Month: March 2022

Runic John – A British Heathen neo-shamanic practitioner and the author of The Book of Seidr: The Native English and Northern European Shamanic Tradition (2004)…

Rudgeley, Richard – Independent British scholar of archaeology, anthropology, and religious studies. Rudgeley’s volume The Alchemy of Culture: Intoxicants in Society (1993) revived interest in…

Rouget, Gilbert – Ethnomusicologist of the Musée de l’Homme, Paris. Rouget is best known for his book Music and Trance (1985), in which he argues…

Rock Art – Paintings (also known as pictographs) and engravings (also known as petroglyphs) on rock surfaces in caves or rock shelters and on boulders…

Ripinsky-Naxon, Michael – Scholar whose interest in shamanism concerns the use of psychoactives, the origins of religion, and the nature of religious experience. In line…

Rhythm – Shamans in many cultures make use of rhythmic music, songs, chants, dances, and movements. Instruments as varied as drums, rattles, and bells are…

Resource management – A significant role for shamans in many indigenous cultures, part of their mediatory and political functions. Shamans may engage with particular animals,…

Reindeer – Many Arctic cultures (including the Saami and the Chukchi) subsist by reindeer herding. Not surprisingly, reindeer play a role in their shamanic narratives,…

Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo (1912–1994) – Colombian anthropologist with particular interests in Amazonian peoples, especially the Tukano and Desana in Colombia. In addition to general publications about…

Rasmussen, Knud (1879–1933) – Early 20th-century ethnographer of the Greenlandic angakkut who was born in Greenland, the son of a Danish missionary and a local…