Shamanism – Graham Harvey (ed.)

November 12, 2007 at 12:22 pm (Academic/Journalistic Approaches, Androgyny, Anthropology, Native American cultures, Paleopagan Cultures, Psychology, Shamanism)

Shamanism: A Reader
Graham Harvey (editor)
Routledge, 2003
~430 pages

Well, it took me the better part of two weeks, but I finished this academic anthology over the weekend–and found it to be worth the effort. It was good to see a collection of essays that both approached traditional shamanism with an open mind, and also embraced the existence of neoshamanism (while also bringing up issues with it). I do have to agree with Erynn Rowan Laurie on her observation that the quality of the essays varied quite a bit, and the themes and topics didn’t always seem to mesh well. Though I do also agree that there were some real winners there. So here are my personal opinions on some of them:

I Liked:

–Ioan M. Lewis’ “Possession and Public Morality”, which was an intriguing essay on how shamanic rituals can be used to uphold community moral standards through using public peer pressure to extract confessions of broken taboos. This process then allows the community to heal rifts caused by these violations and release the social tension.
–Alan T. Campbell’s “Submitting”, which got me thinking about attitudes towards shamanism and seemingly implausible realities.
–Edith Turner’s “The Reality of Spirits”, an *excellent* argument against the fear of “going native” by anthropologists and other academics. Based on the experiences of the author and her husband, and a really good commentary on the practical application of anthopological research.
–Chungmoo Choi’s “The Artistry and Ritual Aesthetics of Urban Korean Shamans” is a fascinating look at Korean shamanism, which isn’t nearly as well known outside of academic circles (and the Koreans themselves, of course).
–Mihaly Hoppal’s “Ethnographic Films on Shamanism” is another good one, specifically covering films of Asian (primarily Siberian) shamanism, how these films have progressed and what they contribute, as well as the political climates at the times they were made. This essay and the last were particularly unique contributions.
–Both Bernard Saladin d’Anglure’s “Rethinking Inuit Shamanism Through the Concept of ‘Third Gender'” and Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer’s “Sacred Genders in Siberia: Shamans, Bear Festivals and Androgyny” are excellent perspectives on gender issues within shamanism; the latter is also a nice look at the Carnival-esque feel of the bear festivals.
–Piers Vitebsky’s “From Cosmology to Environmentalism: Shamanism as Local Knowledge in a Global Setting” didn’t surprise me when I enjoyed it thoroughly; I’m generally a fan of Vitebsky’s works, including The Shaman. Here he explores the juxtaposition of shamanic knowledge that’s designed for a specific environment into global society, and how removing the inherent cosmology of a shamanic system necessarily changes it. One of the best in the collection.
–Ward Churchill’s “Spiritual Hucksterism: The Rise of the Plastic Medicine Men” is an essay that I actually really like; it’s a good commentary on cultural appropriation.

I Didn’t Care For:

–The reprinting of a chapter of Michael Harner’s The Way of the Shaman; I would have liked to have seen something different from him, though it was one of only two essays on the initiation process of shamanism. In fact, there were a few reprints in here, and it would have been nice to encounter more original material.
–There were a couple of essays I simply could not get into, primarily because I found them rather dry, or otherwise uninteresting. These included Thomas A Dowson’s “Like People in Prehistory”, Marina Roseman’s Remembering to Forget: The Aesthetics of Longing”, Gordan MacLellen’s “Dancing on the Edge: Shamanism in Modern Britain”, and Robert J. Wallis’ “Waking Ancestor Spirits: Neoshamanic Engagements With Archaeology”.
–Sandra Ingermann’s “Tracking Lost Souls” wasn’t horrible, per se, but it was rather jarringly discordant with the rest of the collection. It’s a very New Agey interpretation of core shamanism, and it didn’t fit in with the more scholarly approaches. An examination of neoshamanism, or a critique and comparison of various modern systems, would have worked better than Ingermann giving us a play-by-play of her method of soul retrieval.
–Beverley Butler’s “The Tree, The Tower and the Shaman” was just strangely written and arranged; I had trouble following it, and ended up skipping a good portion of it. I’m also not sure how relevant it is to shamanism, from what I could gather.

Despite my personal dislikes, I still think this is a good anthology to have in your collection if you have any interest in shamanism. The good essays are excellent, and they outnumber the not so great essays by quite a bit. I’m quite pleased with this collection, and I’ve already used it as source material in my writing, as well as gleaned some inspiration for the further development of therioshamanism.

