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Mircea Eliade - On Shamans and bones
Identifier
006563
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Mind in the Cave – David Lewis-Williams
In shamanistic societies throughout the world bone has special significance and is associated with spirit. For instance, the Huichol of Central America believe that the spirit, or soul of a person lodges in the top of the head and in the bone that grows over the fontanel in the months after birth. ……….. Around the world, notions of a skeletal soul and rebirth from bones are expressed ritually. The Warao of Venezuela, for example, place fish bones into the walls and thatch of dwellings in the belief that this display of respect will lead to new fish being born; fish and animals, like people are believed to have souls
Mircea Eliade – Shamanism Archaic techniques of ecstasy
As we shall see when we come to study the shaman’s costume, in the spiritual horizon of hunters and herdsmen bone represents the very source of life, both human and animal.