27.2 (Summer 2003) Shamanisms and Survival

The recent history of Tibet has been one of sorrow. Despite the relative impenetrability of its mountains, it was invaded and occupied by armies of the Communist Peoples Republic of China in 1950. After an unsuccessful popular revolt in 1959, thousands of Tibetan refugees fled across the Himalayan Mountains to India and Nepal, and a government in exile was established under the Dalai Lama, the traditional leader of Tibet. Since that time, the refugee communities have grown larger every year, as more Tibetans flee severe political and cultural repression in their Native land.

A plan before Brazil’s House of Representatives calling for the division of the state of Amazonas could have a significant impact on the indigenous peoples who live there.The state of Amazonas in the northern region of Brazil, represent

“Ahlan, Nora!” exclaimed the two Bedouin boys who had just come to the door of my art gallery in Dahab, Sinai. I have worked for 20 years in the Sinai as a photographer, and know many of the Bedouin families there well. Because Laura is an unusual name for the Bedouin, they call me the more common name Nora, which means “Light” in Arabic.

“Yes, I know of Sun Bear. He’s a plastic medicine man.”— Matthew King, Oglala Lakota Elder, 1985

Shamanism, humanity’s most ancient spiritual practice, has undergone a dramatic modern resurgence.

In 1984 the Gitxsan of northern British Columbia, Canada, and the neighboring Witsuwit’en First Nation launched a landmark land claims case in response to incursion on their territories culminating in clear-cut logging operations. In this lengthy case, called Delgamuukw v. Regina, Gitxsan and Witsuwit’en head chiefs testified they had never given up rights to their land and culture that were based on shamanic traditions intimately tied to a system of hereditary chiefs.

In this issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly, readers are introduced to the extraordinary category of people who have come to be known as “shaman”—those otherworldly men and women chosen by the spirits to mediate between the hu

When Steve Powley and his son Roddy were charged for hunting moose contrary to the province of Ontario’s Game and Fish Act 10 years ago, they claimed that, as Métis, they had a right to hunt for food. The Powleys won the case three times in lower courts before the Ontario government appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. The case was heard in March in Ottawa.Canada recognized the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis as aboriginal peoples in the 1982 constitution, but the rights of the Métis have never been defined.

The “top-down” policy of development implemented in Benin gives an absolute priority to medium and large-sized towns, to the detriment of the rural areas of the country.

Ayahuasca is a sacred brew that has a long history of ritual use among indigenous groups of the Upper Amazon.

A recent anthropological emphasis holds that there is not one universal shamanism, but many shamanisms. The diversity of shamanistic and mediumistic practices in Nepal supports this argument. Although the country’s specific ethnic groups can each be associated with particular religious or ritual practices, it is more useful to think of these cultural strands as part of the larger Hindu-Buddhist-shamanistic ritual system that is prevalent among the hill communities and reflects Nepal’s complex geographical, linguistic, and cultural diversity.

Sovereign Diné Nation,
Window Rock, Arizona
May 11, 1984

The Ainu are the largest indigenous population of Japan. They descended from the first peoples on the Japanese archipelago, commonly referred to as the Jômon, who migrated there more than 10,000 years ago.

The area known as the Mpimbwe Division, lying at the northern end of Tanzania’s Rukwa Valley, is home to the Pimbwe people. Lakes Katavi and Chada are sacred to the Pimbwe, and their former chiefs are believed to be buried at Lake Chada where the Pimbwe god Katabi can be seen driving herds of hippopotamus along the shore. With the establishment of the Katavi Game Reserve in 1954, as well as the Katavi National Park and its recent extension, the Pimbwe, who are traditionally hunters and horticulturists, have lost access to the rich flood plains and part of their spiritual homeland.

Edtor’s note: This article is adapted from a speech given by Joseph Gosnell on March 3, 2003, for the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora
By Elizabeth McAlister
University of California Press 2002
ISBN 0-520-22823-5

Northern Cheyenne NationTwo Moons’ Camp Rosebud Creek, Montana USA October 1980

Indigenous groups are often intimately connected with the land they inhabit. The survival of their culture is inexorably linked to the survival of the natural resources they depend on and and relies on recognition by national governments of indigenous land rights The Pumé Project, a Cultural Survival Special Project, was established to document the land and resource usage and needs of the Pumé people and to provide the Venezuelan government with information that may lead to the establishment of land tenure rights and ownership.