Lux Ferre

Totemism – Often confused with the exceptionally close or “spiritual” relationship of a shaman with a particular animal or plant, totem derives from an Algonquian term for “clan.” Many indigenous cultures understand

Tobacco – Indigenous to the Americas, tobacco is a sacred and powerful plant in many indigenous cultures. Its intoxicating effects were well known and rarely used for recreational purposes. In some cultures,

Tiered Cosmos – Among some, but far from all, societies that employ shamans, the cosmos is understood to be layered, often in three levels: an upper world, middle world, and underworld. Ordinary

Tibet – Himalayan country with a long historical influence in the region, especially stretching northward into Buryatia and Mongolia and south into Nepal and India. Buddhist authorities, lamas, sometimes acted against shamans

Third Gender – Marie Czaplicka, Marjorie Balzer, and Bernard Saladin d’Anglure demonstrate the importance of broadening the notion of gender to include not only male and female but also various mediating positions

Theriomorphism – In animist contexts in which the ability to transform is understood to be a defining characteristic of persons, or specifically of powerful persons, the ability of some humans to transform

Therapy – If therapy is understood broadly as equivalent to healing, the term is certainly applicable to much of what shamans do. This is illustrated in the common preference for terms related

Tedlock, Barbara and Dennis – Barbara Tedlock is professor of anthropology at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, a researcher among Guatemalan Maya, and the author of articles and books

Techno-Shamans – The rise of “acid-house” rave parties, “techno” electronic music with repetitive and monotonous beats, and the use of the drug ecstasy (MDMA) in the late 1980s and early 1990s have

Taussig, Michael – Professor of anthropology at Columbia University. Taussig’s book Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study of Terror and Healing (1987) provides the foremost consideration of the work of