Shamans and Healers in South America

Catalog description

This course will focus on the healing traditions of Native South American people as an important part of our contemporary experience. We will examine the images, forms, and meanings that are common to the healing experience of many Native South Americans: concepts of order, time, space, power, destruction, and renewal which allow us to group them together despite their geographical and sociopolitical diversity. We will also analyze some specific ethnographic examples of how they are manifested through funerary cannibalism, shamanism, sorcery, animal spirits and metaphors, the use of tobacco, narcotics and hallucinogens, and rituals for healing, fertility and collective well-being. Classes will consist of presentations, viewing films, and class discussions.