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Unit number: SMC
216
Unit title: The
Aboriginal Shaman
Credit value: 3 credits
Description: This unit focuses on A.P. Elkin’s classic anthropological study of the Australian Aboriginal shamans, Aboriginal Men of High Degree. Elkin’s approach was not to reduce the shamanic phenomena to psychological or trickery, but to try to meet Aboriginal beliefs on their own terms and accept the validity of the phenomena described. What results is a unique record of a culture and group of shamanic traditions that was already fast becoming diluted at the time Elkin first wrote the book – it stemmed from a series of lectures given in 1944. The course text examines the making of the Aboriginal medicine man; his powers; practices and customs within the circumcised and uncircumcised tribes of Australia; the Aboriginal shaman in a changing world; and the relationship between Aboriginal healers and conventional medicine.
Key textbook: Elkin, A.P. Aboriginal Men of High Degree: Initiation and Sorcery in the World’s Oldest Tradition. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994.
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Amendments may be made to the details and provision of units at any time.
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