This is the first doctoral level Ainu study outside Japan from an indigenous perspective, and the first academic Ainu study ever from a female perspective. This study examines the indigenous history and shamanism of northern Japan, Hokkaido andTsugaru, in the context of the Ainu culture complex. Tsugaru was the last autonomous stronghold of the Ainu people in Honshu, remaining largely independent until it came under the control of the Japanese state, the Edo government, in the seventeenth century. Tsugaru has developed a distinct hybrid culture as a result of gradual mtermixing with non-indigenous populations, though an Ainu consciousness has never completely died out in the region. A comparison between Hokkaido Ainu shamanism and Tsugaru shamanism reveals the relative recentness of their contemporary characteristics, their shared roots prior to the Edo period, as well as changes in gender roles and aspects of gender inequity. In both traditions, shamanism has been transmitted primarily by the female population, and in the past, indigenous women played an essential role in maintaining social and spiritual integrity. The centrality of women came to manifest itself differently in the two regions, due mainly to differing socio-historical circumstances which transformed two originally similar cultures into divergent forms. This study questions the stereotypical ethnic opposition between the Ainu and the "Japanese," and sheds light on the intricate relationship among the Ainu and other indigenous groups in northern Japan. It also questions the powerful Ainu male myth and narratives which shaped much of the Ainu's cultural revival movement in the past century. Firthermore, by revealing a significant level of shared spiritual beliefs and practices between the past and present inhabitants of the Japanese archepelago of Japan and the traditional peoples of Northeast Asia and byond the Bering Strait, the study will point to a need for both Ainu study and Japanese study to be placed within the larger cultural domain, namely, the northern circumpacific region. / Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Graduate

This dissertation applies anthropology analysis to study a specie of a tree frog, living in the northern Amazonia, called Kambo. The wax-like substance, which the frog releases upon irritation, is used for its healing potential around the world. A basic conceptual framework is used to analyse the frog from the perspective of modernity, globalisation, and diffusion of cultural dimensions. The dissertation anticipates their influences on multiple parties. The geographical scope of the dissertation is limited on Amazonia and the Czech Republic. Kambo is a host of numerous biochemical interactions; in addition, it is used in socio-material context; in rituals; for gaining, or circulation of experience; or it is part of various techniques of understanding oneself, as described in later works of Michel Foucault. Due to Kambo's alleged participation on creation of human's subjective thinking, the dissertation answers the question on the extent to which Kambo could be responsible, through ethnographic lens. The results show that for those respondents who were experienced Kambo users; using the substance as a potion for treating physiological and mental issues and who were subsequently influenced by New Age movement; Kambo stands as a milestone in their life trajectories. Through the ethnographic research,...

This diploma thesis deals with what one must do in order to become an ayahuasca neo-shaman, or what specific ayahuasca neo-shaman habitus one must acquire in order to be considered a neo-shaman and to be able to perform ayahuasca rituals. For this the author used methods of carnal ethnography and autoetnography. Ayahuasca rituals are embedded in a broader anthropological theory of rites of passage and are examined in the framework of carnal ethnography by the method of observed participation, while semi-structured interviews with neo-shamans are used also. As part of the autoetnography, the author experienced a neo-shaman habitus on himself, which allowed him to easily look into the otherwise non-transferable structure of the neo-shaman habitus. This research has shown that there are three key parts for the ayahuasca neo-shaman habitus, ie the "ecstatic", "didactic" and "material", but their forms are different for each neo-shaman, due to their specific life trajectories. The resulting ritual is then the product of the specific bricolage of each neo-shaman and mixes elements and techniques of different traditions and cultures. Keywords shaman, shamanism, neo-shaman, neo-shamanism, ayahuasca, habitus, carnal ethnography, autoetnography, ritual, rites of passage

The research I present within this thesis is a meaning analysis of contemporary shamanism for practitioners in the north of Norway and Sweden. I have used ethnographic research methods of observation, participation, conversations, interviews, context research and analysis of written texts. My aim has been to research the meaning of the sacred in the lives of contemporary shamanic practitioners, by using a theoretical framework from psychology of religion made by Paloutzian (2005). By using this frame I have focused on practitioners understanding of spiritual beliefs and ultimate concerns. As to view how these come forth in expressions of self-definition, values, goals, purposes and attitudes. My conclusions have been that contemporary shamanism is viewed as a spiritual understanding of the world that is expressing itself differently within cultural practices and geographical spaces. It is a worldview that is connecting people through shared beliefs and understandings. These understandings create strong values on how we should act with eachother, nature and our own self, as we are viewed as belonging to each other in a spiritual perspective. These values come in conflict with social and political structures built on other values and attitudes. Practitioners speak of a call for change in structures, the need of understanding our history and our belonging with eachother and nature for our own wellbeing and our world to survive. As some engage in social activism and other social engagements, others view their goal as to”walk in beauty”(Gaup 2007).

