The Ethnopoetics of Shamanism

Western representations of shamans and shamanic experience have changed radically over the last century. Using studies of Nicholas Black Elk, a Lakota shaman, and his relationship with the poet John G. Neihardt; the Mazatec healer Maria Sabina and her treatment by R. Gordon Wasson and subsequent com [...]
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Western representations of shamans and shamanic experience have changed radically over the last century. Using studies of Nicholas Black Elk, a Lakota shaman, and his relationship with the poet John G. Neihardt; the Mazatec healer Maria Sabina and her treatment by R. Gordon Wasson and subsequent commentators; and the American writer and anthropologist Carlos Castaneda and the problematic status of his Yaqui native informant Don Juan, Marcel de Lima shows that while shamanic practices have long been indirectly registered (and often misrecognized) by Western observers and writers, it wasn't until the late nineteenth century that they took on a particular status within Western discourses of primitivism and the debates over magic and rationality.