Eye Of The Jaguar by Jane Silverwood released on Apr 24, 1993 is available now for purchase.

An important new way of viewing the prehistoric art of the Americas, The Jaguar Within demonstrates that understanding a work of art’s connection with shamanic trance can lead to an appreciation of it as an extremely creative solution to the inherent challenge of giving material form to nonmaterial realities and states of being. Shamanism—the practice of entering a trance state to experience visions of a reality beyond the ordinary and to gain esoteric knowledge—has been an important part of life for indigenous societies throughout the Americas from prehistoric times until the present. Much has been written about shamanism in both scholarly and popular literature, but few authors have linked it to another significant visual realm—art. In this pioneering study, Rebecca R. Stone considers how deep familiarity with, and profound respect for, the extra-ordinary visionary experiences of shamanism profoundly affected the artistic output of indigenous cultures in Central and South America before the European invasions of the sixteenth century. Using ethnographic accounts of shamanic trance experiences, Stone defines a core set of trance vision characteristics, including enhanced senses; ego dissolution; bodily distortions; flying, spinning, and undulating sensations; synaesthesia; and physical transformation from the human self into animal and other states of being. Stone then traces these visionary characteristics in ancient artworks from Costa Rica and Peru. She makes a convincing case that these works, especially those of the Moche, depict shamans in a trance state or else convey the perceptual experience of visions by creating deliberately chaotic and distorted conglomerations of partial, inverted, and incoherent images.

"Eyes Of The Jaguar" is a record of one woman's first steps on this path, a life-journey into the sacred

Two top of the line modern warriors, both orphaned in childhood, hunt one another throughout the cities and jungles of Latin America. As their hunt progresses, both discover they have been lured into this contest by Jaguar, a great spiritual power of the Amazon. Their hunt for one another turns into an otherworldly spiritual ordeal orchestrated by magical powers of the Amazon, an ordeal in which the former methods and rules by which they have fought and survived as modern day warriors are useless. Both men are motivated by deep, unshakable love. John Ashbrook, ex Navy SEAL turned deep cover spy, is hunting for his missing mentor and best bud, Ronnie Bates. Bates is the only close tie Ashbrook has let in since his family died when he was a young boy. As Ashbrook tries to pick up Bates’ trail, Bates begins appearing in Ashbrook’s dreams, dropping clues that actually work in the real world. Bates’ clues lead Ashbrook to Rafael Sanchez. Cast adrift on the harsh streets of Caracas Venezuela by the death of his parents at age 11, Rafael became a thief to provide for his 6 year old sister Maria. With his exceptional skills, athletic prowess and fierce courage Rafael rapidly shot up the ranks of the cartels, eventually becoming Pablo Escobar’s top gun and right hand man. But Rafael now wants to break free from the darkness of his past life to find a new, decent life with Isabel Londono, a woman he loves passionately. Isabel believes Rafael is a successful businessman and knows nothing of Rafael’s dark side, but begins to suspect that he may have one. Their relationship is threatened and pushed into crisis as she presses Rafael to confide in her, but Rafael resists as he knows there are powerful men that would kill her or worse to find him. Jaguar’s power is irresistible as he draws the men into the battle of their lives, facing their ultimate match as warriors in each other. From its beginning to the end this hunt is a high tension guessing game for both men as nobody, not even the highly accomplished native seers the men consult, can fathom what Jaguar’s ultimate design is. In a bizarre turn of events, Isabel unwittingly does the one thing that radically alters the fate of both men, proving that even in the great warrior Jaguar’s world love and its power of redemption are formidable forces to be reckoned with. But even with that, the men’s fierce battle will take them on an unforgettable journey into the realm of death. It is only here that Jaguar’s final test will take place and his ultimate design will be revealed.

Animals and their symbolism in diverse world cultures and different eras of human history are chronicled in this lovely volume.

Originally published in Spanish in 1970, Watunna is the epic history and creation stories of the Makiritare, or Yekuana, people living along the northern bank of the Upper Orinoco River of Venezuela, a region of mountains and virgin forest virtually unexplored even to the present. The first English edition of this book was published in 1980 to rave reviews. This edition contains a new foreword by David Guss, as well as Mediata, a detailed myth that recounts the origins of shamanism.

The Grammar of Possession: Inalienability, incorporation and possessor ascension in Guaraní, is an exhaustive study of linguistic structures in Paraguayan Guaraní which are directly or indirectly associated with the semantic domain of inalienability. Constructions analyzed in the book include adnominal and predicative possessive constructions, noun incorporation, and possessor ascension. Examples are drawn from a rich data base that incorporate native speaker intuitions and resources in the construction of illustrative linguistic forms as well as the analysis of the communicative use of the forms under study. The book provides a complete picture of inalienability as a coherent integrated system of grammatical and semantic oppositions in a language that has received little attention in the theoretical linguistic literature. The analysis moves from general principles to specific details of the language while applying principles of Cognitive Grammar and Functional Linguistics. There is an explicit aim to uncover the particularities of form-meaning connections, as well as the communicative and discourse functions of the structures examined. Other approaches are also considered when appropriate, resulting in a theoretically informed study that contains a rich variety of considerations.