SHAMANS AND MARTIANS - L'esprit Des Pierres
Jean-Loïc Le QuellecSHAMANS AND MARTIANS:THE SAME STRUGGLE!When the famous "frescoes'' of the Tassili were presented to the public for thefirst time by Henri Lhote, they aroused great enthusiasm for these traces of a"new ancient civilisation". The technical mastery of the painters, whose workshad defied the millennia in the heart of the Sahara, was astonishing, and nobodycould doubt that artists who were so confident in their art had an importantmessage to transmit. But what was it? As with most of the world's rock art, thedisappearance of the painters and engravers, and the irreparable hiatus that existsbetween their world and ours, leave the hermeneutics at a loss. when they donot let their unbridled imagination take over.MARTIANSAND ARCHAEOMANIACSIt all began in 1956, when Henri Lhote visited the site of Jabbaren, which hadbeen discovered during reconnaissancecarried out in 1938 by Colonel Brenans,who had told him of it before his premature death. This term jabbarenmeans"giants" (Lhote 1954: 70) in Tamâsheq (the Tuareg language), and is due to thepresence in this place of very big rock paintings, up to six metres high for onefigure which was nicknamed "the Great God". Lhote was very impressed by thiswork, and made the following comment in his best-sellerThe Search fortheTassili Frescoes, which first appeared in 1958: "The outline is simple, ratherunskilfully executed. The head is round and the only feature it presents is adouble oval in the middle of the face; in fact, the whole thing is very like thepictures we sometimes see of 'Martians'.'Martians' — that would make a verygood heading for a sensational newspaper article, but it would have to tail off intoan anticlimax, since if 'Martians' ever set foot in the Sahara, it must have been avery, very long time ago, for these round-headed figures are, as far as we couldmake out, among the oldest in the Tassili!" (Lhote 1958: 77-78; p. 69 in theEnglish edition).This nickname of "Martians"was obviously no more than a joke, such asarchaeologistsoften make on sites where there are few enough chances to amuseThe ConceptBibtiothecaof Shamanism:ShamanisticaUses and Abuses.vol. 10. Budapest:Edited by Henri-Paul Francfort and Roberte N. Hamayon.AkademiaiKiadó,2001.
oneself Lhote's mentor, the abbé Breuil, who himself spoke of "Discoid-headedBovidian people" (Breuil 1954:81), was familiar with this type of nicknamesandamusing labels, which are unfortunately taken literally from time to time by somehasty reader or those with no sense of humour. For example, Breuil gave someTassili paintings titles such as "The Accusation" (Breuil 1954, fig. 83) or "PotMarket" (ibid., fig. 109/a), and even "Josephine sold by her sisters" (!)(ibid , fig.101), names whichobviously should not be taken literally.In any case, the vivid name of "Martians"was soon to become establishedthrough constant use to designate those paintings which are also known as"Round-Heads".Hence, in Lhote's writings, there were to be many linesdeclaringthat "'Martians'are common enough at Jabbaren",or evoking a"Martiantype" (Lhote 1958: 78-79).However, the famous explorer himselfwould most often merely use the expression "Round Heads" and, in his book onthe Hoggar, he would simply note, with regard to these works, that one canparticularize in the Tassili-n-Ajjer " a strange group of paintings (which) displayspeople characterizedby a round head that often resembles the helmet of a divingsuit" (Lhote 1984: 86). And of course, nobody would dream of claiming that thereused to be "divers" in the Sahara, despite the recent notoriety achieved by the filmThe English Patient with its parietal paintings in the "Cave of the Swimmers".As for the term of "Martians"itself, no rock art specialist has ever taken itliterally, especially Lhote who, in a final survey before his death, wrote thefollowving: "The term of 'Round Heads' arose from the way that the differentmembers of the mission referred to them, although the term 'Martians'was oftenused", although he also expressed regret that the latter name allows people to "fallprey to a romantic fantasy" (Lhote 1984: 86).Alas, many people fell victim to this fantasy and, even today, the rockpaintings of the Sahara are regularly called upon to support various woollytheories developed by the "Archaeomaniacs",the nickname given to those whoseek