I. S. Sh. R., 2nd Conference, Vol. II (non-As) =
Shamanism in Performing Arts – non-Asiatic (Pacific Islander & Amerindian)
Contents
Article |
Author |
PP. |
‘Trance’, ‘Ecstasy’ |
R. N. Hayamon |
17-34 |
Ainu Shaman |
Hitoshi Watanabe |
97-102 |
Shaman in Myths |
Oake Hultkrantz |
145-58 |
Language of the Spirits |
Josiane Cauquelin |
189-96 |
Song Cycles |
Niel Gunson |
213-24 |
Dancing Religion |
Tina Hamrin |
225-9 |
Absence of ‘Performance’ |
Jonathan Horwitz |
231-42 |
Ethics & the Neo-Shaman |
Eleanor Ott |
243-52 |
Performance, Vision |
Geoffrey Samuel |
253-62 |
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pp. 17-34 Roberte N. Hayamon : " ‘Trance’, ‘Ecstasy’ ... in ... Shamanism".
p. 23 Amerindian presence of deities in rituals {cf. the Purva-Mimamsa view that deities are present amongst humans only whilst rituals are being performed wherein those deities are participating as active agents}
p. 23, fn. 18 |
[Hopi] " "the katchina are here when my fathers and uncles are dancing with masks" ... (Mannoni 1969:16)." {The deities are attracted to attend a ritual performance when the performers wear masks in order to flatter the deities who are being so pourtrayed.} |
p. 23 |
"the Kwakiutl shaman described ... the confidence his healing inspired in others when ... he was shamming, copying the traditional ways" (Rouget 1985:328). {The shamming is intended to trick evil spirits into abandoning their wicked projects; in this method of trickery much confidence is said to produce excellent results (truly discouraging to evil spirits).} |
Mannoni 1969 = Octave Mannoni : "Je sais bien". In :- Clefs pour l’imaginaire ou l’Autre Sce`ne. Paris.
Rouget 1985 = Gilbert Rouget : La musique et la transe. Paris.
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pp. 97-102 Hitoshi Watanabe : "Ainu Shaman".
pp. 100-1 invoking a possessing-deity to take possession of a spirit-medium
p. 100 |
"The Ainu shaman, tusu kur, ... operates under the condition of spirit possession. The tusu kur is usually a woman among the Hokkaido Ainu although the male tusu kur seems not to have been unusual in the eastern part of Hokkaido." "The shamanistic performance, tusu, consists of two successive stages : |
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the first stage is represented by the kamuinomi ritual of asking kamui deity for possessing the shaman and |
the second one by the performance of the shaman possessed by the kamui. |
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The kamuinomi ritual as the preceding performance is a prvilege of the adult male Ainu. It is never allowed for a woman to observe and always begins with the ritual for the fire deity, ape fuchi kamui, ... because they believe that their prayers could not be understood by any other kamui without ... this kamui. ... |
The second stage is the performance of the shaman possessed by the deity, usually the kamui of the snake. When possessed, ... the face is flushed, or the body begins to tremble ... . While thus being possessed, the tusu kur utters divine messages (oracles) ... . |
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It is said that the shaman does not remember the messages after the performance". |
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p. 101 |
"the tusu kur may be a woman (mostly) or a man. |
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In the case of a male tusu kur, the whole performance may be given by one and the same person. |
But in the case of a female one, she must have come adult male, usually an elder, to perform the kamuinomi ritual for her. |
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On this point, the female shaman of the Hokkaido Ainu are fundamentally different from that of the Sakhalin Ainu and many other circumpolar peoples including the Eskimo and even from that of the Japanese." {different, perhaps, from the traditional Japanese spirit-media on the Ryukyu Islands; but not different from the practice in the Omoto sect during the 1st quarter of the 20th century – "for spirit possession one must provide a kannushi (spirit medium), a player ... (person bringing the spirit down), and a saniwa (referee), these three people. ... For the person calling down the spirit or deity, Nagasawa alternatively used the terms koreisha ... and koshinsha ..., meaning "person bringing down the spirit" and "person bringing down the deity", respectively" (ChK, p. 385).} |
ChK = Birgit Staemmler : Chinkon Kishin: mediated spirit possession. Berlin, 2009. http://books.google.com/books?id=hrfQY55DihUC&pg=PA385&lpg=PA385&dq=
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pp. 145-58 Oake Hultkrantz : "The Shaman in Myths & Tales".
p. 148 Wahiro (of Colombia) [reference : Perrin 1992:167sq.]
