Author Explores the Traditions, Varieties of American Native Shamans

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 3 -- They live on the edge of reality. They take "out-of-body flights" to intercede with the spirits that govern nature. They heal people who are ill. They grow their hair for spiritual strength. They protect their people from high-tech modernity. They've been known to use trickery.

They are North America's aboriginal shamans.

They are the hundreds, if not thousands, of native Indian men and women at the forefront of a revival of Indian spirituality from the deserts of New Mexico to the misty forests of Alaska.

Norman Bancroft Hunt details the exotic exploits of shamans, both old and contemporary, in his new book Shamanism in North America (Firefly Books), which for the first time describes all the continent's shaman traditions in one volume.

Today's shamans, Bancroft Hunt writes, are not exactly like those of yesteryear, who would bless warriors, battle for power against Christian priests and enter into dreamlike trances to discern the path of prairie buffalo for a hunting party.

Although contemporary shamans still orchestrate elaborate dances and rituals, Bancroft Hunt says they don't, as many believe, "practice hocus-pocus and witchcraft. They don't wave a bunch of bones around and hope for a miracle."

Instead, Bancroft Hunt compares the shaman's power to that of a psychologist-priest. Shamans deal with "powerful forces that could be dangerous," he says. They bring together mind and spirit in a way theoretical scientists are only now beginning to understand.

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