some traces of Science-Fictionin the most distant past. I would like to showthat the authors who thus seek clues to an ancient extra-terrestrialpresence inarchaeologicalremains are following a procedure that is highly comparable to theone which has the tendency to see shamans everywhere.The first of these monomanias,which consists of claiming that the RoundHead paintings depict "real" Martians, can only be upheld at the cost of a doubleignorance:-ignorance of the tens of thousands of Saharan rock images which in noway resemble "Martians", including among the Round Heads;- ignorance of the ethnological, stylistic, anthropological, chronological andgeographical context of the paintings concerned.More specifically, among the facts that are "forgotten" by the Archaeomaniacsthere are the following fundamental points:a) several cultural traits that are peculiarto the Round Heads group(zoomorphicmasks, bows, loincloths or penis sheaths, jewellery,bodypainting and adornments) are, of course, also found in other contemporary136
b)c)d)e)or later rock art assemblages, through the effects of influences, evolutions,transmissions and survivals;the depictive techniques that are used on them (light flatwash surroundedby a thick ochre outline) survived a very long time in the Bovidianpaintings;their style is also echoed graphicallyin the Saharan rock art of otherperiods (notably the "skiing position" of people seen in profile, with legsjoined together and slightly bent) (Muzzolini 1986: 127);among the engravings and paintings of the Sahara, there are other worksthat are even more astonishing and "fantastic" than the supposed depictionsof "Ancient Astronauts", such as those giant anthropomorphswith a dog'shead who can pull a rhinoceros with one hand, and which arc obviouslyrepresentationsof mythical beings; nobodywould dream of claiming thatthey ever really existed (on these beings, see Le Quellec 1998: 336-378);not to mention that the majority of these "Martians"are in fact made up offemales, since they have perfectly recognizable breasts.But the supporters of the "Martians in the Sahara" hypothesis — just like thosewho support the shamanic hypothesis — ignore these facts (or could not care lessabout them) and neglect the context of the depictions that they invoke. They puttogether artificial groups of figures of various ages and provenances,and usethem to deduce the existence of a "vanished race" (Kolosimo1973: 153), a"mysteriousSaharan people" (Kolosimo1973: 152) that is as unreal as thenotorious "megalithicpeople" to whom some people used to attributethepaternity of the standing stones of the whole world. All the same, reading theTassili paintings with a "Martian" or "extra-terrestrial key" caused tremendousinterest in the rock depictions of several other parts of the world, which weresubsequently subjected to "readings" of the same type.This is exactly what is now happening with a second monomaniathat iscurrently outdoing its predecessor : the reading of enigmatic rock art with a"shamanicMARTIANSkey".AND SHAMANIACSThe idea that the Round Head paintings could be the result of "particular ecstaticstates associated with dancing or the consumption of hallucinogenicsubstances"appeared in 1980 from the pen of Umberto Sansoni (Sansoni 1980). Nine yearslater,EmmanuelAnatidevelopedthisviewby claiming — but notdemonstrating — that the creators of this style of paintings correspondedto a"population living in a kind of Garden of Eden and using substances that alteredconsciousness"(Anati 1989: 187). During these same years, Giorgio Samoriniundertook an investigation into the links between rock art, shamanism and alteredstates of consciousness(Samorini 1990), especially in the Sahara (1989), beforerecalling that on the banks of the River Pegtymel, in Siberia, rock engravingshave been interpreted as depictions of gathering Amanita muscarina,used by137
