Lux Ferre

The achnucek is a transformed shaman of the Aleut and Kodiak peoples of the southern Alaskan regions. Their gender variance was recognized when they were children, sometimes infants. These boys were raised

Aboriginal, from the Latin phrase ab origine meaning from the beginning, refers to the first people. When capitalized, Aboriginal refers to the first people of Australia. Otherwise, aboriginal refers to the first

Extra Pay – Term proposed by Graham Harvey referring to the ways in which Western (scholars and neo-shamans) might contribute to shamanisms in a reciprocal (decolonizing) way. Harvey borrows from Lewis Carroll’s

Evenk (Tungus) – The term shaman derives from the Tungus language group, the largest of the northern group of the Manchu-Tungus languages, and the nomadic reindeer herding Evenk (formerly known as the

European Paleolithic – The Old Stone Age, a chronological period extending from around two million years ago to around ten thousand years ago, depending on the area at issue, and encompassing the

Ethnomusicology – Music, rhythm, chant, song, drumming, and other instrumental performances are significant aspects of much shamanic work and have been studied by this branch of musicology devoted to musics rooted in

Erdoes, Richard – American coauthor of a number of biographies (or partial autobiographies) of significant Native Americans, including John Lame Deer and Leonard Crow Dog, along with a number of other relevant

Environmentalism – Shamans cannot strictly be identified as environmentalists because, as animists, they are members of a large community of life rather than being surrounded by an impersonal environment or “nature.” However,

Entoptic phenomena – Entoptics (from the Greek, meaning “within vision”), also known as phosphenes, are complex and diverse luminous geometric images derived from the human central nervous system, produced specifically within the

Entheogens – Etymologically, entheogen derives from Greek entheos, “possessed by a god” (which is related to the modern English giddy and Old English gidig, “possessed by a god/spirit”) and genous “produced.” Hence