ABSTRACT
In language there are no licensed practitioners, but the woods are full of midwives, herbalists, colonic irrigationists, bonesetters, and general-purpose witch doctors, some abysmally ignorant, others with a rich fund of practical knowledge, whom we shall lump together and call shamans. Verbal and herbal, the shamans have this tn common: they have husbanded, toiled at, and elaborated on an inherited art. The verbal shaman is usually a writer, who has done more with his inheritance of the language than use it to write letters and the bills of lading. They require our attention not only because they fill a lack but because they are almost the only people who make the news when the language begins to cause the trouble and someone must answer the cry for help. This calls for getting acquainted with the shamanite art and a typical few of its practitioners.
