Hopi Stories Of Witchcraft Shamanism And Magic

The traditional Hopi world, as reflected in Hopi oral literature, is infused with magic?a seamless tapestry of everyday life and the supernatural. That magic and wonder are vividly depicted in this marvelous collection of authentic folktales. For the Hopis, the spoken or sung word can have a magical effect on others. Witchcraft?the wielding of magic for selfish purposes by a powaqa, or sorcerer?has long been a powerful, malevolent force. Sorcerers are said to have the ability to change into animals such as a crow, a coyote, a bat, or a skeleton fly, and hold their meetings in a two-tiered kiva to the northeast of Hopi territory. Shamanism, the more benevolent but equally powerful use of magic for healing, was once commonplace but is no longer practiced among the Hopis. Shamans, or povosyaqam, often used animal familiars and quartz crystals to help them to see, diagnose, and cure illnesses. Spun through these tales are supernatural beings, otherworldly landscapes, magical devices and medicines, and shamans and witches. One story tells about a man who follows his wife one night and discovers that she is a witch, while another relates how a jealous woman uses the guise of an owl to make a rival woman's baby sick. Other tales include the account of a boy who is killed by kachinas and then resurrected as a medicine man and the story of a huge rattlesnake, a giant bear, and a mountain lion that forever guard the entrance to Maski, the Land of the Dead.

"The tales concern such villages as Sikyatki, Hisatsongoopavi, and Awat'ovi, which were destroyed by war, fire, earthquake, or internal strife. Though abandoned for centuries, they live in memory, reminders of ancient tragedies and enmities that changed the Hopis forever. Related by storytellers from Second and Third Mesa, these tales vividly describe village destruction and show how much human evils such as witchcraft, hubris, corruption and betrayal of fundamental values can precipitate social disintegration and chaos."--BOOK JACKET.

A guide to worldwide shamanism and shamanistic practices, emphasizing historical and current cultural adaptations. This two-volume reference is the first international survey of shamanistic beliefs from prehistory to the present day. In nearly 200 detailed, readable entries, leading ethnographers, psychologists, archaeologists, historians, and scholars of religion and folk literature explain the general principles of shamanism as well as the details of widely varied practices. What is it like to be a shaman? Entries describe, region by region, the traits, such as sicknesses and dreams, that mark a person as a shaman, as well as the training undertaken by initiates. They detail the costumes, music, rituals, artifacts, and drugs that shamans use to achieve altered states of consciousness, communicate with spirits, travel in the spirit world, and retrieve souls. Unlike most Western books on shamanism, which focus narrowly on the individual's experience of healing and trance, Shamanism also examines the function of shamanism in society from social, political, and historical perspectives and identifies the ancient, continuous thread that connects shamanistic beliefs and rituals across cultures and millennia.

Cloth edition: $24.95.

The Anaasází people left behind marvelous structures, the ruins of which are preserved at Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Canyon de Chelly. But what do we know about these people, and how do they relate to Native nations living in the Southwest today? Archaeologists have long studied the American Southwest, but as historian Robert McPherson shows in Viewing the Ancestors, their findings may not tell the whole story. McPherson maintains that combining archaeology with knowledge derived from the oral traditions of the Navajo, Ute, Paiute, and Hopi peoples yields a more complete history. McPherson’s approach to oral tradition reveals evidence that, contrary to the archaeological consensus that these groups did not coexist, the Navajos interacted with their Anaasází neighbors. In addition to examining archaeological literature, McPherson has studied traditional teachings and interviewed Native people to obtain accounts of their history and of the relations between the Anaasází and Athapaskan ancestors of today’s Hopi, Pueblo, and Navajo peoples. Oral history, McPherson points out, tells why things happened. For example, archaeological findings indicate that the Hopi are descended from the Anaasází, but Hopi oral tradition better explains why the ancient Puebloans may have left the Four Corners region: the drought that may have driven the Anaasází away was a symptom of what had gone wrong within the society—a point that few archaeologists could derive from what is found in the ground. An important text for non-Native scholars as well as Native people committed to retaining traditional knowledge, Viewing the Ancestors exemplifies collaboration between the sciences and oral traditions rather than a contest between the two.

Includes material on shamanism, death, witchcraft, myth, tricksters, and kachina initiations.

Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies and Other Human Histories investigates early texts that speak of sophisticated technologies millennia ago that became obscured over time or were destroyed with the civilizations that had created them.