La formation du chamanisme amazonien au Brésil: guérisseurs, leadership et pouvoir rituel

This article examines some of the transformations in the ritual and religious life of indigenous societies over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries who lived in the Eastern Amazon. At the heart of these changes was the complex and multivalent character of shamanic work. Influenced by changing political and religious contexts, shamanism evolved in the colonial world to be associated with healing certain kinds of ailments and afflictions. In this sense, shamanism was crafted by the people who worked as shamans and those who required their services, which grew to include Portuguese elite landowners, soldiers and administrators. Shamans gave a novel voice to people's uneasy experiences and dilemmas of this new riverworld. In this way, men and women shamans played a key role in Amazonian history, as has been noted in other contexts. Few other areas of Brazilian Amazonian cultural and social life express so distinctly the encompassing quality of these new riverine societies than shamanism.