The Red Death: Menstruation as a Symbol of Renewal- Part 7
There is a well-known Chukchi proverb which states:
“Woman is by Nature a Shaman”
During the research and writing of “The Red Death: Menstruation as a Symbol of Renewal, I read and was inspired by Barbara Tedlock’s “The Woman in a Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine”. Her work is born from her anthropological research and also from being herself an initiated Shaman.
This book challenges and busts the many myths about shamanism developed and told through the androcentric lens of male anthropologists. Here she places birthing, menstrual, and blood rites firmly back in the hands of women shamans and describes the shamanic experience as “complex, mystical, and awe-inspiring, as befits the integration of the physical and spiritual worlds- two diverse and powerful realms where the shaman practices her calling”.
