Shaman Practice

La cultura médica popular en la Provincia de Venezuela durante el siglo XVIII se constituyó lentamente en un sistema de múltiples contenidos y prácticas de origen étnico-cultural diferente, compuesto por saberes indígenas locales, africanos y españoles populares. Estos saberes estaban constituidos por una mezcla de prácticas herbolarias y mágicas, lo que se prestaba con facilidad a la acusación de hechicería. La red de chamanes y curanderos existentes en la Provincia servía a cubrir los requerimientos de salud de la población de bajos recursos y, en parte, la de los blancos criollos, siendo muy escasa la presencia de médicos universitarios blancos. El Tribunal de la Inquisición persiguió algunos de estos curanderos populares, en gran parte negros esclavos y libres, pero con poca fuerza y decisión, sobre todo por depender de una sede tan lejana como Cartagena de Indias. A la represión inquisitorial de los curanderos se añadió a partir de 1777 el Protomedicato, institución explícitamente formada para controlar las prácticas médicas.

A Comparative Religious History of Central-Eastern Europe, 1500-2000: Problems, Methods, Perspectives 

A decent amount of scholarly contributions from the first quarter of this century have highlighted the need for a global religious history of Europe. Following the masterly insights by Burkhard Gladigow (1939-2022), a first collective endeavour in defining an Europäische Religionsgeschichte | European History of Religions is due to Hans G. Kippenberg et al., Europäische Religionsgeschichte: ein mehrfacher Pluralismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht | UTB, 2009, 2 vols.), discussed in a previous EASR | IAHR Conference (Messina 2009). While firm advances were made towards a Western-Central European history of religions in post-Renaissance, little or for certain areas and topics quasi nothing was done for a comparative and generalist religious history of Central-Eastern Europe. This IAHR panel would contribute to this purpose, by selecting new approaches in dealing with the sophisticated diversity of previously unexplored religious landscapes of Central and Eastern Europe, from 1500 to 2000. Interactions, entanglements and confrontations between religious agencies will thus be privileged, along with pertinent questions on method and perspectives. New researches on past historians of religions working on such data and their inherited misconceptions may be included as well.

https://iahr2025.org/program/

To expand our understanding of how art audiences function as shamanic communities, this chapter integrates research from psychology, creativity studies, anthropology, art history, sociology, and religious studies, from an expansive, multi-cultural perspective.

Within the field of psychology, the majority of research on artistic creativity focuses on the originating creator, i.e. the artist, while neglecting the art audience. A brief literature review considers the trajectory of thought that led to such neglect. Utilizing the definition of shaman constructed by Ruth Inge-Heinze (1997), a preliminary definition of the art audience as shamanic community is constructed. The study demonstrates how art can provide for the audience’s psychological, social, and spiritual needs; thus, illustrating the defining constructs of the art audience as shamanic community. The formation of a new subfield in creative studies, the psychology of the art audience, is recommended with specific recommendations for future studies.

Key words:
Catharsis, Aristotle, Stanley Krippner, Ruth Inge-Heinze, trauma, healing, soul retrieval, wounded healer, alternative states of consciousness, altered consciousness, prayer, dance, art, visual arts, St. Anthony, positive disintegration, music, Gregory Bateson, systems theory, writing, transpersonal, community, audience, gifted, talent, hero, Csikszentmihalyi, Ruth Richards, John Dewey, Larry Dossey, Jeanne Achterberg, immune system, suspension of disbelief, creativity, imagination, Carl Jung, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, soul, medicine, St. Augustine, Thomas Moore, Black Beauty, genius, insanity, Buddhism, Georgio Vasari, health, emotion, memory, Michael Winkelman, Tobi Zausner.

Artists, musicians, authors, composers, choreographers:
Martha Graham, Picasso, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, Mark Rothko, Anna Sewell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Suzanne Valadon, Victorine Meurant, George Longfish, Anne Sexton, Joni Mitchell, Artemisia Gentileschi, Tony Morrison, Barak Obama, Anna Sewell, Anais Nin.

Interpreting rock art is essentially an archaeology of the ancient mind. Each piece of rock art represents a thought, encapsulated within an imaginary wisdom sphere, symbolizing the collective ideas of the time it was created. Always begin your interpretation by assuming that the rock art scene is not an imitation of life, but a record of beliefs practiced long ago. It may seem overstated, but deciphering rock art requires knowledge of various regional subjects, including archaeology, astronomy, mythology, history, and religion. A lack of a background in these subjects may lead one to focus solely on the rock art visual.

В алтайском шаманизме Вселенная делится на три мира: Верхний мир (небесный), Средний мир (земной) и Нижний мир (подземный). Согласно алтайской мифологии, в каждом из этих миров обитают различные божества и духи. Владыкой подземного мира считается Эрлик. Данное представление является общепринятым и не оспаривается в научной литературе. В отношении верховного небесного бога, напротив, имеются разногласия. Одни исследователи (В. И. Вербицкий, А. В. Анохин, Л. П. Потапов, А. М. Сагалаев) понимают под небесным богом Ульгеня (Ӱлген), другие (В. В. Радлов, В. А. Муйтуева) – Тенгри (Теҥери).

The article is devoted to the study of the patch as a stable tradition of the spiritual and materialartistic culture of the Turkic peoples. The patch is considered as a "participant" in ritual and ritual practice and manual artistic craft. The scientific novelty of the results lies in the fact that for the firsttime sources on the ritual and everyday practice of the Turkic peoples with the participation of the patch have been systematized. The collected material is summarized and formed as a comprehensive study. The reconstruction of the functions and the role of the patch in the ritual and daily practice of the Turkic peoples was carried out on the basis of a comparative analysis. The general and distinctive features in the artistic and technological techniques of patchwork technique are established and systematized. Ethnographic materials were collected during field research in the period 2019-2021 and introduce a set of factual sources into the history of art of the peoples of Central Asia. The findings can be used in developments in the field of ethnoculturology of the Turkic world.

This article explores how myth-rooted in embodied, multi-sensory experience-forms the earliest substrate of creative imagination, using the Tawalai wolf drawings, tribal Pithora paintings, and prehistoric cave art as case studies. These examples reveal how creativity emerges from a deep reservoir of emotional memory and collective symbolism, capable of producing profound cultural expressions. Drawing on frameworks from anthropology, phenomenology, and design pedagogy, the paper situates myth-based creativity within the Arupa model, where it arises in the Biological Life Order (BLO) and early Human Thought Order (HTO-1). As one moves toward higher cognitive orders-particularly through Active Silence of spiritual nature (CO-AS) *-creativity shifts from metaphor-driven narratives to insight-based acts of presence. The integrated section on Implications for Design & Education connects these ideas to 'New-age foundation programmes', highlighting AI, multisensory inputs, and inner-order practices as catalysts for reflective, transformative learning. This paper is the first in a planned series, leading toward holistic concerns involving Inner Order, Working Orders, and a holographic paradigm for Education in the AI era. * CO-AS stands for Active Silence in Cosmic Order-a state of attention in which creative insight arises without reliance on memory or motive. In the Arupa framework, Active Silence of spiritual kind aligns with Cosmic Order, enabling creativity that is choiceless, impersonal, and integrative.

