anthropology assignment

Strengths & Characteristics 

A shamans role in the health of their communities is very important. Their job is to know the plants/herbs that they live around, their medicinal use, how to diagnose a member of the community, and how to treat them.They also are the ones who are able connect on another level with the rainforest and their ancestors.

Shaman's should be very knowledgeable and wise of their surrounding environment. This includes knowing the medicinal uses of each plant. Also knowing that one plant can have many uses and symptoms. Like Plotkin describes in his book, once you find out one use for a plant it can lead and open to more uses as well as classify plants under groups.

A shaman should know of any side effects plants have and how to continue with the treatment for their community member. For example, ayahuasca, is a brew from the Amazon rainforest Plotkin wrote about. It is usually used for spiritual awakenings for a community member to connect with the spirit world and find their purpose in life/or how to become the best person they can be in this world. Today, they also offer it to tourists who are willing to take this brew. But if you are not use to taking this brew it can really cause scary hallucinations that the average human is not use to. The shamans are also here as a guide to walk you through this spiritual awakening and make sure you are calm and okay. My father was born in the jungle region of Ecuador, South America and worked as a tour guide all around the country. As I was reading Plotkin's book he told me that when he was a teenager that he actually took ayahuasca and described it as a crazy trip. And that the Shaman he was with helped him get through it. It was then when my father realized shamans develop a kind of tolerance to these plants that they are able to really get the most out of their use and connect with their spiritual world. It is definitely not an easy job.  

It is said that one reason the Shamans reach out to their ancestors is to help them cure or treat their community members. As well as give them reasons as to why they became ill in the first place. They hold the key to the spiritual world that Indians in the rainforest rely so much on. Their vegetation, living, and health all rely on traditions that ancestors began. And the Shamans are the ones who can remind their culture (by connecting with their spirits) how traditions like healing work. 

I have a strong belief that there is an important role for shamans in the contemporary world. Their knowledge and experiences they have can be so useful for our own knowledge in finding new medicines and ways to treat the human body. It allows us, humans, to have options in how we want to look/take/ treat ourselves with medicines. It also allows for two different cultures to diagnose a human body. You can get an objective viewpoint (from doctors) as well as a more social view point (from the shamans).