Four pawprints out of five.

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The Earth Path – Starhawk

November 5, 2007 at 3:25 pm (Eco-Magic, Elemental Magic, Shamanism)

The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature
Starhawk
HarperOne, 2005
256 pages

I’ll be honest; I normally have a rather lukewarm opinion of Starhawk’s work. It’s not that it’s bad; it’s simply that I don’t connect with it the way that some other people do. This, however, is a wonderful exception to the rule that I am incredibly pleased to be able to review.

This is not a book of political action. It won’t tell you how to protest, or write letters, or reduce your carbon footprint. However, it is an incredibly valuable guide to attitudes and mindfulness. The Earth Path is an exceptional work that demonstrates to the reader how very important it is to be in tune with the environment that needs saving, and how that connection is crucial to understanding why it’s so important to be aware of and act on the problems that threaten ecosystems worldwide. In short, while activism works on the external connections, this book strengthens one’s internal connections to the Earth; properly applied, the material in this text will make it virtually impossible to ignore the impact we have on the environment. The theoretical and commentary material is punctuated by effective and to-the-point exercises designed to bring it all home in a firm, positive manner.

This isn’t, however, a funerary dirge and moan of all the horrible things we do, laying a guilt fest on the reader. Starhawk is quite clear about the fact that maybe we can’t all convert to solar energy; and she admits that even all the things she does can’t completely negate the impact she makes when she flies on planes to do speaking engagements and other activities. This is a book of “Here is what you *can* do, no matter who you are and what your circumstances may be”.

It’s a very thoughtful work, as well. I’m particularly fond of the chapters dealing with individual elements. This book actually came at the perfect time; as a part of my personal path, I’ve been dedicating a month with each of the traditional four elements in turn. I just happened to be at the very start of my Earth month when I read this; I read that chapter, and I’m saving the other three for required reading at the beginning of the other three months, as they’ll make wonderful introductory material to my work.

I absolutely love The Earth Path; this and James Endredy’s Ecoshamanism are the sine qua non of spiritual ecology (or ecological spirituality, if you prefer). In fact, the two books make a wonderful complement to each other, and I highly recommend them to anyone with any interest in magic and/or environmentalism. This includes people of all sexes; while the material is based somewhat on eco-feminism, there is nothing in here that prevents those who do not identify as women from working with it. In short, an effective guidebook for anyone.

Five green pawprints out of five.

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Castaneda’s Journey – Richard de Mille

October 29, 2007 at 10:26 am (Academic/Journalistic Approaches, Anthropology, Native American cultures, New Age, Shamanism)

Castaneda’s Journey: The Power and the Allegory
Richard de Mille
Capra Press, 1977, et. al.
205 pages

I wanted to get some background on Carlos Castaneda before diving into his books. This may seem a bit like putting the cart before the horse; however, I’ve been exposed to a lot of commentary on him, both positive and negative, so the chances of my having an unbiased look were already shot. I had heard good things about this book as a balanced approach to Castaneda and his works, so I gave it a try.

The author did a fantastic job of rooting out sources, even going to UCLA and talking to the professors who were involved in Castaneda’s doctoral program and defense of his thesis. De Mille also went to the trouble of hunting down one of the few available copies of the thesis itself, which normally isn’t open to the public. However, upon looking at the copy that UCLA had in its library, the author discovered that, other than a few minor changes, it was the entirety of Castaneda’s third book, Journey to Ixtlan. Additionally, he shows where sources that Castaneda almost certainly had access to had material that “mysteriously” showed up later as events in his books.

While de Mille pretty much tears a huge hole in the theory that Castaneda literally went out and met don Juan Matus and learned Yaqui ways (by the way, the amount of actual Yaqui material in his works is just above zilch), he did paint the would-be shaman as a clever trickster and rogue, and not entirely terrible. So while Castaneda’s veracity as an anthropologist is quite damaged, his skill as a literary writer of allegory is quite well-honed. The blame of people believing his works literally is partly placed on his ability to tell a good yarn.

My only complaint with this book is that it’s occasionally hard to follow the author’s train of thought. He bounces back and forth between light academic writing, straight forward, and an odd narrative that leaps around like a coyote on stimulants. I found myself skipping a few chunks of the work because I simply couldn’t figure out what the author was trying to say.

