If someone had asked me a month ago what a shaman was, I might have said a medicine man. I might even have been proud of knowing that. I also would have been wrong.
As archaeologist David Freidel explains, shamans — unlike other traditional healers — derive their power from direct contact with the spirit world; in an altered state of awareness, they travel to the “Otherworld” to gain insight and information. The act of communing with dead ancestors is a common thread among shamanic traditions from Siberia to South America.
