Last night on Ideas, (CBC Radio, Canada), they did the first of a
two-part interview with Wade Davis, a Canadian ethnobotanist whose main
interest is in the use of sacred plants (e.g., peyote, ayahuasca) in
indigenous cultures.  There ensued a fascinating discussion on
spirituality and shamanism.  He noted that amazonian tribes, surrounded
by a wildly diverse plant world, used mainly plants to facilitate their
shamanistic communications with the spirit world.  Northern indigenous
peoples, by contrast, used hunting as the metaphor and pathway to the
spiritual realm. Interesting.  He also dismissed the West's tendency to
view the neolithic agricultural revolution as "progress", choosing
instead to describe it charmingly as having "succumbed to the cult of
the seed".  Great line.

Part II of the Wade Davis interview airs on Ideas, July 16, 9:05pm
(EST), CBC Radio One. http://www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/ideas/ideas.html

Cheyenne



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