The Living Ancestors (eBook)

Zeljko Jokic is a Visiting Fellow at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, and Research Assistant at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Formerly, he worked at the Amazonian Centre for Investigation and Control of Tropical Diseases and as a consultant for the Inter-American Organization for the Elimination of Onchocerciasis.

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction


Shamanism: Origins and Key Features

Yanomami Shamanism: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

The Book’s Subject Matter and its Guiding Principles

Fieldwork Setting and Methodology

The Book’s Outline


Chapter 1. Life on Top of the Old Sky: Yanomami Habitat, Ethnographic Setting and Local Histories


Yanomami Habitat

Historical Migratory Movements and Encounters

The Sweeping Winds of Change and its Consequences

Platanal and Sheroana-theri at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century


Chapter 2. Inside the Boa’s Abdomen: The Yanomami Cosmos


Holographic Totality of the Yanomami Cosmos

No Patapi tëhë: The Ever-present Mythical Time of Creation

Origin Myths


Chapter 3. Hekura, Body and Illness


Shamans and Hekura

Epena: Transformative Substance and Aliment for Hekura

Shamanism in Myths and in Contemporary Context

Yanomami Conception of a Person and Causes of Illness


Chapter 4. Hekuraprai: Corporeal Cosmogenesis


Summary of the Initiatory Ordeal

Transformation into Hekura: Day-by-Day Process

Cosmic Body and its Dynamism

First Trance: Re-experience of Death and the Beginning of Hekuramou


Chapter 5. Oneiric Encounters


Hekuramou and Expansion of Shamanistic Powers

Dreams and Shamanism

Dream Lucidity and the Transitional States of Dream Consciousness

Dreams, Illness and Healing


Chapter 6. Shamanic Battlefield: The Pendulum of Life and Death


Shapori’s New Identity and Social Obligation on the Intracommunal Level

The Dialectics between Defensive and Offensive Hekuramou

Body Intrusion and the Dynamics of the Cosmic Flow

Shaporimou and Intersubjective Knowledge Diffusion


Chapter 7. Two Pathways to Curing and in Between: Biomedical and Shamanic Treatment in the Life of Yanomami


Shamanism and Biomedicine: Compatibility and Differences

Dynamics of Doctor-Shapori-Patient Interaction

Yanomami Responses to Diarrhoea, Malaria and Respiratory Infections


Chapter 8. Return of the Ancestors: The All-pervading Shawara, The End of the World and the Beginning of a New Epoch


The Origin of Shawara Epidemics

Further Expansion of the Shawara Concept

The End of the World and the Beginning of Another Cosmic Cycle


Postscript: Recent Developments

Glossary of Yanomami Terms
Bibliography
Index