FEATURES

Kira Van Deusen
The Shamanic Use of Sound in Tuva, an excerpt from the book Singing Story, Healing Drum: Shamans and Storytellers of Turkic Siberia, describes the author’s ethnographic research into how Tuvan shamans use chanting and music to invoke spiritual energies for healing.

Henry Munn
Woman Wise in Words:  The Inspired Language of María Sabina, an excerpt from the book María Sabina:  Selections, explores the delicate interplay between individual innovation and traditional spiritual themes used in the chants of María Sabina, one of the best-known Mazatec chota chjine, wise ones.

Henry Munn
Voices of the Mushrooms:  The Shamanic Experiences of a Huautla Merchant offers several narratives showing how Mazatec individuals rely directly on psychoactive mushrooms for healing and for solving problems.

Lucas Carpenter
Psychotropic Shamanism in the Andes and Amazon of Ecuador presents insights into some similarities and differences found in Ecuador’s two principal traditional shamanic approaches to using ayahuasca.

Bradford Keeney, Ph.D.
A Bushman Initiation: Awakening the Spirit through Ecstatic Dance relates the author’s experiences traveling in the Kalahari Desert and undergoing an initiation as a traditional Bushman shaman.

ON THE FRONT COVER:  “María Sabina, Mazatec Wise Woman,” a painting by Timothy White, pays homage to the great Mazatec curandera.

ON THE BACK COVER:  “Caught in the Web,” a painting by Martina Hoffmann, provides an interpretative view of an ayahuasca experience.

DEPARTMENTS

FROM THE EDITOR offers some practical advice to readers concerned about recent reports of sweat lodge deaths around the world. 

OPEN DIALOGUE addresses legal issues hampering a father's efforts to secure his son’s right to participate in NAC peyote ceremonies. 

LETTERS 

EARTH CIRCLES offers a news update on  our government’s plan to open a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and on the efforts of Nevadans and environmentalists who continue to challenge its development. 

REVIEWS offers critiques of Keeping Heart on Pine Ridge:  Family Ties, Warrior Culture, Commodity Foods, Rez Dogs, and the Sacred by Vic Glover; and The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby. 

RECEIVED & NOTED  lists titles and brief information on new books and other media we have recently received from publishers. 

UNCLASSIFIEDS 

RESOURCES DIRECTORY 

SHAMAN’S DRUM ARTS GALLERY (on the inside back cover) features “Resurrection of Santa Claus,” a painting by James Bursenos.
Click on cover to
see larger image
Published by Shaman's Drum and the Cross-Cultural Shamanism Network, copyright 2005. The above content is intended for the noncommercial use of shamansdrum.org users, and it may not be reproduced or sold without the written permission of the publishers:

Shaman's Drum, P.O. Box 270, Williams, OR 97544 ~ 1-541-846-1313