Still, I think this is essential reading for anyone with any interest in modern shamanic texts. An entire selection of books that model themselves after Castaneda’s “allegorical spirit teacher” have cropped up, and are often (unfortunately) presented as literally true. This text gives interesting insight into the granddaddy of them all, and a new perspective on how to read Castaneda’s works, as well as derivatives thereof.

Four pawprints out of five.

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The Spirit of Shamanism – Roger N. Walsh – October BBBR

October 5, 2007 at 12:48 pm (Academic/Journalistic Approaches, Bargain Bin Book Reviews, Healing, Native American cultures, Psychology, Shamanism)

The Spirit of Shamanism (reprinted as World of Shamanism, 2007)
Roger N. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.
Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1990
286 pages

I can’t say enough good stuff about this book. It’s this month’s Bargain Bin Book Review, and it’s quite possibly the best one I’ve picked up.

One of the biggest criticisms leveled against shamanism for years has been that shamans are schizophrenic or otherwise mentally ill and generally dysfunctional. This goes against more recent observations that the shaman is actually one of the most psychologically healthy people in hir society. This excellent book is an in-depth look at the psychology of shamanism, from a very positive, constructive and yet objective viewpoint. Euro-centric bias is tossed out the window, and shamanism (or, rather, the various forms thereof) is explored from within the contexts of the cultures it stems from.

Walsh draws upon a number of ideas and inspirations. Campbell’s explanation of the Hero’s journey is applied to the shaman’s development, from ordinary citizen to community leader. Of particular interest is the motif of the initiatory crisis, the time in which the shaman undergoes extreme changes internally and may exhibit incredibly odd behavior to the consternation of other members of hir society. This, and the seeming “delusion” of the shamanic journey are studied in great detail throughout the book, and the importance of these two experiences in particular cannot be ignored.

To me, the most valuable gift this book offers is the detailed explanation throughout of how shamanism, rather than paralleling the unhealthy and disorganized experience of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, in fact has much in common with modern psychological practices ranging from psychoanalysis to Jung’s work, and in particular to the modern practice of transpersonal psychology. The placebo effect is explored, and its effectiveness in both shamanism AND in Western medicine is discussed; in fact, there are a couple of chapters that focus specifically on shamanic healing and how/why it works. Finally, the altered states of consciousness inherent to shamanic practice are shown to be, not a matter of escapism and trickery, but of a path towards enlightenment-like states of being, though different from the states achieved through yoga and other forms of meditation.

It’s an incredibly well-researched book as well. Unlike too many of the texts on shamanism today, this one takes an academic approach rather than a New Age one, yet as mentioned doesn’t fall prey to the usual academic pitfalls. There are numerous in-text citations and a nice, meaty bibliography.

In all, we’re left with a picture of shamanism that has less to do with dysfunctionality, quackery and superstition, and more to do with modern healthy practices that, in some cases, Western psychologicy has only recently “discovered”. While the author does not go so far as to tell people to dump their therapists and become shamans (which anyone with good sense knows is irresponsible), he undoes decades of Western bias as well as the later romanticism that has all too often been applies to shamanism. In this text we’re allowed to see that shamanism is both terrifying and ecstatic, and is an evolution rather than de-evolution of human consciousness.

Five enthusiastic pawprints out of five.

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The Celtic Shaman – John Matthews

September 26, 2007 at 11:18 am (Books I Didn't Care Much For, Celtic spirituality and studies, Shamanism)

The Celtic Shaman: A Handbook
John Matthews
Element Books, 1991
224 pages

I’m in the middle of reading (or re-reading) all the books on shamanism and related topics currently in my home. I wanted a light read, so I pulled this one off the shelf. It’s one that I “inherited” through marriage, and while my husband normally has impeccable taste, I wasn’t so crazy about this particular book.

I suppose the main theme of this book could be “Where’s the Shamanism?” The author is apparently attempting to reconstruct the Celtic shamanic tradition; thankfully, he doesn’t try to say that the druids were all shamans. However, what this book ends up being is Celtic neopaganism with some shamanic techniques and concepts thrown in for flavor.

The book *is* well-written, though there are some typos in there. And as a book on shamanic-flavored Celtic neopaganism, it would actually be pretty good. Maybe not entirely historically accurate, but it would be functional for those who are quite happy in a modern paradigm. The author covers a lot of ground for the basic to lower-intermediate practitioner, particularly in introducing hir to this magical/spiritual system. While a lot of the material is Celtic neopaganism 101, there are some exercises which would have the potential to help the reader start on a more intermediate path.