"Pulowi, the mistress of animals and wild plants, dwell ... underground. In the shape of a gigantic snake she devoured ... . ... The old shaman ..., however, ... shot her with his arrows ... . The shaman should have died ... for ... Pulowi; but he did not". |
Perrin 1992 = Michel Perrin : Les practiciens du re^ve, un exemple de chamanisme. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France.
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pp. 189-96 Josiane Cauquelin : "Puyuma’s ‘Language of the Spirits’ ".
p. 189 priest & shamanesses
"The Puyuma ... live in the Taitung plain in southeastern Taiwan. ... |
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The men are priests ... . They invoke far-away, mythical ancestors. |
The women are shamans, temaramaw. ... They invoke recent ancestors." |
(fn. 1) etymology of /temara-maw/ : "tara : to hold the hand upwards, maw : identical, /-em-/ indicating the actor ... . When they ‘work’, they hold their left hand, holding the areca nuts, towards the sky, where stands the supernature which is ‘identical’ to them." |
pp. 189-90 diagnosis by spirit-possession divination; other spirit-possession episodes
p. 189 |
"on the doorstep, the shaman call the spirits using their ‘language’ by means of small ... beads. In a monotonous voice she enumerates the names of all the spirits ... . |
p. 190 |
The offended spirit manifests itself as soon as it is called. This intense moment when the spirit manifests itself is signaled by a burst of tears and an expression ... on the officiant’s face. ... it is the moment when she leaves this world for that ... . During this sequence the ancestor’s spirits reveal the cause of their discontent". |
"Outside the contexte of the ritual the simple fact of pronouncing the name of certain spirits such as the name of the first shaman or the name of the elector-spirit triggers an uncontrolled trance. The spirit then enters her through yawns." |
pp. 189, 190 shamanic travel
p. 189 |
"for extraordinary rituals – calling back a soul and the annual ‘voyage’ – the woman is a shaman. In such rituals she uses a smal[l] bell". |
p. 190 |
"the annual ‘voyage’ takes place ... on the last night of the annual festival, pualasakan – the time during which she renews her contract with her auxiliary-spirits ... . With the help of her small bell her soul enters ‘the world of the spirits’, kaqaulasan [fn. 3 : "aulas : the world of the spirits, ... ka-...-an means the archetype of."], making its way along roads lined with flowers, climbing tree-covered mountains : she is in the world of auxiliary-spirits, ‘yaulas’." [fn. 4 : "aulas : the world of the spirits, [/]i-/ locatif.’] |
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pp. 213-24 Niel Gunson : "Shamanistic Story & Song Cycles in Polynesia".
p. 214 unpublished materials on Marquesan mythology
"an English ... in the Marquesas, T. C. Lawson, dating to 1861-1862, and ... |
from the same island by H. Rambke, a German ... between 1900 and 1915." |
(fn. 3) "The most complete version of Lawson’s text ... is held by the Polynesian Society Papers, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. ... |
Rambke’s descriptions are contained in his letters to ... the Bernice Pauahi Museum, Honolulu, in 1935." |
pp. 214-5 shamanic-style myths
p. 214 |
"The soul travellers originally would have had bird names such as Lupe (the dove) in western Polynesia, ... and Kura {cf. name of Maori goddess KURA-naituku} (the crimson tropic bird) of eastern Polynesia. ... |
Kura’s shamanic role is well preserved in the Tuamotus where, as Te Kura i te Atua (the medium of the god) usually translated as ‘the messenger of the gods’, this spirit is responsible for fishing up the islands of the Tuamotus from the Ocean depths (see Luomala 1941:86-89). ... In some cycles Rupe is identified with Maui-mua, Maui’s elder brother. [fn. 8 : "See Grey 1956:63."] |
p. 215 |
"In an Efatese version it is the mother who has wings and flies (MacDonald 1898:816-833). |
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">Aho>eitu, the first Tu>i tonga, ... was slain by his half-brothers, dismembered and subsequently resurrected." [fn. 10 : "See Gifford 1971:25-29."] {cf. the myth of Osiris} |
Luomala 1941 = Katherine Luomala : "Documentary Research in Polynesian Mythology". In :- Polynesian Anthropological Studies = POLYNESIAN SOCIETY MEMOIR 17.
Grey 1956 = George Grey : Polynesian Mythology. Auckland.
MacDonald 1898 = D. MacDonald : "The Mythology of the Efatese". AUSTRALASIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, REPORT for 1897. 7:816-33.
p. 216 independent evidence for validity of a system of mythology
"Lawson ... was immediately struck by the apparent biblical parallels and, in the 1860s, was convinced that the cycle of the Take, or Marquesan people, was an independent record and positive proof of the authenticity of the ... Bible." |
p. 218 (according to Lawson) list of creatures on the moon, in a Marquesan myth {cf. the account of insects and sea-animals on the moon in the Diegmata Alethe (‘True History’) by Loukianos; and also the various lists of animals in the Kumulipo}
Bugs, Beetles, Cockroach, Midges, Lice, Springers [fleas], "Soft Skin things", "Hard Skin things", "Line fish", "Shell fish", "Small moving things", "Creepers". |
pp. 218-9 peoples transformed into sea-animals by deluge; emmets, in Marquesan myth
p. 218 |
"Rambke ... refers to two related chanted which told of the destruction of ancient homelands ... . They may well be the same as Lawson’s deluge account since Rambke also refers to the stinking waters and also gives long lists of fish names. According to Rambke ... |
p. 219 |
the people were converted into fish. ... In the [#] two version the former countries and their inhabitants ... (... gone back to their home land in marine forms) were declared taboo, their names not [to] be mentioned ... . After the second destruction, Rambke tells us, ‘the population emigrating ... is called crawfish and Tunas for one and sharks for the other one. ...’ Elsewhere, in referring to the settlement of Ua Huka and Ua Pou, Rambke tells us that the first settlers were called ‘sometimes ... people, sometimes sharks or Tunas or crawfish’ while at Nukuhiva, ‘the immigrants ... were called ANTS’. These ants defeated the original inhabitants ... the turtle, representing the defeated party." {"Ant People could actually be those who were cast down from the skies, perhaps from Orion itself." ("AO") -- "the turtle as Orion’s Belt" (SGM, p. 269a).} {Howbeit, emmets are not indigenous to Polynesia, but rather "The entire ant faunas of remote Polynesian islands consist of introduced species." ("PNRP")} |
"AO" = "Anthills of Orion" http://www.theorionzone.com/anthills.htm
SGM = Susan Milbrath : Star Gods of the Maya. U of TX Pr, 1999. http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA267&lpg=PA267&dq=
"PNRP" = http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2984/1534-6188(2008)62[117:PONIRP]2.0.CO;2?journalCode=pasc
p. 219 superbeing appearing at long intervals of time
"Irish mythology has a similar story of a universal flood and the survival of the superior shaman Finntann, also known as the Salmon of Knowledge, who swam around the coast of Ireland and appeared in human form at times of crisis to give advice ... (See O’Grady 1881, 1:77-81) |
rather like his equivalent Lo>au appears at widely separated intervals in Tonga to give similar advice (for Lo>au see Gifford 1924:41, 73 and passim.)." |
O’Grady 1881 = Standish O’Grady : History of Ireland. Dublin.
