In Memoriam: Michael J. Harner, 1929 – 2018

It was announced that Michael J. Harner, author of The Way of the Shaman, died Feb. 3 at the age of 88. Dr. Harner was born in Washington D.C. in 1929. He received his doctorate in anthropology in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley, after which he taught "at various institutions, including UC Berkeley, Columbia University, Yale University, and the graduate faculty of the New School in New York." Founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Harner was widely acknowledged as the world's foremost authority on shamanism and has had an enormous influence on both the academic and lay worlds. Michael Harner's legacy lives on through his thousands of students and practitioners of shamanism. His was an authentic life well lived and he will be deeply missed.

Northwest Coast Indians Box Drums

Shaman's Cedar Box Drum

Wooden box drums are a customary element to the music of the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Box drums accompany singing during funerals and at the memorial potlatch ceremonies that come later. The box drum is either played upright or tilted back and is used to begin and to mark certain points within a song. Like many of the musical instruments used on the Northwest Coast, box drums can be associated with shamanic practice. Some indigenous people of the Northwest Coast utilize the drum to indicate the presence of spirits. For example, a tremolo created by rapidly striking the drum can be perceived as an audible manifestation of a spirit being's presence.

The carved cedar drum in the photo is a very old box drum belonging to the Mount Fairweather (Snail) house of the T'akdeintaan clan in Hoonah, Alaska. It commemorates the time that a T'akdeintaan shaman proved his spiritual power as a shaman. A physical representation of the shaman's spirit guide is carved into the drum as an effigy used to invoke the spirit's power. The top figure carved on the front of the drum is a bear. It's most likely the same drum depicted in geographer Aurel Krause's 1882 book, called "The Tlingit Indians" in English, and could have been carved decades before that.

Frog Medicine

Frog symbolizes rain, cleansing, purification, healing, rebirth, transformation, and magic. Their magic is reflected in their metamorphosis from aqueous tadpoles to air-breathing creatures which can live on land. It is this kinship to the element of water that gives Frog medicine great cleansing and healing properties. In knowing the element of water, Frog can use its drum-like ribbit to invoke the Thunder Beings—thunder, lightning, wind, and rain—to cleanse and replenish the earth with water. Frog teaches us how to recognize when it is time to purify our bodies and our environments so that healing can occur on all levels. It teaches us to know when it is time to cleanse, refresh and replenish the soul. Frog sings the songs that call the rain to Mother Earth. Listen to the "Frog Rain Chant."