Month: March 2022

Métraux, Alfred (1902–1963) – Swiss ethnographer of Vodou in Haiti and surveyor of Amazonian and Guyanese shamanism, conducting fieldwork in the late 1940s. Métraux was…

Mental Health – Shamans have been characterized as psychotic, schizophrenic, epileptic, neurotic, or otherwise mentally ill by a number of authors during the 20th century…

Melanesia – A subdivision of Oceania or the Pacific Islands (along with Polynesia and Micronesia), spreading from New Guinea in the west to Norfolk Island…

Mediums – Shamans are sometimes distinguished from “mediums,” a term most often applied to people, generally in Spiritualist or Spiritist movements, who enter trances and…

Medicine Wheel – The term was first applied to the Big Horn Medicine Wheel monument and sacred site on Medicine Mountain, part of northern yoming’s…

Medicine People – Also medicine men and medicine women. A term cognate with holy people among many Native Americans that may be comparable to shamans…

Medicine Fathers – In the biography of Thomas Yellowtail, a medicine man of the Crow, there are regular references to “medicine fathers” who elect and…

Brooke Medicine Eagle (1943– ) Also known as Brooke Edwards. Métis (i.e., of Anglo and Native American parentage) author and popularizer of a version of…

Medicine Bundles – Among many Native American peoples, it is common to gather sacred and powerful stones, herbs, and other object-persons into bundles that then…

Medicine – A term that is particularly common in discussions of Native American religious traditions and practices. In part, it draws attention to the doctoring…