Gifford 1924 = Edward Winslow Gifford : Tongan Myths and Tales.
birth of chief as occasion for recital of sacred chants
(p. 221) "Lawson’s cycle of the Take appears to have been chanted and performed at the birth of a chief". |
(K, p. 8) The Kumulipo likewise was an "An ancient prayer for the dedication of the high chief ... to the gods soon after his birth". |
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(K, p. 176) "Word of such ceremonial functions has as yet come from but two sources, from the Marquesas, reported by Handy, and from the Tuamotus, by Percy Smith." |
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(p. 221) "The ancient chants recorded by Rambke were mostly sung at deaths." |
(K, p. 9) Also, the Kumulipo was recited when the outgoing chief "was lying on his deathbed." |
K = Martha Warren Beckwith : The Kumulipo. 1951. http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/ku/ku29.htm
Handy, Edward S. C. : Marquesan Native Culture. (BERNICE PAUAHI BISHOP MUSEUM BULL. 9.) Honolulu, 1923. pp. 314-30.
Smith, S. Percy : "Some Paumotu Chants," JOURNAL OF THE POLYNESIAN SOCIETY, XII (Wellington, 1913), 221-42.
pp. 221-2 enunciation in chants
p. 221 |
"A chant was spoken in ‘much prolonged’ notes, "and towards the close, the voice is shaken in a hoarse undulation" (quoted, Stewart 1831, I:273)." |
p. 222 |
"declaims ..., concluding with a sharp sound like the bark of a dog, directed toward the audience, who return a suitable response, in general chorus resembling a low growl (quoted, Stewart 1831, I:273)." |
Stewart 1831 = C. S. Stewart : A Visit to the South Seas. 2 vols. NY.
p. 223 other performance-styles
"there was a single male dancer – perhaps a clown acting as a foil to show off ... the chiefly woman. Clowns ... were important throughout Polynesia." |
fn. 43 : Vilson Hereniko : Polynesian Clowns and Satirical Comedies. Doctoral thesis, University of the South Pacific, 1990.
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pp. 225-9 Tina Hamrin : "The ‘Dancing Religion’ in Hawai>i".
pp. 225-6 biography of the founderess
p. 225 |
"Odoru Shukyo, the ‘Dancing Religion’, with the official name Ten-sho-Kotai-Jingu-Kyo, is a so called new religion in Japan, which is centered around its ... leader Kitamura Sayo who went through {a transcendent spiritual experience} in 1942. As kyoso, or founder[ess] of a new religious sect, she ... showed ... a magnetic personality and supernormal powers. Kitamura Sayo was initially controlled by the possessing elements, but after a while she could control her spirits {this progression (from being passively controlled to actively controlling) being usual likewise in Siberian shamanhoods}, and she was able to communicate with another world ... . ... In 1944 she became possessed by Tobyo, a snake spirit that took its abode in her stomach. ... Unlike some people {such as Tantrik practitioners, assorted Hellenistic sorcery-conjurors, and the like}, she did not totally identify herself with the supernatural, but only communicated with it. ... Kitamura Sayo also started to control Tobyo, but in comparison with a Tungus shaman who had a snake as a helping spirit, ... she danced ... dance steps but, in a wild way. ... on Hawai>i ... Kitamura Sayo arrived in 1952. ... |
p. 226 |
When the Japanese become ill they depended solely on faith healers. Odaishisans, miracle-working intercessionary people that linked the world of spirits with this world, ... were highly respected ... . They blessed, healed, warded off evil, gave protection, slipped into a trance and spoke with the dead, had visions, divined omens, etc. ... . When Kitamura Sayo arrived in Hawai>i ... she ... resembled a kuchiyose miko (female shamans wandering from village to village, closely connected with a given deity whom they serve as a mouth piece). ... Kitamura Sayo got the epithet Ogamisama, and because of the ecstatic dances she performed she was called ‘the Dancing Goddess’. The trance dance, muga-no-mai, ... was ... spontaneous ...: the dancers were clapping hands, spinning on one spot with arms stre[t]ched out, or waving arms downward left and right. {This is closely similar to the spontaneous spirit-possession-inspired dancing by the Shaking Quakers.} It was a seven-hour long ceremony, with a lunch-break at noon. ... My informants are between 55 and 85 years old and prefer three hours of dancing. I danced together with them ... . ... According to the members of the ‘Dancing Religion’ ... the most important thing Ogamisama taught them was akurei-saido, redemption of evil spirits." {This is a favorite Bodish (especially in the rN~in-ma denomination) dedication.} |
p. 228 |
"Because of her background in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, the dance is historically connected with the bon-dance performed in the seventh month to salvage souls ... being hanged head down in the preta-world". {Souls of saints suspended upside-down from the ceiling of heaven are commonplaces of Jaina hagiography.} |
pp. 226-8 multiple souls; exorcism of intrusive souls
p. 226 |
"The ancient Japanese had ... a dualism of the souls, consisting of a free soul and a body soul. ... |
p. 227 |
In the ‘Dancing Religion’ ikiryo is a free soul. The malevolent ikiryo is another form of the soul of the living than ikimitama ... . ... Ikiryo plays an important role as a subclass in the class of rei. It is a soul defined as an evil spirit, belonging to the akurei class ... . ... The free soul, or ‘evil spirit’, looked exactly like the person to whom it belonged ... . Ikiryo could be avoided or sent back to its origin by ... a magic formula ... from the Nichiren sect ... . Then the possessing spirit leaves through ‘the gassho’. Gassho is used to describe the gesture used ... in prayer. In other words a possessing soul ... leaves through the finger-tips. When a living person sends his free soul to possess someone, Ogamisama can exorcise ikiryo, but she cannot redeem {convert} the possessing element, only send it back. If the person, to whom the soul belongs, converts and becomes a member of the ‘Dancing Religion’, then the character of the free soul changes. When it is ..., ... ikiryo transforms into a tenshi, similar to kokyu-rei or redeemed spirit. ... A living person changes from ikiryo, an evil free soul, to tenshi, ... working for a ‘spiritual homeland’, kokoro no furusato (home of the heart) ... . |
In a state of muga a believer can redeem evil spirits ... . ... the members put themselves in a muga state before they start dancing the so called trance dance. ... After the recitation of na-myo-ho-renge-kyo comes the ‘ecstasy dance’. When the follower is in this ... state his prayer [will] have the power to exorcise instantly all evil spirits including malignant free souls of living persons. According to the members they sometimes ‘speak in tongues’ during the times of spiritual ecstasy activated by dancing. {Speaking in tongues (in this case, in languages of ghosts of possessing-spirits of exotic nationalities) is characteristic of Shaking Quakers.} Phrases in Chinese, English, or other languages are uttered, believed to be the words of spirits which have entered the speakers’ bodies to express gratitude for having been saved. Upon recovering from this hypnotic state, the subjects stated that they |
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p. 228 |
were unable to recall having said anything while participating in the ecstasy dance." "After the dance none of my informants felt the pains they had felt before. The dance had been a pain killer." |
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pp. 231-42 Jonathan Horwitz : "Absence of ‘Performance’ in the Shamanic Rite". [Kas^aya Pomo (southeastern Pomo, in Sonoma County, CA)]
pp. 238-9 sacred Acorn Dance
p. 238 |
"The Big-head is a head-dress consisting of wands radiating out from the crown. To these wands are attached tufts of feathers ... . ... Weya, power, was filling the room. ... The crown of the Big-head was made of thin braided branches. |
p. 239 |
... I put my hands on the huge redwood trunk which held up the Roundhouse, which held up the world." |
"Folk Tales of the Kashaya" http://rrparks.mcn.org/fortross/ftales.htm
"Two Undersea Youths" (excerpt from Kashaya Texts, pp. 272sq) http://ia700104.us.archive.org//load_djvu_applet.php?file=22/items/rosettaproject_kju_vertxt-1/rosettaproject_kju_vertxt-1.djvu
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pp. 243-52 Eleanor Ott : "Ethics & the Neo-Shaman".
