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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