shamans, while fungiform motifs are found at other rock art sites in Eurasia andNorth America belongingto areas with shamaniccultures(1992: 69-71).Consideringthat the use of mushroomsand other hallucinogenicplantscorrespondsto a "universalmental value", he then interpreted a Round Headpainting at Ti-n-Tazarift(fig. 1.) as the depiction of masked people brandishingmushrooms in the course of a ritual dance that was supposed to lead to ecstasy(Samorini 1992: 73). Having launched this notion, the author found "fungiformsymbols" on other Round Head paintings in the Tassili, notably at g. 6.), Ti-n-Teferiest(fig. 2.) andMatalen-Amazar(fig. 3.). In his view, all these images represented "the spirit ofthe mushroom", and he concluded that there was here "the presence of a veryancient cult of the hallucinogenicmushroom", even affirming that the RoundHead paintings were attributableto "the oldest culture discovered so far thatdepicted the ritual use of hallucinogenicmushrooms" (1992: 74). Then, basinghimself on highly questionable chronological data, he supposed that this Saharanevidence was proof of the palaeolithicage of the use of hallucinogens in areligious framework.For the moment I do not wish to discuss problems ofchronology:the important thing here is to note that Samorini'spublicationsclearly set the Round Head rock art of the Sahara in a shamanic perspective.It is thereforeamusing to see that, for his part, and basing himself on the samepaintings (figs. 4-7), Ferdinando Fagnola (1995) also came to the conclusion thathallucinogenicplants were used, but he identified them as Turbinacorymbosaand Ipomaea purpurea.Hence it is striking to note that the same imagesrepresented mushrooms for Samorini and convolvulaceaefor Fagnola. The latteradds that it was the absorption of the seeds of these plants which provoked thephosphenes and various alterations of consciousnessthat explain the look of theRound Head paintings. Henceforth,the very enigmatic circularmotifs called"jellyfish" (fig. 8.) — which is merely a vivid but conventional name like that ofthe "Martians" — would describe phosphenes or scotomas (1995: 4).But whatever one may think of this hypothesis, one can at least agree with itsauthor when he writes that "no scientific research has ever confirmed the theorythat the paintings of the Tassili-Acacuswere produced by altered states ofconsciousness"(Fagnola 1995: 4). His personal contribution to this interpretationwas to propose a new botanicalidentificationthat developedthe initialhypothesis — but it does not enable one to verify it, anymore than did that ofSamorini. In fact, the attempt to correlate certain Saharan rock paintings withinterpretationsdirectly inspired by the ) for South Africa was an idea that was "blowing in thewind" by the early 1990s. In 1993, Andrew B. Smith (1993: 471) based it on theone hand on the presence, in both the Sahara and South Africa, of tectiforms,zigzag lines and creatures without hoofs or legs: and on the other hand, on theexistence of rituals of possession among the present-day Peul, supposedly relatedto the early Saharan painters.In the preface of Umberto Sansoni's book of 1994, Emmanuel Anati affirmedthat the paintings of the "Round Head phase" were the work of "Negroid138
Fig.I. Round Head painting of Ti-n-Tazarift(1992) as a ritual dance with n-Ajjer)interpretedby G. Samorinimushrooms, whereas F. Fagnola (1995) seesin their hands (After Samorini 1992).'Fig.2.Round Head paintingfrom I-n-Awanghet(Tassili-n-Ajjer):person witha body covered in mushroomsaccording to G. Samorini(1992), or "man-tree"coveredin leaves according toF. Fagnola(1995).(After Fagnola1995).Fig,3. RoundHead paintingatMatalen-Amazar(Tassili-n-Ajjer),inwhich G. Samorini sees a person witha body entirely covered in mushrooms(After Samorini1992).139
Fig.4. Small person from Ti-n-Teferiest(Tassili-n-Ajjer).For G. Samorini (1992) this is a "person with a mushroomhead". but forF. Fagnola (1995) it has a 1eaf-shaped head (Aller Samorini 1992).Fïg.5. Round Head painting from Sefar (Tassili-n-Ajjer),in which one can see five "jellyfish"(conventional name) which, according to F. Fagnola, are none other than scotomas orphosphenes caused by trance or shamanicdrums according to F. Soleilhavoup(Aller Sansoni 1994).140
Fig. 7. One of theFig.6. Round Head painting traced by H. Lhote inan unspecifiedsite of the Central Sahara, andwhich was compared by U. Sansoni to the SouthAfrican "Shaman" (?)in Fig.7.(After Sansoni 1994)."therianthropes"of BurleyII (Drakensberg,SouthAfrica) which S. LewisWilliams interprets as adepiction of "shaman"in trance, and whichU. Sansoni compares tothe painting of the TassiliRound Heads in Fig.6(After Sansoni 1994).Fig.S.RoundHead paintingofI-n-Itinen (TassiIi-n-Ajjer)inwhich U. Sansoni recognisespeople in trance, because of adetail interpretation(After Sansoni141as epistaxis1994).
