langdon, esther - the symbolic efficacy of rituals. from ritual to performance

8/13/2019 Langdon, Esther - The Symbolic Efficacy of Rituals. From Ritual to Performance

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95The Symbolic Efficacy of Rituals:

From Ritual to Performance

Esther Jean Langdon

2007


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UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA

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ANTROPOLOGIA EM PRIMEIRA MO

Editor Rafael Jos de Menezes Bastos

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Solicita-se permuta/Exchange DesiredAs posies expressas nos textos assinados so de responsabilidade exclusiva de seus autores.

Antonella M. Imperatriz Tassinari

Dennis Wayne Werner Deise Lucy O. Montardo Esther Jean Langdon Ilka Boaventura Leite Maria Jos Reis Mrnio Teixeira Pinto Miriam Hartung Miriam Pillar Grossi Neusa Bloemer Silvio Coelho dos Santos Snia Weidner Maluf

Theophilos Rifiotis


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UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA

Antropologia em Primeira Mo

2007


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The Symbolic Efficacy of Rituals: FromRitual to Performance

Esther Jean Langdon1

Abstract

The paper explores the concept of healing among Amazonianshamanic rituals, examining the meaning of healing from a broaderperspective than that of biomedicine. It focuses on rituals in whichpsychotropic tea-like substances commonly referred to as ayahuascaoryag,have a central role in the rituals efficacy. These substancesare made from made from Banisteriopsissp. and admixtures and canproduce strong conscious altering effects. However, it is importantto point out that the patient does not always drink the mixture,

which may be ingested by only the shaman or by participants otherthan the patient. For Amazonian peoples, illness is not limited topurely biological processes and spiritual and social factors areimportant causes of illness in a universe that is endowed withintention, that is, a universe populated by diverse predatory beingsthat are capable of causing illness. The article examines the conceptof heal, as well as reviews the current theories that attempt toaccount for the ritual efficacy. Differing from those who emphasize

the instrumental results of substances ingested or who affirm thatfaith is the necessary factor for miracle cures, this work shalldemonstrate that healing efficacy must largely be attributed to theperformative aspects of ritual.

1Of the Department of Anthropology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. E-mail: or [email protected]. Researcher of CNPq. I wouldlike to thank CNPp for its support to my research about performance and indigenoushealth during the years.


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6 Antropologia em Primeira Mo

Many years ago I saw a film about a young man sufferingfrom downs syndrome and associated semi-blindness whoparticipated in a healing session of Kathryn Kuhlman, a faith

healer famous for healing spectacles in which she performedmiracle cures in front of thousands of people in large stadiumsthroughout North America. The young man was one of manysufferers who marched across her stage to receive the healingpowers of her hands and gifted prayers. After she laid handsupon him and prayed to almighty God to bring him sight, theyoung man staggered back, recuperated his balance and, literally

shining with joy, he shouted, I can see! I can see the audience;I can see my mother clearly! I can see!! He then was then quicklyushered off the stage to be followed by another patient. Thenext scene of the film focuses on his optometrist in his office,who categorically affirms that the young mans vision has notimproved; that he has examined him before and after the healingritual; that the tests prove that no change in vision has occurred.The last scene of the film shows the young man and his mother

in their kitchen. He is visibly subdued in comparison to theglowing revelation of sight that he expressed on the night ofKuhlmans healing spectacle, but he continues to affirm thatthe doctor is wrong, that he does see better.

I showed this film to my students about thirty years ago,shortly after I had returned from two years of doctoral researchamong the Siona Indians in Colombia. I studied their shamanic health

practices and healing rituals with the use of Banisteriopsis sp. andadmixtures, known in Colombia as yag, and more widely asayahuasca.2The film raises the same question that students and othershave asked me over the years about shamanic rituals employingmixtures of Banisteriopsisor other such substances do these ritualsreally cure? There can be no simple response to this question, forthe notion of healing is extremely complex. In order to comprehendthe nature of healing, it is necessary to begin the discussion with a

2My first research extended from 1970 to 1973 and I have made severalreturn trips to the region.


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Esther Jean Langdon 7

series of related questions: What do we mean by cure? What do wemean by healing efficacy? Who determines if a cure has occurred?3

What is the relation between the healing experience and the body?

Most of my discussion is based upon some forty years ofresearch on South American shamanism and on theoreticaldevelopments in anthropology with regard to non-western healingsystems, rituals and the healing experience. The argument that Iraise in this paper is not limited to evaluating the efficacy of healingrituals in non-western societies. I propose that the processes ofillness and healing on the phenomenological level are not different

in nature in cultures other than ours, but that healing traditions askdifferent questions about the nature of illness and healing that orienttheir therapeutic practices. Young (1976) pointed this out threedecades ago, affirming that most healing rituals answer importantcosmological and ontological questions that arise in the face ofserious illness. What marks the difference between biomedicine andother medical systems is that ours focuses on the individual in adisinterested universe while in most others, the individual is part

of a collective in an intentioned or personal cosmology. Sullivannotes that different healing traditions mark different appraisals asto the nature of reality, which can be cosmic, in the case of shamanictraditions, or chemical, in the case of biomedicine (Sullivan 1989:397). Thus, the comparative approach to healing systems isimportant for us to understand efficacy.

Studies of shamanism and non-western systems of healinghave their origins in a time when anthropologists, and many others,perceived primitive mentality as being qualitatively different than

3A similar paradox about healing and ritual was published in 1989 (Pereira1989; Sullivan 1989) regarding a famous Brazilian ecologist who was diagnosedas an incurable illness due to frog poisoning which occurred many years earlier

while he was doing research in the Amazon jungle. Two Indian shamans werecalled in to perform their rituals while he was in the hospital. They rejected themedical physicians diagnosis and performed their rituals, sucking out the evil.Afterwards, he claimed to feel better, indicating that he was sleeping betterand feeling more comfortable. Several months later he died.


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that of the civilized, the former perceived as lacking the capacityto perceive reality rationally. Rationality was conceived asobjective observation of the relation between cause and effect.

The early anthropologists who studied medicine, such as Rivers(2001) and Ackerknecht (1942), held that primitive medicalpractices were part of a magical perception of reality, in whichrituals are used to change events but inevitably fail since they arebased on incorrect laws of nature. The most familiar examplesare the laws of similarity, in which similarity produces similarity,and of contagion, in which actions performed on one part affect

the whole (Frazer 1980). For instance, the justification by a SionaIndian of the Colombian Amazon, that he cures a particular skinillness with a leaf that has a design similar to that of the skincondition could be thought of as the law of similarity; the similarityof the leaf heals the skin. As we will see in an illness case presentedbelow, the law of contagion is expressed by the idea that a skinillness is caused by stepping where a shaman had sent a snake tourinate. The reasoning of both of these examples would be judged

as logical, but not rational, by the early anthropologists, in thesense that the justifications are considered absurd.Both Rivers and Ackerknecht made important

contributions to the growth of the study of non-western medicines.However, and perhaps because they were both trained medicalphysicians, they affirmed that primitive medicine, as an exampleof primitive mentality, could never evolve into scientific medicine.Like others of their time, they confused systems of knowledgewith mental capacity. They characterized primitive medicine asprimarily magical-religious and European medicine a rationalscience, one that depends upon objective observation of causeand effect. For both authors, the primitive is blinded by his magicalbeliefs and thus does not, and cannot, experiment with or observenature objectively as we do.

There is not time nor space here to trace the history of

anthropology and its ideas about magic, but it is important toemphasize that shamanic practices were categorized as magicalpractices in early anthropology and that often the shamans capacityto do harm as well as good led them to be identified as doctor-magicians or doctor-sorcerers (Mtraux 1944). The more classic


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and conservative views in anthropology presumed that both magicand magical practitioners would disappear in the face of modernityand the growth of sciences control over disease. However, the

second half of the twentieth century has shown that suchmisconceptions about shamans and the inefficacy of their ritualshave given way to what appears to be a global movement thatexpresses a profound respect for shamanic knowledge and theirpractices. Moreover, there has been a particular interest in theefficacy of use of shamanic substances, now commonly referred toas entheogens or psychointegrators (Ruck et.al. 1969; MacRae 1992;

Shanon 2002; Winkelman 2000).Outside academia, traditional and neo-shamans haveemerged from their local communities to conduct workshops andshamanic training as well as to perform healing rituals. In Brazilalone, the rise of shamanic healing in both local and globalcommunities is evidenced in the three publications that one of theeditors of this book has previously written or co-organized (Labatee Arajo, 2004; Labate 2004; Labate and Goulart 2005). In somecases, shamanic substances and techniques have been appropriatedfor use in rituals with very different cosmological orientations, suchas the case of Santo Daime and Unio Vegetal in Brazil andelsewhere (Groisman 1999, 2000; Metzner 2006).

At the same time, there has been a revolution inanthropological thinking with respect to its central concepts andmethods. Culture is no longer essentialized and perceived as

having clear boundaries occupying a particular geographicalspace. Anthropologists are concerned with its emergence inparticular situations, with praxis and action and associatedthemes of interaction, performance, experience, self,subjectivity, and agency (Ortner 1994). With respect to theearlier ideas about magic and magical beliefs, the symbolic andperformative perspectives have replaced the concerns with thelogic of magic. Anthropologists are no longer concerned aboutthe objective validity of beliefs, but how people engage in areality constructed through social and cultural processes (Good1994), and, in the case of healing, this engagement frequentlyoccurs through ritual (Geertz 1966; Turner 1964).


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Illness as Process

In the 1960s, a number of anthropologists began to examine

the power of the symbol in human interaction and experience.Concerned with cultural as a dynamic production of meaningsbetween actors as well as the role of the symbol in human perceptionand experience (Langer 1942), studies of non-western medicalsystems began to focus upon the socio-cultural construction ofillness and admit that non-western healing traditions often resultedin positive results when biomedicine failed (Kiev 1964; Kleinman

1978, 1980; Kleinman and Sung 1979). In particular, my researchwith the Siona Indians of the Amazon basin demonstrated that theirresponse to illness is not that different than ours, or that of othercultures. As praxis, the experience of illness has to be understoodas a dynamic process than can involve several actors and severaldifferent therapeutic practices, depending upon the seriousness andcomplexity of the illness. The meaning of the illness, as well as itssubjective experience, is constructed through a process of

negotiation between the various actors. It involves an initialdiagnosis, choice of therapy and evaluation of that therapy. If notsatisfied, the process begins again: new symptoms may be identifiedleading to speculations about different causes and pointing towardother types of therapy. Other therapeutic practices are sought, oftento answer different questions about the treatment. These too areevaluated, and if the illness continues, the cycle begins again.

When a Siona Indian awakens feeling ill, he reflects uponwhat symptoms he is feeling and identifies the problem accordingto his experience in the past and that of those around him. Thisinitial diagnosis generally attempts to identify bodily symptomsand the treatment chosen among those known to resolve similarproblems in the past, usually selecting herbal remedies orindustrialized pharmaceuticals at first.

Like all peoples, the Siona have notions about the workings

of the human body, although these notions do not necessarilyfollow ours. Nor do the categories of illness recognized by theSiona correspond with those of biomedicine. One of the importantdifferences between non-western medical systems and ours regardsthe search for symptoms outside the human body that may indicate


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possible causes of the illness. If an illness begins abruptly, withhigh fever or other serious symptoms, and/or following a nightmareor social conflict that involved the ill person, there is suspicion

that the meaning of the illness, and its cure, must be found in alarger cosmological or social perspective. Generally questionsinvolving invisible or social causes of illnesses begin aftersuccessive failures of treatments that have functioned in the pastin similar diagnostic situations. Thus, the network of thoseinvolved in the diagnostic and therapy process expands as theillness continues to defy treatment and can include therapeutic

specialists from a variety of curing and healing traditions. Thetherapeutic practices selected in this process are motivated bydifferent but related questions (Zemplni 1985): what corporal orenvironmental conditions are causing the symptoms (instrumentalcause); what agent, invisible or not, is responsible for the illness(efficient cause); why has the illness been caused (ultimate cause)?When the search for a cause goes beyond the instrumental cause,the search for therapy also goes beyond those therapies that aimto alter purely physiological symptoms, and the search for a curediverges from the biomedical notion and healing is sought.

Healing, as opposed to curing, implies a sense of wholeness.In fact, the English term for health has its origin in a Greek wordmeaning whole, and generally healing refers to the restoration ofwellbeing in a holistic sense, while cure implies the resolution ofphysical symptoms. Although it has not always been the case, the

European medical tradition, currently designated as biomedicine,has increasingly become influenced by the biological andtechnological vision of illness, to the exclusion of other social,psychological or spiritual factors that are perceived by other medicalsystems to act upon the individual to cause physical or mentalsuffering. Kleinman, an important pioneer in the symbolic approachto the anthropology of health, defines biomedicine as a system of

medicine based on theories of biological processes, perceivingdisease as a universal process, independent of context and free ofcultural values and notions (Kleinman 1980: 33). Concomitantlyhe affirms that there has been little attention to healing, the mostbasic of all health care processes.


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Shamanic systems of health, like many others not based solelyon a theory of biological processes, hold cultural specific notionsabout illness and its causes. It is not possible to assume that all groups

share the same ideas about health, illness and shamanic practices.However, recent ethnological discussions have helped us to understandcertain general principles about notions of the body and illnessprocesses among Lowland South American Indian groups. Personsand bodies are socially constructed and bound in webs of socialrelations in the visible as well as invisible realms. The concept ofpredation is a key metaphor for understanding native perceptions ofthe illness process, its causes and its meaning (Fausto 2007). Amongthe Siona, illness is conceived as a process of dying, marked by weightloss, rottenness, darkness and other qualities associated with deathand a common expression for describing or characterizing illness isthat it is an object or evil substance in the body that is sucking theblood (and life) of the victim. Causes that initiate this process can beviolations of hygiene rules or prescriptions regarding eating, hunting,bathing or other daily practices. Some illnesses are caused by more

serious violations or antipathies, which set in motion attacks in anintentioned universe characterized by visible and invisible beings.Most likely a shaman has caused the illness by contacting an invisibleagent to enter the body or by throwing a shamanic substance into thevictim. In such cases, a ritual must be performed in which the specificinvisible cause can be identified and eliminated by counter attack.

In several publications, I have treated the praxis oftherapeutic itineraries, where the family group seeks treatment that

initially aims to relieve the patient of the symptoms thought tohave some common known cause. The aim most often is practical,to relieve the symptoms and return the patient to normal. However,if the illness continues to progress defying normal treatments,anxiety and worries about serious incapacities or even death raisequestions that go beyond the instrumental cause of the illness andspeculate about possible social or spiritual disruptions that are theultimate cause, explaining why the illness defies normal treatment

and indicating why that particular individual is ill at that particulartime. In this sense, healing is directed at attempts to answerontological questions about the nature of suffering and the Sionainvoke an intentioned universe (Viveiros de Castro 1996) tounderstand what is really happening.


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A specific case relevant to the discussion here is one thatlasted for over three years (Langdon 1994). For months Ricardo,my major collaborator, complained of a strange itching sensation

at night, which left no physical symptoms but caused him to losemuch sleep. He had certain suspicions as to the cause of such hissuffering. For him, the itching began after a trip to the SummerInstitute of Linguistic Headquarters, where he met Indians fromanother region of the Amazon basin known to have powerfulshamans. Upon his return home, he felt something fall on his headas he walked on the path to his fields. He tried to brush it away, but

found nothing. After working in the field, he began to experienceitching over his entire body and attributed it to the dust, dirt andsweat that accumulated while working in the hot sun. He took abath and changed his clothes, but from that night on, the itchingplagued him. As long as the itching caused him discomfort and lackof sleep but did not prohibit him from fulfilling his normal duties,he did little more than complain about the situation and ask anoccasional visitor to the Indian Reserve if he knew some sort of

remedy to stop the itching. At some point, he began to have severeskin irruptions that prevented him from working. Consequently, heseriously began a search for a cure, experimenting with a number oftherapies recommended by neighbors, non-Indian folk healers,pharmacy attendants and finally the doctor at the local health post.His symptoms persisted over a number of months and ceased withthe prescriptions the doctor had given him for allergy to the sun.

However, during these months, he increasingly speculatedon the possible sorcery cause, interpreting the event of the invisiblesubstance falling on his head as a sign of sorcery. He argued thatbecause that event signaled the onset of the illness, he needed tosee his brother-in-law, Elias, a Kofan shaman who lived two daystravel by boat. He expressed with great clarity that he wasattempting to cure the symptoms in order to travel so that Eliascould diagnose the cause behind the illness and heal him. Once

his skin improved, he made the long journey and returned six weekslater. Elias administered a number of herbal remedies while alsoperforming a series of yag rituals to discover the cause andunderstand the source of the invisible object that touched Ricardoon the path. In these rituals, he discovered that a local rival


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shaman, who wished to harm Ricardos shamanic knowledge, hadsent a snake to urinate on the path that Ricardo walked on, causingthe itching and eventual skin irruptions. He removed the evil object

causing the illness and sent it back it to its original source. Ricardoreturned healed and pleased with the shamanic treatment. It isinteresting to note that the nocturnal itching without physical marksnever completely ceased. Years later, when I returned to visit him,he continued to have the problem, but since it did not threatenhis daily activities again, he gave it little attention.

Ricardos skin problem and his therapeutic itinerarydemonstrate the difference between curing and healing, a distinctionthat was extremely clear to him when he explained why he neededa shamanic ritual. The different curing goals of the therapies chosenmatch the distinction made by theorists of ritual when they speakof instrumental efficacy and symbolic efficacy (Langer 1942;Douglas 1966; Mauss 1974). The first deals with observable materialresults, while the second depends upon the patients experience ofhealing, that is, the re-establishment of a sense of wellbeing.

Symbols and representation

Symbolic efficacy has been explained in many ways. Lvi-Strauss (1967a, 1967b) wrote two well-known articles that providea theory of the effectiveness of symbols. In one, he describes aKuna shamanic ritual involving the treatment of a woman who ishaving difficulties in giving birth and the shaman is able, through

his mythic songs, to order her chaotic and painful experience,which results in a successful outcome. In both articles, Lvi-Straussargues that a shared cultural tradition, structural mythic thoughtand faith in the shaman, as well as the psychoanalytic process ofabreaction result in symbolic efficacy in magical shamanicperformances. Although his structural explanation as to howshamanic chants provoke unconscious structuring of experiencethrough mythic form (and not content) is questioned by a number

of anthropologists, most theorists, whether of a structuralorientation or not, share with Lvi-Strauss the idea that symbolicefficacy brings about a transformation on the unconscious levelthat creates a comprehension of the situation and an experienceof healing (Csordas 1983).


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Another line of analysis asserts that symbols are effectivebecause they carry shared values, are expressive, and have the powerto motivate. Geertzs famous article on religion (1966) affirms that

the symbolic action in rituals recreates propositions about the worldin such a way that people act as if they were real. In this sense symbolscreate and are recreated by action. Sacred ritual orders existentialsuffering and illness on a phenomenological and ontological level forthe participant and results in a transformation of experience thatcarries on after it is over. Symbols, through ritual, shape the ways inwhich social actors see, feel and think about the world (Ortner 1994:

375), which result in action toward that reality created in ritual.Geertzs concern was with sacred ritual, defining religion asa cultural system of symbols expressed through rituals thatpowerfully impact upon the participants to establish certain moodsand motivations. For him, religion doesnt offer answers as how toeliminate suffering but in fact attends to important existentialquestions about the nature of life and suffering to aide in livingwith the losses that are part of life. He didnt specifically address

healing, as did Lvi-Strauss, but Young (1976) expands on his theoryof the power of symbolic expression in healing rituals to confirmontological reality, especially that which deals with the unknownand unknowable, a central element in non-western healing practices.

Victor Turner, another important contributor to theories ofsymbolic efficacy developed during the 1950s and 60s, specificallydiscussed ritual healing in his well-known article on the Ndembu(1964). In this article, and in subsequent discussions of symbolictheory (Turner 1964; 1967; 1974), he expanded upon thepsychological and social meanings of symbols in order todemonstrate that ritual healing addresses both individual problemsand those of the social group. Like Geertz, he focused upon thedramatic quality of sacred rituals, introducing the concept ofliminality as the central phase in the ritual process. For Turner,the transformative power of ritual occurs in the liminal phase of

ritual, in which, communitasreplaces the daily reality of structuredrelations and, through symbolic processes, makes possiblereflexivity, creativity and transformation. For him, thetransformation reaches into deep psycho-physiological levels viasymbolic manipulation of symbols that represent drives and desires


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related to life, death, sex, desire and hunger with those that representsocial and normative values. In this sense, ritual attends to theinterface between personal and social problems, that is, for both

the maintenance and radical transformation of human social andpsychical structures (Turner, 1969: 4).

Lvi-Strauss, Geertz and Turner all recognize the dramaticactions of ritual performances. In his discussions of shamanic rituals,Lvi-Strauss (1967a: 175) discusses explicitly the notion ofperformance as enactment, as a reliving of mythic events, not amiming or simple reproduction of events. Turners idea of

communitas, as a temporary relation creating transcendence abovesocial ties and norms, focuses upon the experiential aspect of ritual,which makes possible transformations through symbolicmanipulations. He opens his discussion in The Ritual Process (1969),his most famous book on ritual, affirming that it is the emotionaland imaginative nature of sacred ritual that he wishes to explore,an aspect of ritual generally avoided by more rational analyses. Inhis later discussion of the physiological and social poles of ritual

symbols, he explains that ritual really works when the qualitiesof these two poles are exchanged via the drama of ritual action.

.the singing, dancing, feasting, wearing of bizarredress, body painting, use of alcohol or hallucinogens,and so on, causes an exchange between these polesin which the biological referents are ennobled andthe normative references are charged with emotional

significance. (Turner 1974:55).

In other words, the performative elements of ritual make itreally work.

