Re: White Shamanism in academia

C. Taylor (cmtaylor@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu)
Sat, 23 Sep 1995 16:06:36 -0500


[ It begins to look as if this topic has the potential to turn into a full-
blown discussion, which I generally try to discourage and/or limit on
the NATIVE-L list, since that's what the companion NATCHAT list is for.
I will relay a number of articles in this discussion thread, but if
others want to talk about the subject, I suggest we copy articles from
the current thread to NATCHAT and move it over there. If anyone wants
to do so, let me know, and I'll introduce the topic there and copy the
articles that have been posted here thus far. Thanks for your under-
standing and cooperation. --Gary (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us) ]

apodaca@nexus.chapman.edu (Paul Apodaca) writes:

> The word "shaman" is a RUSSIAN word. It is taken from the TUNGUS tribe of
> Central Asia. Among these Asians the word is SAMAN. This roots in the
> Sanskrit word SRAMANAS and is evolved from the Prakrit...

Paul:
By whatever name you choose to call them, there are indeed many "white
wannabes" that do attempt to instruct other "whites" in the ways of the
indigenous peoples of North, South and Meso- America. Whether or not the
word "shaman" is a viable semantic representation of the actual names for
the "medicine people" of tribal america, the problem does exist. If you
want to get really technical about it, there is no
English/French/Spanish/ European et al translation to really be true to
the meaning of the originals because there was and is so much diversity
in indigenous languages that a pan-indian meaning cannot exist. Please
don't cloud the issue with semantics.

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Chris Taylor /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ Program of Feminist Anthropology
\/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ University of Iowa
<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><>><<>><<>><<>><> cmtaylor@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu