CHATTERThe Effectivenessof Symbols

TA h e f i r s t i m p o r t a n t South American magicoreligious text to be known, published by Wassén and Holmer,1
throws new light on certain aspects of shamanistic curing and raises
problems of theoretical interpretation by no means exhaustively
treated in the editors’ excellent commentary. W e will re-examine
this text for its more general implications, rather than from the lin­
guistic or Americanist perspective primarily employed b y the au­thors.
T he text is a long incantation, covering eighteen pages in thenative version, divided into 535 sections. It was obtained b y the
Cuna Indian Guillermo H aya from an elderly informant of his
tribe. T he Cuna, who live within the Panama Republic, received
special attention from the late Erland Nordenskiold, who even suc­ceeded in training collaborators among the natives. A fter Nordenskiold’s death, H aya forwarded the text to Nordenskiold’s suc­cessor, Dr. Wassén. The text was taken down in the original

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language and accompanied by a Spanish translation, which Holmer
revised with great care.
The purpose of the song is to facilitate difficult childbirth. Its
use is somewhat exceptional, since native women of Central andSouth America have easier deliveries than women of Western soci­eties. The intervention of the shaman is thus rare and occurs incase of failure, at the request of the midwife. The song begins witha picture of the midwife’s confusion and describes her visit to theshaman, the latter’s departure for the hut of the woman in labor,
his arrival, and his preparations— consisting of fumigations ofburnt cocoa-nibs, invocations, and the making of sacred figures, or
nuchu. These images, carved from prescribed kinds of wood which
lend them their effectiveness, represent tutelary spirits whom theshaman makes his assistants and whom he leads to the abode ofMuu, the power responsible for the formation of the fetus. A diffi­
cult childbirth results when Muu has exceeded her functions andcaptured the purba, or “soul,” of the mother-to-be. Thus the song
expresses a quest: the quest for the lost purba, which will be re­stored after many vicissitudes, such as the overcoming of obstacles,
a victory over wild beasts, and, finally, a great contest waged by
the shaman and his tutelary spirits against Muu and her daughters,with the help of magical hats whose weight the latter are not able
to bear. Muu, once she has been defeated, allows the purba of theailing woman to be discovered and freed. T he delivery takes place,and the song ends with a statement of the precautions taken so that
Muu will not escape and pursue her visitors. The fight is not
waged against Muu herself, who is indispensable to procreation,but only against her abuses of power. Once these have been cor­rected, relations become friendly, and Muu’s parting words to theshaman almost correspond to an invitation: “ Friend nele, when do
you think to visit me again? ” (413 ) 2Thus far we have rendered the term nele as shaman, whichmight seem incorrect, since the cure does not appear to require theofficiant to experience ecstasy or a transition to another psy­
chic state. Y et the smoke of the cocoa beans aims primarily at“strengthening his garments” and “strengthening” the nele himself,“making him brave in front of Muu” (65-66). And above all, theCuna classification, which distinguishes between several types of

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medicine men, shows that the power of the nele has supernatural
sources. The native medicine men are divided into nele, inatuledi,
and absogedi. T he functions of the inatuledi and absogedi are basedon knowledge of songs and cures, acquired through study andvalidated by examinations, while the talent of the nele, consideredinnate, consists of supernatural sight, which instantly discovers thecause of the illness— that is, the whereabouts of the vital forces,
whether particular or generalized, that have been carried off byevil spirits. For the nele can recruit these spirits, making them his
protectors or assistants.3 There is no doubt, therefore, that he isactually a shaman, even if his intervention in childbirth does notpresent all the traits which ordinarily accompany this function.
And the nuchu, protective spirits who at the shaman’s bidding be­come embodied in the figurines he has carved, receive from him—along with invisibility and clairvoyance— niga, Niga is “ vitality”
and “resistance,” 4 which make these spirits nelegan (plural o f nele)“in the service of men” or in the “ likeness of human beings”(235-237), although endowed with exceptional powers.
From our brief synopsis, the song appears to be rather com­monplace. T he sick woman suffers because she has lost her spirit­
ual double or, more correctly, one of the specific doubles which
together constitute her vital strength. (W e shall return to thispoint.) The shaman, assisted by his tutelary spirits, undertakes ajourney to the supernatural world in order to snatch the double
from the malevolent spirit who has captured it; by restoring it to
its owner, he achieves the cure. The exceptional interest of thistext does not lie in this formal framework, but, rather, in the dis­covery— stemming no doubt from a reading of the text, but for
which Holmer and Wassén deserve, nonetheless, full credit— thatMu-lgala, that is, “ Muu’s w ay,” and the abode of Muu are not, tothe native mind, simply a mythical itinerary and dwelling-place.
T h ey represent, literally, the vagina and uterus of the pregnant
woman, which are explored by the shaman and nuchu and in whose
depths they wage their victorious combat.
This interpretation is based first of all on an analysis of theconcept of purba. The purba is a different spiritual principle fromthe niga, which we defined above. Unlike the purba the niga can­not be stolen from its possessor, and only human beings and ani­mals own one. A plant or a stone has a purba but not a niga. T he

The Effectiveness of Symbols| 189

same is true of a corpse; and in a child, the niga only develops withage. It seems, therefore, that one could, without too much inac­
curacy, interpret niga as “ vital strength,” and purba as “ double” or“soul,” with the understanding that these words do not imply adistinction between animate and inanimate (since everything is ani­mate for the Cuna) but correspond rather to the Platonic notion of“idea” or “ archetype” of which every being or object is the ma­
terial expression.
The sick woman of the song has lost more than her purba: thenative text attributes fever to her— “ the hot garments of the dis­ease” (1 and passim)— and the loss or impairment of her sight—“straying . . . asleep on Muu Puklip’s path” (97). Above all, as
she declares to the shaman who questions her, “ It is Muu Puklip
who has come to me. She wants to take my niga purbalele forgood” (98). Holmer proposes translating niga as physical strengthand purba (lele) as soul or essence, whence “ the soul of her life.” 5
It would perhaps be bold to suggest that the niga, an attribute of
the living being, results from the existence of not one but several
purba, which are functionally interrelated. Y et each part of the
body has its own purba, and the niga seems to constitute, on thespiritual level, the equivalent of the concept of organism. Just as
life results from the cooperation of the organs, so “ vital strength”
would be none other than the harmonious concurrence of all thepurba, each of which governs the functions of a specific organ.
As a matter of fact, not only does the shaman retrieve theniga purbalele; his discovery is followed immediately by the re­capture of other purba, those of the heart, bones, teeth, hair, nails,
and feet (401-408, 435-442). The omission here of the purba gov­
erning the most affected organs— the generative organs— mightcome as a surprise. As the editors of the text emphasize, this is be­cause the purba of the uterus is not considered as a victim but as
responsible for the pathological disorder. Muu and her daughters,
the muugan, are, as Nordenskiold pointed out, the forces thatpreside over the development of the fetus and that give it its kurgin,
or natural capacities.6 The text does not refer to these positive at­tributes. In it Muu appears as an instigator of disorder, a special“soul” that has captured and paralyzed the other special “souls,”
thus destroying the cooperation which insures the integrity of the“chief body” (cuerpo jefe in Spanish, 430, 435) from which it

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draws its niga. But at the same time, Muu must stay put, for the
expedition undertaken to liberate the purba might provoke Muu’s
escape by the road which temporarily remains open; hence theprecautions whose details fill the last part of the song. T h e shaman
mobilizes the Lords of the wild animals to guard the way, the roadis entangled, golden and silver nets are fastened, and, for four days,
the nelegan stand watch and beat their sticks (505-535). Muu,
therefore, is not a fundamentally evil force: she is a force goneawry. In a difficult delivery the “ soul” of the uterus has led astrayall the “souls” belonging to other parts of the body. Once thesesouls are liberated, the soul of the uterus can and must resume its
cooperation. Let us emphasize right here the clarity with which thenative ideology delineates the emotional content of the physiologi­
cal disturbance, as it might appear, in an implicit way, to the mindof the sick woman.
T o reach Muu, the shaman and his assistants must follow aroad, “ Muu’s w ay,” which may be identified from the many allu­
sions in the text. W hen the shaman, crouching beneath the sickwoman’s hammock, has finished carving the nuchu, the latter riseup “ at the extremity of the road” (72, 83) and the shaman exhorts
them in these terms:
T h e (sick) wom an lies in the hammock in front of you.
H er w hite tissue lies in her lap, her white tissues move softly.
T h e (sick) wom an’s body lies weak.
W hen they light up (along) M uu’s w ay, it runs over w ith exuda­
tions and like blood.
H er exudations drip down below the hammock all like blood, allred.
T h e inner white tissue extends to the bosom o f the earth.
Into the middle o f the wom an’s w hite tissue a human being de­scends. (84-90)

The translators are doubtful as to the meaning of the last tw osentences, yet they refer to another native text, published by N o rdenskiold, which leaves no doubt as to the identification of the“ white inner tissue” with the vulva:
sibugua molul arkaali
blancatela