Abstract: This essay is a comparative study conducted on several iron staffs and a few staffs made of wood believed to be either roasting spits, measurement rods or staffs of sorcery. The aim of the study is to distinguish if all the staffs can be perceived as staffs of sorcery or which of them should not be considered as such. Also if there is a standard type of staffs of sorcery. Furthermore the study will also contain the question, if the ritual specialization of “volur” could be a role in which an ordinary matron would be able to perform as. Another question is if the Sami shamanism share features with the Nordic ritual of “seidr”, if so, is there reason to believe the staffs also might share features with shamanism.

This thesis constructs an ethnography for the nineteenth century ǀXam Bushmen of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, known primarily through a nineteenth century manuscript collection of oral narrative (the Bleek-Lloyd archive), which has, over the past twenty-five years, increasingly become the focus of scholarly attention, mined for insights about the cultural world of southern Bushman societies. It draws on the Bleek-Lloyd archive to produce a detailed ethnographic case study, focusing on the ideological and ontological concepts that underpinned the differentiation of ǀXam society. Firstly, the thesis situates the archive and ǀXam society within their particular environmental and historical contexts, providing valuable supplementary information that informs readings of the narratives. By producing a fully searchable transcription of the entirety of the archive, paying close attention to emic terminology, and examining the recurrence of thematic associations of this phraseology throughout the narratives, the analysis explores the constitution of ǀXam ‘personhood’ and examines the extent to which the ‘hunter-gatherer’ category forms a useful heuristic for understanding ǀXam society, with a particular focus on models of the ‘animic ontology’. The ǀXam deployed a series of positively and negatively evaluated traits in the creation of dimensions of authority, obligation, and social responsibility, embedded in particular social identities; central to these constructions and to the differentiation of these identities were the techniques and resources of ǀXam subsistence practices, salient in the production of admirable (socially-responsible hunters), reprehensible (antagonistic ‘beasts of prey’), and more ambiguous (ǃgi:tǝn ritual specialists) identities. Recognising this internal differentiation, the thesis outlines ǀXam ‘subsistence strategies’ and suggests they should be defined broadly to include their contacts and interactions with non-ǀXam groups, with domesticated animals, and with the novel material culture of the colonial period; these interactions were a consequence of their ‘hunter-gatherer’ strategies rather than a negation of them. Such strategies generated experiences that reinforced and reconstituted ǀXam ideological frameworks, incorporating the dynamics of the nineteenth century ‘frontier’ scenario and provided avenues for social change that ultimately led to the collapse of independent hunter-gatherer lifeways, and to the adoption of strategies that incorporated ǀXam individuals within rural and urban ‘Coloured’ populations of the Northern Cape; placing the ǀXam in a comparative colonial context, the thesis stresses the wider relevance of this particular ethnography for understanding hunter-gatherer engagements with food-producing, state-level societies.

The musicians in E. T. A. Hoffmann's tales and essays demonstrate traits remarkably similar to those of shamans. Hoffmann uses the same imagery to describe the journey of the composer into the "realm of dreams," where he receives inspiration, as the shaman uses to describe the spirit world to which he journeys via music. Hoffmann was a major force in changing the 18th-century view of music as an "innocent luxury" to the 19th-century idea of music as a higher art. As a German Romantic,author, he subscribed to the idea championed by the Schlegels that true poetry is based on myth. In this thesis, Hoffmann's writings are compared with shamanic mythology to demonstrate a similarity beyond mere coincidence, without drawing conclusions about influence.

The aim of this diploma thesis was to define the basic features of traditional Mongolian treatment guidelines, with an emphasis on traditions of non-buddhist treatment. The main attention was paid to the healing method "dom", which stands on the border between folk medicine and magic, and is part of Mongolian cultural traditions. The first chapter "Classification of Mongolian traditional medicine" is dedicated to arranging the division of medical techniques in Mongolian territory and tries to set the techniques into historical context. The second chapter "Healing Tradition in the territory of Mongolia" focuses on the description of each treatment technique. The third chapter is devoted to the treatment of the Mongolian tradition called "dom". Since the Western literature refers to "dom" as magic, attention is paid first to magic. The second part consists of interviews on the issue and the definition of "dom" recorded in Mongolia and the final part follows with concrete examples of the "dom" set within the wider context of traditional methods of medical treatment. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