Boudha (literally Lord Buddha) is a unique community outside Kathmandu with a long history as a Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage site because of its enormous towering stupa (reliquary shrine). The area literally teems with tourists who come by bus and taxi through the day, seven days a week, to see the stupa. Frequently called "Little Tibet"-because most of its inhabitants trace their ancestry to Tibet-Boudha has grown enormously in the twenty years since I first began anthropological fieldwork there. Due to large-scale development and population influxes from outlying areas, there is now hardly an open space in the six miles between Boudha and Kathmandu. Curio shops abound, along with Tibetan carpet factories, restaurants, guesthouses, and a bustling bazaar where local folks sell everything needed to maintain a household. Although Boudha is home to a multiethnic community, a high percentage of its residents are Tamang (a Tibetan ethnic group that has resided for centuries in the Himalaya mountains separating Tibet and Nepal). Moreover, since the Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 1950s, many Tibetan refugees have settled in Boudha, and they have become a dominant cultural force in the area. There are at least a dozen active monasteries, representing all of the Tibetan Buddhist sects. Tibetan medicine is practiced alongside numerous other healing methods, including shamanism. During my four-and-a-half-month visit to Boudha in 1996, I had the opportunity to meet and observe a very dramatic and powerful Tibetan healer, who is known both by the lay name Mrs. Dolkar and by the spiritual title of Lhamo. A lhamo (lha = deity; mo = female) is a type of traditional Tibetan oracle who can temporarily embody deities who enable her to perform shamanic healing and divination work. A Tibetan refugee who has lived in the Boudha area for several years, Mrs. Dolkar is recognized as the lhamo who manifests the divine healer and protector Dorje Yüdronma, a mountain deity incorporated into Buddhism after Padma Sambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet. Mrs. Dolkar has been officially "certified" by H. H. the Dalai Lama as a "reliable exorcist" for "all mental and physical ills and problems." 39 However, as His Holiness notes in a fascinating one-paragraph document, Mrs. Dolkar was once considered a "wild schizophrenic" who was "possessed" by occult powers. It was only after she was purified, initiated, and trained by another lhamo that she became the "possessor" of the Goddess Dorje Yüdronma-"a shamanic manifestation of cosmic force." Mrs. Dolkar's path to becoming a lhamo was a long and traumatic journey. 40 Because no one in her family was a shaman (which was the case with other Tibetan shamans I interviewed), she did not have the benefit of an experienced teacher to guide her as a child. When she was initially "chosen" by the Goddess, she didn't know what was happening and she became very ill. As a child, she suffered violent fits and exhibited psychotic behavior, and it wasn't until years later, after she learned to embody the Goddess, that she was healed and became a healer. At the age of thirteen, she became a Buddhist nun in Tibet, where she spent her adolescence. By her own account, people called her "Crazy Nun," because her behavior was so erratic and unstable. She could be kind and generousoccasionally even giving away her clothes to needy people in the street-but she was also prone to angry outbursts and violent episodes. While still a young nun, she had a series of dreams and visions that she felt compelled to literally follow. In these dreams, a mysterious old woman told her that she must go to live in a strange land where she did not know the customs or language, and where she would meet H. H. the Dalai Lama. The woman in the dreams persuaded her to leave the nunnery without telling anyone, advising her that secrecy was best for all concerned. The young nun obeyed and followed the old woman, traveling only at night, trekking over high mountain passes, and resting in caves during the day, as she was directed. The mysterious guide, who seemed to need neither food nor drink nor sleep, would appear each night with food for the girl and would then lead her on the night's journey, only to vanish magically during the day. The journey lasted for three days, by which time the young girl was too far from home to turn back. Still in Tibet and without the old guide, she found work as a washerwoman. It was then that she met and married her first husband, with whom she eventually moved to India, where, at the age of twenty-three, she had a son. She lived in India for many years. After leaving her first husband, she

Ban jhankri or "forest wizards" are an almost unknown forest tribe credited with great powers of healing. M. P. KOIRALA, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF NEPAL (QUOTED IN COLEMAN 1989, 35) The yeti is widely known but not well understood. Its physical presence, accepted as fact by most Himalayan people, was the subject of much scientific study. In the end, reports and evidence of its physical existence failed to meet the scrutiny of paleontology and zoology. But the yeti has a ubiquitous presence in Himalayan culture. It is a living, current, popular mythology and a folkloric treasure whose origins I seek to uncover in this chapter. Yeti were originally fierce spirits of nature-mountain goddesses and forest wildmen of the pre-Buddhist Bönpo shamanism of Tibet. They are principal characters in a vast oral mythology of becoming a shaman. A spiritual biography of the yeti is described from the perspective of an anthropology of consciousness and history of Tibetan religions. The ban jhankri (male forest shaman) of the Nepal Himalayas, and his spouse, the ban jhankrini, are thought to be spirits or deities who initiate shamans, as well as living creatures with a partially human physical presence. The males are half-monkey, half-human guru of shamans. Ban jhankri is also the Nepali name for a specific type of yeti described as being three to five feet tall and, except for face and hands, covered from head to toe with thick red or golden hair. Nepalese shamans say his wife, the ban jhankrini, is a much more formidable mixture of human and simian or bear standing twelve to fifteen feet tall with thick, long black hair. These two types of yeti are the mythical and spiritual progenitors of many forms of Nepalese and Tibetan shamanism. All types of yeti, including ban jhankri, are indigenously believed to be living vestiges of the ancient past. At the same time, the yeti and the ban jhankri are characters in a vast oral mythology, one that is not merely a story told but a reality lived in culture, consciousness, and the initiations of Nepalese shamans. It is a current, living mythology, not a fossil but a recognized way to become a shaman. According to legend and personal reports of shamans who have encountered them, the ban jhankri kidnap potential shamans, typically between seven and seventeen years of age, and bring them into the forests and caves where they live in order to teach and initiate them. During abduction, the ban jhankri causes his candidates to become naked so he may inspect them for spiritual imperfections. Only candidates who are pure (chokho) in body and heart-mind (man 41 ) are accepted for teaching, most often for a few days up to a week but sometimes for a month, a year, or even more before being returned, often to the place of their abduction. Candidates who do not pass inspection because they are spiritually impure (jutho) are "thrown" from the cave by the ban jhankri or worse, by his big, ferocious wife, who threatens to "kill" her husband's novices to "cut off" their limbs and heads with her golden blade, and to "eat" them. The purpose of this chapter is to point to an often-neglected identity in the anthropology of the Himalaya, between the two genders of yeti and the two genders of ban jhankri (or forest shaman), by discussing their parallel, analogous, and often-identical legends, encounters with humans, nomenclature, and their physical resemblance described in folklore. The method utilized attempts to integrate the personal stories I've collected from Nepalese ban jhankri shaman initiate abductees with the ethnographies of other researchers to demonstrate the relevance of the yeti legend to this highly prevalent Himalayan shamanic experience. The yeti is mythologically categorized as a type of "Bigfoot" with analogies in many parts of the world (Napier 1973, 34). Specifically, however, when one thinks of the yeti, one thinks of a tall, burly, long-haired, elusive, intelligent apeman inhabiting the snowcapped Tibet-Nepal Himalaya. The yeti is well regarded in Nepal, Tibet, and other Himalayan cultures, and the subject of a large body of folklore. The government airline, Royal Nepal Airlines, boasts of offering "Yeti Service," and a tall, big-footed, ape-like yeti statue carrying a tray of drinks adorns the grounds in front of its Kathmandu headquarters (see Figure -1). A yeti likeness has been on display in the Kathmandu Museum of Natural History, and one is featured on a Bhutanese postage stamp. Commercial products, magazines, hotels, restaurants, companies, and shops are named after it. Expeditions have been launched to sight yeti. World Book Encyclopedia sponsored one by Sir Edmund Hillary, who was joined by noted American zoologist Marlin Perkins (Hillary and Doig 1962). Millionaire oilman and explorer Tom Slick led three expeditions; and numerous adventurers, mountain climbers, and scientists made equally sincere attempts. Because yeti have fascinated Western curiosity, novels have been written, and fictional and documentary films produced (see Chorvinsky 1989, 135-149). There was so much interest in the yeti that, in 1958, the Nepalese government, recognizing its value as a source of national revenue, declared the yeti a protected species, and made it illegal to hunt or try to capture one without a special license costing the handsome sum of £400 (Napier 1973, 47, 48).

