Shaman, Jhankri & Nele: Music Healers of Indigenous Cultures [Paperback]

Pat Moffitt Cook (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Ellipsis Arts; Pap/Com edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559614560
• ISBN-13: 978-1559614566
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #656,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written interviews and recorded healing songs.., October 24, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shaman, Jhankri & Nele: Music Healers of Indigenous Cultures (Paperback)

The author has done a remarkable job with research and the use of songs by indigenious cultures for healing purposes, The book has great photography and comes with a CD with 18 cuts of original songs, mostly recorded in the field. The author is doing the world of music and anthropolgy a great service, preserving and archiving music that could easily disappear!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is NOT a how-to shaman's manual but excellent overview., May 27, 2004

By 

Douglas L. Buchholz "Abenaki Child" (Lancaster, Coos County, New Hampshire (N'dakinna)) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shaman, Jhankri & Nele: Music Healers of Indigenous Cultures (Paperback)

I found this book and it's accompanying CD a good overview of how Indigenous Peole's have helped people spiritually. It is an overview of Native People's healers across the the world that conduct ceremonies and sing their songs for the benefit of the ailing; etc. The songs are not to be sung or used without the awareness of where, when, and how to use & sing them. For example, Kanucas Littlefish nor the author Pat Moffit Cook explain how-when-where to sing the song that Kanucas sings on the CD. It is not appropriate or wise to use something, or sing a song that one does not know about personally. The only one that can give a person that awareness is the person that "owns" that song. And he is not "selling" this song. He is not "selling" medicine. He is trying to give the reader a simple quick overview of where he comes from, how he walks his road, his life prayer, in this life. He DOES NOT claim to be a Native American Anishnaabe medicine man, a spiritual leader or otherwise. Other people approproiate or give him these titles/labels by their own observations being around this man when he sings, does ceremonies, or simmply helps others.
There has been some "controversial issues" regarding this CD and book from within and outside the Native communities.. I want to put people's minds and spirit at peace about this book/cd, and about my friend Kanucas. He is a good & decent human being and I have known and interacted with Ken for 16 years now. We Native descendants of this land are not all born and raised on BIA controlled Reservations/Reserve's. "Medicine ways" are not strictly kept within a Reservation by BIA Tribal Card holding NDN's. We are all across this land, and we are born, adapt, adopt, intermarry, migrate and survive as best that we can in this reality. This cd is merely an excellent overview of the many Indigenous peoples inside and outside their communities and how they have survived and helped their people through songs and ceremonies. Again, I would like anyone who sees this material on the internet, or buys this wonderful book & CD that it is not a "how-to" manual, nor an attempt on the part of the persons mentioned in the book/cd to "sell" or desecrate their Native People's spiritual traditions but merely that they themselves have trusted the endeavor of the author Pat Moffit Cook to show that healing songs can help people as well as any surgical knife in an operating room. Anyone who concludes differently about the mentioned persons i nthis book or on this CD do not obviously know the persons in this book on a personal level. To use these songs, to know these songs, to "own" these songs you, the reader, would have to get to know these people suck as Kanucas, on a personal level and have them share with you over a a long period of time and hard work how-when-where etc to sing these songs appropriately. And that my friends is not hwat Kanucas Littlefish or anyone else in this book has done by being in this book or on the accompanying CD. Creator bless and keep you well. Get this book and cd, keep your spirit and your minds open to the sacred....you never know what you might experience in your life if you do that. Mark Leckie (Mkwamagwigit)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Global Survey of Shamanism, November 20, 2003

By 

Zekeriyah (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Shaman, Jhankri & Nele: Music Healers of Indigenous Cultures (Paperback)

This book does a wonderful job looking at the global tradition of Shamanism and its healing methods. After the introduction, it gives several brief profiles of 18 traditional Shaman from around the globe and their cultures. The range varies from traditional Tuvan shamanism to Voudon, the Native American Church, Ayahuasceros, a Tibetan Oracle and Hindu village healers and to more obscure practices such as Spiritual Baptists (aka "Shouters"), Nepalese Jhankri and a Kangsinmu (spirit possessed Korean shaman). Naturally, several Native American Nations are presented, including the Tarahumara and Huichol of northern Mexico, the Maya (Mesoamerica), Anishnabe (North America) and Kuna (Panama). And best of all, this book comes with a CD presenting excerpts from shamanic healings recorded in the field. This is a wonderful anthropologic introduction into just how truly global the traditions of shamanism truly are. Its only sad that the book couldn't go into more depth on each individual and their culture, or expand to look at other cultures (Hawai'ian Huna, Cuban Santeria, Mexican Curaderismo, Bedouin Sheikha, Jamaican Obeah, Chinese and Malay folk shaman, Siberian or Lappish shamanism or the medicine rites of the Australian Aborigines, Africans or Amazon Indians, for example).