Shamans Through Time

A survey of five centuries of writings on the world's great shamans-the tricksters, sorcerers, conjurers, and healers who have fascinated observers for centuries.This collection of essays traces Western civilization's struggle to interpret and understand the ancient knowledge of cultures that revere magic men and women-individuals with the power to summon spirits. As written by priests, explorers, adventurers, natural historians, and anthropologists, the pieces express the wonder of strangers in new worlds. Who were these extraordinary magic-makers who imitated the sounds of animals in the night, or drank tobacco juice through funnels, or wore collars filled with stinging ants?Shamans Through Time is a rare chronicle of changing attitudes toward that which is strange and unfamiliar. With essays by such acclaimed thinkers as Claude Levi-Strauss, Black Elk, Carlos Castaneda, and Frank Boas, it provides an awesome glimpse into the incredible shamanic practices of cultures around the world.

First sentence: In the early sixteenth century, Spanish navigator and natural historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo described old men using tobacco to communicate with spirits among the indigenous inhabitants of Hispaniola (the island currently comprising Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

Year

2004

Language

English

Publisher

Tarcher

Editions

5

Pages

336

ISBN

9781585423620

Data source: Wikidata