of southern Chile, with a population of over one million, are among the largest indigenous groups of South America. Originally, male and female Mapuche shamans (machi) were responsible for propitiating ancestral and natural spirits for purposes of healing, success in warfare, agricultural fertility, and other expressions of collective well-being. Today, Mapuche shamans are mostly women, and their functions include healing, fertility rituals, interpretation of customary law and presiding over public ceremonies. The Toba of the Chaco region in northeastern Argentina believe all illnesses have a supernatural origin. While taboo violations and vengeful animal spirits were blamed in the past, today the most common cause of illness is thought to be sorcery inflicted by dark shamans. Toba shamans receive their powers and carry out much of their healing through dreams, guided by helping spirits. They invoke these helping spirits 26 during healing rituals as they suck, massage and blow on the patient's body until the illness-causing object (a stone, stick, or gelatinous substance) emerges. The entries "Santeria" and "Afro-Brazilian Shamanism" discuss examples of the healing and religious customs of African origin found along the north coast of South America and throughout the Caribbean. Related to Haitian "voodoo," Cuban santeria and Brazilian candomblé and umbanda stand in sharp contrast to the Amerindian shamanistic cosmologies and practices discussed in the other entries. While Amerindian shamans enter the invisible world in trance to communicate with the spirits, the African deities (orishás) irrupt into the human world by possessing or "riding" their hosts. For this reason, the term shaman is applied rarely and with some hesitation to Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian healers and religious practitioners. Nonetheless, some contact between African and indigenous traditions can be inferred, for example, from the use of tobacco cigars in Cuban santeria and the use of hallucinogenic Datura preparations in Afro-Brazilian religions. Ancient and deeply rooted in Amerindian spirituality, ritual and mythology, shamanistic concepts have had an important influence on modern religion and popular culture. The entry "Latin American Literature and Shamanism" interprets the phenomenon of magical realism in Latin American literature as an expression of an underlying shamanistic worldview. The entry "Latin American Christianity and Shamanism" discusses the mutual and multiple influences between Christian and indigenous religions. Messianic indigenous movements in different regions and historical moments have manifested a distinctly shamanistic reinterpretation of Christian beliefs. By the same token, emergent religions and healing traditions among non-Indians in rural and urban areas have incorporated distinctly indigenous elements, notably the use of native hallucinogens. Persecuted by Christian missionaries from the early days of Conquest through the present, shamans have persisted in many regions and cultural groups. In some cases, shamanism has even come to flourish, exerting important and ongoing influences on 27 broader cultural and religious movements in the Latin American melting pot. Rediscovered by scientists and the popular press in the 1950s, Central and South American shamanism served as inspiration for the psychedelic revolution of the 1960s and the New Age movement of the 1990s. These examples attest to the resilience and universal appeal of shamanism and ecstatic experience, reaching across cultures, geographic regions and human history. Glenn H. Shepard Jr. College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA) and Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (Manaus, Brazil) 28 References and Further Reading: Alexiades, Miguel N. and Didier Lacaze. 1996. “FENAMAD's Program in Traditional Medicine: An Integrated Approach to Health Care in the Peruvian Amazon.” Pp. 341-366 in Medicinal Resources of the Tropical Forest: Biodiversity and its Importance to Human Health. Edited by Michael J. Balick, Elaine Elisabetsky, and Sarah A. Laird. New York: Columbia University Press. Baer, Gerhard. 1992. “The One Intoxicated by Tobacco: Matsigenka Shamanism.” Pp. 79-100 in: Portals of Power: Shamanism in South America. Edited by Jean Matteson-Langdon and Gerhard Baer. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Baldus, Herbert. 1974. “Shamanism in the Acculturation of a Tupi Tribe of Central Brazil.” Pp. 385-391 in Native South Americans: Ethnology of the Least Known Continent. Edited by Patricia J. Lyon. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Brown, Michael F. 1978. “From Hero’s Bones: Three Aguaruna Hallucinogens and their Uses.” Pp. 119-136 in The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany. Vol. 67, Anthropological Papers. Edited by Richard I. Ford. Ann Arbor: Anthropology Museum, University of Michigan. Chaumeil, Jean Pierre. 