A partir de um trabalho de campo, este estudo pretende apresentar ao não-índio um aspecto da cultura tradicional Kawahib, com o qual espera-se abrir espaço para novas reflexões para os que querem atuar em cursos de formação indígena. Por outro lado, levar a pensar sobre a educação formal, favorecendo ao professor indígena, em termos de formação, o acesso às informações e aos conhecimentos diversos da sociedade nacional e demais sociedades. Uma pesquisa etnográfica foi realizada, com a aplicação de métodos qualitativos, por meio da observação participante, a partir da qual procurou-se demonstrar a visão cosmogônica dos Kawahib sobre um universo dividido em metades, no qual nada é completo, assim, também, se constituem as metades sociais que se completam através do casamento. Se para o Kawahib há uma concepção de meio universo, também se abre a do meio-indivíduo, embora este possa ser considerado como uma unidade de consciência, denominada ga’ra’o. Termo de designação tanto para o seu corpo quanto para a sua alma, mesmo assim, ainda, considerado uma metade, que poderá ter a prerrogativa de conquistar sua outra metade, o rupigwara. O conceito de rupigwara é o do corpo do sujeito no sonho, sob controle; consciente e atuante, que precisa sofrer o processo de mbojipowahav, ser amansado, configurado. O recurso para expor tal conceito, foi o da construção de um arquétipo do sujeito xamã kawahib, com seus sonhos conscientes através do procedimento da ae’Tokaia, como local para efetuar seus processos de realização de cura e aprendizagem, durante as suas visitas em “outros mundos", por intermédio do seu rupigwara. / Based on a fieldwork, this study aims at presenting to the non-Indian one aspect of the traditional Kawahib culture. With this work we hope to offer new ideas for those who want to work with Indigenous education. Moreover we hope to provide food for thoughts about formal education, which can help the Indigenous teacher, by offering them access to diverse knowledge of society. We developed an ethnographical research project as we applied qualitative method through participatory observation, from which we show Kawahib´s cosmogonist vision of the universe, which is divided into halves, nothing being complete, in the same way that the social halves are constituted and completed through marriage. If for the Kawahib people there is a conception of half universe, the half-individual also opens itself, although this may be considered as a unity of consciousness, which is called ga'ra'o. This is a term applied both to the body and to the soul, even being just a half. This half can conquer the other half that is the rupigwara. The concept of rupigwara is that of the subject´s body when in dream, under control; conscious and active needing to go through mbojipowahav process, to be tamed and set up. The resource to show such a concept was the building of an archetype the shaman Kawahib, who with his conscious dream through the procedures of ae'Tokaia, as the local to effectuate the processes of achievement of cure and learning during his visits to the "other worlds" through his rupigwara.

Ao pôr do sol, quando o som do pilão começa a ecoar pela aldeia, é possível acompanhar os passos dos senhores Hupdäh (Maku) que vão caminhando vagarosamente, saudando-se e sentando-se em seus bancos para formar as rodas de coca (p&#361\'&#361k/ ipadú. Enquanto a fumaça dos cigarros de tabaco tateia os ares noturnos, o pó verde da coca (erythroxylum coca) vai sendo derramado nas bocas. Em meio às conversas, mitos começam a ser contados, benzimentos são ensinados e andanças pelos caminhos da mata são comentadas. Murmurando palavras para cigarros ou cuias, alguns dos participantes executam ações xamânicas para curar ou proteger pessoas. Ao sentar-me com os Hupdäh, habitantes da região do Alto Rio Negro, AM, entendi que os encontros noturnos podem ser vistos como um modo de ação que permite aos participantes constituírem percursos de observação a partir de seus próprios movimentos em meio às palavras sopradas dos encantamentos, às narrativas míticas e aos passos trilhados pelos caminhos que atravessam a floresta. Neste trabalho, as rodas de coca são tomadas como performances, contextos que associam os fazeres mítico e xamânico a partir de uma forma relacional particular que articula distintas formas de mobilidade e de interação. Procura-se delinear como esses modos de ação mobilizam sensória e experiencialmente os viajantes hup, permitindo a interação com diversos seres em múltiplas paisagens, campos de percepção e ação para o engajamento mútuo em processos de transformação ao longo do mundo / When the sound of the crusher can be heard all over the village at sunset, the Hupdäh seniors may be seen walking slowly while they greet each other and then sit on their stools to form the rounds of coca. While the tobacco cigarette smoke spreads through the night air, the green coca powder is poured into their mouths. During their conversations myths are told, spells are taught and walks through the jungle paths are talked about. Whispering spells to their cigarettes or bowls, some participants perform shamanic actions to cure and protect people. On sitting with the Hupdäh, inhabitants of the Alto Rio Negro region, I realized that their night meetings can be seen as a mode of action which allows the participants to delineate their paths of observation from their own movements within their whispered spells, their myths stories, their steps on the trails that go through the jungle. In this study the rounds of coca are regarded as performances, contexts which associating the mythic and shamanic agencies constitute a particular relational form which articulates distinct ways of mobility and interaction. This study tries to describe how these modes of action mobilize the Hupdäh traveler in a sensory and experiential way enabling them to interact with several beings in different landscapes in order to achieve the mutual engagement in transformation processes by following a way of life along the world.