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Kim — U of N Press / Page 76 / / I Foresee My Life / OAKDALE [First Page] [76], (1) Lines: 0 to 71 ——— 0.02pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [76], (1) 4 THE HEALING POWER OF SHAMANIC CAREER NARRATION Listening to the shaman’s song is just like walking around [in the spirit world] personally. a participant in a maraka cure, 1992 One afternoon in March, in the middle of the rainy season, João informed me that his household would be going on a trip to Diauarum Post. A shaman from another village, Monkey-Leg, was going to perform a Maraka cure there for Jacaré, who was suffering from soul loss. Jacaré had been living at Diauarum for the past few months while his son was working as the chief of the post. João told me that the residents of Kapinu’a, including myself, were all invited to come and participate in the event. As I was quickly preparing for the trip, rolling up my hammock and wedging cans of sardines in my bag (just in case food was in short supply at the post), I could hear him urging the shaman Stone-Arm to come. Stone-Arm, however, steadfastly refused. I knew there were tensions between Stone-Arm and Jacaré, but I wondered too if senior, virtuosic shamans like Stone-Arm and Monkey-Leg tended to avoid each other as well. As I was walking down to shore to board one of the village’s motorboats, I couldn’t help but notice that, even though I had tried to pack light, my bag was conspicuously large compared to others’ small hammock bundles. Somehow I squeezed myself and my luggage into the boat, wildly swatting the tiny biting bugs that plague the Xingu in the rainy season, much to others’ amusement. Once the boat began its slow journey to the post, the small breeze it created kept the bugs away, and everyone, including myself, started to take on a festive attitude. Much like Stone-Arm’s previous Maraka, the whole affair had the feeling of a party rather than a trip to the hospital, as one might expect for “a curing ritual.” During Maraka cures Kayabi people get a glimpse of normally invisible cosmological domains through the performances of their shamans. Very ancient , powerful spirit beings live in these domains. Applying terminology used Kim — U of N Press / Page 77 / / I Foresee My Life / OAKDALE the healing power of shamanic career narration [77], (2) Lines: 71 to 77 ——— 13.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Eject [77], (2) elsewhere in the Americas, I translate the Kayabi names of some of these beings, the Wyra Futat and Karuat, as Masters of the Game. The Masters of the Game control and watch over all of the fish and game in the rivers and forests. During Maraka cures shamans travel to these beings’ homes underwater, up in the sky, deep in the forest, or at the horizon to retrieve the human souls that they have taken. Jealous of human life, these beings take human souls whenever the opportunity presents itself. Most frequently they attack in retaliation for Kayabi improprieties in hunting or the preparation of meat. While they dream, shamans search the cosmos for the human souls that one or another of the Masters of the Game has taken. A Maraka cure is held for the shaman to wrest a soul away from one of these beings and replace it within a human body, often with the aid of benevolent spirit beings called Mait. Before this climactic ending, however, a shaman will sing about where in the cosmos he has traveled in dream and what he has found there. Often shamans will preface these accounts of recent travels by telling about their earliest dream experiences as healers. Maraka cures therefore feature the officiating shaman’s autobiographical dream narratives. They present a kind of résumé of his cosmic travels and successes as a healer. These shamanic autobiographical accounts also present a perspective on how to act in an empowering manner for other participants. Like family and village leaders’ addresses, they offer a perspective on the perils of contemporary existence and present advice on how to overcome them. The counsel offered through these accounts is, however, presented in the idiom of health. Throughtheirautobiographicalaccounts,shamansstressthathealthandwellbeing follow from maintaining continuity across generations and between different epochs of time. This continuity will connect the present generations with much more ancient power beings who control health, life, and...

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