Shaman Pots, Sympathetic Magic, and Spinning Souls among the Medio Period Casas Grandes: Altered States of Consciousness in Other-than-Human Persons

Between AD 1200 and 1450, shamans in the Casas Grandes region used tobacco and possibly other entheogens to enter trance states, enabling their spirits to travel across the cosmos. These trance experiences involved vertigo and soul flight, common cross-culturally and consistent with nicotine intoxication. Shamans interacted with other-than-human beings, including macaw- and serpent-linked deities, and used animated objects such as Playas Red and Chihuahuan Polychrome pottery effigies of humans, macaws, and snakes. These pots, proposed as animate “pot-people,” featured designs emphasizing spinning and vertigo, central to soul flight. Some pots were literally spun, as evidenced by wear patterns on their bases, reflecting sympathetic and mimetic magic linking them to the spirit world.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Medio Period (AD 1200 to 1450) Casas Grandes shamans used tobacco and possibly other entheogens to initiate trance states that allowed their spirits to travel across the cosmos. These trance experiences involved a sense of vertigo and soul flight that is cross-culturally common and occurs with tobacco-based nicotine intoxication. The Medio Period shamans also relied on and interacted with other-than-human persons during their travels, including macaw- and serpent-linked deities, as well as animated objects designed to participate in their shamanic journeys. The animated objects included Playas Red and Chihuahuan Polychrome pottery effigies of humans, macaws, and snakes with shamanic themes that represented the spirit world. I propose these pots were animate “pot-people” created for shamanic rituals. They were created with unusual designs including painted images and incised patterns that emphasized the spinning/vertigo that was central to the shamans’ soul flight experience. In some cases, the pots were literally spun, as evidenced by the distinctive wear patterns on their bases. The shamanic designs on the pots that reflected the upper and lower worlds, the depiction of spinning in the pottery decorations, and the literal spinning of some pots reflected the sympathetic and mimetic magic that linked them to the spirit world. They were imbued with the liminal nature of the creatures they depicted, and the symbolic and occasional literal emphasis on spinning would allow them to enter into a shamanic trance in a manner similar to their human counterparts. They, thus, were designed to enter into ASC in a manner that paralleled their human counterparts.