Month: March 2022

Wallis, Robert J. (1972– ) – Associate professor of visual culture at Richmond University in London, where he coordinates the master’s program in art history,…

Vomiting – Shamans in many cultures seek the aid of powerful plants (sometimes understood to be other-than-human persons and even shamans in their own right).…

Vodou – Also Vodu, Vodun, Vudu, and similar. Various related forms of animist ancestor veneration and possession cult that originated in West and Central Africa…

Vizenor, Gerald (1934– ) – Enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation, a prolific poet and author of academic and imaginative works,…

Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo – Brazilian anthropologist at the Museu Nacional of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and director of the Núcleo de Transformações Indígenas research…

Vitebsky, Piers – Anthropologist and head of social sciences at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Great Britain. Vitebsky has written a detailed…

Visualization – The use of intense visual concentration in order to focus on a guided meditation through an imaginative narrative is popular among many New…

Vision Quests – For many Native Americans, traditional initiation rituals, especially those celebrated at puberty, are marked by a vision quest, in which a person…

Vision – Shamans are often required to be visionaries, sometimes aided by powerful otherworld or other-than-human persons or by plants such as ayahuasca. The ability…

Vegetalistas – Shamans of the upper Amazon who are inspired and helped by ayahuasca and chakruna, plants that are considered to be shamanic persons in…