El argumento fundamental del llamado "giro ontológico" plantea la urgencia de desestabilizar una concepción particular de "cultura", entendida como un proceso esencialmente representativo que hacen diversos grupos humanos con relación a una realidad única subyacente a las construcciones y significaciones culturales. Cuestiona, en sus versiones más astutas, el acceso privilegiado a una realidad universal, argumentando que ha sido producido por modelos históricos específicos, bajo relaciones de poder particulares y a raíz de conflictos que han formado maneras de percibir, de devenir sensibles a ciertas entidades y no a otras. Así pues, el volumen editado por Daniel Ruiz-Serna y Carlos Del Cairo aporta reflexiones fundamentales desde la etnografía para asesorar las aperturas y capacidades de tal giro, brindando particular atención a las implicaciones políticas para una antropología que buscar re-orientar sus capacidades críticas en el presente. En efecto, mientras que el "giro ontológico", (junto a los nuevos materialismos y pos-humanismos) ha sido duramente reprendido por ser incapaz de articular críticas políticas comprometidas con las luchas anti-coloniales del presente y por reificar dicotomías entre el "mundo moderno" y sus otros, inconmensurables entre sí, los editores de este volumen plantean una discusión sofisticada y

The article analyzes the life and work of N. M. Przhevalsky (1839-1888) in the era of the development of Russian geographical science. In connection with the activities of the scientist, a significant number of documents is being considered, which has not yet been introduced into scientific circulation, while the “canonical” biography cannot be considered as truly scientific. The source of the work is a book by M. K. Baskhanov about N. M. Przhevalsky. The book introduces 281 documents into scientific circulation, and also makes it possible to reconstruct the context in which Przhevalsky was formed as a scientist.

2024 marks the 160th anniversary of P. K. Kozlov. In connection with this event, an expedition was organized, the participants of which repeated the route of P. K. Kozlov along the Mongolian Altai. We examined four archaeological sites dating from the 18th — early 19th century, which are located on the territory of Khovd aimag. In the northern part of the aimak center, on the territory of the Sangiin-Kherem fortress, fragments of porcelain dishes from the 19th — early 20th century were collected and vessels covered with dark brown and black glaze. Similar ceramics were found at the ruins of Tsasargin-kure. Fragments of ceramic vessels, iron items and a copper coin from the late 18th century were discovered at the Khar Us Nuur site. No archaeological material was found near Tugyuryugin kure. Like Tsasargin-kure, the walls of this Buddhist monastery are made of mud brick

A cerimônia Baniwa chamada Kapettiapani, ou Casa dos Chicotes, é o mais importante dos rituais de dança celebrados atualmente. É quando as crianças são iniciadas nas tradições Baniwa, são chicoteadas para que “cresçam rapidamente” (natawinhya kedzako), recebem a pimenta sagrada que é benzida durante uma cerimônia que dura a noite toda (khalidzamai) e os anciãos as instruem sobre as formas corretas de convivência em sociedade. Aqui, apresentaremos vários elementos importantes sobre a tradição de ”A Casa dos Chicotes”,
produzidos pelos Hohodene Baniwa das aldeias de Wapui Cachoeira e Ukuki Cachoeira, Rio Aiary. A primeira parte é um breve resumo da história sagrada de Kuwai, que originou a cerimônia do Kapettiapani nos tempos antigos, desde o início do mundo. Esse resumo é acompanhado por desenhos de diversos momentos da história do primeiro Kapettiapani, quando quatro meninos são iniciados por Kuwai. A segunda parte é um depoimento do finado pajé Manuel da Silva, que descreve detalhadamente suas experiências no Kapettiapani e o significado da cerimônia para os anciãos. A terceira parte inclui as canções que os anciãos Hohodene cantam
no final da cerimônia, quando enviam o espírito de Kuwai de volta ao seu lugar no Outro Mundo. Acompanhando essa peça, há imagens fotográficas de um filme produzido por Isaias Fontes do Kapettiapani em Ukuki Cachoeira em 2010.

