Shamans of the Foye Tree: Gender, Power, and Healing among Chilean Mapuche

by Ana Mariella Bacigalupo

Drawing on anthropologist Ana Mariella Bacigalupo's fifteen years of field research, Shamans of the Foye Tree: Gender, Power, and Healing among Chilean Mapuche is the first study to follow shamans' gender identities and performance in a variety of ritual, social, sexual, and political contexts. To Mapuche shamans, or machi , the foye tree is of special importance, not only for its medicinal qualities but also because of its hermaphroditic flowers, which reflect the gender-shifting components of machi healing practices. Framed by the cultural constructions of gender and identity, Bacigalupo's fascinating findings span the ways in which the Chilean state stigmatizes the machi as witches and sexual deviants; how shamans use paradoxical discourses about gender to legitimatize themselves as healers and, at the same time, as modern men and women; the tree's political use as a symbol of resistance to national ideologies; and other components of these rich traditions. The first comprehensive study on Mapuche shamans' gendered practices, Shamans of the Foye Tree offers new perspectives on this crucial intersection of spiritual, social, and political power.

Genres: Nonfiction

335 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

Reviews

[Doria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew, I haven't read all the way through one of these dense, anthropological texts since college!! At times, it feels like wading rough setting cement; the language is very technical and repetitive, very much in the manner of traditional anthropology texts. However, the book is incredibly detailed and well-informed, drawing upon primary sources and face to face interviews. The author lived with her subjects, participated in rituals with them as observer and assistant. This book is the work of many, many years of dedicated observation and thoughtful analysis. It is necessary reading for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the Mapuche - the dominant indigenous people of Chile - and their world views and their difficult place within and outside of the Chilean nation. And it is a fascinating, detailed, and nuanced account of the evolving role and activities of machi (shamans) among the Mapuche in Chile.

[John Caviglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

As one who has recently published a historical novel about the sixteenth century Spanish invasion of the land now called Chile, I have read over the years pretty much everything written on the aboriginal Mapuche, and as much as I could find about their culture, past and present. Unfortunately, this remarkable book was published late in my research on my novel, in which a sixteenth century machi is central. Early accounts of the Mapuche by the Spaniards describe some machi as homosexual, a heinous sin at the time. Bacigalupe's complex, rich and nuanced explanation of the spiritual sexuality of modern machi corrects, in my eyes, the blindered vision of the zealots of a time and place in which the priests were the scholars. It is worth pointing out that the cover of the book depicts a male Mapuche machi, or shaman, dressed as a woman.

This is definitely not light reading, but Shamans of the Foye Tree should be fascinating to anyone interested in gender studies, shamanism in general, and in particular, the Mapuche.

[Anne Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting work on some shamans in Chile.

[Bryn Hammond]

found through Arauco: A Novel that uses this material...