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Shamanism and the IMF
I’ve been reading Laura Kendall’s new ethnography of South Korean shamanism, Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF. Traditionally, Korean shamans have been mostly women, rural, and low in social and economic standing. In the second half of the Twentieth Century, they were often regarded as backward, and as representing a rapidly retreating, agrarian past. By the…
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On not being, and being, Native American.
My father died a few years ago. A day or two before he died, My sister asked him whether we are Native American. My father sat up in bed, smiled, and said with great pride that, yes, we were, and on both sides. Stunned to have our question answered, we did not ask about tribal…
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Amazonian Shamanism, Part Two
Several years ago I spent a couple of weeks with friends and teachers on the Rio Negro, in northwestern Brazil. One day we were visited by a local healer and her daughter. The healer spoke to us about her practice, then went into a trance lasting two or three hours. During that time, she channeled…
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Amazonian Santeria
First Nations peoples in the Amazon basin practice an enormous number of spiritual pathways. Many tribal peoples have developed their practices over thousands of years. At the same time, they have been influenced by African practices imported by slaves, folk practices brought from Spain and Portugal, Catholicism, and beliefs and traditions borrowed from neighbors. All…
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