abricndo

sibugua molul akinnali
blancatela

extendiendo

The Effectiveness of Symbols
sibugua molul abalase tulapurua ekuanali
blanca tela centro fcto
caer haciendo7“ Muu’s w ay,” darkened and completely covered with bloodowing to the difficult labor, and which the nuchu have to find by
the white sheen of their clothes and magical hats, is thus unques­tionably the vagina of the sick woman. And “ Muu’s abode,” the“dark whirlpool” where she dwells, corresponds to the uterus,
since the native informant comments on the name of this abode,
Amukkapirya'wila, in terms of omegan purba amurrequedi, that is,“woman’s turbid menstruation,” also called “ the dark deep whirl­pool” (250-251) and “ the dark inner place” (32).®
The original character of this text gives it a special place
among the shamanistic cures ordinarily described. These cures areof three types, which are not, however, mutually exclusive. The
sick organ or member may be physically involved, through amanipulation or suction which aims at extracting the cause of theillness— usually a thorn, crystal, or feather made to appear at theopportune moment, as in tropical America, Australia, and Alaska.
Curing may also revolve, as among the Araucanians, around asham battle, waged in the hut and then outdoors, against harmful
spirits. Or, as among the Navaho, the officiant may recite incanta­
tions and prescribe actions (such as placing the sick person ondifferent parts of a painting traced on the ground with coloredsands and pollens) which bear no direct relationship to the specificdisturbance to be cured. In all these cases, the therapeutic method(which as we know is often effective) is difficult to interpret.
When it deals directly with the unhealthy organ, it is too grossly
concrete (generally, pure deceit) to be granted intrinsic value.
And when it consists in the repetition of often highly abstract
ritual, it is difficult for us to understand its direct bearing on theillness. It would be convenient to dismiss these difficulties by de­claring that we are dealing with psychological cures. But this term
will remain meaningless unless we can explain how specific psy­chological representations are invoked to combat equally specificphysiological disturbances. The text that we have analyzed offers astriking contribution to the solution of this problem. The song
constitutes a purely psychological treatment, for the shaman does
not touch the body of the sick woman and administers no remedy.

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Nevertheless it involves, directly and explicitly, the pathologicalcondition and its locus. In our view, the song constitutes a psy­chological manipulation of the sick organ, and it is precisely fromthis manipulation that a cure is expected.
T o begin, let us demonstrate the existence and the character­istics of this manipulation. Then we shall ask what its purpose andits effectiveness are. First, we are surprised to find that the song,whose subject is a dramatic struggle between helpful and malevo­
lent spirits for the reconquest of a “ soul,” devotes very little atten­
tion to action proper. In eighteen pages of text the contest oc­
cupies less than one page and the meeting with Muu Puklip scarcely
two pages. The preliminaries, on the other hand, are highly de­veloped and the preparations, the outfitting of the nuchu, theitinerary, and the sites are described with a great wealth of detail.
Such is the case, at the beginning, for the midwife’s visit to theshaman. The conversation between the sick woman and the mid­wife, followed by that between the midwife and the shaman, re­curs twice, for each speaker repeats exacdy the utterance of theother before answering him:
The (sick) woman speaks to the midwife: “I am indeed being
dressed in the hot garment of the disease.”
The midwife answers her (sick woman): “You are indeed being
dressed in the hot garment of the disease, I also hear you say.”( 1- 2 )It might be argued 9 that this stylistic device is common among
the Cuna and stems from the necessity, among peoples bound tooral tradition, of memorizing exactly what has been said. And yethere this device is applied not only to speech but to actions:
T he midwife turns about in the hut.

The midwife looks for some beads.
The midwife turns about (in order to leave).
The midwife puts one foot in front of the other.
The midwife touches the ground with her foot.
The midwife puts her other foot forward.
The midwife pushes open the door of her hut; the door of her hut
creaks.
The midwife goes out . . . (7-14).

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This minute description of her departure is repeated when she
arrives at the shaman’s, when she returns to the sick woman, when
the shaman departs, and when he arrives. Sometimes the same de­scription is repeated twice in the same terms (37-39 and 45-47 re­produce 33-35). T he cure thus begins with a historical account of
the events that preceded it, and some elements which might appear
secondary ( “ arrivals” and “ departures” ) are treated with luxuriant
detail as if they were, so to speak, filmed in slow-motion. W e en­counter this technique throughout the text, but it is nowhere ap­
plied as systematically as at the beginning and to describe incidentsof retrospective interest.
Everything occurs as though the shaman were trying to in­duce the sick woman— whose contact with reality is no doubt im­
paired and whose sensitivity is exacerbated— to relive the initialsituation through pain, in a very precise and intense way, and to
become psychologically aware of its smallest details. Actually thissituation sets off a series of events of which the body and internalorgans of the sick woman will be the assumed setting. A transition
will thus be made from the most prosaic reality to myth, from thephysical universe to the physiological universe, from the external
world to the internal body. And the myth being enacted in theinternal body must retain throughout the vividness and the char­acter of lived experience prescribed by the shaman in the light ofthe pathological state and through an appropriate obsessing tech­nique.
The next ten pages offer, in breathless rhythm, a more andmore rapid oscillation between mythical and physiological themes,
as if to abolish in the mind of the sick woman the distinction which
separates them, and to make it impossible to differentiate their re­spective attributes. First there is a description of the woman lying
in her hammock or in the native obstetrical position, facing east­
ward, knees parted, groaning, losing her blood, the vulva dilated
and moving (84-92, 123-124, 134-135, 152, 158, 173, 177-178,
202-204). Then the shaman calls by name the spirits of intoxicat­
ing drinks; of the winds, waters, and woods; and even— precious
testimony to the plasticity of the myth— the spirit of the “silver
steamer of the white man” (187). T h e themes converge: like thesick woman, the nuchu are dripping with blood; and the pains of
the sick woman assume cosmic proportions: “ T he inner white tis­

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sue extends to the bosom of the earth. . . . Into the bosom of theearth her exudations gather into a pool, all like blood, all red”
(84-92). A t the same time, each spirit, when it appears, is carefully
described, and the magical equipment which he receives from theshaman is enumerated at great length: black beads, flame-coloredbeads, dark beads, ring-shaped beads, tiger bones, rounded bones,
throat bones, and many other bones, silver necklaces, armadillobones, bones of the bird kerkettoli, woodpecker bones, bones forflutes, silver beads (104-118). Then general recruitment begins
anew, as if these guarantees were still inadequate and all forces,
known or unknown to the sick woman, were to be rallied for theinvasion (119-229).
Y et we are released to such a small extent into the realm ofmyth that the penetration of the vagina, mythical though it be, is
proposed to the sick woman in concrete and familiar terms. On two
occasions, moreover, “ muu” designates the uterus directly, and not
the spiritual principle which governs its activity (“ the sick woman’smuu,” 204, 453).10 Here the nelegan, in order to enter Muu’s way,take on the appearance and the motions of the erect penis:
T h e nelegaris hats are shining white, the nelegan"s hats are whitish.
T h e nelegan are becom ing flat and lo w (? ), all like bits, all straight.
T h e nelegan are beginning to become terrifyin g (? ), the nelegan
are becom ing all terrifyin g (? ), for the sake o f the (sick)wom an’s niga purbalele (230-232).

A nd further, below:
T h e nelegan go balancing up on top o f the hammock, th ey gom oving upward like nusupane (239).11

T h e technique of the narrative thus aims at recreating a realexperience in which the myth merely shifts the protagonists. The
nelegan enter the natural orifice, and we can imagine that after all
this psychological preparation the sick woman actually feels thementering. N o t only does she feel them, but they “ light up” the route
they are preparing to follow— for their own sake, no doubt, and tofind the way, but also to make the center of inexpressible and pain­
ful sensations “ clear” for her and accessible to her consciousness.
“ T he nelegan put good sight into the sick woman, the nelegan lightgood eyes in the (sick) woman . . .” (238).

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And this “ illuminating sight,” to paraphrase an expression in
the text, enables them to relate in detail a complicated itinerarythat is a true mythical anatomy, corresponding less to the real
structure of the genital organs than to a kind of emotional geogra­
phy, identifying each point of resistance and each thrust:
T he nelegan set out, the nelegan march in a single file along M uu’sroad, as far as the L o w Mountain,
T h e nelegan set out, etc., as far as the Short Mountain,
The nelegan, etc., as far as the Long Mountain,
T h e nelegan, etc., (to) Yala Pokuna Yala, (not translated)
The nelegan, etc., (to) Yala Akkw atallekun Yala, (not translated)
The nelegan, etc., (to) Yala Ilamalisuikun Yala, (not translated)
T h e nelegan, etc., into the center o f the Flat Mountain.
T h e nelegan set out, the nelegan march in a single file along M uu’sroad (241-248).

The picture of the uterine world, peopled with fantastic mon­sters and dangerous animals, is amenable to the same interpretation— which is, moreover, confirmed by the native informant: “ It is
the animals,” he says, “who increase the diseases of the laboring
woman” ; that is, the pains themselves are personified. And here
again, the song seems to have as its principal aim the description ofthese pains to the sick woman and the naming of them, that is, theirpresentation to her in a form accessible to conscious or uncon­
scious thought: Uncle Alligator, who moves about with his bulg­
ing eyes, his striped and variegated body, crouching and wriggling
his tail; Uncle Alligator Tiikwalele, with glistening body, whomoves his glistening flippers» whose flippers conquer the place,push everything aside, drag everything; Nele Ki(k)kirpanalele, theOctopus, whose sticky tentacles are alternately opening and clos­
ing; and many others besides: He-who-has-a-hat-that-is-soft, Hewho-has-a-red-colored-hat, He-who-has-a-variegated-hat, etc.; andthe guardian animals: the black tiger, the red animal, the twocolored animal, the dust-colored animal; each is tied with an iron
chain, the tongue hanging down, the tongue hanging out, saliva
dripping, saliva foaming, with flourishing tail, the claws coming out
and tearing things “ all like blood, all red” (253-298).
T o enter into this hell à la Hieronymus Bosch and reach its
owner, the nelegan have to overcome other obstacles, this time
material: fibers, loose threads, fastened threads, successive cur-