In spite of the fact that both authors recognize theimportance of the dramatic performative aspects of ritual, bothemphasize the collective experience based on a shared culture andunconscious psychological mechanisms set in motion by symbolicmanipulation. For Lvi-Strauss, what is shared is an underlyingmythic thought structure, and he affirms that the shamanic complexof healing efficacy requires three interrelated elements of thecollective experience: the shaman and his authority, the patient and


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the public, all three experiencing enthusiasm along with intellectualand emotional satisfaction which produces collective support forboth the shaman and the patient (1967a: 173). The shaman is

empowered and legitimized by the collective. Turner, in oppositionto Lvi-Strauss, focuses not upon the sharing of mythic structure,but upon the shared semantic or interpretive aspects of symbolicexpression4, which operate on a deep psychological level becauseof their symbolic associations with the orectic semantic pole andwhich become operators in ritual as a result of the performativeaspects - the dancing, music, drinking etc.

The contributions of symbolic theory for understanding ritualhealing are important, but they present two limitations that must beaccounted for when examining shamanic rituals, particularly if welook at shamanic healing rituals today. The first has to do with thenature of the shared representations and the limits of collectiverepresentations. Critics of Lvi-Strauss point out that his use ofNordenskiolds data for his analysis of the Kuna healing session ignoresthat fact that the patient cannot accompany the mythic narration in

the shamans chants. Shamanic use of dense metaphorical languagemakes the myths meaning and structure incomprehensible for thepatient. The fact that the participants dont understand the shamaniclanguage is not unusual for the Amazon. Sometimesincomprehensibility has been attributed to the use of archaic languagenot familiar by the non-initiated. Others claim that it is the density ofthe metaphors that renders shamanic language incomprehensible.Buchillet has pointed out that the Desana shamans sing so low inhealing ceremonies that no one can hear (1992). In an example farfrom the Amazon, Prince describes a successful healing ritual inLucknow, India, performed before the tomb of a Muslim saint thathad no healer (Prince, 1980, apudCsordas 1983).

I have testimonies made by several Siona in which illnesswas caused as well as cured through dreams, without theintervention of ritual in the case of the latter. Dream experiences

4 Laderman and Rosen (1996:2) use the phrase structures ofrepresentation to refer to what I am calling the semantic interpretativefactor in ritual healing.


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and their interpretations parallel the visionary experiences inducedby yag(Banisteriopsis sp.). Like shamanic rituals, dreams are usedto acquire power, to discover true causes of misfortunes, and to

influence events. When dreaming, the person goes to the dreamplace, oru, which is inhabited by the Dream people, o bin. Theyplay a role similar to the Yag people, who accompany theshamanic apprentice in the ritual experience. In dreams, the Dreampeople are the allies. Like the Yag people in yag experiences,they explain what is happening, and, in some cases, take an activerole in defending the dreamer from danger. Dream experiences

have a direct relation to events on this side. What happens in thedream realm has affects on events in wakeful reality. Thus, dreamscan announce or result in a good hunt for the next day, the onsetof an illness, or the cure of an illness.

Dreams can also signal the acquisition of knowledge orpower, as occurred with Ricardo after I had given him a remedy toalleviate his flu symptoms in 1971. The next day, Ricardo told methat he slept, traveled and saw a big city with a large garden full of

healing plants. A tall white woman, dressed in white clothing withyag designs, appeared and led him through the garden, telling himabout the plants. This dream signals the acquisition of knowledgein a way similar to yag visions. The remedy that I had given himhad stimulated his dream experience about the acquisition of newknowledge. Perhaps I am represented as a possessor of knowledge;but the dreams motif is not uncommon. It reflects the Sionanarratives about yag journeys to cities in the heaven realm, oftheir inhabitants and of the women who show them plants. Gardens,cities, and the people in the heaven realm are all common elementsin yag visions that represent the acquisition of power.5

Ricardo also told me of several other dreams, and one isparticularly important for thinking about the symbolic power ofhealing without the ritual or the use of ayahuasca. For two weeksRicardo suffered from a high continuous fever that also caused

vomiting. The fever and vomiting began after he had a bad dreamindicating a shamanic attack, and in spite of the fact that a number

5See Langdon 2000b or 2004b for an example of such images.


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of healing rituals were conducted during this time, nothing helpedalleviate his long continuous and intense fever. Then one night hehad another dream.

I was dying; then I had another bad dream.Oh, what will I do? I am going to die, I thought.

Then I thought of God.Oh God, pity me. Make me dream good things to

make well, I thought.Then, in the dream place I was going down river.

The Dream people were in the canoe too.

I was going, and a person like my father came.Where are you trying to go? he asked.I am going downstream, Father, I said.

No, it is not the time for you to go, he said.Leave this place and return, he said.

Why are you coming to this place? People dont comehere, he said.

He spoke, and then he immersed his curing whisk intoa gourd with healing water, making it fresh.

He waved the whisk over me, making the cool dropsfall on me.

He waved it, then he blew over me, In this way youare suffering. Other people have done bad to you, and

you became sick.Much you are suffering, he said to me.Yes, I am suffering in this way I said.

Today return from this place, child, and dont come

again, he said.Return and bathe in the realm of healing flowers hesaid.

In the health restoring flower realm he said.Then in the dream place I bathed.

I bathed in the dew that fell from the trees in thatplace.

When I bathed, my body became fresh and thesickness fell away.

Now return, return and remain there, child he said.This path. This is the only correct path, follow it

home, he said, and I went.I was coming, now. I arrived near and saw my house. I

arrived and in this place I woke up.


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This dream, although experienced outside ritual and withoutthe use of ayahuasca, is replete with the symbolism in the Sionacosmology that represents their central preoccupations with life and

death and their associated qualities. Disease that does not heal isnormally suspected of being caused by witchcraft. Disease is associatedwith the qualities of darkness, rottenness and heat, and thus is expressedas dying. Death is the journey down river to the end of the world, aplace that, according to his father, was not yet for him. Health isassociated with the opposite qualities, with lightness, freshness, youthand strength. Qualities of the restoration of health via freshness,particularly that of taking a bath in the dew water of an importanthealing plant, are vividly expressed in Ricardos return to health.

Before returning to the discussion of ritual, I would like topoint out an important aspect of this healing dream, which is notits symbolic message but the corporal sensations of healing thatwere stimulated through the drops of cooling water and the freshnessof bathing in water shaken from the healing tree. This dream, as anequally corporal and symbolic experience, shows the importance

of the unity of experience.That healing is a corporal as well as a symbolic experienceimplies certain limitations to the interpretative force of symbols,while not denying their effectiveness. Tambiah (1979) pointed thisout in his discussion about ritual efficacy that combines formalfeatures with cultural (or semantic) meaning to argue for aperformative approach to ritual that instigates the transformationof experience. If, in fact, shared representations or mythic thought

do not always explain the efficacy of rituals, the limitations of thesemantic approach become even clearer when participants in ahealing ritual hold different expectations and representations. Forexample, participants in Peruvian shamanic rituals come fromvarious different cultural traditions (urban, mestizo and Indian) withdisparate cosmologies and mythologies (Villar 2000). The lack ofshared perspective is increasingly the case with the expansion ofneo-shamanism and the use of hallucinogens in complex societies.

What is characteristic by the neo-shamanic movement and othernew era practices is that, for the most part, they are cosmologiesin the making that draw upon western notions of the individualand personal myths as well as images of non-western collectivetraditions (Maluf 2005; Mardsen and Luckoff 2006).


