Word: castaneda
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...such endorsements and parallels do not in any way validate the more worldly claim to importance of Castaneda's books: to wit, that
...they are anthropology, a specific and truthful account of an aspect of Mexican Indian culture as shown by the speech and actions of one person, a shaman named Juan Matus. That proof hinges on the credibility of Don Juan as a being and Carlos Castaneda as a witness. Yet there is no corroboration?beyond Castaneda's writings-that Don Juan did what he is said to have done, and very little that he exists...
...Teachings appeared, would-be disciples and counterculture tourists have been combing Mexico for the old man. One awaits the first Don Juan Prospectors' Convention in the Bruio Bar-B-Q of the Mescalito Motel Young Mexicans are excited to the point where the authorities may not even allow Castaneda's books to be released there in Spanish translation. Said one Mexican student who is himself pursuing Don Juan: "If the books do appear, the search for him could easily turn'into a gold-rush stampede...
...teacher, Castaneda asserts, was born in 1891, and suffered in the diaspora of the Yaquis all over Mexico from the 1890s until the 1910 revolution His parents were murdered by soldiers He became a nomad. This helps explain why the elements of Don Juan s sorcery are a combination of shamanistic beliefs from several cultures. Some of them are not at all "representative of the Yaquis. Many Indian tribes, such as the Huichols, use peyote ntually, both north and south of the border ?some in a syncretic blend of Christianity and shamanism. But the Yaquis are not peyote users...
...Juan, then, might be hard 1 find because he wisely shuns his pestering admirers. Or maybe he is a composite Indian, a collage of others. Or he could be a purely fictional shaman concocted by Castaneda...