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tains— rainbow-colored, golden, silvery, red, black, maroon, blue,
white, wormlike, “ like neckties,” yellow, twisted, thick (305-330);
and for this purpose, the shaman calls reinforcements: Lords ofthe wood-boring insects, who are to “ cut, gather, wind and re­duce” the threads, which Holmer and Wassén identify as the in­ternal tissues of the uterus.12
The nelegan's invasion follows the downfall of these last
obstacles, and here the tournament of the hats takes place. A dis­cussion of this would lead us too far from the immediate purposeof this study. A fter the liberation of the niga purbalele comes thedescent, which is just as dangerous as the ascent, since the purposeof the whole undertaking is to induce childbirth— precisely, a diffi­
cult descent. The shaman counts his helpers and encourages his
troops; still he must summon other reinforcements: the “ clearersof the w ay,” Lords-of-the-burrowing animals, such as the arma­
dillo. The niga is exhorted to make its w ay toward the orifice:Y o u r b od y lies in front o f you in the hammock,(H er) white tissue lies in her lap,
T h e w hite inner tissue moves softly,
Y o u r (sick) woman lies in yo u r midst . . .
. . . thinking she cannot see.
Into her b ody they put again (her) niga purbalele . . . (430-435 )The episode that follows is obscure. It would seem that thesick woman is not yet cured. The shaman leaves for the mountains
with people of the village to gather medicinal plants, and he re­turns to the attack in a different way. This time it is he who, by
imitating the penis, penetrates the “ opening of muu” and moves in
it “like nusupane . . . completely drying the inner place” (453454). Y et the use of astringents suggests that the delivery has takenplace. Finally, before the account of the precautions taken to
impede Muu’s escape, which we have already described, we findthe shaman calling for help from a people of Bowmen. Since theirtask consists in raising a cloud of dust “to obscure . . . M uu’s
w ay” (464), and to defend all of Muu’s crossroads and byroads(468), their intervention probably also pertains to the conclusion.
The previous episode perhaps refers to a second curing tech­nique, with organ manipulation and the administration of remedies.

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Or it m ay perhaps match, in equally metaphorical terms, the firstjourney, w hich is more highly elaborated in the text. T w o lines o f
attack w ould thus have been developed for the assistance to thesick wom an, one o f w hich is supported b y a psychophysiologicalm ythology and the other b y a psychosocial m yth ology— indi­cated b y the shaman’s call on the inhabitants o f the village— which,however, remains undeveloped. A t any rate, it should be observedthat the song ends after the delivery, just as it had begun before thecure. Both antecedent and subsequent events are carefully related.
But it is not only against M uu’s elusive stray impulses that the curemust, through careful procedures, be effected; the efficacy of thecure w ould be jeopardized if, even before any results were to be
expected, it failed to offer the sick wom an a resolution, that is, asituation wherein all the protagonists have resumed their places
and returned to an order w hich is no longer threatened.
T h e cure w ould consist, therefore, in making explicit a situa­tion originally existing on the emotional level and in rendering ac­
ceptable to the mind pains w hich the body refuses to tolerate. T h a t
the m ythology o f the shaman does not correspond to an objective
reality does not matter. T h e sick woman believes in the m yth andbelongs to a society w hich believes in it. T h e tutelary spirits andmalevolent spirits, the supernatural monsters and magical animals,
are all part o f a coherent system on w hich the native conceptionof the universe is founded. T h e sick wom an accepts these m ythicalbeings or, more accurately, she has never questioned their exist­
ence. W h a t she does not accept are the incoherent and arbitrary
pains, w hich are an alien element in her system but w hich the sha­man, calling upon m yth, w ill re-integrate within a w hole where
everything is meaningful.
O nce the sick wom an understands, however, she does morethan resign herself; she gets well. But no such thing happens to oursick when the causes o f their diseases have been explained to themin terms o f secretions, germs, or viruses. W e shall perhaps be ac­
cused of paradox if w e answer that the reason lies in the fact thatmicrobes exist and monsters do not. A n d yet, the relationship be­
tween germ and disease is external to the mind o f the patient, for it
is a cause-and-effect relationship; whereas the relationship between
monster and disease is internal to his mind, whether conscious or

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unconscious: It is a relationship between sym bol and thing sym­
bolized, or, to use the term inology o f linguists, between sign andmeaning. T h e shaman provides the sick wom an w ith a language,b y means o f which unexpressed, and otherwise inexpressible, psy­
chic states can be immediately expressed. A nd it is the transition tothis verbal expression— at the same time making it possible to un­dergo in an ordered and intelligible form a real experience thatwould otherwise be chaotic and inexpressible— w hich induces therelease o f the physiological process, that is, the reorganization, in afavorable direction, o f the process to w hich the sick wom an issubjected.
In this respect, the shamanistic cure lies on the borderline be­
tween our contem porary physical medicine and such psychologicaltherapies as psychoanalysis. Its originality stems from the applica­tion to an organic condition o f a method related to psychotherapy.
H o w is this possible? A closer comparison between shamanism andpsychoanalysis— w hich in our view implies no slight to psycho­
analysis— will enable us to clarify this point.
In both cases the purpose is to bring to a conscious level con­flicts and resistances w hich have remained unconscious, ow ing ei­
ther to their repression b y other psychological forces or— in thecase o f childbirth— to their ow n specific nature, w hich is not psy­
chic but organic or even simply mechanical. In both cases also, theconflicts and resistances are resolved, not because o f the know ledge,
real or alleged, w hich the sick wom an progressively acquires o fthem, but because this know ledge makes possible a specific experi­ence, in the course o f w hich conflicts materialize in an order andon a level permitting their free development and leading to theirresolution. T his vital experience is called abreaction in psychoanaly­
sis. W e kn o w that its precondition is the unprovoked interventiono f the analyst, w h o appears in the conflicts o f the patient througha double transference mechanism, as a flesh-and-blood protagonist
and in relation to whom the patient can restore and clarify an
initial situation w hich has remained unexpressed or unformulated.
A ll these characteristics can be found in the shamanistic cure.
H ere, too, it is a matter o f provoking an experience; as this experi­ence becomes structured, regulatory mechanisms beyond the sub­ject’s control are spontaneously set in motion and lead to anorderly functioning. T h e shaman plays the same dual role as th e

