Shamanic ritual is more complex again. These are frameworks in which several different frames may be instantiated with various relations to one another. Such a level of detail and the sustained analysis of the data must be welcomed for all that it makes hard reading. Cynics will say that much laudable effort has been spent on a description of a few twigs without giving us a view of the forest. Focus on the minutiae of conversational interaction may not leave room for the social contexts within which that interaction occurs.
Hanks is fully aware of the possibility of such criticism.
He gives much more than purely linguistic data. We learn about household organisation, work practices and both the theory and everyday practice of shamanism. Moreover, Hanks shows how the details of linguistic usage reveals social structure. The lesson I learn from this is that the verbal utterances may well provide a guide to the shifting hierarchies of power within a group in circumstances where the division of power may not be as clear cut as that of the work party. In sum this book is represents a substantial contribution to both Maya anthropology and to anthropological theory.