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A second limitation to Turners and Lvi-Strausss discussionsof semantic efficacy is the psychoanalytic bias, which emphasizesthe resolution of psychosomatic illnesses. Lvi-Strauss draws upon

the psychoanalytical theory of abreaction between the shaman andpatient. When the woman in childbirth is able to order herpsychological reality, her body responds and she delivers the babysuccessfully. Turners discussion of the exchange between the referentsof the physiological orectic pole with those of the social pole alsodepends upon psychoanalytic theory of drives and desires. In specificdiscussion about the influence of Freud on his symbolic theory, he is

very clear as to the psychoanalytic basis of symbolic power (Turner1978). Moreover, his analysis of the healing of the Ndembu leaderstresses the psychosomatic nature of his problems and characterizeshim as neurotic. His neurotic anxieties of inadequacy are resolvedthrough the healing ritual by the collective support of the participants.

The application of psychoanalytic theory to healing ritualsdealing with mental illness was characteristic of the 1950s and1960s. Enquiries into the success of non-western healing systems

tended to focus upon mental illnesses in tribal societies (Kiev1964). Since then there have been a number of changes inanthropological theory and focus that have contributed tocomprehending healing efficacy as a unified corporal experience incontexts in which shared symbolic representations are not necessarilya key element in the rituals force. Performance theory and the currentparadigms of the body help us move beyond the Cartesiandichotomy of the body and mind and the necessity of a sharedculture to account for healing in the globalized context ofcontemporary rituals. The paradigms of performance andembodiment6overcome the limitations of the semantic approachby focusing on deep corporal and sensorial engagement, even whenthe participants may not be part of the same social group.

6Embodiment, as a paradigm, was first coined by Csordas (1990) and isinspired primarily by Merleau-Pontys reflections and those of Bourdieu.It has become a well accepted notion that signifies the collapsing of thedualities of mind and body, subject and object to attend to thephenomenological reality of the body and its prxis.


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The Siona Yag Healing Ritual

Like other Amazonian groups having shamanic cosmologies,

the Siona perform yag rituals to know the invisible entities residingin the four heavens as well as in the jungle and river in this level,called the second heaven. These entities lie behind all visiblephenomenon of this world - the weather, the plants and trees, theanimals and fish, the geographical features, celestial stars andplanets, etc. For our discussion here, they play an important role ascauses of serious or chronic illnesses.

The Siona refer to the visible and invisible realms ofexperience as two sides of reality, this side which is ordinary realityand the other side where the spirits dwell as humans. The twosides are inherently linked, for everything that happens in this sidehas a counterpart in the activities of the spirits in the other side.Thus, the normal rhythm of life, as well as the change of seasons,the appearance of game or fish, and the maintenance of good health,depends upon these normally invisible entities. Equally, all

disruptions such as misfortunes, illness, and death have theirultimate cause in the other side. The two sides should not be thoughtof as separate, but as having a concomitant relationship that createsthe necessity to see what is not normally seen.

Contact with the supernatural beings is necessary to ensurethat life proceeds normally and to defend oneself if misfortuneoccurs. Yag provides the major mode of contact, for through thevisionary experience it produces one enters the other side. Althoughother additives are also employed in the brew, and other visionproducing stimulants are taken separately, yag is the principlesubstance ingested in ritual and sets the pattern for the use of otherpsychoactive substances.

The shaman, the specialist in yag, is singularly importantfor he mediates between ordinary humans and the beings on theother side. He bargains with the spirits to ensure the well being of

the community and its daily life. Thus, he asks the masters ofanimals to let their children out of their underground houses tobe hunted or Sun and Thunder to bring about favorable weather fortheir subsistence activities of agriculture, hunting, fishing, andgathering. He can to see into the past and future, and with his power


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he can heal people of illnesses and behavioral disorders caused bythe activities of the entities on the other side, as we have seen inthe case of Ricardo.

As a guide, he leads the participants in ritual through theother domains of the universe as well as protects them frommalevolent spirits. Participants desire to travel with the shamanand see what he knows, but dangerous spirits can intercede andcause one to become lost in a world of blackness and death ratherthan of that of the magnificent colors and scenes shown by mastershaman. If the guiding shaman does not take note when this happens

and bring the individual back to ordinary reality, it is believed thatthe person will fall seriously ill and perhaps die (Langdon 1979b).The status of master shaman is gained through a long,

apprenticeship, in which the novice passes from only a man toone who has left and finally, if he is able, to the status of master-shaman, known as jaguar, one who drinks or one who sees.As the novice drinks yag, a substance called dau begins toaccumulate in his body that empowers him to travel in the visionary

worlds and to contact the spirits. Dau signifies more than a substancein the body. It is a polisemic symbol and central to understandingthe shamans power (Langdon 1992). It refers to his knowledgeand is synonymous with the number of spirits he knows. Each spirithas its own vision and song that must be mastered if the shaman isto be able to contact and influence it. As he experiences morevisions, his dau increases accordingly.

There are various mechanisms present in the ritual to directthe experience. The goal of the ritual is to enable all the membersto experience what Dobkin de Rios (1972) has called a stereotypicalvision, and the Siona use several means to bring this about: thejourney to be made; the choice of the class of yagprepared; themethod of preparation; the songs, incantations, and dances of themaster shaman; and the presence of yag designs on the ritualimplements and clothing.

Each time yag is taken, it is ingested with the intent ofentering into contact with a specific domain, such as going tothe house of the master of the animals, to the house of amalevolent entity that is causing an illness, to the sun or moon,etc. The shaman announces the objective of the ritual before


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hand, and he and his helpers prepare a mixture of a specificclass of yag with specific additives that will give them thevisions desired. The Siona recognize at least twelve different

classes of yag, which are identified by the nature of the visionsthey are supposed to produce and certain morphological featuresand stages of growth of the vine (Langdon 1986).

The day of the ritual, the participants limit their huntingactivities. They stay close to the household and prepare, takingbathes, dressing in clean clothing, painting their faces and adorningthemselves with necklaces and sweet smelling plants to attract the

benevolent spirits. They say their manner of dressing emulates thesweet smelling yag people, their allies in the invisible domains.At nightfall, they gather at the special yag house in the

jungle. At one end of the hut, the shaman sits before a bench withthe yag preparation and the ritual implements, including a chalice-like cup decorated with yag designs, other painted bowls, a featherstaff made from the scarlet macaw, and the whisk of dried leavesused for chanting which was mentioned in Ricardos dream above.

A large pot with yag designs located at the side of the benchcontains the yag that will be consumed. Around dusk, the shamanbegins to cure the yag in the cup by singing and shaking the leafwhisk in order to rid it of possible bad effects. Next he arrangesthe yag in order that it will produce the desired visions. This stageof the ceremony, consisting of an invocation to the spirits he desiresto see and prepares the participants expectations for the experience.The shaman drinks first to make sure it will give the desired visions.As he begins to feel the effects, he sings of what he is seeing. Thisis the signal for his assistants to bring him his large feather crownand feather staff. Sun, the primordial shaman, wears a similar crownon his journey across the sky each day and that a scarlet macaw sitsupon his shoulder. Then the participants request that they be served.The shaman sings over each cup of yag he gives to them. Eachdrinks and returns to his place to wait for the visions.

