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An ethnography of magic-religious, medicinal and recreational tobacco use among nearly 300 native South American societies. Wilbert found that South American Indians use tobacco in many ways and that a close functional relation exists between tobacco and shamanism.
Excerpt from The Civilization of the South American Indians: With Special Reference to Magic and Religion So far as the lower forms of civilization are concerned, there are, Iext to sociological field-work, no other investigations so urgently Ieeded as monographs on definite classes of social phenomena among t certain group of related tribes. Social facts are largely influenced Jy local conditions, by the physical environment, by the circum tances in which the people in question live, by their habits and Dental characteristics; and all these factors can, of course, much nore easily be taken into account when the investigation is confined o a single people, or one ethnic unit, than when it embraces a class )f phenomena as existing throughout the whole uncivilized world. Dr. Karsten's book combines the merits of the field-ethnologist with zhose of the monographer on a larger scale. His equipment for his ask is exceptional. He is a trained sociologist, and an acute and houghtful observer. He went to South America for the express ourpose of studying its native tribes. He has spent five years in zlose contact with savages in different parts of the continent, and earned their language. And he has carefully searched all the available iterature relating to the customs and beliefs of Indians in the various parts of the vast area with which he is dealing, and has thus been able to present, and comment upon, a large mass of facts falling mtside the field for his own direct inquiries and personal observa ion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Modernization and conversion to world religions are threatening the survival of traditional belief systems, leaving behind only mysterious traces of their existence. This book, based upon extensive research conducted over a period of nearly four decades, brings scientific rigor to one of the questions that have always attracted human curiosity: that of the origin of the dragon. The author demonstrates that both dragons and rainbows are cultural universals, that many of the traits that are attributed to dragons in widely separated parts of the planet are also attributed to rainbows, and that the number and antiquity of such shared traits cannot be attributed to chance or common inheritance, but rather to common cognitive pathways by which human psychology has responded to the natural environment in a wide array of cultures around the world.