shamanism
to be able to willfully communicate w/ the spirit worlds course - politics of representation, narative conventions goal is to mess w/ your head, find what preconceptions you already have most potential shamans resist it - you have to listen to the voices shaman represents other experiences, even inside that culture, yet they strong figuresBlack Elk Speaks"the power is inthe meaning" can be fringe or relevent - it's the known symbols + issues that make shaman relavent has to be removed, but can then see from afar very literal tie to nature how he's set apart - visions - need to make them known - responibility to help bring life visions - he trying to find the solution to a riddle? power of intent and of visualizing results - make it true that way his power comes from power of belief - anyone could convince themselves that they have power, but he had visions - had no doubt of power also caught in history - past experience of other medicine men - they knew what his power should be the people that he heals also have to believe in his power - that's why he had to do the horse dance; also tradition of tribe - religion [forward- we need to read this - we are alienated/isolated manichean dualism - good/evil, black/white distance between them and me - morrored in shaman/tribe relationship; wisdom <=> distance putting people on a pedastle - takes connection away can use distance to create respect [for a certain essence] shamans are on a pedastle, but it's a shakey one ]
"macking on the power + beauty..." handwriting has become a personal language - sometimes only i can understand it, and others can if they know me if i had an indian name it would be "sits-on-windowsills" "the better you can express yourself in writing, the better you... orally, the less people will think you're a dork." "pride - the only one of the dealy sins that's actually a sin. the rest are character building" BG 9/9/98
Eliade --
[psychopomp - guide of souls (technical term) epistomology - study of ways of knowing epiphany - showing knowledge ontology - study of waysof being hierophony - showing hierarchy cosmology - rules of order of universe kratophony - showing power ] we want to find common threads - universality shamans on fringe - understand fringe - can help people who venture there specific arena in which we can see what reality is - people can look at it, relate to it shamans able to go back to what used to be able to do - go back to collective memory time time-traveler illud tempus [language - smokescreen hiding what's inside. or are words all there is? words are reality?] dreams and experiences are no good if don't have infrastructure to make them important nature of belief? what about personal importance - personal belief? timelessness of elements of shamanism - yet shamans must go to other time - "eternal" ecstasy - conscious stripped away leaving essential self (naked) two kinds of teaching - mentor mythological/historical + ecstatic travel can't get out of visions (terror) until heal self and others isolation at a very existencial level - ontologically sacred - put ona pedestal [image] antistructure - opposite of normal is celebrated liminal space - unlimited, magical _____ - ritually ripe/receptive | | | / ----- \ / transformation / \ sacred --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- / \ secular moment or departure moment of return ____ ____ | | | | ---- ---- restructure structure (neutral) [models also adolescence] [implies return as well...] how get from citizen to technician of sacred? go thru crazy experience ~~~~~ dawn of time - before written history as study - wen acts of man were volition of greater forces [right side of brain - data, left side - modem - we've lost our modem connection] soul has been disconnected - can travel - knows territory cuz been there before nostalgia for paradise - shamanism defends world of light against dark strive to represent a past - make it present again; make present a world not available to us we can only project onto something of we are distanced - we project paradise on shaman
risk of fetishizing the things that interest us - humble curiosity is good, but it dangerous counsciousness begun to develop 3000 years ago (before - could hear gods in head) - it's still developing - wnat future be like? romance of ecstacy + travel
Levi-Strauss --
possibility that shamans have no connection yet be a successful healer connects mind to body thru spirit - not transferable to modern medicine doctor - provides actions, patient creates myth; shaman gives myth, patient does actions yet doctor does have role in constructing myth (?) can't reach subconscious w/ words - need actions do we unconsciously have ability to control our bodies? (psychosomatic) shaman reach back in time when did supernatural/super human time - more human than human bring myth down to personal level - believe can control forces seperates outside spirits from inside spirits does shaman deal w/ spirits or help patient deal w/ spirits? Cuna have explanation for shaman's power - don't question it - we try to describe it in our own terms - science as belief - we think it's in the mind - they'd say we're crazy abreaction - re-tell a story to make sense of it. ~~~~~ structuralism (levi-strauss) binary terms (not dialectic or dualism) - rational/emotional, good/evil,... paris of opposites, each given value when go into other culture - look for binaries - easy to see in oral texts - patterns not necessarily static - change/shift/move - a study is a slice in time + - sacred profane center perifery sky earth presence absence cosmos chaos [ahistory]<->[history] hot culture cold culture exegesis - observer stands outside - explanation from outside assumption of homogeneity in cultures we don't understand just because binaries seem to make sense doesn't mean doesn't mean everything must fillOrientalismhumans are made of many facets - to seperate out one is questionable generalizations - it's their obvious uses that can be dangerous strategic essentialism - reducing or breaking down to essence - then can't be scrutinized - obvious - duh may have stopped investigation too soon representation - "sign" - signifier - representations \ [signified - reality] - this will always be disputed, so have to appreciate representations nore differences - then accept it and make it part of your identity - that's troublesome denying people humanity - flaterring/simplifying them
female gymnast theory - if do something excellently, make it look easy
Harner --
simplifies shamanism - not like the intense things that happen to Black Elk or others waters down for the average person - scary enough + useful - we can't handle the intensity/aren't chosen there's also no communal investment - it's personal initiation - still need to come to edge of survival other "mentor" samans don't tell you exactly what to expect uses exotic imagery - be affraid of crocodiles - like in movies - just because it's popular doesn't mean it's not true he assumes universal set of symbols - can he? maybe he shouldn't call it shamanism - it has uses in healing, but it's a different kind doesn't have empirical method of science, and doesn't have cosmology of shamanism ~~~~~~ colapses distance between what we feel is unleanrable + us - we value b/c scarce need suffering [faith and reason are incompatable] advances a kind of cultural tourism - we get instant spiritual knowledge we choose what we take he waited two years, we wait two pagesTime and the Othermake sure we don't get won over by genres and narative forms that work against our goals we use chronology; assume time -> betterment -> time -> betterment -> time... (orientalism - distance - we represent the material/physical world in different "realities" - space between the two we like to be large - why? ) we look for fundamental commonalities by putting things on same level - can we? mis-representing our own culture? advocates use of same time/place write about anywhere, but the more time you have w/ material - you will be less sensationalist, more complex we are willing to talk about ritual in other places - for the most part won't/can't do it (seriously) in our culture* newtonian physics - two bodies can't occupy same space - get political thought from that ~~~~~ evolutionists - look at people (other cultures) along line - behind us along route we've already traveled - in the past this then says that we're on the same track - basic human structure same - dirrectly relative to us assumes goal is to get to our state cultural relativism - everything understood on it's own terms, using own definitions have to visualize world from another's point of view - hard to! asymtotic? but it does involve isolationis borders - can't understand it cuz aren't a part of it creates it's own distance
*paper: common ritual in our lives + recognition of it linear v. cyclical time? how can i believe in pattern (go out, encounter trouble, learn something, return) when i believe that you learn your entire life? we make arguments that don't necessarily believe in - why?
time and the other contn'd --
functionalism - make sense of other's cultural elements - wholistic view of culture parts all function to make whole work - logical once again - an enclosed unit - disallows connection to outside influences/worlds cultural personality - like stereotypes - dangerous because inflexible, but we all do it ethnographical present - assumes nothing changes - story we tell has always benn trueMedusa's Hairdeals with some of the problems of anthro - talks about one subjectivity we are both acted on by culture and shapers of it lots of symbols come from interpersonal relationships - what we call politics still imposed western psychological ideas priestesses didn't look for meaning cycle of symbols - has place in culture, then meaning to person (both personal and the drawn from history/culture) - then person is placed in culture... ~~~~~ suspicion of investigative process - coming to terms with imperfection + fragility of social investigation how culturally specific + changing idioms/smybols are borrowing of general guides - make it local - Buddhists + Hindus also use some of same gods culture is about appropriation + borrowing we live in shared world - it's our own orientalism that makes us think otherwise everyone has right to write about everyoneelse can't disallow explanation from outside should be vigilant about borrowing shaman - reaches out to other world + appropriates forms - communicate outside ideas ecstasy not just about mystical knowledge, but mundane, secular matters _____ flux, in motion ( the world is complicated, hard to pin down, yet we need to- generalization is necessary - for convenience + comfort, but can't do it casually - dangerous all about subject-subject relations respect for other worlds anthro is not nec. bad guy good to recognize local knowledge - yet it can be a naive priviledging of direct voice seperation - either real you is in you, or it is apart from you where should we locate truth? just because a person is closer to the experience being described doesn't necessarily mean that have priviledged access to truth. like inside our own heads - we're real close, but don't understand our true selves. (____ this material should be liberating
perhaps i'm too relativist "the world needs more explanation than less" bruce - true? "most peoples' idea of being profoundly themself is to be profoundly someone else" bruce harsh + masachistic view of cultural anth. - guilty of something u.s. - irrepressible cheerfullness - perfectionist view - must recognize problems + love them
Taussig: --
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