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psychoanalyst. A prerequisite role— that o f listener for the psycho­
analyst and o f orator for the shaman— establishes a direct relation­
ship with the patient’s conscious and an indirect relationship w ith
his unconscious. T h is is the function o f the incantation proper. But
the shaman does more than utter the incantation; he is its hero, for
it is he w ho, at the head o f a supernatural battalion o f spirits, pene­
trates the endangered organs and frees the captive soul. In this w a y
he, like the psychoanalyst, becomes the object o f transference
and, through the representations induced in the patient’s mind, thereal protagonist o f the conflict w h ich the latter experiences on theborder between the physical w orld and the psychic world. T h e pa­
tient suffering from neurosis eliminates an individual m yth b y fac­
ing a “ real” psychoanalyst; the native wom an in childbed over­comes a true organic disorder b y identifying w ith a “ m ythicallytransmuted” shaman.
This parallelism does not exclude certain differences, w hichare not surprising if w e note the character— psychological in the
one case and organic in the other— o f the ailment to be cured.
Actually the shamanistic cure seems to be the exact counterpart tothe psychoanalytic cure, but w ith an inversion o f all the elements.
Both cures aim at inducing an experience, and both succeed b y re­creating a m yth w hich the patient has to live or relive. But in one
case, the patient constructs an individual m yth w ith elements
drawn from his past; in the other case, the patient receives fromthe outside a social m yth w hich does not correspond to a former
personal state. T o prepare for the abreaction, w hich then becomesan “ adreaction,” the psychoanalyst listens, whereas the shaman
speaks. Better still: W h en a transference is established, the patient
puts words into the mouth o f the psychoanalyst b y attributing to
him alleged feelings and intentions; in the incantation, on the con­trary, the shaman speaks for his patient. H e questions her and puts
into her mouth answers that correspond to the interpretation o f her
condition, w ith w hich she must become imbued:

My eyesight is straying, it is asleep on Muu Puklip’s path.
It is Muu Puklip who has come to me. She wants to take myniga purbalele for good.
Muu Nauryaiti has come to me. She wants to possess my niga.
purbalele for good.
etc. (97-101).

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Furthermore, the resemblance becomes even more striking
w hen w e compare the shaman’s method w ith certain recent th er­
apeutic techniques o f psychoanalysis. R. Desoille, in his research on
daydream ing ,13 emphasized that psychopathological disturbances
are accessible on ly through the language o f symbols. T h u s hespeaks to his patients b y means o f symbols, w hich remain, nonethe­less, verbal metaphors. In a more recent w ork, w ith w hich w e w e re
not acquainted when w e began this study, M. A . Sechehaye goesmuch further .14 It seems to us that the results w hich she obtained
while treating a case o f schizophrenia considered incurable fu lly
confirm our preceding view s on the similarities between p sych o ­analysis and shamanism. For Sechehaye became aware that speech,
no matter how sym bolic it might be, still could not penetrate b e ­yond the conscious and that she could reach deeply buried co m ­plexes only through acts. T hu s to resolve a weaning com plex, theanalyst must assume a maternal role, carried out not b y a literal
reproduction o f the appropriate behavior but b y means o f actions
which are, as it were, discontinuous, each sym bolizing a fundam en­tal element o f the situation— for instance, putting the cheek o f thepatient in contact w ith the breast o f the analyst. T h e sym bo lic
load o f such acts qualifies them as a language. A ctu ally, the therapist
holds a dialogue w ith the patient, not through the spoken w o rd ,but b y concrete actions, that is, genuine rites w hich penetrate th escreen o f consciousness to carry their message directly to the u n ­conscious.
H ere w e again encounter the concept o f manipulation, w h ich
appeared so essential to an understanding of the shamanistic cu re
but whose traditional definition w e must broaden considerably.
For it m ay at one time involve a manipulation o f ideas and, at a n ­other time, a manipulation o f organs. But the basic condition r e ­mains that the manipulation must be carried out through sym bols,that is, through meaningful equivalents o f things meant w h ichbelong to another order o f reality. T h e gestures o f Sechehaye
reverberate in the unconscious mind o f the schizophrenic just as
the representations evoked b y the shaman bring about a m odifica­tion in the organic functions o f the wom an in childbirth. L abor isimpeded at the beginning o f the song, the delivery takes place atthe end, and the progress o f childbirth is reflected in successive
stages of the m yth. T h e first penetration of the vagina b y th e