Once the participants feel the effects of the hallucinogen,the both sides of reality fuse and their experiences reflect that ofthe shaman as he sings of places he is traveling. He describes insong the spirits he is seeing, the geometric motifs upon their faces,clothing, walls, and benches, and the colors of the visions. In this


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way, he guides them through the various realms of the universe. Healso whistles and plays bamboo flutes. In the bright world experiencedby the Siona, they also hear the spirits sing to them and play their

instruments. If the ritual involves the healing of an illness, itbecomes a dramatic performance that recreates the shamanic battletaking place on the other side in which the shaman battles to returnthe cause of the illness to its origin. The non-involved participantwill see the shaman singing, playing music on flutes (today theharmonica), running about and gesticulating. When he attends tothe patient, he cleans him with the leaf whisk, blows over him

and sucks out the illness object (the dau), to examine it in order todiagnose the origin of the cause and to give a prognosis. If thisobject is principally black or dark, it means that the patient hasbeen almost consumed by the illness and that a cure is improbable.If it is clearer, symbolizing freshness and life, then the ritual, perhapscombined with remedies afterwards, is likely to be successful. Hecan also be seen throwing the object back to where it come from.He may leave the yag house, and the participants can hear him

battling in the forest realm or perhaps elsewhere.In describing their own experiences with yag, the Sionaportray them as both fearful and marvelous, which are much moreforceful than the dry description I gave above of the ritual. Theyhave captured their experiences in personal narratives, and for theanthropologist who wants a view of the inner transformativeexperience, the Siona are quite willing to tell of them. This is alsotrue of their dream experiences, as we have seen in Ricardosnarrative presented above. What is common to both kinds ofexperiences from a subjective point of view is the fusion of ritualactivities with the complex shamanic cosmology that is corporallyexperienced, and not just observed.

It is apparent that not only the ritual symbols, but alsothe multisensorial experience of rhythmic instruments, clothing,decorated objects, and shamanic songs describing the spirits,

their design motifs and colors help to guide the participants workto transform the subjective experience. The powerful elementof yag cannot be ignored, but, as mentioned before, the patientdoes not always drink the substance, particularly if he or she isseriously ill. This was the case in one of the first healing rituals


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in which I participated. I was working among the highlandSibundoy Indians and accompanied the final months of a womandying of advanced cancer or glandular tuberculosis. I first mether through the local health post doctor who said that she hadinterned in his infirmary for a few months, but that she neededspecialized treatment. Since I had a car, I took her and herhusband to the regional Hospital some hours away. Once thedoctors looked at the open wounds on her stomach, they told usthat there was nothing to do other than simply return home toawait death. Her husband didnt seem to shaken by the news

and, once home, he told me that he was going to ask a shamanto heal her and to find out what really was going on. I wasprivileged to be invited to the ritual, attended primarily by theimmediate family. All of us took yag, excluding the patient,and when it was over, the shaman explained the cause aswitchcraft and said that it was too late to cure her. It was thenthat the husband accepted the negative prognosis, and the next

time I visited them, he had a built a wooden coffin, which stoodoutside the entrance to the house, awaiting her death.Before returning to the issues of healing and performance,

I would like to present a fragment of personal narrative fromRicardo in which he describes his subjective healing experience.When he was in early adolescence and beginning to drink yag, hehad a frightening experience in the jungle with an encounter witha wati, a malevolent spirit sent by a jealous shaman. As aconsequence he developed an extremely high fever and began tovomit pure black liquid with rotten leaves, a clear sign ofwitchcraft. The narrative describes the first curing rituals that hisfather performed. They consisted of ritual blowing and cleansingwith the leaf whisk as well as chanting over the herbal remediesingested by Ricardo. After two such healing sessions, his vomitchanged to clear watery liquid. As in the case of his skin problem,

once the symptoms were alleviated, his father performed a yagritual to heal him. The narrative starts here with the yag ritual,which Ricardo briefly relates and then elaborates on his subjectiveexperience when he also drinks yag in the second ritual.


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Then they cooked yag, and my older brothercarried me up.

He carried me up to the yag house, and my fatherblew to cleanse the sickness.

All of the sickness objects of the spirits he blew;

He conversed with the spirit who frightened me;

He saw all that happened, sang yag chants andblew on me.

As he blew, I got better; that time I returned tohealth.

Time passed; again they cooked another house ofyag.

They cooked, and I thought This time I am goingto drink.

My father sang many chants.He sang and cured me, and when he finished,

Father, give me yag to drink, I said.

You want to drink? he said.

I want to drink, I said.

I said, and he began to chant over the yag.

He cured it, finished and blew, Drink child, onemouthful drink; drink and see; drink, he said.

And one mouthful I drank.

I drank, and then the yag came.

When it came, only very black insects appeared to

me, thus the yag came to me.When it came, first I saw all darkness. Oh! The

yag showed to me only black men and their realmof darkness.


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Thus to me the yag came. The drunken spiritpeople, the yag drunken spirit people, arrived tome. Oh! They tried to catch me with palm cords.

They tried and I defended myself.

I worked to defend myself; then the drunken spiritpeople pulled out their tongues.

And they came screaming at me.

As they came, I was a dying person, notremembering anything on this side. They came,

and I was dying on this side.

I was dying as my father went singing into thejungle.

He left and returned.

He came, and I was not remembering anything ofthis world.

I was not conscious. Oh, little brother is dyingmy older brother said coming to me.

Singing Parrot? he called my yag name.

I was thinking of nothing.

I didnt respond and he sang a spirit chant.

I couldnt swallow his remedy at all.And he took a knife and pried open my teeth.

With a leaf spoon he had made, they poured theliquid into me.

Slowly and refreshingly the water flowed in.

As it flowed, my father began to blow the dau.

As he blew, I saw the heaven people, the tenderpeople who look like us.

They came personally to me, descending on themirror that my father had in his hand,


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He blew on the large mirror.

My father sang of the spirits, and they descended

with the large mirror, and with this mirror I sawmy father singing and blowing to cure me.

He saw the place of dizziness, sang many yagchants, with the spirit language he was curing.

He cured, I saw all the people as they descendedto my father, descending and singing to this place.

And seeing this, I returned to this side.

There is no more sickness he said as he cured,and rapidly to this side I returned healthy.

Healing and Performance

This narrative above is replete with symbols that communicateabout the shamanic cosmology that is invoked when people aresuffering from sudden and violent illnesses as well as in other rituals.The elements related to darkness and rottenness represent the darkand evil forces that can come from the evil watior spirits and causeillness and death. In the same way, clarity, freshness, and light connotehealing powers. Here I wish like to go beyond an interpretation ofthe symbolic messages to focus on aspects that are representative ofwhat I have been calling the performative approach. There are several

features that permit us to understand how such an analysis applied tohealing moves beyond the limitations of the structural interpretivetheories of ritual efficacy and their dependency on psychoanalyticprocesses (Laderman and Rosen 1996). The performative approachto healing builds upon earlier discussions of ritual efficacy in order tocomprehend healing in contexts where the body is engaged in itstotality, independent of shared symbolic meanings and a Cartesiandivision between body and mind.

Heightened experience: Performance has an emergent qualityof immediate experience, a temporary and singular quality, resultingfrom the aesthetic communicative resources, individual competence,and the goals of the participants within a particular situation (Bauman1977). In this sense, the shaman enacts the healing process by calling


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upon a number of aesthetic resources, his songs, dancing, drumbeating, to create a heightened and engaged experience of theparticipants. In the specific case of the Siona, the shaman enacts

his battle with the beings on the other side, running about, extractingthe illness as an objectified substance from the patients body,throwing it back to the realm from which it came. The Siona oftenrelated that they saw him as a jaguar who growled as he ran about.

