ABSTRACT
The emphasis that social anthropologists put on ritualism in shamanism is an important one that has not been sufficiently investigated. In the history of ideas shamanism has been viewed through the magnifying glasses of four different disciplines: psychology, historical ethnology, history and psychology of religion, and social anthropology. The same general attitude toward shamanism is reflected in the writings of A. L. Kroeber, one of the founders of American anthropology. In effect, Roberte N. Hamayon attacks the religious interpretation of shamanism. Hamayon considers that the characterization of shamanism as trance appeared in the great Western religions in order to denigrate, in the eyes of a transcendent religion like Christianity, the notion that man and spirits are equals. Hamayon stresses the partnership between man and animal; indeed, she diminishes the supernatural factors and focuses on the social tasks and bonds of the shaman.
