Shamans and Shamanisms: Reflections on Anthropological Dilemmas of Modernity.2006. ANTROPOLOGIA EM PRIMEIRA MÃO é uma publicação do Programa de Pósgraduação em Antropologia Social da UFSC Correspondência para aquisição ou intercâmbio

This paper was inspired by an invitation to participate in a seminar with an enigmatic title, “Shamanic Dilemmas of Modernity. ” When I sat down to write my presentation, I was forced to ask myself: are the shamans perplexed by modernity, or is it we, the anthropologists, who are perplexed by the plu-rality of shamanisms that are manifested today? Since my initiation in U.S. anthropology over forty years ago, the multiplicity of voices speaking about or claiming to be shamans has increased to such an extent that one could question the conceptual usefulness of the terms “shaman ” and “shamanism” in the face of the process of globalization. This certainly was not the case in the 1960’s, when studies of shama-nism, a focus of anthropological curiosity since the beginning of the disci-pline, were experiencing a new boom. I remember the commotion and hei-ghtened interest in the topic at the American Anthropological Association Meeting of 1968. Everyone was talking about Carlos Casteneda’s first book (1968), which had just been published. The symposium on Hallucinogens and Shamanism was packed, where Michael Harner argued that late medieval and Renaissance witchcraft was not a fiction but a reality linked to shamanic fli-ghts caused by psychotropic ointments applied to vaginal tissues via broom handles (Harner 1973)2. Following Eliade’s classical definition and the cultu-ral historical school of Boas, shamanism and shamans were easily identified. Originating in Siberia, this archaic religion diffused throughout the native cultures of the artic circle as well as those of the New World.3 1 Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina