Dreamtime (book)

According to his own account, the idea for writing Dreamtime first came to Duerr when he was in New Mexico in the summer of 1963. He had spent the day visiting the Puye Cliff Dwellings and was returning to the Albuquerque Greyhound Bus Station, where he met a Tewa Native yerbatero (herbalist) buying a cup of coffee, and struck up a conversation. Duerr asked the yerbatero if he could help him find a Native family living in one of the pueblos north of Santa Fe with whom he could stay, to conduct anthropological research into the nightly dances that took place in the subterranean kivas. The Native told him that if he wanted to find out about the dances in the kivas, then he should go to the Pueblo of Our Lady of the Angels and study at the University of California. Duerr would later relate that this blow to his vanity first provided him with the idea of writing Dreamtime.[1]

Duerr presented some of his ideas in a lecture given to the members of a philosophy seminar at the University of Constance in the autumn of 1975, which he repeated at a housewives' club in Mannheim. He was "greatly encouraged" in his preparation for the work by the noted English anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1902–1973), who died before its publication.[2]

The anthropologist Rik Pinxten noted that Dreamtime was published at a time of new advancements in German anthropology. After a period of intellectual stagnation during the preceding decades, the 1970s saw the rising popularity of the discipline, with a dramatic increase in the number of students enrolling to study ethnography at West German universities. It also saw increasing interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropologists and philosophers, with several scholars arguing that ethnography was relevant to "philosophical analysis". This increase in philosophical discussion within German anthropology was largely rejected by the "official academic representatives" of the discipline, who believed that it exceeded the "limits of scientific respectability", but it was nonetheless adopted by Duerr in Dreamtime.[3]

When the book was first published in West Germany in 1978, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies, becoming a bestseller and arousing both popular and academic interest.[4][5][6] According to the American Indologist Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreamtime became "the canon of a cult for intellectual former hippies", dealing as it did with issues such as "drugs, sex, anarchy, [and] lurid religions".[5] British anthropologist Charles Stewart noted that it was popular among members of the alternativer German subculture, and for this reason believed that the book could tell anthropologists "a considerable amount about the strivings of modern German society".[4]

The book was translated into English by Felicitas D. Goodman (1914–2005), a Hungarian-born American anthropologist who had written several books of her own on the subject of religious trance journeys. Duerr noted that of all the translators he had worked with, Goodman showed the greatest dedication to her work.[7] For the English-language translation, Duerr included a new preface, in which he noted that he had refused to make changes to the original text despite the insistence of the publisher. Explaining his reasoning, he remarked that "a book is not a dishwasher, where it is advisable to change malfunctioning parts." He accepted that the book had faults, and expressed his hope that the reader would forgive him for leaving them intact in the English translation.[8] In the English-language edition, the main text takes up the first 133 pages of the book, while the footnotes and bibliography occupy the next 324 pages.[5]

Duerr examines the use of flying ointment in early modern witchcraft and draws ethnographic parallels from accused witches among the Shona people of Rhodesia and witchcraft beliefs of the Normanby Archipelago in the South Pacific. He concludes that some of those accused of witchcraft in early modern Europe had applied hallucinogenic ointments to their skin to make themselves believe that they were flying to the so-called witches' sabbat, a ritual gathering of witches. Noting the apparent lack of recipes for this salve in the witch trial records, Duerr posits the view that the Christian authorities intentionally covered up the existence of hallucinogenic ointments, fearing that their existence would cast doubt on various aspects of the witches' accounts, including their alleged encounters with the Devil. Duerr maintains that this knowledge might have ultimately led people to cast doubt on even the Devil, a key aspect of early modern Christian cosmology. Although the use of hallucinogenic ointments was not a factor in every witch trial, it was more prevalent in the earlier trials of the Alpine region. Duerr connects its use to the nocturnal visionary traditions associated with the goddess Diana in that region.[10]

Duerr then looks into the origins of the nocturnal visionary traditions, beginning with the ancient Greek deity Artemis and her influence on the Roman goddess Diana. In Alpine lore, Diana survived Christianization as the leader of the nocturnal procession.[11] Duerr goes further back into the Palaeolithic, where Venus figurines are interpreted as a "prototype" for the later Greek Artemis, a goddess who was "the unrestrained mistress of animals and plants". Duerr then describes the relationship between ancient goddesses and caves as a symbol of the female vagina and explores stories involving caves in Greek mythology, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Yakut folklore. Duerr proposes that the association between caves and the vagina is global in scope, as societies around the world use caves in rituals symbolizing birth.[12]

