Campbell, Alan T. – Anthropologist (then at Edinburgh University) whose book Getting to Know Waiwai (1995) is a reflexive ethnography of the WayapĂ of Amazonia. Campbell struggles to find ways to convey the wide range of meanings of the term payĂ© (a cognate of piya), which functions as a verb or adjective rather than a noun. That is, people (humans and other-than-human persons) can perform shamanistic activities or be in a shamanistic state. He notes that some people and states can be “very shamanistic” and others “only slightly shamanistic” and sums up the ambiguity of “payĂ©people” by saying that it is “all very well to be the village doctor; but it’s not much of a role or an office to be the village killer.”
SOURCE:
Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis 2007