SOURCE: Daghistany, Ann. “The Shaman, Light and Dark.” In Literature and Anthropology, edited by Philip Dennis and Wendell Aycock, pp. 193-208. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Daghistany examines the shaman archetype in Trambley's “The Burning” and Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima.

Anthropology, myth studies, and comparative literature all look for—and find—in their respective subject matters recurrent images of forms and aspects of human life and of its environing forces, factors that condition and shape it. The term archetype is used widely to signify such images. I assume here that such images are not simply made up by individual persons, but are given by society and have, moreover, the power of acting upon individuals in various ways. This assumption provides a basis for understanding how anthropologists, comparative mythologists, and students of literature can be regarded as having something important in common: if such...