Category: Shamanism

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…

Upper Worlds – Among the other worlds of many shamanic cosmologies, the existence of realms above the earth are significant. Shamanic initiations and journeys may…

Underworlds – Among the other worlds of many shamanic cosmologies, the existence of realms under the earth are significant. Shamanic initiations and journeys may entail…

Umbanda – Religious movement originating in Brazil in the early 20th century creatively bringing together themes from Christianity, African (especially Angolan and Yoruba-derived), and indigenous…

Tuva – Tuva lies north of Mongolia, east of Central Asia, and south of Southern Siberia, and the Tuvans are pastoralists of mixed Turkic-Mongolian descent…

Turner, Edith – University of Virginia symbolic anthropologist who has written extensively about indigenous healing practices in Africa and the Arctic. Turner’s reflections on her…

Tukano – Shamans, or payé, among the Tukano of Colombia use tobacco and ayahuasca in order to engage with such other-thanhuman persons as the powerful…

JOHN TRUHUJO PRAYS AFTER DOCTORING A PATIENT. NOTE DIRECTIONALITY OF MEDICINE FEATHERS. PRYOR, 1941. John Truhujo (c. 1883–1985) – Shoshone (Native American) medicine man and…