1993. “Del Proyectil al Virus: El Complejo de Dardos-Mágicos en el Chamanismo del Oeste Amazónico” [From Dart to Virus: The Magic Dart Complex in West Amazon Shamanism]. Pp. 261-277 in Cultura y Salud en la Construcción de las Américas. Edited by Carlos Ernesto Pinzon, et al. Bogota: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología. Davis, Wade. 1998. Shadows in the Sun: Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire. New York: Broadway Books. Dixon, Roland B. 1908. “Some Aspects of the American Shaman.” Journal of American Folk Lore 21:1-12. Furst, Peter T. 1990. “To find our life: Peyote among the Huichol Indians of Mexico.” Pp. 136-184 in Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Edited by Peter T. Furst. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Gebhart-Sayer, Angelika. 1986. “Terapia Estética. Los Diseños Visionarios de Ayahuasca entre los Shipibo-Conibo” [Aesthetic Therapy: The Ayahuasca Visionary Designs of the Shipibo-Conibo]. América Indígena 46, no. 1: 189-218. Harner, Michael. 1973. “The Sound of Rushing Water.” Pp. 15-27 in Hallucinogens and Shamanism. Edited by Michael Harner. New York: Oxford University Press. 29 Joralemon, Donald. 1990. “The Selling of the Shaman and the Problem of Informant Legitimacy.” Journal of Anthropological Research 46(Summer):105-118. Kensinger, Kenneth M. 1974. “Cashinahua Medicine and Medicine Men.” Pp. 283-289 in Native South Americans: Ethnology of the Least Known Continent. Edited by Patricia J. Lyon. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Lévis-Strauss. 1963. “The Effectiveness of Symbols.” Pp. 186-205 in Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Luna, Luis Eduardo. 1986. Vegetalismo: Shamanism among Mestizo Populations of the Peruvian Amazon. No. 27, University of Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion. Stockholm: Almqist and Wirksell International. Marcus, Joyce and Kent V. Flannery. 1978. “Ethnoscience of the Sixteenth-Century Valley Zapotec.” Pp. 51-76 in The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany. Vol. 67, Anthropological Papers. Edited by Richard I. Ford. Ann Arbor: Anthropology Museum, University of Michigan. Melatti, Julio Cesar. 1974. “Myth and Shaman.” Pp. 267-275 in Native South Americans: Ethnology of the Least Known Continent. Edited by Patricia J. Lyon. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Métraux, Alfred. 1949. “Religion and Shamanism.” Pp. 559-599 in Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. 5. Edited by Julian Steward. Washington, D.C.: United States Printing Office. Narby, Jeremy and Francis Huxley, eds. 2001. Shamans through Time. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1976. “Training for the Priesthood among the Kogi of Colombia.” Pp. 265-288 in Enculturation in Latin America: An Anthology. No. 37, UCLA Latin American Studies Series. Edited by Johannes Wilbert. Los Angeles: Latin American Center, University of California. -------. 1979 “Desana Shamans’ Rock Crystals and the Hexagonal Universe.” Journal of Latin American Lore 5, no. 1: 117-128. Schele, Linda, David Freidel and Joy Parker. 1993. Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years On the Shaman’s Path. New York: William Morrow. Schultes, Richard Evans and Robert F. Raffauf. 1990. The Healing Forest: Medicinal and Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazon. Portland, OR: Dioscorides Press. Sharon, Douglas. 1990. “The San Pedro cactus in Peruvian folk healing.” Pp. 114-135 in Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Edited by Peter T. Furst. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 30 Shepard, Glenn H. Jr. 1998. “Psychoactive Plants and Ethnopsychiatric Medicines of the Matsigenka.” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 30, no. 4: 321-332. -------. “Pharmacognosy and the Senses in Two Amazonian Societies.” Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley. Townsley, Graham. 1993. “Song Paths: The Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge.” L’Homme 33, nos. 2-4: 449-468. Torres, Constantino M. 1998. “Psychoactive Substances in the Archaeology of Northern Chile and NW Argentina.” Chungara 1:49-63. Wilbert, Johannes. 1987. Tobacco and Shamanism in South America. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wasson, R. Gordon. 1990. “The divine mushroom of immortality.” Pp. 185-200 in Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. Edited by Peter T. Furst. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Wilbert, Werner. 1996. “Environment, Society, and Disease: The Response of Phytotherapy to Disease among the Warao Indians of the Orinoco Delta.” Pp. 366-385 in Medicinal Resources of the Tropical Forest: Biodiversity and its Importance to Human Health. Edited by Michael J. Balick, Elaine Elisabetsky, and Sarah A. Laird. New York: Columbia University Press. Williams, Denis. 1993. “Forms of the Shamanic Sign in the Prehistoric Guianas.” Archaeology and Anthropology: Journal of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology 9:3-21. 31