This paper discusses archaeological, historical, and contemporary ethnographic evidence for the use of the San Pedro cactus in northern Peru as a vehicle for traveling between worlds and for imparting the “vista” (magical sight) necessary for shamanic healers to divine the cause of their patients' ailments. Using iconographic, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence for the uninterrupted use of this sacred plant as a means of access to the Divine and as a tool for healing, it describes the relationship between San Pedro, ancestor worship, water/fertility cults and also the common symbolic associations between San Pedro and wind‐spirits. It closes by suggesting that the more than 2000 year time‐depth of using this plant as a means for accessing the realms of Spirit and as a tool for healing should serve to challenge the unfortunate tendency in the contemporary United States to consider this plant as a “recreational drug.”

ResumenEn este trabajo se presenta información arqueológica sobre representaciones de mujeres curanderas en ceramios Moche halladas en el complejo arqueológico Huacas del Sol y de la Luna.El oficio de mujeres curanderas es un tema poco estudiado en la antropología cultural andina, y la presencia de representaciones de estas en época Moche demuestra una continuidad cultural entre el pasado prehispánico y el presente.Sugerimos que la información recopilada sobre la simbología de las mesas de estas mujeres curanderas en este trabajo es una excelente ayuda para los arqueólogos e historiadores de las culturas prehispánicas, cuando buscan comprender los significados de contextos arqueológicos o reconstruir el pensamiento o ideología de ellas.Palabras claves: Etnoarqueología, curanderas, Moche, Huaca de la Luna. GUÉRISSEUSES À L'OMBRE DE LA HUACA DE LA LUNA RésuméDans ce travail nous présentons des informations archéologiques sur les représentations de femmes guérisseuses sur des poteries trouvées dans le complexe archéologique des Huacas del Sol et de la Luna.Le métier des femmes guérisseuses est un sujet peu étudié dans l'anthropologie culturelle andine, et la présence de représentations de celles-ci à l'époque Moche démontre une continuité culturelle entre le passé préhispanique et le temps présent.Nous suggérons dans ce travail que l'information recueillie sur la symbolique de "las mesas" de ces femmes guérisseuses est un excellent apport pour les archéologues et historiens des cultures préhispaniques, pour pouvoir comprendre les significations des contextes archélogiques, ou reconstruire la pensée ou l'idéologie de ces dernières. AbstractThis paper presents archaeological information about female healers or curanderas that are represented on Moche ceramics discovered in the archaeological complex of the Huaca del Sol and the Huaca de la Luna. The work of female healers is a little-studied topic in Andean cultural anthropology and the presence of these curanderas in the Moche period demonstrates cultural continuity between the pre-Hispanic past and the present. In this paper, we suggest that the information gathered about the mesa symbolism of these contemporary female healers can help archaeologists and historians who study pre-Hispanic cultures when looking to understand the significance of archaeological contexts or when reconstructing the world-view and ideology of past cultures.

From over 20 years of working with shamans and their apprentices in northern Peru and the United States, this article describes my own journey from scientist and skeptic to humanist and adept. It tells of the fundamental shift in consciousness I experienced as a result of a specific instance in which the veil between the seen and unseen worlds temporarily lifted, allowing me to engage with Spirit in new ways. It presents, as a result of this shift, the struggles I have faced in redefining my own relationship to my work as an anthropologist. Finally, it suggests some of the advantages to our discipline that can come from thinking outside the paradigmatic box that has, for much too long, kept us disengaged from the world in which we live. [Keywords: shamanism, radical participation, anthropology, paradigm shift, consciousness]As an anthropologist who has written for more than twenty years about shamanism in northern Peru, I have never shied away from stories about how my own life has been transformed by my research (Glass-Coffin 1998, 2000, 2003, 2009). In part, the tendency to weave my own experiences into my accounts has stemmed from the exhortations of my first informants. As I recounted in my first book, these female healers conceptualized shamanic illness and strategies for curing differently than did their male counterparts. The focus of this difference, I argued, was in the way they encouraged their patients to awaken the healing potential in themselves through coming to accept their own life experiences as valid (Glass-Coffin 1998:171-203). Recounting stories of shamanic healing through the lens of personal experience became a way of honoring the perspective that these women shared with me (Glass-Coffin 1998:xi-xv).Throughout my career, I have found increasing theoretical justification for my decisions. In the late 1980s, feminist paradigms of spirituality were diverging from more androcentric models. Instead of rejecting and turning away from the realities of this world to find the divine, feminist writers concerned with how women engage with spiritual transformation and healing were echoing this same engagement with "lived experience" that my shaman friends had advocated. Many of these scholars suggested that spiritual growth and development was, for women, more about "coming into a relationship with lived reality and embracing . . . the actual experience of living in this world" than about transcendence or rejection of either life's pleasures or of suffering (Glass-Coffin 1998:188). Thus, my insistence on writing myself into my own ethnographic stories of shamanism derived at least in part from my allegiance to feminist paradigms of spiritual transformation and healing (cf. Bynum 1986;Christ 1980;King 1995;Ochs 1983; Ruether 1987).Similarly, it was during this time period that feminist perspectives in anthropological method and theory were emerging and gaining acceptance in the discipline. Discussions of position and location, relationship and engagement between ethnographer and research subject, were b...

This paper tells the story of how undergraduate researchers participating in an applied and participatory anthropological research project at Utah State University have used their research experience to help make our campus a more welcoming place for all who orient around religion and spirituality differently. The campus‐climate research project described herein was designed to investigate the relationship between diverse religious and spiritual commitments and feelings of discomfort or well‐being on our campus. Students who worked on this project gained valuable skills as researchers. Additionally, they became student leaders of a movement to promote a more welcoming climate on campus. Both kinds of experience—as student researchers and as campus‐change‐agents—have provided these students with value‐added skills and knowledge that will increase employability. Far from a “degree to nowhere,” applied and participatory anthropology has prepared these undergraduates to meet the challenges of a world that needs the anthropological lens now more than ever before.

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This article explores the concepts of altruism, spiritual connection, and shamanic healing as practiced by female curanderas in northern Peru. It suggests how coessence rather than transcendence is at the heart of the shamanic journey that both healers and patients embark upon in order to transform suffering. Using ethnographic and case-study research, it describes how the metaphors of maternal care, shared suffering, and compassionate love are used by female healers in this region to shape their patients' understandings of illness and health as well as to construct their own understandings of the shaman's role in their healing process. The healers studied adopt attitudes of acceptance, empathy, spiritual connection, and altruism as integral to their work and encourage their patients to do the same in order to regain a sense of mastery over their own suffering. Parallels are presented between the model of spiritual connection and healing described here and that described by both scholars of feminist theology and feminist spirituality such as Rosemary Radford Ruether and popular lecturers/authors such as Marianne Williamson.

We live in an era where xenophobia, Islamophobia, and dangerous “Othering” is gaining ground in our communities. If anthropology's purpose still is, as Ruth Benedict once said, “to make the world safe for human differences,” it is more important now than ever for colleges and universities to provide our students with the necessary tools to do so. This report documents how a new initiative is building capacity for positive interaction among all who orient around religion differently while building bridges of interfaith cooperation at Utah State University. After summarizing campus climate research that led to the initiative's emergence in 2014, this report summarizes some of the major changes on campus that have come about as a result of these efforts. It then discusses the pros and cons of implementing positive institutional change from the “bottom-up” versus “top-down.” It concludes by asserting that we need applied and engaged anthropology in higher education now, more than ever, to prepare our students for the challenges of living and working in the 21st century.