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Shamanism continues to reflect modernity's fascination with tradition most visibly epitomised through post-colonial 'new age' spiritual religions and adventure tourism. This edited volume by Whitehead and Wright sets the record straight by emphasising negative and dark features of shamanism - such as predation, violence, killing and sorcery-related illness - aspects that are increasingly purified, erased or ignored by the neo-shamanistic movement and its increasingly significant presence in supra-local political economies. However, the real contribution made by the authors of this volume, is in providing historical and ethnographic support for the sometimes-malevolent ontological basis for society among Lowland South American peoples.
Shamanism is certainly a worthy locus for the contemplation of malevolence whereby practitioners who are considered to have the power to heal also have the power to harm. The idea is elemental to most aspects of human power and how one sets off to employ it. Several authors in this volume, such as Heckenberger and Teixiera-Pinto, emphasise the coercive aspects of such power. Still, such coercion is never straightforward. With dark shamanism and related practices, it is not merely what one does but what others say one does,...