One of the biggest problems is that the mixture of components isn’t well-blended. There’s information on Celtic mythology, including various dictionary-style lists of gods, “totem” animals (animals found in Celtic myth, but with no proof as to whether they served as clan/family totems or not), and correspondences for the directions that don’t seem to have any actual foundation in Celtic culture. (I’ll touch more on this in a minute). The shamanism portion is mainly a sprinkling of techniques, and the idea that the shaman is primarily an eco-pagan, with not too much focus on the community service. The two areas of study do not sit well together.

The issue is that there’s too much *neo*paganism and *neo*shamanism mixed into this. I can see elements of Harner’s core shamanism in there, particularly the focus on healing (as opposed to other shamanic functions), and it seems that the author has a rather incomplete understanding of what *traditional*, indigenous shamanism(s) is. Additionally, the bulk of the exercises are very heavily scripted guided meditations; shamanic journeys tend to be *much* more free-flowing and individual.

My other complaint is that while he seems to have a lovely bibliography in the back, the fact that there are no internal citations, either in-text, footnote or endnote, means that I had no idea how he used them (other than asterisks denoting which sources were particularly useful–but not why). This meant that there were a LOT of times when I sat there, scratching my head and wondering “Oooookay, where did he get THIS piece of information? Where is this COMING from?”

I don’t really feel the author accomplished his stated intention with this book. If he wanted to reconstruct the shamanic practices of the ancient Celts, then he needed to be looking at older forms of shamanism, not neoshamanism.

Two pawprints out of five.

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The Way of the Shaman – Michael Harner

September 24, 2007 at 10:14 am (Animal Magic, Healing, Native American cultures, Paleopagan Cultures, Shamanism)

The Way of the Shaman
Michael Harner
HarperSanFrancisco, 1990
172 pages

This is the fourth time in the past decade I’ve read this book cover to cover (as opposed to looking up specific factoid and techniques) and I’m finding that this time through, I’m not so fond of it. It’s not that it’s horrible; it’s just not as impressive to me these days, now that I know more than I used to.

Harner’s book is pretty much a classic on NEOshamanism; it forms the foundation of core shamanism, a shamanic practice that is (mostly) devoid of specific cultural trappings. His background in anthropology, as well as experience training as a shaman in the Jivaro and Conibo tribes, make this a well-researched and well-informed book. There are plenty of endnotes, and a good bibliography, so it’s easy to trace where he got his information from.

The problem is the presentation of the practical material. First off, my main complaint is that his selection of techniques seems incredibly arbitrary. He draws on the tobacco ties of certain Native American traditions, Jivaro-flavered sucking shamanism, and the spiritual canoe from a particular Northwest Native tribe. And he seems to ignore a number of shamanic practices that may not be necessarily appealing to the New Age crowd, such as spiritual dismemberment and reassembly.

Also, he fails to mention that even within a specific culture there are several types of shamanism. He should have, IMO, either billed this as a form of healing shamanism, or stuck to one of the cultures he trained in, rather than adding in elements of numerous cultures. He doesn’t quite draw shamanism far enough away from its cultural roots to make it fit together well; rather than doing as Peter J. Carroll did with Chaos magic, and making a system that is not at all culturally specific (and so can be plugged into any culture), Harner attempts to make (certain) cultural artifacts relevant for people outside that culture, while also trying to make it relevant to modern mainstream American (and other postindustrial) culture. Unfortunately, the end result still retains enough of the original cultural material (such as biases against certain animals like snakes and insects) without explaining the contextual relevance of such elements.

Finally, he waters down certain pieces of information. “The SSC [Shamanic State of Consciousness], it can be said, is safer than dreaming,” he says (xxii). Yet shamanism, even in modern practice, is NOT safe. He doesn’t talk about spiritual defense, other than talking about how one’s power animal and other guardians are supposed to protect you. He barely brings up any dangers, other than seeing animals with bared fangs. Nor does he talk about how close to the edge shamanism can bring a practitioner (or the skills needed to maintain a proper balance).

In short, this is shamanism for the living room. The techniques itself are solid, despite the contextual issues, and can be easily used by most people who pick up this book. If presented as a book on shamanic techniques, I give it a four. However, as a book on *shamanism*, I give it a two. This balances out to….

Three pawprints out of five.