Dedicamos este artigo aos Medzeniakonai Hohodene de Ukuki Cachoeira que por muito tempo tem guardados as suas tradições, cerimonias e histórias para as futuras gerações, walimanai ihriu. É um tributo à família Fontes que tem cuidado e zelado essas tradições. Aqui, apresentamos uma das mais importantes histórias dos Medzeniakonai, a História de Kuwai, contada pelo finado Ricardo Fontes, quem o antropólogo Robin Wright entrevistou em 1977. Abel Fontes, neto do Ricardo, apresenta este texto. Abel é Maadzero -Mestre das canções para Kwepanni, a cerimônia de iniciação. Em seguida, temos os Conselhos que os Velhos dão para os meninos, e para as meninas na hora de receber a pimenta benzida durante o Kwepani. Esses Conselhos foram falados também por Ricardo Fontes e são acompanhados de imagens tiradas de um vídeo do Kwepani, filmado em Ukuki no ano de 2010 por Isaias Fontes. 1 Laureano Fontes (filho de Ricardo e pai de Abel) foi o Mestre da cerimônia naquela ocasião. Primeira Parte: A Historia de Kuwai Assim como sabemos, Kuwai ou Kuwainai é uma criação de Wamodana, que nomeou todos os animais com nomes como Daapa, Halu, Dzate e muitos outros, utilizando uma forma de segredos. Isso foi feito para que os homens pudessem se comunicar com as mulheres. Por exemplo, quando Kuwai faz um barulho durante a prática do NAKAPETTAKA, as mulheres que estão dentro da maloca sem contato com Kuwainai costumam perguntar: "Quem é esse que faz esse som?" Os homens respondem: "Esse aí é Dzate", elas imaginam um pássaro. Porém, na verdade, para os homens, Dzate é Kuwai, é o nome dado ao próprio animal, ou seja, ele é animal Dzate. Essa é a história. A ideia de nomear Kuwainai com os nomes de animais foi desenvolvida por Wamodana junto com Nhãpirikuli. Eles tinham a intenção de manter segredos e mistérios dos Kuwainai como podemos ver atualmente agora na comunidade Hohodene onde é praticado, em relação às mulheres, permitindo que elas pudessem imaginar os animais que vivem tanto na terra quanto na água. Nós sabemos que Nhãpirikuli deixou Kuwai e Kuwainai porque são importantes. Essas práticas animam nossa comunidade entre nossos cunhados irmãos, entre outros parentes Medzeniakonai Hohodene, especialmente durante a festa de pudali das frutas, chamada NAKAPETTAKA. Essas festas de iniciação nos servem para transmitir os conselhos dos mais velhos sobre como viver bem, com sabedoria e seguindo as regras da vida. Os mais velhos sempre nos dizem que é essencial produzirmos muitas roças e plantar árvores frutíferas, como banana, macaxeira, batata doce e pimenta entre outros alimentos. Essa é uma 1 Este vídeo se encontra no acervo Baniwa da AILLA, "Coleção Baniwa do Aiary e Içana de Robin M. Wright", . Os interessados deverão abrir uma conta no AILLA para terem acesso. 'Aa lhiawaka' 'unhun' 'Ah, para lá' -'Asim é.' 'Koaka idenhiri?' daa lhiako O que vocês estão fazendo?' [Kuwai perguntou] eles não responderam Iemakaphan. Fica olhando 'koaka nhoa anaha?' daa lhiako 'O que são essas coisas lá?' ele diz 'wa kuwai tte hana' 'Nosso kuwai the lá', respondem. 'kalhena?' 'lhienaha. Lhienaha wakuwai tte' 'Nhame nhoanhe' 'Aonde?' 'Ali, aquela ali é nosso kuwai te' 'Hmmm, não sei não.' Kamena pida tain tain tain akepida 'Heeeee' liaroaliphoa phaniiii lhidia lhiewa Assim eles vêm dançando -tayn tayn tayn [batendo pé no chão] os potes zumbem: 'heeeeee' -saindo e voltando dentro [dos camotis]. Apawalitsenaka tain tain tain 'Heeeee' lhidia lhiewa Outra vez, tayn tayn tayn 'Heeeeee', saindo e voltando dentro dos camotis. 'Aaa lhiehe makadawali tsa! makadawali tsa!. Nhoa deka kuwairi!' da lhiako 'Aaaah, isso é bobagem! bobaaaagem!! Eu sou Kuwai', ele diz. 'Nhoa deka Kuwai', da lhiako 'Nhoa' 'Eu sou Kuwai', ele diz, 'Eu.' 'Hapee khera!?' da naako 'Hapee?' 'É verdade!?' eles falam, 'Verdade!?'

Dedicatória em português Dedicamos este artigo aos Medzeniakonai Hohodene de Ukuki Cachoeira que por muito tempo tem guardados as suas tradições, cerimonias e histórias para as futuras gerações, walimanai ihriu. É um tributo à família Fontes que tem cuidado e zelado essas tradições. Aqui, apresentamos uma das mais importantes histórias dos Medzeniakonai, a História de Kuwai, contada pelo finado Ricardo Fontes, quem o antropólogo Robin Wright entrevistou em 1977. Abel Fontes, neto do Ricardo, apresenta este texto. Abel é Maadzero-Mestre das canções para Kwepanni, a cerimônia de iniciação.

When we talk about the migration or forced migration, we mainly think about those individuals and communities, who leave their homes, or who need to leave it. And when we talk about the culture of migration or forced migration, we mostly think of cultural patterns, which characterize the migrants, or the ways of migration, or preservation of the identity of migrants (cf. e.g. Brettel/Hollifield: 2015, 3-36; Barkhof/Smith: 2014). In my presentation I would like to address an aspect, which is slightly less often talked about: those who stayed at home. My example is the long-time isolated Transcarpathian Hungarian Reformed Church. I'm going to talk about three topics. 1. The first topic is the impact of "málenkij robot" as a special kind of forced migration on the Transcarpathian Reformed communities. 2. The second topic is the evolving of the cultural memory of the migration. 3. And finally, the third topic, the relationship between the young Calvinist people and the emphasized elements of this cultural memory. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, the northern and north-eastern counties of Hungary were annected to Czechoslovakia. Subsequently, in August 1921, the Bereg, Ung and Ugocsa Protestant Dioceses that had belonged to the Transtibiscan Church District, decided to establish the separate Reformed Church in Transcarpathia (Csohány: 2012; Gulácsy: 1991, 107-110;. Back then the new church consisted of sixty-five thousand congregation members, seventy-seven churches, three subsidiary parishes and three missionary congregations. Seventy-six pastors and five assistant pastors served the churches. At this time fifty-one Protestant schools operated in Transcarpathia. The Czechoslovak government hindered the church's life in many ways. Many schools were secularized. The state did not automatically give citizenship to the Protestant clergy, and did not recognize the leadership of the church. At this time was the "Eastern Circle of Friends" formed in Transcarpathia (Gulácsy: 2005;. It was a revival movement that aimed at a selfconscious, Bible-based Calvinist upbringing within the church -in accordance with the processes of the church at that time in Hungary and Transylvania. This revival movement had a great impact in the Transcarpathian Reformed Church, but in many places the church leaders and pastors opposed it. Some of them explained it before the congregation as a new religion, and not as a renewal movement within the church. As a result of the First Vienna Award in 1938 and the Hungarian military operations following it in March, 1939, the