populations"whomade"ample use of hallucinogens" (L.(Sansoni 1994: 11). In thebook itself, Umberto Sansoniwas more prudent at first andconfincd himself to sayingthat "the ritual use ofhallucinogenicsubstancescannot be ruled out" (1994:157). But in the last chapter,he tried to explain a fewsimilariticsbetweentheRound Head art and imagesfrom South Africa, notablyFig.9. "Floating person of the Round Heads ofcomparing an "anthropozooTi-n-Tazarift, compared by U. Sansoni to certain rockmorphic figure" recorded bypaintings in Tanzania. For F. Soleilhavoup,Henri Lhote in the Centralthis is a "shaman" travelling in search of a soulSahara (fig. 9.) with a(After Sansoni 1994)."MedicineMan" of theDrakensberg (fig. 10.), supposedly a shaman in trance (1994: 284). In a paintingat I-n-litinen, in the Central Sahara (fig. 11.), he thought he could rccognize thephenomenon of epistaxis which Lewis-Williams systematically associatedwithshamanism.Finally,evoking the "sometimesshamanic experience oftrance", theauthorcontinued his comparison, drawing together"levitating" people fromthe Sahara (fig. 12.) andTanzania (1994, fig.219-220).Askinghimself the question astowhetherthesesimilarities could beevidence for similar, phenomena in the twozones, he replied: "Thediffusion of the trancephenomenonorofdances of possession inFig.10. Rock engraving of Kori Taguei (Air, Niger).Africa, the importanceGiraffe on which the reticulated motif of its hideamong the Round Headsseems to extend beyond its outlineoftheaccessory(After Soleilhavoup1998a, 1998b).element, of dance, and142
the concomitant presenec of fantastic figures (some of which, among theBushmen, are said to result from "hallucinated" visions during trance) make onelean towards a positive response" (1994: 286).In 1995, Emmanuel Anati returned to one of the Round Head figures used bythe preceding authors in support of their interpretations (fig. 1.), and saw in it "apainting showing the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms" (Anati 1995, fig.136). The author compared the Round Head art with that of several areas ofAmerica and South Africa; "We know that there have been similar periods andsituations in other parts of the world. Hence, in Texas, California and Mexicothere are collections of rock art produced by gatherers who knew drugs. A similarperiod is known in Tanzania, in the south of the African continent, and displaysnumerous points of similarity with the Saharan works" (ibid.: 181). The Americanarts that were compared with the Round Heads are interpreted with the "shamanickey" by some researchers, while South African art is read similarly by LewisWilliams and Dowson. So this is an obvious allusion to the "shamanism" of theRound Heads. In 1996, Susan Searight produced an excellent summary of all theEuropean and South African data, and once again posed the question of theRound Head paintings of the Tassili, and finally tried to see whether LewisWilliams' theory could be applied to a remarkable collection of rock art in theMoroccan Sahara — the site of Imaoun, which contains mostly zigzags, spirals,Fig.11.Rock engraving of Kori Taguei (Air, Niger). Man and Giraffe whose legsresemble a ladder, a symbol of shamanism for F. Soleilhavoup(After Soleilhavoup1998a, I 998b).143
grids, curvilinear motifs and meanders. She wondered if one should accept "thehypothesis of the creation of these images at Imaoun by shamans or others whohad entered an altered state of consciousness" (Searight 1996: 54; 1999: 15).One can see that the texts cited above demonstrate clearly that the idea of ashamanic reading of thc Round Heads has been in circulation for at least adecade, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, depending on the authorsconcerned. It is therefore astonishing to find that, in a recent article (published in1998), the claim has been made that "in Saharan rock art imagery, the idea that ashamanic system may have underlain certain ncolithic cultures has not yet beenput forward" (Soleilhavoup 1998a: 22). At the same time, but in a differentjournal, the same author tells us: "It is lookingincreasingly probable that the early period ofpaintings in the Tassili zone, in the so-calledRound Head style, correspondedto neolithicgroups of hunter-gatherers structured in thesame way as shamanicethnocultures"(Soleilhavoup 1998b: 71). It goes