ABSTRACT
Although scholars commonly distinguish between shamans, medicine men, and priests, the terms obscure Indian religious knowledge and practice. Even the term religious specialist distorts the actuality. No dividing line separates shamans from priests, or from medical diagnosticians, masked dancers, ritual clowns, prophets, singers, musicians, seers, and even witches. All religious practitioners translate gifts of power into cultural texts. They all understand the existential rules given in myth and, in meeting the changing needs of their communities, variously combine the functions of the dramatist, historian, philosopher, economist, psychologist, politician, and minister.