T he Effectiveness of Symbols| 201

nelegan is carried out in Indian file (241) and, since it is an as­
cent, with the help of magical hats which clear and light up theway. T h e return corresponds to the second phase of the myth, but
to the first phase of the physiological process, since the child must
be made to come down. Attention turns toward the nelegaris feet.
W e are told that they have shoes (494-496). W hen they invade
M uu’s abode, they no longer march in single file but in “rows offour” (388); and, to come out again in the open air, they go “in arow ” (248). N o doubt the purpose of such an alteration in the de­tails of the myth is to elicit the corresponding organic reaction, but
the sick woman could not integrate it as experience if it were notassociated with a true increase in dilatation. It is the effectivenessof symbols which guarantees the harmonious parallel developmentof myth and action. And myth and action form a pair always as­sociated with the duality of patient and healer. In the schizophrenic
cure the healer performs the actions and the patient produces hism yth; in the shamanistic cure the healer supplies the myth and thepatient performs the actions.
T he analogy between these two methods would be even more
complete if we could admit, as Freud seems to have suggested on
tw o different occasions,15 that the description in psychologicalterms of the structure of psychoses and neuroses must one day bereplaced by physiological, or even biochemical, concepts. This pos­sibility may be at hand, since recent Swedish research18 has demon­
strated chemical differences resulting from the amounts of polynucleids in the nerve cells of the normal individual and those of thepsychotic. Given this hypothesis or any other of the same type, theshamanistic cure and the psychoanalytic cure would become strictly
parallel. It would be a matter, either w ay, of stimulating an organic
transformation which would consist essentially in a structural reor­
ganization, b y inducing the patient intensively to live out a myth—either received or created by him— whose structure would be, at theunconscious level, analogous to the structure whose genesis is soughton the organic level. T h e effectiveness of symbols would consist
precisely in this “inductive property,” b y which formally homol­
ogous structures, built out of different materials at different levels
o f life— organic processes, unconscious mind, rational thought—
are related to one another. Poetic metaphor provides a familiar ex­

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ample o f this inductive process, but as a rule it does not transcend
the unconscious level. T h u s w e note the significance o f R im baud’s
intuition that metaphor can change the w orld.
T h e comparison w ith psychoanalysis has allowed us to shedlight on some aspects o f shamanistic curing. Conversely, it is not
improbable that the study o f shamanism m ay one d ay serve to
elucidate obscure points o f Freudian theory. W e are thinking
specifically o f the concepts o f m yth and the unconscious.
W e saw that the only difference between the tw o methods
that w ould outlive the discovery o f a physiological substratum
o f neurosis concerns the origin o f the m yth, w h ich in the one
case is recovered as an individual possession and in the other caseis received from collective tradition. A ctu ally, m any psych oana­lysts w ould refuse to admit that the psychic constellations w h ic hreappear in the patient’s conscious could constitute a m yth. T h e s erepresent, th ey say, real events w hich it is sometimes possible
to date and whose authenticity can be verified b y checkin g w ith
relatives or servants.17 W e do not question these facts. But w eshould ask ourselves whether the therapeutic value o f the cure d e­pends on the actual character o f remembered situations, or w h e th er
the traumatizing pow er o f those situations stems from the fa ct th a t
at the moment when they appear, the subject experiences them im ­mediately as living m yth. B y this w e mean that the traum atizing
pow er o f any situation cannot result from its intrinsic features b u t
must, rather, result from the capacity o f certain events, appearing
within an appropriate psychological, historical, and social co n te x t,
to induce an emotional crystallization w hich is molded b y a p r e ­existing structure. In relation to the event or anecdote, these s tr u c ­tures— or, more accurately, these structural laws— are t r u l yatemporal. For the neurotic, all psychic life and all subsequent e x ­periences are organized in terms o f an exclusive or predom inant
structure, under the catalytic action o f the initial m yth. B u t th isstructure, as w ell as other structures w hich the neurotic relegatesto a subordinate position, are to be found also in the normal h u m a nbeing, whether primitive or civilized. These structures as an a g ­gregate form w hat w e call the unconscious. T h e last d ifferen ce
between the theory o f shamanism and psychoanalytic t h e o r ywould, then, vanish. T h e unconscious ceases to be the u ltim ate
haven o f individual peculiarities— the repository o f a unique h is -The Effectiveness of Symbols| 203