Multisensorial input: While classic ritual theory recognizes theimportance of sensorial input, the performative approach bringsmultisensorial input to the forefront. Drumming, music, sounds,

rhythms, and dancing contribute importantly to the experiencedreality. This can result in synesthesia, in which various sensorialinputs experienced simultaneously are received to create a unifiedexperience, in which one sensorial input is experienced by another(Sullivan 1986). Certainly the use of entheogenic substances, suchas mixtures of Banisteriopsis, contributes heavily to such experiences,but synesthesia is not exclusive to hallucinogenic experiences.

Collaborative expectancy in participation: Schieffelins (1985)

classic article on the sance demonstrates clearly how meaning andexperience emerge form the interaction during the performance.He demonstrates that it is the collective expectancy among all theparticipants that creates the experience. Siona healing rituals arestructured in several ways to set up expectations as to the experience.What domains of the universe will be explored is first establishedby the class of yag chosen for the ritual. This is further reinforcedwhen he invokes the spirits chanting over the yag challis, a ritualmoment that is referred to as arranging or curing the yag. Hedoes this before he drinks it, as well as each time he serves aparticipant. Similarly, he chants over or cures herbal remedies togive them their power. The relationship between the act of singingand the injection of power into the substance to be consumed couldbe thought of as a speech act that has performative power accordingto Austin (1965). Thus the phases of the ritual, the chanting and

other performative strategies, establish certain expectancies in theparticipants as to what they should experience.In addition, we could also say that the participants

collaborate in the emergence of the experience by accompanyingand identifying what is supposed to be going on. This was shown


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clearly to me in an occasion that I played a tape of a shamanicsance performed by a Quicha shaman from the Napo region ofEcuador.7 This region is adjacent to the Putumayo River that

separates Ecuador and Colombia, and the various Indian groups(Quechua, Shuar, Kofan, Siona and Secoya) participate in a shamanicnetwork that shares several performative characteristics in theirhealing rituals, including musical instruments, use of ayahuasca,the leaf bundle or whisk shaken rhythmically to clean the patients,breathing techniques through blowing, dancing and singing. When Iplayed the tape of the healing session, Ricardo listened intently

and explained to his wife the progression of the ritual, from itsinitial preparations of yag to the shamans travels in the invisiblerealms. His accompanied the ritual via its performative elements the music and rhythms since he did not know the language inwhich the songs were being sung.

Corporal, emotional and sensorial engagement: Csordas hasdiscussed the rhetorical power of healing rituals as a corporal, orembodied, experience and argues that the persuasive power of ritual

activates endogenous processes of healing (1983: 345). Ricardosnarrative, both of his dreams and of ritual carry many images thatspeak of his bodily experience. The illness is hot and rotten. Healingenters as a cooling refreshing substance. His description of the lightof the mirror that reflects the descent of the healing people, hisfather chanting over him, and the simultaneous sensation of coolnessdemonstrates the fusion of the corporal and imagery experience.

Taking the lead from Csordas and his notion of embodiment(1990), Laderman and Rosen (1996) examine various forms ofshamanic healings from the perspective of embodied experienceand the persuasive power of ritual performance. Concernedparticularly with healing, they argue that performance analysisallows us to shift from emphasis upon the structure ofrepresentations (what I have called the semantic or interpretive

7 Soul Vine Shaman, a record produced and distributed by NeelonCrawford. The folder that accompanies the record is by Norman E.Whitten, N. E. Jr. Sacha Runa Research Foundation Occasional PaperNo. 5. 1979. Urbana, Illinois.


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approach) to that of practice and emphasis on the intensity ofexperience with is corporally informed in the ritual experience. Forhealing to occur, the senses must be engaged, not only through the

symbolic representations, but also through aesthetic qualities,including the importance of sensuous forms of sound, movement,odor and color. Healing efficacy creates an embodied experience,which becomes powerfully engaged through performance.

For the purposes of this book, it is necessary to recognizethat a particularly powerful aspect of many, but not all shamanicrituals, is the use of entheogenic substances, or what Winkelman

calls psychointegrators (2000: 210). It has long been recognized thatshamanic practices utilize a number of corporal, sensorial and chemicaltechniques to stimulate neurophenomenological phenomena knownas altered states of consciousness (Eliade 1964; Goodman 1990),and there have been a number of studies in neurophysiology,psychoneuroimunology, and other fields of research that argue for aneurophenomonological basis of human symbolic experience(Laughlin, et. al. 1990). Turner (1987), shortly before his death,

attempted to trace the link between play, performance, ritual andstructures of the brain. I certainly do not have the capacity to elaborateon what has become exceptionally specialized knowledge that includesresearch on shamanic rituals and cultural experience, but which drawsfrom a number of other fields in the neurosciences.

However, following the lead of Winkelman, it is necessaryto recognize that the use of psychointegrative substances is apowerful technique to enhance other elements in ritual performancein order to cause a bodily engagement that leads to transformationof the experience, one which creates a new reality orphenomenological world that is embodied, not just corporal orcognitive. As far as ritual performance is concerned, the use ofsuch substances makes a significant contribution to ritual efficacy,or, in Turners words, to make it really work (1974).

Final commentsI have tried to make several points in this paper. The first is

to distinguish between the notions of cure and heal. The first islimited to the biological model of disease in which the cure can be


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directly observed by external observation and is the instrumentalresult of therapeutic practices. Healing, on the other hand, is anembodied experience in which the sufferer is transferred to a new

phenomenological reality. Healing redirects attention and experience.Most authors cited here regard healing as a restoration of well beingon the psychobiological, social and spiritual levels. It is in this respectthat Youngs pioneer article is relevant, in that most ritual practicessucceed because they confirm ontological and existentialpropositions about the world.

In discussing the theories of symbolic power according to

Lev-Strauss and Turner, I have not rejected the value of theircontributions to the understanding of healing efficacy, but I havetried to demonstrate certain limitations to the structuralrepresentational approach as well as to the psychoanalytic basis ofritual power. Both do envision the engagement of the body, but itwas others (Tambiah 1979; Schiefelin 1985; Laderman and Rosen1996) who placed the sensorial, esthetic and emergence ofexperience in the center of the analysis of ritual healing.

Much of my discussion has been based on experiences withtraditional shamanic healing, but it is relevant to the question ofhealing and rituals in the contemporary world, in which we findshamanic techniques being used and combined with other therapeuticpractices in new contexts and where shared and normativecosmologies and symbols cannot be assumed. Although newcosmologies can emerge from the performance experience, manyparticipants gain healing satisfaction from exotic therapies thatcontain a semantic logic that they may not share or even understand.Models based on collective sharing are insufficient to explain thepopularity of shamanic techniques in new-age religions and practices.At the same time, psychointegrator substances are not the onlyfactor of the efficacy in ritual; we have clear evidence of healingoccurring in rituals without the use substances.

It is not the substance that heals, but its contributions to

the performative efficacy that results in a transformation ofexperience. Healing can occur in the ways that we have defined ithere, as a phenomenological embodied experience. However, theexperience of being healed does not necessarily prevent death, asin the case of Reusch cited in the footnote and who felt better


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and slept better after shamanic healing, but died a few monthslater (Pereira 1989). Not all healing is efficacious in the biomedicaldefinition of cure. And in fact, rituals can fail in both healing and

curing, but that is another topic. In closing, I would like toconclude this article with an important paradox observed by theArgentinean poet, Almafuerte,

Todos los incurables tienen cura cinco minutos antesde la muerte.


