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World Religions:
Primal Religions
02: Shamanism
Shamanism is one of the most widely shared components of all primal people, from American Indians to Australian aborigines. Shamans are spiritually gifted men and women who have acquired the ability to help others through trance and dream journeying. They induce trance states in themselves to facilitate contacting the spirit world and to help heal the afflicted. Shamanic trances can be induced through a variety of techniques, including chanting or drumming, fasting, and in some cases the use of psychotropic substances, the mildest of which might be tobacco, but which can sometimes include entheogens such as peyote and ayahuasca. During these trance contacts, shamans may communicate with spirits of the dead or other spirits and learn what they need to know to help heal the body, mind, or soul of a patient, to locate game, or to predict the future.
Western anthropologists have often used the name "medicine man" (even though many were women) to indicate a mixture of shamanic and priestly capacities. In this context, "priestly" implies the use of rituals, songs, and verbal formulas learned from other priests in the manner of the brahmans of India. Although the term medicine man has acquired a derogatory overtone from countless Hollywood B-movies, it does reflect that many tribal shamans were also knowledgeable in the use of hundreds of herbal remedies unknown to white explorers and settlers. (The pejorative term "witch doctor" applied to African shamans, although offensive, contains a similar grain of truth.) The 16th-century French explorer Jacques Cartier, for example, had lost 25 of his men to scurvy when a band of Iroquois cured the rest by administering a decoction of pine bark and needles, a source of Vitamin C.