Anthropology is often identified as an academic discipline that explores human diversity and the concept of Otherness (see Leistle 2017), offering an opportunity for the anti-hegemonic presentation of plural lifeworlds (Bertelsen and Bendixen 2016: 8). The focus on Otherness has therefore been considered a prominent paradigm, an epistemological basis for anthropological scholarship (Leistle 2015). The earliest instruction for collecting ethnological data compiled by Gerhard Friedrich Müller in 1740, for his follower Johann Eberhard Fischer, accordingly emphasizes the need for collecting "curiosities" that can be contrasted with European experiences (Bucher 2002; Gisi 2007). However, not all (proto-) anthropologies focused on presenting alterity and contrasting non-European peoples with their European counterparts. In Hungary and a few other (semi-) peripheral academic circles in Europe, the concept of Sameness and similarity occupied a significant role in the development of non-European studies. This two hundred year-old anthropological research legacy is not just a methodological curiosity; it has significantly impacted the field and the research environment for Hungarian anthropologists in Siberia and Inner Asia. The widespread assumption of a common origin based on a shared nomadic heritage, and hence an indelible bond between Hungarian anthropologists and local Turco-Mongolic peoples in Asia, remains a prevalent condition of fieldwork in this area.

The definitions of the terms “Shaman” and “Shamanism” have long been contested, and the lack of a clear, definitive, synthesised (or scientific) definition of these terms has been debilitating for the study of this phenomenon within and outside this field of study. Despite calls to re-evaluate or use different terms, “Shaman” and “Shamanism” have persisted. The many slightly different definitions can be confusing. Furthermore, the popularity of shamanism has grown considerably in recent decades. A clarification of these terms is therefore needed to resolve the issues behind them once and for all. The author uses a dialectical methodology to review previously proposed explanations, definitions and some criticisms, then breaks down the components of the terms “Shaman” and “Shamanism” so that researchers can better understand them, and then, based on this, proposes a conclusive synthesis for the final definition. The aim is to look objectively at the terms “Shaman” and “Shamanism” to the best of our current scientific knowledge. This study excludes neo-shamanism and considers it as a separate phenomenon.

A cerimônia Baniwa chamada Kapettiapani, ou Casa dos Chicotes, é o mais importante dos rituais de dança celebrados atualmente. É quando as crianças são iniciadas nas tradições Baniwa, são chicoteadas para que “cresçam rapidamente” (natawinhya kedzako), recebem a pimenta sagrada que é benzida durante uma cerimônia que dura a noite toda (khalidzamai) e os anciãos as instruem sobre as formas corretas de convivência em sociedade.
Aqui, apresentamos vários elementos importantes sobre a tradição de ”A Casa dos Chicotes”, produzidos pelos Hohodene Baniwa das aldeias de Wapui Cachoeira e Ukuki Cachoeira, Rio Aiary. A primeira parte é um breve resumo da história sagrada de Kuwai, que originou a cerimônia do Kapettiapani nos tempos antigos, desde o início do mundo. Esse resumo é acompanhado por desenhos de diversos momentos da história do primeiro Kapettiapani, quando quatro meninos são iniciados por Kuwai. A segunda parte é um depoimento do finado pajé Manuel da Silva, que descreve detalhadamente suas experiências no Kapettiapani e o significado da cerimônia para os anciãos. A terceira parte inclui as canções que os anciãos Hohodene cantam no final da cerimônia, quando enviam o espírito de Kuwai de volta ao seu lugar no Outro Mundo. Acompanhando essa peça, há imagens fotográficas de um filme produzido por Isaias Fontes do Kapettiapani em Ukuki Cachoeira em 2010.
Texto a ser publicado em Ensaios em Interculturalidade. Maria Silvia Cintra Martins, ed. Mercado de Letras. Campinas.

« The anthropology of shamanism with applications to paleolithic parietal art & contemporary ayahuasca rituals », Institut für Romanistik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 23 02 2017.

What are the stakes of the (relative) surge in the visibility of shamanism in Western societies? To answer that question one needs, at a minimum, to differentiate religion and religiosity, to define shamanism, and to show how the basic pattern of perennial religiosity is exemplified in shamanism. Moreover, it is advisable to offer an exemplification with the sketch of contemporary ayahuasca healing practices. With Whitehead, we will “seek simplicity and distrust it:”iii the theoretical generalizations that are unavoidable in scholarly discussions should never be mistaken for the stubborn facts themselves.

This true story is rooted in actual experiences over a period of many decades. I have written about my experiences in many styles, in my effort to find a language that can adequately correspond to a new reality that is emerging from the breakdown in the “glue” that has bound the historical appearances in our world into an intelligible culture for thousands of years. Now we are faced with unintelligibility—an world-shaking crisis. In any such crisis, some individuals are called to step forward and face the overwhelming background forces released by the cultural breakdown in intelligibility, at least in the West. These individuals historically were initiated shamans—servants of both the serpent power and the culture into which they were born. These shamans were often “discovered” through having a life-threatening illness that available cultural healing practices simply could not cure or even understand. In fact such individuals were personally experiencing an illness that the entire culture was suffering, even though nobody else could recognise it as such.
Having nowhere to turn within available cultural healing practices, the suffering shamans-to-be have healed themselves through an initiatory ordeal—an ordeal that is “life or death”. Once healed the new shaman returns to the culture to heal others, not by treatments, methods, teachings, as much as simply showing up as the new being in ordinary life, whose healing presence can initiate a resonant movement in others’ being, a soul movement towards transmuting the same poison in themselves into a healing potion for yet others to drink. I use the words “poison” and “transmuting” carefully and deliberately to evoke the dreadful healing power “behind” such shamanic  initiations—the incandescent fire, lightning bolt, meteor, deadly strike of the cobra.

Воспоминания писателя Валерия Юрьевича Янковского (1912-2010) об усадьбе Новина и курорте Лукоморье, которые были созданы его семьей знаменитых предпринимателей и охотников в окрестностях г. Чхонджин (тогда по-японски – Сейсин) в Корее в 1926 и 1928 гг. соответственно, и о жизни в них русских эмигрантов до 1946 г., когда они были конфискованы и перестали существовать. Написаны специально для журнала «Восточная коллекция». Фото из архива автора. С предисловием к.и.н. Т. М. Симбирцевой «О поколениях, канувших в Лету».

