Latin American Christianity and Shamanism

CÉSAR CERIANI CERNADAS Y PABLO WRIGHT

Shamanism. An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture. Vol. 1

ABC-CLIO

Lugar: Santa Bárbara, California; Año: 2004; p. 409 - 414

In terms of shamanic studies, Latin America represents a cultural area full of recreations and socio-cultural creativity. Its very name implies the encounter between Spanish and Portuguese traditions with indigenous cultures, and the development of creole traditions as a consequence of it. In this entry, we propose to revisited some cases of deep articulation between indigenous shamanism and Christian ideology. Conceptually, three intertwined sets of shamanisms are connected with the Christian influence in Latin America. They are, (a) indigenous religious movements organized as “Indian churches”, which display shamanic features; (b) rural, creole religious practices usually called curanderismo, which combine medieval beliefs and practices brought by the Europeans during the Conquest with indigenous shamanic elements; and (c) urban creole curanderismo, combined with indigenous shamanism and different forms of peripheral European religious practices, such as Spiritism and Theosophy. Some examples of these categories are included to illustrate the conceptual and cosmological bridges built as a result of the contact between native shamanic ideologies and Christianity. In each case, if information is available, historical origins, initiation processes, cosmological features, healing techniques, and notion of illness are summarized