Dennis Tedlock (1939–2016)

As an avid reader I almost never put a book down but found this to be unreadable. It's ambitious. Good for him. He wants to immerse us in the mythopoetic universe of the Mayans by blending the subjective and objective services. But the problem is that for us to go on the journey we need to be anchored somewhere together and he fails to provide any guidance. We are just thrown in. Is Jaguar man another anthropologist or a god amongst us. I had to constantly stop reading and go back to try and figure out what was going on so there was no flow, no immersion and thus no involvement. This is basic stuff and his editor should have run interference and helped him figure out how to do this so it was still accessible to the reader. A shame.… (mehr)

The first part of this book, first published in 1975, consisted of accounts by American Indian medicine men and shamans of how they became shamanic and how their ceremonies are performed. This was difficult to get through and I almost abandoned the collection. However the second part, essays by various researchers who either lived with or were American Indians themselves, was much more interesting and began to put some of the information in Part One into better perspective. I'm glad I kept going.… (mehr)