In my paper I analyze the case of the supposed shamanistic 'world tree' of the conquering Hungarians: I show how this erroneous scientific construction came into being through the coming together of the mutually reinforcing mistakes of Hungarian folkloristics, linguistics, and archaeology; how manifestations of the spurious ideas of lay pseudo-science got mixed in with scientific discourse, and how they influenced the course of 'professional' scientific inquiry. My analysis sheds light on the most flagrant methodological mistakes that lead to the mistaken construct: a) the gaining ground of ideological influences from outside 'pure' scientific considerations (in our case features symbolizing Hungarian identity that set it apart from Europeans: the quest for ancient Hungarian shamanism); b) an inverse research attitude of selectively looking for evidence to prove the researcher's preconceptions; c) the effects of a deferential research attitude which considers one or another 'great' researcher infallible and their results irrefutable, which short circuits further research on a topic. My paper has three parts: the first one deals with the emergence of the construct, the second with the errors of the construct created by highly respected scholars (Gyula Sebestyén, Géza Róheim, Sándor Solymossy, Vilmos Diószegi) and its Hungarian and international reception, while in the third part, I describe the processes of the construct's deconstruction and its parallelly occurring revival. I come to the conclusion that the world tree and the related rites connected to the initiation of shamans most likely did not exist in the worldview and ritual practices of the conquering Hungarians and that in light of the most recent research results they seem to be part of an illusionary research construct which came about through the interplay of the strivings of ethnographers, archaeologists, linguists and amateurs who started out from a certain set of preconceptions.

Contemporary artists are most likely to fulfill the shamanic property related to providing benefits to their communities. These benefits are found in statements made by many artists as well as studies on the benefits provided by the arts. Art can provide for psychological, social, physiological, and/or spiritual needs of individuals and communities.
There are many studies showing positive effects result from art engagement.  During receipt of benefits from spiritual, healing art, art audiences are partly functioning as shamanistic (shamanlike) communities. A contemporary audience might not label individual artists as shamans. Nonetheless, when an art audience receives benefits from a work of art, the work’s artist is implicitly designated as a shaman.

When an individual is engaged with art (as an artist, member of the audience, or collector), art can evoke memories, make new connections, heighten awareness, discharge repressed emotions, halt patterns of repression, lead to self-discovery, create empathy with individuals or cultures, remind society of social ills needing attention, and lead to individual and societal healing.

The article deals with the religious identity of the Indigenous peoples in Central Asia and Siberian autochthonic peoples in the modern time. The processes of modernization and transformation which we are noticing nowadays had greatly influenced on the traditional worldview of the mentioned peoples and modified their religious identity.

The article discusses the relationship between body techniques used in contemporary performance and the logic of shamanistic practices described by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Contemporary performers are often compared with shamans. Most often, such comparisons are unprecise and colonizing. However, there are also affinities that cannot be straightforwardly denied. The article focuses on the question of the more-than-human embodiment, which is at the core of the shamanistic practices and which in contemprary performance is practiced artistically. It proposes a model for body techniques which enable experiential interspecies encounters and which invites us to rconsider the basis of respective practices both in Western contexts and outside them.

Shamanism, a universal phenomenon, originated in Inner Asia and has evolved over time. Haruki Murakami, a renowned Japanese author, has crossed cultural divides and gained attention with his works of fiction. His belief in protecting the individual for society's benefit is what appeals to and offends people about him. Murakami's works often convey a sense of loneliness and dislocation through characters that are often lonesome and alone. He uses magical realism to explore the subconscious, a metaphysical part of the mind that is unavailable to the conscious self. Murakami's daily writing routine reaches the surface, focusing on human solitude, loneliness, yearning, nostalgia, and the slender borders between existence and reality. Murakami's short fiction The Elephant Vanishes explores the complexity of human pleasure and voting rights, with the narrator's obsession with an elderly elephant and its keeper as a metaphor for the town's negative changes. His works, like Kafka on the Shore and First Person Singular, explore themes of perception, memory, and existence, often connecting readers' subconscious and influencing our lives. His works, often resembling American culture, have gained critical recognition in Japan. Murakami's fiction explores themes of autonomy and individuality, particularly for a generation of Japanese people who lack an identity and are subsumed by commercialism. His characters face existential crises, alienation from society, and the need to find their true identity to rebel against an oppressive system.

A much discussed topic of border research today is, on the one hand, the relationship between cultural, social, economic and political boundaries, and on the other hand, the relationship of all of these to specifi c locations, that is, the correlation between space-be it geographical, cultural or social-and place. Whether we consider borders to be geographic areas that are defi ned or linked with dynamically changing cultural phenomena, ethnographic and cultural anthropological research studies the local societies that use, form, transform and interact with borders, as well as border phenomena and border processes. The volume of studies edited by Tünde Turai, "An Ethnographic Interpretation of Tri-Border Areas", was published by the Institute of Ethnology at the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, as a culmination of a fouryear project (2011-2015) funded by the HSRF. 1 The study examined the impact of changes in the two decades after the regime change upon the populations of settlements located in the tri-border region, and embarked upon exploring the cultural, economic and social dimension of their relationship. To this end, researchers of the Institute of Ethnology, as well as associates of other Hungarian and foreign scholarly networks, employed questionnaire-based studies in addition to ethnographic fi eldwork, and visually documented, especially in the form of photographs and a documentary fi lm, the everyday life of border zones. The latter provided a basis for another volume edited by Tünde Turai and Csaba Mészáros, "An Ethnographic Perspective on Tri-Border Areas", which aims to interpret the tri-border situation from the perspective of visual anthropology. The studies of wide-ranging topics included in the volume edited by Turai actually accomplish analyzing many aspects of the Hungarian tri-borders (Hungarian-Austrian-Slovenian, Hungarian-Romanian-Serbian and Hungarian-Romanian-Ukrainian)-with the exception of the tri-border regions encompassing Hungary's northern neighbor (Hungarian-Slovakian-Ukrainian and Hungarian-Austrian-Slovakian). Presumably the researchers intend to investigate the tri-border areas concerning Slovakia as a continuation of the research-although at this point the reader may sense some defi ciency without knowing their justifi cation.

Sibirya bölgesi, en erken dönemlerden itibaren Türklerin yurt olarak tuttukları
önemli bir coğrafyadır. Bölgenin iklim şartları, yaşamak için zorlu koşulları da
beraberinde getirmektedir. Saha (Yakut) Türkleri, Sibirya bölgesinde yaşayan ve
Türklerin ana kolundan erken dönemde ayrılan bir topluluktur. Sahaların (Yakut)
geleneksel inançları, sadece yerel bir motif olmanın ötesinde, Geleneksel Türk Dinine
ait bilgilerin ortaya çıkarılmasında önemli bir rol oynamaktadır. Bölgenin coğrafi
zorlukları ve geçiş güzergâhında bulunmaması, diğer kültürlerle etkileşimi
zorlaştırmış ve çeşitli istilalara karşı koruma sağlamıştır. Rus işgaline kadar bölge,
pek çok açıdan bakir bir alan olarak kalmıştır. Ancak Rus işgali ve dayatmaları, halkın
öz benliğini korumak adına geleneklerine ve kültürlerine sıkı sıkıya bağlı kalmasını
sağlamıştır. Türklerin dini yaşamlarında ve ritüellerinde köklü bir geçmişe sahip olan
şamanlık/kamlık, Sahalarda (Yakut) oyun ve udagan adları altında canlı bir biçimde
varlığını sürdürmektedir. Oyun ve udaganlar, yüce varlıklar ile insanlar arasındaki
bağlantıyı sağlamak, hastalıkları tedavi etmek, kurban sunmak ve kehanette bulunup
çeşitli felaketleri önlemek gibi farklı görevleri, vecd ve ekstaz tekniklerini kullanarak
yerine getirmektedir. Bu makalede Saha (Yakut) inanışlarında önemli bir yere sahip
olan Şamanlar/Kamlar incelenmiştir.

A much discussed topic of border research today is, on the one hand, the relationship between cultural, social, economic and political boundaries, and on the other hand, the relationship of all of these to specifi c locations, that is, the correlation between space-be it geographical, cultural or social-and place. Whether we consider borders to be geographic areas that are defi ned or linked with dynamically changing cultural phenomena, ethnographic and cultural anthropological research studies the local societies that use, form, transform and interact with borders, as well as border phenomena and border processes. The volume of studies edited by Tünde Turai, "An Ethnographic Interpretation of Tri-Border Areas", was published by the Institute of Ethnology at the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, as a culmination of a fouryear project (2011-2015) funded by the HSRF. 1 The study examined the impact of changes in the two decades after the regime change upon the populations of settlements located in the tri-border region, and embarked upon exploring the cultural, economic and social dimension of their relationship. To this end, researchers of the Institute of Ethnology, as well as associates of other Hungarian and foreign scholarly networks, employed questionnaire-based studies in addition to ethnographic fi eldwork, and visually documented, especially in the form of photographs and a documentary fi lm, the everyday life of border zones. The latter provided a basis for another volume edited by Tünde Turai and Csaba Mészáros, "An Ethnographic Perspective on Tri-Border Areas", which aims to interpret the tri-border situation from the perspective of visual anthropology. The studies of wide-ranging topics included in the volume edited by Turai actually accomplish analyzing many aspects of the Hungarian tri-borders (Hungarian-Austrian-Slovenian, Hungarian-Romanian-Serbian and Hungarian-Romanian-Ukrainian)-with the exception of the tri-border regions encompassing Hungary's northern neighbor (Hungarian-Slovakian-Ukrainian and Hungarian-Austrian-Slovakian). Presumably the researchers intend to investigate the tri-border areas concerning Slovakia as a continuation of the research-although at this point the reader may sense some defi ciency without knowing their justifi cation.

The main religious lay-leader of the Hungarian Calvinists living in Carpathian Ukraine was the peasant-prophetess, Mrs. Mariska Borku (1910-1978). Her higly important work, the so-called "Third Testament" is a manuscript, written under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It was considered by Mrs. Mariska Borku and her followers as a holy text, a part of the Bible. These almost 800 biblical "quasi loci" were spread in handwritten copies and were read aloud at religious meetings in the Hungarian villages of Carpathian Ukraine, even 10-15 years after her death. Beside the biblical paraphrases, religious songs and prayers, one fourth of the text consists of her visions. The prophetess never explained these visions and the Holy Spirit's "verbs" to her followers-only announced them. Recently the largest religious community of her followers, mostly women over fifty, exists in the village of Dercen. Its lay-leader, Miss Ida Balia, can explain the Words of the "Third Testament", and the visions of Mrs. Borku on the occasion of their private religious service Sunday afternoons. My study offers a short survey of the historical and political situation of the area between 1920 and 1995, in which the emphasised folk religion played a very important role in the survival of national identity and in strengthening the faith of the Hungarian inhabitants living in a very often tragic minority status. I illustrate my presentation with original visionary texts of the "Third Testament", and their actual-political exegesis given by the recent lay-leader of Mrs. Mariska Borku's followers.

democracy: Democracy and hospitality in times of crisis Agnes Czajka 37 Part 2 Reassembling communities 3 Enchanting democracy: Facing the past in Mongolian shamanic rituals Gregory Delaplace 53 4 Indigenous rituals remake the larger-than-human community Graham Harvey 69 5 Becoming autonomous together: Distanced intimacy in dances of self-discovery Michael Houseman 87 6 Walking pilgrimages to the Marian Shrine of Fátima in Portugal as democratic explorations Anna Fedele 7 The interreligious Choir of Civilizations: Representations of democracy and the ritual assembly of multiculturalism in Antakya, Turkey Jens Kreinath Part 3 Commemoration and resistance 8 The ritual powers of the weak: Democracy and public responses to the 22 July 2011 terrorist attacks on Norway Jone Salomonsen 9 The flower actions: Interreligious funerals after the Utøya massacre Ida Marie Høeg 9781350123014_txt_print.indd 5 28-07-2020

