Trained and initiated as a shaman in highland Guatemala by a K'iche' Mayan couple in the mid-1970s and the granddaughter of an Ojibwe midwife and herbalist, Barbara Tedlock is no ordinary anthropology professor.
In her fifth book, "The Woman in the Shaman's Body, Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine," the distinguished teaching professor aims to put women and the feminist dimension back into shamanism.
"This is a book that puts women back into spirituality and science," Tedlock said. "It talks about the revitalization of shamanism."
Shamanism, according to Tedlock, is the world's oldest religion and healing practice, with deeply rooted elements in all religions. It emphasizes healing and spirituality.
The practice is a way of life, containing aspects of herbalism, hands-on healing and prophecy and dream analysis. It was brought back into the public sphere in 1999 after 75 years of underground usage via familial lines, she said.
Tedlock said the healing powers of shamanism are the reason she walks today after developing polio as a child. At the time, physicians of Western medicine were putting children in immobilizing iron lungs, but her grandmother swept in with remedies of water therapy and water massages. She was cured within six months.
A friend of hers who spent years in an iron lung and did not receive the non-traditional treatment, now suffers from a limp - her legs never regaining strength.
"It's one of those wonderful stories where Western medicine was wrong, and midwifery was right," she said.
Preparation for the book brought Tedlock back to Guatemala and to Mongolia, the heartland of shamanism, where she interviewed shaman women.
Tedlock discovered that shaman women play a significant role in the history of shamanism, as opposed to previous claims that it is a male-dominated entity. Her book argues that shamanism was originally the domain of women.
She cites prehistoric cave wall drawings and African rock art, modern Mongolian ceremonies, and information gathered in her research as proof.
"They take what haunts women and use it as power," she said. "They feel that giving birth is a special added extra blessing and benefit."
Furthering her case of the importance of shaman women, Tedlock said in the book that she always thought of her grandmother as a sort of witch, "wise women who had a special knack for revealing life's mysterious truths." The root word of witch, "witan" in Old English, means the same thing as shaman in the Tungus language - "to know" or "to be wise."
"I still remember her explaining that our thoughts and emotions overlap and intermingle, and that this mixing of head and heart connects us to future events hidden in the dark womb of time," Tedlock wrote.
Tedlock said she hopes that even readers who disagree with the book will be able to learn from its wisdom.
"It's good for them to know that it isn't evil, or anti-Christian, or anti-Islamic," she said.
Tedlock added that she also hopes students will be inspired to find their spirituality.
"They don't know where bliss is, and religion is a good way to find it," she said. "It's good to have a spiritual core, whatever it is."
Tedlock also hopes readers will be able to have an open mind about shamanism and religion as a whole.
"I have a hope that there could be more religious tolerance and an understanding that the religions have more in common than different," she said. "I think it's what makes for a lot of problems in the world."
"Spilling of blood in the name of religion," she said, shaking her head. "It's unholy. It's unsettling."
According to the book, shortly after her grandmother's death as a young college student, Tedlock's grandmother came to her in a dream telling her to "never allow the wisdom of old Indian women to die out."
"I'm honoring my grandmother and that is important to me," Tedlock said. "Her tradition lives on through me."
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