tory which makes each of us an irreplaceable being. It is reducible
to a function— the symbolic function, which no doubt is specifi­
cally human, and which is carried out according to the same laws
among all men, and actually corresponds to the aggregate of theselaws.
If this view is correct, it will probably be necessary to re­establish a more marked distinction between the unconscious andthe preconscious than has been customary in psychology. For thepreconscious, as a reservoir of recollections and images amassedin the course of a lifetime,18 is merely an aspect of memory.
While perennial in character, the preconscious also has limitations,since the term refers to the fact that even though memories arepreserved they are not always available to the individual. The un­conscious, on the other hand, is always empty— or, more accu­
rately, it is as alien to mental images as is the stomach to the foods
which pass through it. As the organ of a specific function, the un­conscious merely imposes structural laws upon inarticulated ele­ments which originate elsewhere— impulses, emotions, representa­
tions, and memories. W e might say, therefore, that the preconscious
is the individual lexicon where each of us accumulates the vocabu­
lary of his personal history, but that this vocabulary becomes sig­
nificant, for us and for others, only to the extent that the uncon­
scious structures it according to its laws and thus transforms it into
language. Since these laws are the same for all individuals and in all
instances where the unconscious pursues its activity, the problem
which arose in the preceding paragraph can easily be resolved. The
vocabulary matters less than the structure. W hether the myth isre-created by the individual or borrowed from tradition, it derives
from its sources— individual or collective (between which inter­
penetrations and exchanges constantly occur)— only the stock ofrepresentations with which it operates. But the structure remains
the same, and through it the symbolic function is fulfilled.
If we add that these structures are not only the same foreveryone and for all areas to which the function applies, but thatthey are few in number, we shall understand w hy the world of
symbolism is infinitely varied in content, but always limited in its
laws. There are many languages, but very few structural laws
which are valid for all languages. A compilation of known tales
and myths would fill an imposing number of volumes. But they204 |MAGICAND

RELIGION

can be reduced to a small number o f simple types if w e abstract,from among the diversity o f characters, a fe w elementary functions.
A s for the complexes— those individual m yths— they also corre­
spond to a fe w simple types, w hich mold the fluid m ultiplicity ofcases.
Since the shaman does not psychoanalyze his patient, w e m ay
conclude that remembrance o f things past, considered b y somethe k ey to psychoanalytic therapy, is only one expression (whose
value and results are hardly negligible) o f a more fundamental
method, w hich must be defined w ithout considering the individual
or collective genesis o f the m yth. For the m yth form takes prec­
edence over the content o f the narrative. T his is, at any rate, w h at
the analysis o f a native text seems to have taught us. But also, fromanother perspective, w e know that any m yth represents a quest fo r
the remembrance o f things past. T h e modern version o f shamanistic
technique called psychoanalysis thus derives its specific character­istics from the fact that in industrial civilization there is no lon ger
any room fo r m ythical time, except within man himself. From
this observation, psychoanalysis can draw confirmation o f its valid ­ity, as w ell as hope o f strengthening its theoretical foundations andunderstanding better the reasons fo r its effectiveness, b y co m ­paring its methods and goals w ith those o f its precursors, the sha­mans and sorcerers.

NOTES
1. Nils M. Holmer and Henry Wassén, Mu -1 gala or the Way of M uu, aMedicine Song from the Cunas of Panama (Goteborg: 1947).
2. The numbers in parentheses refer to the numbered sections in the song.
3. E. Nordenskiold, An Historical and Ethnological Survey of the Cuna
Indians, ed. Henry Wassén, Vol. X of Comparative EthnographicalStudies (Goteborg: 1938), pp. 80 ff.
4. Ibid., pp. 360 ff.; Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., pp. 78-9.
5. Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., p. 38, n 44.
6. Nordenskiold, op. cit., p. 364 ff.
7. Ibid., pp. 607-8; Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., p. 38, nn 35-9.
8. The translation of ti ipya as “whirlpool” seems to be strained. For c er­
tain South American natives, as also in the languages of the Iberianpeninsula (cf. the Portuguese olho d'agua), a “ water eye” is a spring.
9. Holmer and Wassén, op. cit., pp. 65-6.
10. Ibid., p. 45, n 219; p. 57, n 539.
11. The question marks are Holmer and Wassén’s; nusupane derives fromT h e Effectiveness of Symbols

205

nusiiy “worm,” and is commonly used for “penis” (see Holmer and
Wassén, p. 47, n 280; p. 57, n 540; and p. 82).
12. Ibid,, p. 85.
13. R. Desoille, Le Rêve éveillé en psychothérapie (Paris: 1945).
14. M. A. Sechehaye, La Réalisation symbolique, Supplement No. 12 to
Revue suisse de psychologie et de psychologie appliquée (Bern: 1947).
15. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, p. 79, and New Conferences on Psy­choanalysis, p. 198, cited by E. Kris, “The Nature of Psychoanalytic
Propositions and their Validation,” in Freedom and Experience, Essays
presented to H , M. Kallen (Ithaca, N . Y.: 1947), p. 244.
16. Caspersson and Hyden, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
17. Marie Bonaparte, “Notes on the Analytical Discovery of a Primal
Scene,” in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. I (N ew York:*945)•

18. This definition, which was subjected to considerable criticism, acquires
a new meaning through the radical distinction between preconscious
and unconscious.