(Tina)Theresa Hannah-Munns
Book Review
Leona Anderson
July 20, 2006
Part 1 – “Is” Statements – Quoted statements from within the writing that may be given as assumptions or as arguments.
Basic Facts Page Given/Argued
1. It is difficult for Westerners to recognize embedded stereotyped “Other” in our education. 102 argued/proven
2. To routinely apply “shaman” as a scholarly label to any culture’s ritual practitioners outside of
3. The core of primitivism is that “civilized” people “of conquering states speak of the emptiness in products” but will not go without them. 98 given
4. Real issue today is sovereignty (First Nations, South American, etc.)
88 partially proven
5. Is it right to universalize the property of a localized knowledge? (no)
89 argued/proven
6. If it is “genuine shamanism” royalties are owed to the Siberian developers.
89 argued/proven
7. Is it right to teach other culture’s techniques as a “Disney world of benign power animals and wise teachers” for middle class paying clients? 89 argued/proven
8. It is not a surprise that Americans and Europeans in dominantly Christian countries seek “instruction in spiritual fulfillment?” 87 argued/proven
9. Neo-shamanism pitches to individual fulfillment as part of contemporary Western possessive individualism. 87 argued/proven
10. The
76 argued/ possible among many interpretations
11. It is confusing to use a “blanket word” borrowed from an unfamiliar Asian language on a variety of distinct social phenomena and peoples. 53 argued/proven
12. Eliade’s concept of the sacred is theology, not ethnology. 45 argued/proven
13. Eliade is a popular example of an armchair scholar in the university ivory tower.
40 argued/proven
14. It is a eurocultural belief that the mind is independent of the body.
40 given
15. It is now time to look critically at Eliade’s methods, sources, categorizations, and assumptions. 2 argued/proven
16. “Critical thinking is a means to winnow out distorting stereotypes and parroted slogans.” 3 given
17. “An ugly word for the stereotype [of shaman/ism] is ‘racism’.”
4 argued/mostly proven
18. “To be a shaman is a priestly calling.” 8 given
19. “It is the anthropological perspective, with its recognition of the gregariousness… that resolves this paradox.” 33 given
20. “there is a racist undercurrent in many classical ethnographic studies.”
35 argued/proven
Part Two – Hierarchy of Ideas
Primary – 1, 2, 5, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20
Secondary – 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 (may be primary in some instances), 10, 14, 18
Part Three – Authority
Alice Beck Kehoe promotes social scientists over humanists from an ethnologist/anthropological perspective. Not only does she promote only empirical observation, her down-to-earth practicality supports her critical analysis; she uses her various personal and field experiences to provide answers to commonly viewed (or romanticized) religious phenomena. For example, living on a Montana Indian reservation, an old lady had told her about drawing and pecking out pictures on rock surfaces was a way for her as a child (and others) to pass the time while waiting to go berry picking (71). Many of her examples are from various field stays in various communities including Cree, Anishnabe and Blackfoot areas in
Kehoe is a thorough researcher even as she presents some of her own ethnologist and eurocentric assumptions.
Part Four – Research Directive
Her principle purpose is to show how the label “shaman” and the title “shamanism” are inadequate terms especially within anthropological and other disciplines. Kehoe argues that these terms support and promote institutional racism while also misleading scholars from depth analysis by giving superficial understanding to various and distinct cross-cultural religious social phenomena.
Part Five – Audience Analysis and Evaluation of Argument
While the audience seems to primarily focus on anthropological researchers, her use of contractions and other grammar and writing stylistics deny this academic level. Her style fits well with more general audiences making her book a consumable product. Her argument especially works well for a general audience as well as the anthropological one. Her inclusion of class analysis, art critique, use of the history of religions and the like also makes her audience widen to include most disciplinary fields, but this audience brings more critical questions, maybe not to counterargue her well-documented and reasoned argument, but to open the assumptions to critical review and provide examples to expand the analysis began in her book.
While I cannot fully evaluate some of her ethnographic sources, the First Nation examples that she utilized from the prairie provinces seem convincing from my own experiential background in this geographical location. Many of her use of contemporary practical solutions and interpretations to classic debates and interpretations of religious phenomena are supported by First Nation scholarship and from the field of indigenous studies. While classic assumptions continue to play in her interpretations of anthropological data, such as the land bridge theory and the direction of cultural transference, the assumptions she does critique from other scholar’s work such as Eliade and Campbell do support her overall thesis.
Part Six – Imagery
Metaphor – NeoShamanism journeying is a trip to the Non-Ordinary Mall to shop for power animals/teachers
Symbol – Neoshamanism is filled with Disney world animals as helping spirits (no bad spirits)
Trope – new Age or NeoShamanism as a salad bar
Synecdoche – use of drumming to represent whole of shamanistic journeying
- use of singing to represent all shamanism
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