p. 244 [S^os^oni] puha-gan ‘power-possessor’
[quoted from Hultkrantz (1987:58)] "Standing on z hilltop, the puhagan shook the gourd and sang the ‘antelope song.’ This song called the animals and ended with a sound imitating them. The animals drew near and were surrounded by the hunters, who easily caught or killed the." |
Hultkrantz 1987 = Oake Hultkrantz : Native American Religions. NY : Harper & Row.
pp. 245-6, 250 [Maine] Penobscot shamanism
p. 245 |
In Penobscot, a medicine person "was known as a mede>olinu, for a man, and a mede>olinas.kwe, for a woman. ... In old Delaware, ... mete>u means ‘one who drums,’ referring to ‘the practice of medicine men of beating drums ... .’ In modern Delaware meteu |
p. 246 |
‘denotes a turkey-cock (or ruffled grouse) which drums with its wings.’ The male of this colorful woodland bird has the peculiar courtship habit of rapidly beating his wings producing a deep resonating sound". |
Amongst the Penobscot, medicine persons were [quoted from Speck 1919:256] "accredited with the power ... to roll away a heavy rock [from a water-spring, instance on p. 248, citing Speck 1919:265], ... to foresee the approach of strangers, to remain beneath the water, ... to render themselves invisible". |
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p. 250 |
"Among the Penobscot the spirit helper is known as the baohi>gan, which Speck explains as being an "instrument of mystery" (1919:249). |
[quoted from Speck 1919:251] "the baohi>gan could be sent ... to work for his (or her) master [or mistress] the shaman. It could be sent on any mission ... . We are told, too, that the owner remained inert {in cataleptic trance} while his (her) the baohi>gan was way." |
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"Most frequently, the the baohi>gan assumed animal form." ... Although a shaman among the Penobscot usually had but one baohi>gan, ... "... a powerful magician ... had seven."" Instance of publicly displaying the the baohi>gan-s : [quoted from Speck 1919:252] "Some of the tribe followed ... until he stopped by the shore of a lake. There he sang and sang until an immense eel arose from the water ... . He took its head between his hands and stroked it softly ... . The wolf, the beaver, and the bear were some of his other servants and he would never hurt them nor eat their flesh." |
Speck 1919 = Frank G. Speck : Penobscot Shamanism. MEMOIRS OF THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, Vol. 6, No. 4.
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pp. 253-62 Geoffrey Samuel : "Performance, Vision & Transformation in Shamanic Ritual".
p. 254 [Panama`] Cuna shamanic travel
"(Le’vi-Strauss 1977), is based on ... a journey made by the shaman with the aid of his helping spirits to the land of Muu. {cf. the mythic Mu folk of Sandwich Islanders; the mythic Mu folk of New Zealand} Muu is a powerful female spirit who looks after the process of childbirth, but who is thought of as behaving improperly and uncontrollably until induced by the shaman to perform her duties correctly. The land of Muu is also the woman’s body, ... on the analogy between what is happening on the shamanic journey and ... happening within her body." {By inducing the spirits to function properly on their macrocosmic journey, the goddess Muu is so chastised that the appropriate response by that goddess is secured, resultant in that goddess’s consenting to properly inducing the natural childbirth in the expectant mother. The mother’s understanding of the shamanic process is pertinent in that it would induce the mother to submit (less resistingly and) more devoutly to the goddess’s ministrations on that woman’s body.} |
Le’vi-Strauss 1977 = Claude Le’vi-Strauss : "The Effectiveness of Symbols". In :- Structural Anthropology. Harmondsworth : Penguin Bks. Vol. I, pp. 186-206.
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BIBLIOTHECA SHAMANISTICA, Vol. 1 = Tae-gon Kim & Miha`ly Hoppa`l (edd.) : Shamanism in Performing Arts. Akade`miai Kiado`, Budapest, 1995.
[2nd conference (1993) of the International Society for Shamanistic Research, in Budapest, Hungary]