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The Shaman – Piers Vitebsky

September 18, 2007 at 1:29 pm (Academic/Journalistic Approaches, Animal Magic, Mythology, Native American cultures, Paleopagan Cultures, Shamanism)

The Shaman
Piers Vitebsky
Little, Brown and Company, 1995
184 pages

This is one of my favorite books on basic shamanism from an anthropological perspective. I’ve read it before, but this is the first time I’ve read it since I started this review blog. I think it’s well worth talking about, though, so here’s my official review 🙂

The author, an anthropologist, has spent several decades studying shamanism within the context of a number of cultures. He presents a nice collection of facts and anecdotes about the shamanic experiences of people in these cultures. From the altered states of consciousness to the spirits encountered along the way, from healing to showmanship, from the political status of shamans to neoshamanism today, Vitebsky offers one of the best introductions to the concept of shamanism and what it is the shaman does. This concise book is quite thorough, and while the material is densely packed it’s written in a manner that even a rank beginner can understand. You won’t find a bunch of how-to instructions, but what you will get is solid research to get a good understanding of the context of shamanism.

Unlike earlier anthropologists, Vitebsky’s viewpoint is quite enlightened. He points out the shortcomings of his predecessors, who characterized shamans as everything from archaic leftovers to mentally disturbed outcasts. He also cautions against trying to boil shamanism down to a particular facet, such as trance, while tossing out other important aspects, like community and culture. He is not overly critical of neoshamanism, though he only devotes a very small portion of the book to it and explains how it differs from traditional shamanism. He clearly shows his research, and is not afraid to critique other scholars; for example, he challenges Mircea Eliade’s assertion that shamanism has “an apparently timeless quality…[and] appears to stand outside political history” (p. 116). To back up this criticism Vitebsky goes into great detail how shamanism has interacted, both positively and negatively, with both political and religious bodies in various cultures, and how it has sometimes come into great conflict with various powers thereof. (I should also add that I have no opinion myself on Eliade yet, though his work is on my reading pile.)

This contributes to a very down to Earth look at shamanism worldwide, though it does NOT purport to be the do-all and end-all resource; nor does it try to claim that all shamanisms are one shamanism. Rather, as I said, it’s an excellent introductory book, mixing text and illustrations to create a good resource for anyone interested in traditional shamanism from a theoretical point of view (as opposed to a hands-on workbook).

Five pawprints out of five.

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Gift of the Dreamtime – S. Kelley Harrell

August 27, 2007 at 1:54 pm (Healing, Metamorphic Magic/Conscious Evolution, Shamanism)

Gift of the Dreamtime: Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma
S. Kelley Harrell
Spilled Candy, 2004
156 pages

I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while, and finally had the chance to sit down and do so. I’m very glad that I did; it’s a wonderful resource that I think more people need to know about.

Harrell, a modern shamanic practitioner, offers up her story of how she used shamanic techniques to heal herself from the effects of childhood sexual abuse. She works within a first person narrative, using her words to illustrate her journeys to the Upper and Lower worlds to visit with guides and retrieve pieces of her soul. Rather than abstract descriptions of what “should” happen, she tells the story of her own experiences, both the good and the bad. A warning: while her descriptions of abuse are not incredibly graphic, they may be triggering for some people, so be prepared. There are techniques for healing in her story, but not without the price of facing the past.

I generally am not a fan of narrative shamanic texts, a common format in core shamanism/neoshamanism books. However, this one is an exception. I felt that, rather than trying to impress me with credentials and pidgin-English-speaking guides, Harrell simply wanted to offer up the solutions that helped her in the hopes of sharing healing with others. Hers is a humble story, and instead of 200 pages of ego-stroking and no meat, I got a lot of ideas for working with my own traumas; while I was never abused as a child, I’ve had my own traumas both as a child and an adult, and this book has planted a few seeds in my mind.

The book is not without its potential controversy. At one point Harrell writes about how one of her guides reveals that the reason she was raped was that she owed a debt from a previous life to her rapist. I know this made me look a bit askance, as I’ve seen New Agers take this idea to the extreme of saying that anything bad that happens to a person is caused by bad karma. However, due to the nature and quality of the book, I trust the author to be honest, and she never comes across as the least bit fanatical or off-balance.

Additionally, I would have liked to have seen more content. It seems that she mainly hit the highlights of her journey, and it’s a little unclear how long it takes her to get from one section of the story to the next. Granted, she is revealing a very personal part of herself here, so it may be that she only tells what she’s comfortable with. Still, I’d be curious as to some of the backstory, what happens inbetween the meetings with the various guides, and a timeline of when these journeys happened. The book as it is, though, progresses nicely, so even if she chooses to forever keep the rest under wraps, this is a worthy project.