withoutsaying that for a theory to be "increasinglyprobable", it has to be have been around forsome time already. And this is indeed thecase — so much so that Alfred Muzzolini hadalready devoted some lines to it in 1988-1989. and rejected it: "Even if the theory were tobe proved convincing for South African art, weshould note that, where Saharan art isconcerned, we possess no texts and noethnographic depictions that would allow us toclaim that Saharan art was shamanistic. Onecan —as in all artistic ensembles— find in it aFig. 12. Rock engraving of Anufew elementary figures such as grids, chevronMaqqaren (Air, Niger), on whichlines, concentric circles, etc. But to deduce thatit is clear that the "ladder" of thethey represent the phosphenes of shamanslegs is merely a conventional wayof depicting the decoration on thewould demand more convincing evidence than aanimal's hide (After Lhote 1972,comparison with Bushman motifs" (MuzzoliniNo. 1024).1988-1989: 274). In 1995, Muzzolini developedhis objections even further, and reached thefollowing, very firm conclusion: "it is obviously out of the question thatinterpretations that may be valid for the San culture (.) should be transposable tothe cultures of the Tassili Neolithic, even if the figures in both these domainsoriginated from the same entoptic structures." (Muzzolini 1995: 182).144
THE VULGATE AND THE OBVIOUSAs is usual in the history of science, the upholders of a reading with a shamanickey have made no reply to the objections quoted above, and are simply content toproduce new examples that are supposed to illustrate their thesis. It is indeed theaccumulationof such "examples"that, gradually,replacesany kind ofdemonstration,and finally makes the shamanic thesis "obvious" for a certain kindof authors who are so undemanding that they take great care not to specify exactlywhat they mean by "shamanism".Hence, in October1998, several articles in the press announcedthe"discovery",in the preceding November, of two engraved giraffes in northeastNiger, which were "estimated to be some seven to nine thousand years old". Theauthors then specified that the giraffe and its companion each have a long lineemanating from their nose that terminates in the image of a small man. "Webelieve that this has important significance,perhaps representingshamanicassociation or symbolism",said Coulson. "We simply do not know. What iscertain, however, is that the giraffe was of vital importance to early Africanpopulations,possibly being associated with the bringing of rain." (quoted byAngela M.H. Schuster, 19 Oct. 1998, the ArchaeologicalInstitute of America).One can hardly overemphasisethe extreme fragility of these claims. Quiteapart from the fact that these giraffes had been known for a long time, since theyhad already been studied and published ten years before by Christian Dupuy(1988, pI. II: PG 9), they were in no way unique specimens: the Sahara hasdozens of depictions of giraffes, similarly endowed with " a long line emanatingfrom their nose that terminates in the image of a small man". Many authors havecommentedon such images, which simply represent giraffes that have beencaptured and tethered, a practice that is perfectly well attested by Africanethnography(see discussion in Le Quellec 1993b: 428-429).Abandoning this" banal " reading in favour of the thesis of " shamanic symbolism " should haveinvolved, at the very least, some rudiments of an argument. As for implying thatthe creators of the Niger rock images associated the giraffe with some rituallinked to rain, any search to find the slightest piece of evidence supporting such atheory in the whole of the Sahara, and in Niger in particular, would prove utterlyfruitless. But as one might expect this is merely one of the constantly repeatedbanalities with regard to the " shamanism "detected by David Lewis-Williams incertain South African rock paintings, and this banality is here transposed to theSahara without any precaution . as if "shamanism"and "rain ritual" were merelyone and the same thing.In January 1998, after some pretty incongruous media hype (1), an expeditionsupported by the National Geographic Society and the Bradshaw Foundation ofGeneva was organised to carry out the casting of these giraffe engravings, andseveral publications have resulted from this expedition. In one, David Coulson(1999) writes that certain figures painted in the Tassili by the Round Heads "maydepict shamanisticout-of-bodytravel". In another, this same author (1998),evoking two life-size engraved elephants at Iwelen (Niger), specifies that one of145
