The religions of contemporary Central and South America
reflect the tremendous cultural diversity and historical complexity of the
region. Hierarchical state religions practiced in pre-Colombian kingdoms and
empires such as the Aztec, the Zapotec, the Maya, and the Inca were
extinguished early in the Conquest. Persecution of indigenous religions was
severe during the Spanish Inquisition, but has continued through the practices
of Christian missionaries of diverse sects operating in remote,
Amerindian-populated areas. The Jesuit Order during the early Conquest promoted
indigenous languages such as Tupi-Guarani as the lingua franca for Iberian
colonies. But they were expelled from Spain, Portugal, and all American
colonies in the mid-1700s, and Franciscan and Dominican Orders came to dominate
missionary work in the indigenous-populated hinterlands.
In the twentieth century, fundamentalist Protestant sects
greatly expanded their missionary work with Indians as well as with the urban
peoples of Latin America, aggressively competing with established Catholic
traditions. Protestant-Catholic conflicts divide numerous indigenous
populations of Central and South America, and in some cases these conflicts
have turned violent, for example among the highland Maya of Chiapas,
where political and religious factors together contributed to the Zapatista
uprising.
Thus diffuse elements of pre-Colombian indigenous religions,
including shamanism, survive to this day, in some cases inextricably blended
with Iberian folk Catholicism or Protestant Christianity. For example the
emergence of urban ayahuasca religions in Brazil attests to the tenacity and
adaptability of shamanistic practices derived from indigenous roots.
Another religious current in Central and South America is the
West African-derived religious complex that includes Santerla, Candomblé,
Umbanda, and Voudou (Voodoo). Centering on possession and trance, these
religions, together with fragments of the original African languages (notably
Yoruba), have survived and flourished in coastal and island regions where the
slave trade was most intense. Peripheral European mystical practices such as
spiritism and theosophy arrived in Latin America during the 1800s and have
blended with folk religions and alternative healing traditions in many urban
areas. Minority religions brought by more recent immigrants to Central and
South America include Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
Little is written in English about the Desana, Cashinahua,
Jivaro, Matsigenka, Shipibo, Yaminahua,to give some examples. But in general
also in S. America we have found the moral ambiguity of shamans that are
as elsewhere accepted as both healers and sorcerers; the centrality
of singing or chanting and percussion instruments (drum, rattle) during ritual
performance; the notion of soul loss, spirit attack, and sorcery in illness
etiology; the concept of a multilayered cosmos inhabited by spirits and
traversed by the shaman during trance; plus the use of hallucinogenic and
narcotic plants in many cases, although most widespread remains tobacco but in
S. America also other nightshade relatives (Datura, Brugmansia).
The Tarahumara and the linguistically related Rarâmuri (more
commonly known as the Tarahumara) took refuge in the rugged Sierra Madre
mountain range and were thus able to survive as a people despite four hundred
years of encroachment by invaders. Its social and ritual life revolve around
the consumption of tesguino, a alcoholic beverage made from fermented
maize. Known as owirûame, "medicine makers," Rarâmuri shamans are
renowned for their ability to drink large amounts of tesguino.
There is also the Maya bone divination, Quiche and Zuni
divination in Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico. Quiche healers perform
charms, spells, songs, and myths, and also engage in hands-on manipulation,
including bone setting , massage, herbal remedies, and midwifery. Knowledge of
the 260-day ritual calendar of the ancient Maya, is used for divination,
blessing, and various ceremonial purposes by priest-shamans known as keepers of
days (ajk'ij). Yucatec Maya ritual specialists (h'meno'ob)claim to use
their knowledge of the cosmos to alter the acts and intentions of invisible
spirits while also helping people to understand and fulfill their own role in
the cosmos, thereby achieving good health and good fortune.
The third entry describes the practice of "bone
arrangers" (wikol ball) among the Tz'utujiil Maya of Guatemala, who treat
bodily injuries through a combination of magical (trickery), and physical
manipulation. Their powers are channeled through a divinatory object (animal
bone, pebble, or the like) and said to be revealed to them in dreams or by
supernatural means during their initiatory calling.
Shamans in both the Quiche Maya and the Zuni of New Mexico
also divine by gazing into water or crystals, casting lots, reading natural
omens, using hallucinogenic drugs, or interpreting dreams. Despite overall
similarities between the two traditions, the Zuni view divination and contact
with dead spirits as a life-threatening enterprise, to be carried out only by a
small number of the most powerful priests. The Quiche, on the other hand, view
divining and contact with dead spirits as an inborn talent or gift that is not
particularly dangerous, and the profession is open to any who receive the
proper calling.
The Otomf Indians still have shamanic practices extinct
among other native group of the highlands of Hidalgo in central Mexico. Otomf
shamanism revolves around two fundamental concepts: zaki, the life force of all
beings that move, and rogi, companion animal spirits that are born together
with and accompany every person through life. Otomf shamans traditionally prepare
paper figures representing animal spirits and the zaki life force for use in
healing and divining rituals. Although today there are mostly curandero healers
whose practices are less specific to Otomf cosmology, reflecting widely held
Mexican folk beliefs.
Representing a fusion of Greek-derived humoral theory,
nineteenth-century spiritism, Catholicism, Spanish folk beliefs, and indigenous
concepts, curanderismo is a diverse body of practice that includes spiritual,
psychological, and herbal healing.
Amazonian indigenous groups of Brazil like the Araweté,
Baniwa, Bororo, Nambiquara, Kulina, Krahe, Warf. have a mediated concept for
understanding the soul during and after the funeral chart, away from the land
of the living toward the Underworld. The soul may open channels of
communication between the living and the dead and Shamanic interventions
and interpretations facilitate the mourning process while reaffirming social
bonds and cosmological beliefs.
The Kanaimà among the Warao of the Orinoco delta and the
Carib-speaking Patamuna, Akawaio, Makushi, and Pemon of the Guyana
highlands illustrate the phenomena of witchcraft and attack sorcery found
widely in the Amazon basin and elsewhere. Though many cultural groups have
separate words to distinguish between healing shamans and illness-causing
"dark shamans" especially since colonialism and Christianity arrived
in those areas, the distinction is not always so clear in practice.
The Ayahuasca use a hallucinogenic, or
"psychointegrator," brew consisting of Banisteriopsis vine,
Psychotria leaves, and other admixtures. Ayahuasca allows shamans to access
presumed information about the spirit world and the social and natural
environments. Originally an indigenous practice of perhaps limited geographical
distribution, ayahuasca use spread throughout the western Amazon, especially
during the rubber boom (1895-1917), and was adopted by many indigenous and
non-indigenous groups. Several ayahuasca-based ecstatic religions have emerged
in contemporary Brazil, blending indigenous, African, spiritist, and Christian
cosmology. Though fraught with questions of ethics and authenticity, the
growing popularity of urban curanderos and esoteric tourism has contributed to
a cultural renaissance of shamanism in many areas today.
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