Customer Reviews

Shamanism in North America (Religion and Spirituality)

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This is a good introduction to NA 'shamanic' cultures. The book is divided into 7 chapters, devoted to semi- geographic groups with similar social organizations and spiritual practices, including the Eskimo, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, Southwest, Californian and Plains Indians. There is a lot of information in each chapter yet the info is condensed in an interesting manner for the lay reader. Included are a number of cool stories and anecdotes. In my opinion, Hunt achieves a good balance between the illustrations and the text... the depicted photos of ritual paraphernalia, shamans, landscape tell the story almost by themselves.

I recommend this book as a starting point for people who want to learn about the diversity of NA shamanic practices and beliefs practiced across different cultural, language, ethnic and geographical divisions. As expected from a book intended for a general audience, author presents his information as hard facts. I am sure experts might quibble about some of them; however, this does not detract from the usefullnes of the book.