The Living Ancestors

Zeljko Jokic received his PhD in Social Anthropology in 2004 at the University of Sydney. Since then he lectured at various universities, conducted a short-term fieldwork in Siberia and worked as a Research Assistant at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. He also spent several years working as a consultant for the Inter-American Organization for the Elimination of Onchocerciasis at the Amazonian Centre for Investigation and Control of Tropical Diseases, Puerto Ayacucho, Venezuela. Currently, he is a Policy Officer at the Health and Medical Research Office of the Australian Government Department of Health.

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