them "appeared to be bleeding from the nose". It is astonishing that a rockengraving should be precise enough to depict an elephant bleeding from the nose,especially in the context of the rock images of Niger, and this alone would haveamply justified the presentation of this image, though it is remains unpublished asfar as I am aware. It is therefore very difficult to make any judgement.But whyon earth, at a site which, according to the author, also comprises "many largeengravings of warriors with heart-shaped heads and broad-tipped spears", does heonly mention the detail of the bleeding nose? Could it possibly be because,according to Lewis-Williams,this is a constant sign of the trancc state, andwhenever it is present in a "therianthrope" or an animal, this means that it isreally a metamorphosed shaman?We are faced here with one of those "obvious facts" that lead authors to dowithout any demonstration — orat least to put into practice an implicit doubleargument., which one can summarise as follows:Firstly: a) South African "shamans"bleed from the nose when they are intrance; b) Hence, bleeding from the nose is a sign of shamanism ;Secondly: a) Any mark engraved in front of a nose can only represent a flowof blood (and not, for cxample, a leading-rein, as was the case for the giraffe); b)Hence, every animal whose muzzle is endowed with such a mark is not really ananimal, but actually a shaman.The conclusion is therefore "obvious" : Saharan rock art is shamanic.FLOATING REASONING AND TRUNCATED VISIONSIn accordancewith a phenomenonthat is, alas, all too frequentin the historyofreseareh into Saharan rock art, the vulgate of the "Saharan shamans" — like that,before it, of the "hunters" — continues to be expanded by authors. One sees thatgradually, through constant repetition, the idea of a "Martianshamanism"isstarting to be reified. So this is an apt moment to take a critical look at it. In orderto do this, it should be noted that the procedure adopted by the authors concernedregularly employs the same chain of ideas:I. Shamanism and trance are declared to be universals ;2. one therefore expects to find them in Africa, and especially in the Sahara;3. trance is considered to be sufficient evidence for shamanism;4. it is first accompaniedby simple geometricvisions(zigzags, concentriccircles, grids, etc), and then by nosebleeds;5. and these same geometric figures and nosebleeds are indeed found amongSaharan rock markings.The acceptance of these five points is then extended as follows: at a particularrock art site, one can find all or some of these graphisms (concentric circles, etc),or one can interpret a priori a depiction of a line or a few marks near the nose asflows of blood, and therefore one "deduces" that they rcpresentvisions, and thusthat they attest to the local existence of trance, and hence of shamanism.Ifnecessary, the shamanic hypothesis is reinforced by the presence of people or146
animals "which seem to float in the air" (Soleilhavoup1998c: 210) and are ipsofacto called in as evidence of a shamanic "voyage".while forgetting that inreality all of the world's rock art figures "float" in this way, because thegroundline is almost never drawn, even on the most banal images depicting dailylife. It is now crucial to demonstrate the weaknesses that taint every point in thispseudo-reasoning.SHAMANISM AND UNIVERSALSAs a premise, some people consider that shamanism is "universal in time andspace", since "everywhere in the world one can observe shamanic motifs"(Soleilhavoup 1998a: 23), and that "shamanic thought, which is residual today, isone of the universals of the human mind that is both original and permanent"(Soleilhavoup 1999b: 54). To make this claim is to forget a fundamental truth thatwas recently spelled out by Roberte Hamayon —i. e. that "phenomena of shamanictype" are in no way sufficient to prove the presence of shamanism, which is botha view of the world and a techniquc for managing uncertain phenomena, andwhich is constructed on " phenomena of shamanic type " but which cannot bereduced to these alone (Hamayon 1990).If the reader accepts the (false) idea