A woodcut depicting a witches' sabbat, produced by Hans Baldung Grien in 1508. Duerr included it as the tenth plate in Dreamtime, in the midst of a chapter discussing the European witch.[13]

Various folk traditions across Europe are analyzed, such as the Alpine Perchtenlaufen, where women broke social conventions by attacking men or engaging in lesbianism. Duerr compares these traditions to the benandanti of early modern Friuli, and to the Livonian werewolf, viewing them as representing the clash between order and chaos.[14] Christian society in the Late Middle Ages began to construe the witch as a creature inside of society rather than outside it, which partly led to the witch trials of the early modern period. Duerr argues that the societies of European Christendom began to increasingly accept female nudity in art and fashion during the Late Middle Ages.[15]

Examples in the historical European folk tradition where criminals have been declared to be outside of the law and banished from the community are illustrated. Duerr connects these outsiders to executioners and warriors who were also outside the law because they had entered the world of the dead. Similarly, the witches of the early modern period also left the everyday world, and like the shamans of Siberia experienced their "wild" or "animal aspect" in order to understand their human side. Duerr uses ethnographic examples from around the world to show that many cultures have used hallucinogenic substances to reach states of consciousness beyond ordinary societal boundaries.[16]

Duerr provides additional ethnographic examples showing how societal rules were reversed at special times of the year. In shamanic terms, societies which espouse an "archaic mentality" understand who they are by understanding who they are not; according to Duerr, modern societies fail to understand this concept.[17] Datura, a plant that contains toxic hallucinogens is discussed. The plant was introduced to Europe in the early modern period. Among the Huichol people of central Mexico, shamans have told anthropologists that Datura is used by malevolent witches. Duerr makes note of the anthropologists who have undertaken shamanic experiences with the people they are studying, such as Barbara Myerhoff and Carlos Castenada, but argues that such ethnographers have failed to truly understand what shamans mean when they describe their experiences as "flying". In Duerr's view, shamans learn to evaporate their "ego boundaries", thereby experiencing themselves in a different way; it is this feeling that can be described as shamanic flying. Duerr ties these shamanic practices into the werewolves of early modern Europe, arguing that these werewolves did not physically transform into wolves, but that they embraced their "wolf nature" by crossing over the boundary from "civilisation" to "wilderness".[18]

Duerr then offers a philosophical discussion on the nature of reality, criticizing psychiatrists like George Devereux for their beliefs that shamans were mentally ill. Instead he champions the idea that the visionary experiences of shamans should be treated as real rather than illusionary, drawing from the ideas of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to support his argument.[19] The author then examines the role of animals in shamanic visions, paying particular reference to the experiences of the Peruvian anthropologist Carlos Castaneda. Duerr argues that the conversations between the animal and the individual undertaking the vision are neither literal nor delusional, but that the only way to understand this is to situate oneself "on the fence", between the worlds of civilisation and wilderness.[20]

Duerr argues that modern Western society lacks important facets found in "archaic" societies who adhere to shamanic beliefs, and he asserts that the majority of Western anthropologists who have performed ethnographic fieldwork in these cultures have failed to truly understand them. To correct this, Duerr argues that anthropologists must understand that people in such societies take a "mythic perspective" to the world, often comparing objects and places in the material world to objects and places that exist "outside of time", in the eternal realm of mythology. He connects this with the Indigenous Australian concept of Dreamtime, an otherworld outside of ordinary space and time.[22]

Finally, Duerr once again criticises the approach of Western society and its anthropologists to studying "archaic" spiritual beliefs. He asserts that in these "archaic" cultures, people "have a much clearer idea about the fact that we can not be only what we are if at the same time, we are also what we are not, and that we can only know who we are if we experience our boundaries". He denounces Western scientists and anthropologists for their approaches to the study of such cultures, arguing that they have misrepresented them by attempting to fit them within the Western ideas of objectivity. He argues that in future, anthropologists must reach their own boundaries, and recognize the wilderness of their consciousness before they can truly understand the worldview of "archaic" humans.[23]