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ANTROPOLOGIA EM PRIMEIRA MO

Ttulos publicados

1. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. A Origem do Samba como Inveno do Brasil: Sobre o "Feitio de Oraco " deVadico e Noel Rosa (Por que as Canes Tm Musica?), 1995.

2. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de & MENEZES BASTOS, Hermenegildo Jos de. A Festa da Jaguatirica:Primeiro e Stimo Cantos - Introduo, Transcries, Tradues e Comentrios, 1995.

3. WERNER, Dennis. Policiais Militares Frente aos Meninos de Rua, 1995.

4. WERNER, Dennis. A Ecologia Cultural de Julian Steward e seus desdobramentos, 1995.

5. GROSSI, Miriam Pillar. Mapeamento de Grupos e Instituies de Mulheres/de Gnero/Feministas no Brasil, 1995.

6. GROSSI, Miriam Pillar. Gnero, Violncia e Sofrimento - Coletnea, Segunda Edio 1995.

7. RIAL, Carmen Silvia. Os Charmes dos Fast-Foods e a Globalizao Cultural, 1995.

8. RIAL, Carmen Silvia. Japons Est para TV Assim como Mulato para Cerveja: lmagens da Publicidade no Brasil,1995.

9. LAGROU, Elsje Maria. Compulso Visual: Desenhos e Imagens nas Culturas da Amaznia Ocidental, 1995.

10. SANTOS, Slvio Coelho dos. Lideranas Indgenas e Indigenismo Of icial no Sul do Brasil, 1996.

11. LANGDON, Esther Jean. Performance e Preocupaes Ps-Modernas em Antropologia 1996.

12. LANGDON, Esther Jean. A Doena como Experincia: A Construo da Doena e seu Desafio para a PrticaMdica, 1996.

13. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Antropologia como Crtica Cultural e como Crtica a Esta: Dois MomentosExtremos de Exerccio da tica Antropolgica (Entre ndios e Ilhus), 1996.

14. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Musicalidade e Ambientalismo: Ensaio sobre o Encontro Raoni-Sting, 1996.

15. WERNER, Dennis. Laos Sociais e Bem Estar entre Prostitutas Femininas e Travestis em Florianpolis, 1996.

16. WERNER, Dennis. Ausncia de Figuras Paternas e Delinqncia, 1996.

17. RIAL, Carmen Silvia. Rumores sobre Alimentos: O Caso dos Fast-Foods,1996.

18. SEZ, Oscar Calavia. Historiadores Selvagens: Algumas Reflexes sobre Histria e Etnologia, 1996.

19. RIFIOTIS, Theophilos. Nos campos da Violncia: Diferena e Positividade, 1997.

20. HAVERROTH, Moacir. Etnobotnica: Uma Reviso Terica. 1997.

21. PIEDADE, Accio Tadeu de Camargo. Msica Instrumental Brasileira e Frico de Musicalidades, 1997

22. BARCELOS NETO, Aristteles. De Etnografias e Colees Museolgicas. Hipteses sobre o Grafismo Xinguano,1997

23. DICKIE, Maria Amlia Schmidt. O Milenarismo Mucker Revisitado, 1998

24. GROSSI, Mirian Pillar. Identidade de Gnero e Sexualidade, 1998m

25. SEZ, Oscar Calavia. Campo Religioso e Grupos Indgenas no Brasil, 1998

26. GROSSI, Miriam Pillar. Direitos Humanos, Feminismo e Lutas contra a Impunidade. 1998

27. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Ritual, Histria e Poltica no Alto-Xingu: Observao a partir dos Kamayur eda Festa da Jaguatirica (Yawari), 1998

28. GROSSI, Miriam Pillar. Feministas Histricas e Novas Feministas no Brasil, 1998.

29. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Msicas Latino-Americanas, Hoje: Musicalidade e Novas Fronteiras, 1998.

30. RIFIOTIS, Theophilos. Violncia e Cultura no Projeto de Ren Girard, 1998.

31. HELM, Ceclia Maria Vieira. Os Indgenas da Bacia do Rio Tibagi e os Projetos Hidreltricos, 1998.

32. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Apap World Hearing: A Note on the Kamayur Phono-Auditory System andon the Anthropological Concept of Culture, 1998.

33. SEZ, Oscar Calavia. procura do Ritual. As Festas Yaminawa no Alto Rio Acre, 1998.

34. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de & PIEDADE, Accio Tadeu de Camargo: Sopros da Amaznia: Ensaio-Resenha sobre as Msicas das Sociedades Tupi-Guarani, 1999.

35. DICKIE, Maria Amlia Schmidt. Milenarismo em Contexto Significativo: os Mucker como Sujeitos, 1999.

36. PIEDADE, Accio Tadeu de Camargo. Flautas e Trompetes Sagrados do Noroeste Amaznico: Sobre a Msica doJurupari, 1999.

37. LANGDON, Esther Jean. Sade, Saberes e tica Trs Conferncias sobre Antropologia da Sade, 1999.


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38. CASTELLS, Alicia Norma Gonzles de. Vida Cotidiana sob a Lente do Pesquisador: O valor Heurstico da Imagem,1999.

39. TASSINARI, Antonella Maria Imperatriz. Os povos Indgenas do Oiapoque: Produo de Diferenas em ContextoIntertnico e de Polticas Pblicas, 1999.

40. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Brazilian Popular Music: An Anthropological Introduction (Part I), 2000.

41. LANGDON, Esther Jean. Sade e Povos Indgenas: Os Desafios na Virada do Sculo, 2000.

42. RIAL, Carmen Silvia & GROSSI, Miriam Pillar. Vivendo em Paris: Velhos e Pequenos Espaos numa Metrpole,2000.

43. TASSINARI, Antonella Maria Imperatriz. Misses Jesuticas na Regio do Rio Oiapoque, 2000.

44. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Authenticity and Divertissement: Phonography, American Ethnomusicologyand the Market of Ethnic Music in the United States of America, 2001.

45. RIFIOTIS, Theophilos. Les Mdias et les Violences: Points de Repres sur la Rception, 2001.

46. GROSSI, Miriam Pillar e RIAL, Carmen Silvia. Urban Fear in Brazil: From the Favelas to the Truman Show, 2001.

47. CASTELLS, Alicia Norma Gonzles de. O Estudo do Espao na Perspectiva Interdisciplinar, 2001.

48. RIAL, Carmen Silvia. 1. Contatos Fotogrficos. 2. Manezinho, de ofensa a trofu, 2001.

49. RIAL, Carmen Silvia. Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes in Brazilian Advertising. 2001

50. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. Brazilian Popular Music: An Anthropological Introduction (Part II), 2002.51. RIFIOTIS, Theophilos. Antropologia do Ciberespao. Questes Terico-Metodolgicas sobre Pesquisa de Campo

e Modelos de Sociabilidade, 2002.

52. MENEZES BASTOS, Rafael Jos de. O ndio na Msica Brasileira: Recordando Quinhentos anos deesquecimento, 2002

53. GROISMAN, Alberto. O Ldico e o Csmico: Rito e Pensamento entre Daimistas Holandeses, 2002

54. MELLO, Maria Ignez Cruz. Arte e Encontros Intertnicos: A Aldeia Wauja e o Planeta, 2003.

55. SEZ, Oscar Calavia. Religio e Restos Humanos. Cristianismo, Corporalidade e Violncia, 2003.

56. SEZ, Oscar Calavia. Un Ba

langdon, esther - the symbolic efficacy of rituals. from ritual to performance

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