Ayahuasca, Ritual and Religion in Brazil

This volume looks at the emergence of religious groups in the Brazilian Amazon who constitute their systems of ritual, myth and principles around the use of a psychoactive brew known by diverse names, one of which is the Quechua term 'ayahuasca.' Although the field of studies of these religious move [...]
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This volume looks at the emergence of religious groups in the Brazilian Amazon who constitute their systems of ritual, myth and principles around the use of a psychoactive brew known by diverse names, one of which is the Quechua term 'ayahuasca.' Although the field of studies of these religious movements has seen much development in recent decades, there are still very few publications in English, especially in the area of anthropology. This collection, containing many articles only previously published in Portuguese, seeks to explain the research conducted in Brazil, most of which has been conducted by Brazilian researchers. It shows a representative sample of the main types of approaches that have been used and also offers a view of the historical development of this field of research in Brazil, especially from the perspective of the human sciences. The volume makes explicit what the study of the ayahuasca religions has to say on classical and contemporary issues in anthropology. It presents a broad and varied set of ethnographic approaches employed in the initial mapping out of this phenomenon, thus establishing its historical and cultural origins.It also provides a basis to develop future work on these religions both in their original contexts and in their expansion throughout Brazil and the world.