Overall, I recommend this to those who have experienced trauma in their lives, as well as those who work with such people in a spiritual role, and want some good ideas for healing through shamanic techniques. It’s not a huge how-to book, though there are some basic pieces of information at the end. Rather, it’s one person’s story of how she utilized these techniques to do some pretty serious healing on herself. It gives hope for those of us who sometimes feel that maybe we’re not doing things right, or that perhaps there is no healing to be had.

Five pawprints out of five.

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Borrowed Power – Ziff and Rao (editors)

August 7, 2007 at 2:01 pm (Academic/Journalistic Approaches, Anthropology, Native American cultures, Paleopagan Cultures, Shamanism)

Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation
Ziff, Bruce and P.V. Rao (editors)
Rutgers University Press, 1997
338 pages

Every so often I get into the mood to sink my teeth into a nice, meaty chunk of….

…academic writing.

(What did you think I was going to say?)

So when the craving hit this time, it just so happened to be on the same day as the arrival of my copy of Borrowed Power. It took me almost a week to work my way through it (amid editing manuscripts and other such things) but I finished it, and I can definitely say it was a great read.

Borrowed Power is an anthology addressing cultural appropriation, the use/borrowing/theft of elements by one (usually dominant) culture from another (usually not dominant) culture. A common example in the pagan community is white pagans raised in Suburbia drawing on Native American religious practices and taking them out of context while not actually participating in the culture they draw from. While cultural appropriation isn’t always considered a neopagan topic, it’s one that’s crucial to the evolution of our community. (I deemed it important enough that I’m compiling an anthology specifically on cultural appropriation in the pagan community inspired by Borrowed Power—click here for details.)

The topics are varied; while one essay addresses “white Indians”, hippies and New Agers who try to be more Indian than the Indians, most either don’t mention the phenomenon or only do so in passing. Instead, the essays cover the legalities of property rights and copyright in the face of cultural theft; financial restitution for cultures that have been taken from; returning historical and cultural religious items to the cultures they were taken from; the impact of non-Native artists using traditional Native American patterns; ethnomusicology; and post-colonialism, among others. While some of the essays focus on Native America, other cultures are addressed. There is an excellent essay addressing the appropriation of African-American culture through music, from jazz to rap.

Most of the essays are readable even to those without an academic background. A few do get tough to chew through, particularly those dealing with legalities, and postcolonialism. But for the most part the writing is accessible, and the tougher writing styles aren’t entirely impossible. There’s an excellent variety of viewpoints and topics presented here, and much food for thought. And, as is expected, the research is impeccable, and is joined by a sensitivity to the cultures being explored that’s often missing from academic writing.

Overall, this is a wonderful read for those who want an introduction to the problem of cultural appropriation. While the specifically neopagan content is almost nil, the concepts herein are worth looking into. (I also recommend this as a source for those writing essays for the anthology I’m compiling, just FYI, along with the cultural appropriation chapter in Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves by Pike.)

Five pawprints out of five.

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Primitive Song – C.M. Bowra

July 9, 2007 at 11:15 am (Anthropology, History, Mythology, Paleopagan Cultures, Shamanism)

Primitive Song
C.M. Bowra
World Publishing Company, 1963
284 pages

Since paleolithic cultures fascinate me, I was really excited about reading this book. The author uses anecdotes and information about modern hunter-gatherer cultures ranging from Eskimos to the Andamanese to Australian aborigines as a way of attempting to trace the roots and development of song. He weaves his theory with samples of song lyrics and his analysis thereof, and explains how day-to-day life in such a culture affects the role and subject material in songs. The material is well-balanced in this regard, and I felt that the author had really done his research thoroughly.

The book is a product of its time; while it’s not as heavily Euro-centric as some older (or even contemporary) anthropological texts, there’s still a subtle bias in the writing. Additionally, Bowra makes some assumptions about hunter-gatherer cultures across the board, though he does do a good job of trying to back his theories up with examples. And the writing style is rather dry; I found myself sometimes having to reread something because it simply didn’t register.

Still, overall it’s a good resource even despite its age. Anyone interested in paleolithic cultures, particularly paleopagan religions or music, may want to check this out. Those experimenting with shamanic techniques may also find material of interest here, particularly if song is a part of their practice.

Five pawprints out of five.

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