Havasupai religion and mythology

Smithson, Carma Lee; Euler, Robert C.

Book

Havasupai religion and mythology

University of Utah Press • (68) • Published In 1964 • Pages: viii, 112

By: Smithson, Carma Lee, Euler, Robert C..

Abstract
This work was originally intended to be a detailed study of Havasupai religion and mythology, which prior to that time had been covered generally but not intensively by such authors as Kroeber and Spier. With this intent in mind, Smithson made several field trips to the Havasupai between the years 1951-1958 collecting data from a number of native informants. These data, however, were never compiled by the author, for in 1961 she died from an incurable disease leaving her notes to R.C. Euler for completion. He, who was allowed to use the remainder of the grant originally awarded to Smithson by the University of Utah, visited the Havasupai in 1962 for the purpose of verifying portions of the notes with his informants, and eventually organized the notes into their present form. (See foreword and preface for a more detailed account of the above.) In general, the work deals with Havasupai religion in terms of cosmology, spirits and sacred places, eschatology and concepts of the soul, dreams and their meanings, shamans and shamanistic curing, ideas about disease and illness, forms of medicinal therapy including the use of the sweathouse, and finally death and funeral customs. Mythology is presented in the form of 26 folk-tales.

Shamans and psychotherapists

Magical and mental therapy

Revelation and divination

Theory of disease

Literary texts

Burial practices and funerals

HRAF PubDate

2010