Shamans of the Foye Tree

<p>Drawing on anthropologist Ana Mariella Bacigalupo's fifteen years of field research <i>Shamans of the Foye Tree: Gender Power and Healing among Chilean Mapuche</i> is the first study to follow shamans' gender identities and performance in a variety of ritual social sexual and political contexts.</p> <p>To Mapuche shamans or <i>machi</i> the <i>foye</i> 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 <i>machi</i> 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 <i>machi</i> 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.</p> <p>The first comprehensive study on Mapuche shamans' gendered practices <i>Shamans of the Foye Tree</i> offers new perspectives on this crucial intersection of spiritual social and political power.</p>