Category: Shamanism

Santo Daime – A movement that began in Brazil and spread in various organizations to many other countries during the 1990s. Creatively fusing indigenous Amazonian,…

Santería – A ceremonial and trance or possession complex that evolved from the interaction of African- and European-derived religious traditions in Cuba. It is sometimes…

Santa Claus – Also known as Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, or Saint Nick. A popular myth asserts that Santa Claus was originally a shaman among…

San Pedro – A cactus (Trichocereus pachanoi) indigenous to the northern Andes in South America, valued by indigenous doctors, curanderos, for inducing vomiting and visions.…

San – Also known as Bushmen (both terms are problematic). The San are the descendents of the original indigenous inhabitants of Southern Africa. Currently, San…

Samuel, Geoffrey – Australian professor of Tibetan religions, now at Cardiff University in Wales. In addition to important ethnographic discussion of Tibetan shamanism and Tantric…

Saladin D’Anglure, Bernard (1936– ) – French-born professor of anthropology at the Université Laval in Canada. Since 1956, Saladin d’Anglure has been particularly interested in…

Sakha – Sakha may refer to peoples known as the Sakha (formerly Yakut) living in the Sakha region (Yakutia) in northeast Siberia; the Sakha language,…

Sacred Trust, The – “A United Kingdom–based educational organization concerned with the teaching of practical shamanism for modern women and men,” founded and directed by…

Sacred Sites – Marking out particular places—from a small cave containing rock art to an entire landscape—as being special in some way is a consistent…