that "shamanism corresponds to one of theuniversals of the human mind" (Soleilhavoup 1998a: 32), then not only is it nosurprise to find it in Africa, but one might well expect to find it everywhere, andespecially in the Sahara. This is the case with Giorgio Samorini, who did nothesitate to reinforce one hypothesis with another: "since most rock artcorresponded to rites of initiation, or formed part of a religious practice and itscontext" (1 st hypothesis, unproven), "the idea that these works might beassociated with hallucinogenic plants" (2nd hypothesis, even less proven) ". isnot a surprise" (Samorini 1992: 69). This supposed presence of shamanism inAfrica then allows them to assume, as an extension of Lewis-Williams' theory,the existence of an "African shamanism, that has disappeared from North Africabut survives in South Africa" (Soleilhavoup 1998a: 32).This is jumping the gun somewhat, because the question of "Africanshamanism" is still debatable (Hultkrantz 1993: 7). In 1913, Leo Frobenius hadalready spoken of an "African variety of shamanism" with regard to the Bori(Hawsa) and Zar (Ethiopia) cults (Frobenius 1913: 561). This notion was againput forward by Nadel who, in his studies of the Nuba, translated the term kujur as"shaman" (Nadel 1946). But by that time, and whatever one might understand by"shaman", the universality of shamanism had already been refuted: out ofeighteen Nuba groups studied by Nadel, only six practised what he called"shamanism". Subsequently, the term "shaman" was also used to translateconcepts noted among the Sukuma of Tanzania (Tanner 1955) and the Kuba ofCentral Africa (Vansina 1958), to which one could add the example of theEthiopian Zar (Leiris 1938, 1958; Haberland 1960, 1963). Soon, the notion ofshamanism was extended to the cults practised by numerous peoples: Ahur,147
Banyoro, Dinka, Fon, Lebu, Lugbara, Nago- Y aruba, Oromo, Segeju, Shona,Somali, Tonga, Wolof, Zaramo, Zincza, Zulu (Lewis 1989: 183).But in all these cases, what the authors called shamanism is generally no morethan a passive possession: Nadel writes that the Nuba "shaman" "is a passivemedium when possessed" (Nadel 1946: 25). This definition was confirmed byloan Lewis in his most recent synthesis aimed at substantiating"Africanshamanism":it is a situation of possession in which the spirits "mount" human"vehicles", called shamans by this author. But in reality it is the other way round:the shaman is not the instrument of the spirits, but their master. When he returnsfrom their world, where he is taker and not taken, tamer of spirits and not mountof the gods (Hamayon 1990, 1995), he is capable of narrating his travels, contraryto what occurs in the case of the possessed. The success of the excessivelymystical book devoted to shamanism by Mircea Eliade (1983) has played a greatrole in diffusing this notion among the general public, leading some to seeshamanism more or less everywhere, and preparing the ground for the current"shamania", which improperly associates shamanism with ecstasy.As a response to these excesses, Luc de Heusch (1965) firmly contrasted cultsof possession with true shamanism, showing that they feature opposite directionsin the alliance between humans and spirits. This fundamental distinction, whichwas doubtless declared too rigidly at the start, was fortunately made more flexibleby its author (De Heusch 1971), and is followed and accepted by Gilbert Rouget(1980) and Roberte Hamayon (1990: 32; 1995: 450). Even if it is true that variousintermediatesituationsexist, it seems highly prob
Head paintings depict "real" Martians, can only be upheld at the cost of a double ignorance:-ignorance of the tens of thousands of Saharan rock images which in no way resemble "Martians", including among the Round Heads;-ignorance of the ethnological, stylistic, anthropological, chronological and geographical context of the paintings concerned.
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is produced to comply with ASTM C167-64, the "Standard Test Method for Thickness and Density of Blanket- or Batt-Type Thermal Insulating Material". Wool fiberglass insulation production lines usually consist of the following processes: (1) preparation of molten glass, (2) formation of fibers into a wool fiberglass mat, (3) curing the binder-coated fiberglass mat, (4) cooling the mat, and (5 .