List of Illustrations vii Preface ix Note on Transliteration xiii Map of Tuva Republic xiv Chapter One 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Tuva-general features and historical overview 1.3. Curse accusations as an index of post-socialist crisis 1.4. Encounters with shamans and clients 1.5. Kinds of shamanic impulse 1.6. Curses, malignity, and retribution 1.7. Shamanic trance, the spirits, and healing 1.8. Narratives of shamanic initiation 16 1.9. Shamanic revival in the age of depression 18 Chapter Two The Social Context of Curse Accusations 2.1. Kinds of shamanic practice 23 2.2. Khuvaanak (divination) 24 2.3. Sending off the soul of the deceased 2.4. Aryglaar (cleansing/purification) 2.5. The sample of healing consultations 2.5.1. Cases of spirit affliction 2.5.2. Cases of curse affliction 2.6. Interpretation Chapter Three Symbolic Transformation under Post-Socialism 3.1. Introductory note 3.2. The consultation Part I 3.3. Desperate times: shamanism and ontological policing 3.4. Misfortune, analogy, and symbolic transformation 3.5. The symbolism of süzük: culture and personal symbol Part II 3.6. Post-socialist contexts of shamanic transformation 3.7. "Revenge is sweeter than reconciliation" 3.8. Social crisis and symbolic transformation 3.9. Conclusion 51 Contents vi Chapter Four Political Violence and Shamanic Vocation 4.1. Introductory note Part I 4.2. First healing session 4.3. Political violence as a context of shamanic revenge 4.4. Revenge in folklore: shamans, feudalists, and Soviets Part II 4.5. Second healing session 4.6. The past as a barrier to shamanic agency 4.7. Conclusion Chapter Five Shamanic Impulse: The Conflict of the Ancestors 5.1. Introductory note 5.2. Chronicle of a cursed life: the "black tea" incident 5.3. Governing the uncanny: a case of shamanic trance 5.4. Dreaming of illness as a regressive symbol 5.5. Deep motivation: transition from symptoms into symbols 5.6. Redefining illness as a "lost object" 5.7. Recovering and healing the "double person" 5.8. Visions of an albys demon descending into the river 5.9. Conclusion: shamans and the invisible arm of justice Chapter Six Tenacious Spirits Perpetual non-resolution in a shaman's biography Epilogue Shamanic dreams caused by dreaming of an albys demon Glossary of Tuvan and Russian Terms List of Toponyms 95 Bibliography 97 Index 103 Preface x (1967) and other psychological anthropologists. Namely, the expectation for debating the relevance of the concept of "paranoia" for making sense of my informants' narratives and suspicions of curse affliction. During these conversations, a number of students and professional anthropologists offered incisive comments on how to proceed with writing. These critiques have been crystallized in various parts of this book, where I examine the possibility that the shamans' counteroffensive is an alternative to resorting to personal retaliation or the official agencies of law enforcement. Regarding the concept of "paranoia" (see Humphrey 2003, Marcus 1999), the present study offers empirical evidence of how states of "trance" or mental dissociation, appearing in shamanic practices of divination, fill explanatory gaps associated with unusual and controversial synergies of "significant events". Chapter Five offers a striking ethnographic example. In March 2007 Carole Pegg and Galina Lindquist, two anthropologists with unequalled research experience in Tuva, Khakassia, and the Altai, offered invaluable criticisms and suggestions as examiners of my doctoral thesis. I have inserted some of their comments in the present manuscript. Carole (whom I had met in Kyzyl in the summer of 2003) stressed an aspect of my materials which I had failed to discern; namely, the reconstitution of kin-based patterns of sociality, following the revival of ceremonies for propitiating ancestral spirits (these rituals are known as dagylga in Tuvan). This parameter challenged my ethnographic representation of Kyzyl up till then as a society infested with curses as an index of social crisis. Galina offered perceptive comments on the meanings of healing symbols concerning Russian and indigenous ethnicities in Tuva. One of her most insightful and critical comments was about studies of "Culture and Personality", a School that introduced methods of generalizing based on ethnographic data. Meeting Galina Lindquist in Kyzyl in the summer of 2003 was another special moment during my fieldwork. I have used Lindquist's published work, including her article which appeared in an edited volume (2011), in my paper cited above. Special thanks go to Victoria Soyan Peemot, a native ethnographer from Tuva (currently based at the University of Helsinki), for imparting her knowledge about expressions of the shaman's mentally dissociative states in the Tuvan language. Victoria read the manuscript and kindly offered many comments and suggestions on Tuvan terms for "spirits" and kinds of shamanic practices, as well as on several place names that play an important role in the biographies of key informants (Glossary and List of Toponyms). The thesis that formed the basis of this book was written in the course of one year (from March 2006 to March 2007). Almost all the writing (which had started from various drafts in 2003) was done in the Scott Polar Research Institute, which provided superb research facilities and resources. I thank the administrative and Library staff for their support and cooperation (especially Isabella Warren, the former Russian bibliographer of the Library). The present book is substantially different from the thesis which I submitted for the doctoral degree. Nearly all the chapters have been extensively revised and fortified with unpublished ethnographic data and with a new scholarly apparatus. The book engages recent literature on sovereignty and social order, as well as several key studies by specialists in Mongolian and Inner Asian shamanism. My fieldwork in Tuva was made possible thanks to an individual research grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. I am grateful to my parents in Greece for having funded part of my fieldwork in Tuva and my graduate studies in Britain. My father, Achilles (an economist by profession), perhaps cannot empathize with my fascination for shamanism. Achilles has asked me why people keep showing faith in these customs in the wake of modernity (characteristically referring to Africa as a land of modernity). Africanists and other area specialists have raised this question too (yet they did so from a different perspective). My mother, Evangelia, has been keenly interested in exotic lands and cultures, especially in China and South Asia, in addition to her background in Greek literature. I thank both of them for their patience, great endurance, and continuing support.

Briefly discusses the nature of the shaman as a social function, attuned to their culture.

The shaman is the one who sees in the dark and mediates (for their specific culture) between the visible and the invisible worlds.

The shamanic archetype is part of the fundamental human experience, and it flowers in each culture in a different way.

The once-largest airline in the world and the only one in the USSR, "Aeroflot," was formed in 1932 through the merger of two joint-stock companies - "Dobrolet" and "Ukrvozdukhput." In the subsequent years, a significant amount of souvenir products was produced under the "Aeroflot" brand, giving rise to a separate category of aviation collecting. There are few collectors who have gathered everything related to the country's main airline. In this discussion, we will focus on a specific category of Aeroflot souvenirs - promotional postcard sets.

Der Beitrag zeigt zunächst auf, weshalb die altgriechische Liedkultur der Archaik und Klassik aufgrund ihrer historischen Bedingungen Modell und Grundlage für den europäisch-westlich geprägten Zusammenhang von „Literatur und Religion“ werden konnte. Methodisch wird dieser auf der Basis einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik und einer ästhetischen sowie symbolischen Verarbeitung von zentralen Metaphern festgemacht, welche die funktionale Einbettung in die Lebenswelt mit der „poietischen“ Textur verweben. Danach wird das theoretische Fundament am konkreten Beispiel eines Liedes Sapphos, fr. 2 Voigt, veranschaulicht, in dem das Sakrale als Szenario der umfassenden Erziehung zur Schönheit im als Chor konzipierten Mädchenkreis dient. Aufgrund dieses „Sitzes im Leben“ werden in einer vom Mythos und Ritual bestimmten traditionellen Gesellschaft konkrete bzw. imaginierte Eindrücke als Metaphern, die das basale Leben in sinnlich-körperlicher und kognitiver Hinsicht umschreiben, in Bewegung gesetzt. Das Lied wird somit in seiner poetisch-symbolischen Bedeutung, die in Funktion zur Begleitung des einschneidenden Übergangs der Mädchen zum sozialen Leben als erwachsene Frauen steht, gelesen und in seiner ästhetischen Dimension gewürdigt. Das Heilig-Reine überhöht die Naturimpressionen in multimedial hergestellten Synästhesien, in denen der Selbstbezug auf die festliche choreia und die musikalisch-poetische Dimension die Einzelelemente auf der Makro- wie Mikroebene zu einer alle Sinne affizierenden Erfahrung im ereignishaften Vollzug der Performance verschmelzen lässt.

This book review was published decades ago in the Laughing Man Magazine Special Issue on Shamanism, as controversy swirled around the authenticity (or lack thereof) of the influential anthropologist Carlos Castenada and his "fictionalized" accounts of his trials and initiations by the Mexican sorcerer Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian. Castenada's fictional novels were major best-sellers that introduced Native American practices to a global, pop culture audience. This review compared a recently published book by scholar Richard DeMille, consisting of analysis by scores of spiritual scholars critical of Castenada's work with Castenada's simultaneously published book in his series, The Eagle's Gift, in which he responded to growing criticism. The review includes my own analysis and critique of both books.