Abstract

VIDILLE, Wagner. Shamans and ancestral spirits. Psyche (Sao Paulo) [online]. 2006, vol.10, n.19, pp.47-64. ISSN 1415-1138.

This presentation is about a study of believes, disease and treatment conception among Indians from Amazon. The author describes passages of his trip to the rain forest between Brazil and Venezuela. He proceeds to conceptual approach among psychoanalytic concepts (Unconscious, Splitting, Projective Identification, Projection, Good and Bad Objects) in connection with others derived from Anthropology. Three clinical situations are presented: first, a therapeutic séance (backache) carried out by a Tukâno medicine-man; then, work and therapeutic action of a Wanâna shaman with his patient (knee disease); at last, the “Hekuramou” ceremony (contact with “spirits”) among Yanomami Indians. In this research, the main purpose was to validate the cure rituals as significative cultural elements and to emphasize the maintenance of these traditions as important elements structuring individual and ethnic identity.

Keywords : Cure rituals; Animism; Shamanism; South American Indians; Amazon.

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