Eliade and Hultkrantz: The European Primitivism Tradition

The signs of the sacred: Identifying shamans using archaeological evidence

“…This ''ambiguity" has led to three related objections: the term is inconsistently defined, it obscures significant behavioural variation, and it is insensitive to peoples who practice culturally unique religions (e.g., Aldhouse-Green and Aldhouse-Green, 2005;Hays-Gilpin, 2004, pp. 13, 89;Kehoe, 1996Kehoe, , 2000McCall, 2007;Tedlock, 2005). Each of these criticisms (which could be applied equally well to terms such as priest) has some validity, but ultimately fail to undermine the analytic utility of shamanism for several reasons (see Whitley, 2001;Womack, 2001).…”

“…Each of these criticisms (which could be applied equally well to terms such as priest) has some validity, but ultimately fail to undermine the analytic utility of shamanism for several reasons (see Whitley, 2001;Womack, 2001). Kehoe (1996), for example, argues that shamanism is so inconsistently defined that it cannot refer to a meaningful behavioural pattern. She is correct that there are many different ''definitions" of shamanism, some of which are indeed incompatible.…”

“…This in turn raises the third objection, that the use of the term shamanism is culturally insensitive because it ignores the culturally specific terms and frameworks for various religious practitioners in each culture (Kehoe, 1996(Kehoe, , 2000. Undoubtedly the emic terms people use for their religious practitioners should be used when possible, whether they are curanderos (Peruvian), chayanyi (Keresan), or any of the other shamanistic terms people have used for at least the last 50,000 years since we started having clear religious expression.…”

Analogical Evidence and Shamanism in Archaeological Interpretation: South African and European Palaeolithic Rock Art

“…1 Shamanic practices or shamanic religion have been a widely debated topic in broader anthropological and historical contexts (see, e.g., Hamayon 1993, Kehoe 1996. Their relationship with the counter-culture movements of the 1960s has been pointed out (which, for instance, led some critics to see a link between drug use in the present and hypotheses about drug use in the past leading to the making of rock art (Meighan 1982:226)).…”

Add shamans and stir? A critical review of the shamanism model of forager rock art production

“…While this may seem like a mainly semantic issue, it has deep implications for anthropological viewpoints on hunter-gatherer cosmologies, ritual, and social organization. Hulkrantz (1987) and Pentikäinen (1996) both argue that true shamanic religion is conWned to northern Eurasia and that it resulted from the ecological pressures of that environment and regional historical trajectories in terms of population movement (see also Hays-Gilpin, 2004;Kehoe, 1996;Jacobson, 1993;Jordan, 2003;Price, 2001). In his study of the Siberian Khanty, Jordan (2003) shows that the oYce of the shaman has very speciWc cosmological, ritual, social, and political contexts and rules that cannot easily transfer to other societies.…”