Reciprocal Relationships

The traditional tribal shaman, I came to discern, acts as an intermediary between the human community and the larger ecological field, ensuring that there is an appropriate flow of nourishment, not just form the landscape to human inhabitants, but from the human community back to the local earth. By his constant rituals, trances, ecstasies, and "journeys," he ensures that the relation between human society and the larger society of beings is balanced and reciprocal, and that the village never takes more from the living land that it returns to it - not just materially but with prayers prayers, propitiations, and praise. The scale of the harvest or the size of a hunt are always negotiated between the tribal community and the natural world that it in inhabits. To some extent every adult in the community is engaged in this process of listening and attuning to the other presences that surround and influence daily life. but the shaman or the sorcerer is the exemplary voyager in the intermediate realm between the humans and the more-than-human worlds, the primary strategist and negotiator in any dealings with the Others. (Abram 5)

The other part of our newly emerging compact with elephants, however, is far more difficult to codify. It requires nothing less than a fundamental shift in the way we look at at animals, and by extension, ourselves. It requires what Bradshaw somewhat whimsically refers to as a new "trans-species-psyche," a commitment to move beyond an anthropocentric frame of reference and, in effect, be elephants. (Siebert 537)

On a quick overlook of these two quotes, the reader sees the similarity between both Abram's and Siebert's ideas. Both authors are talking about a relationship humans must have with animals, a reciprocal relationship; they give to the animals, and the animals give back. While Abrams includes all animals with the terms "landscape" and "local earth", Siebert is referring specifically to elephants. The most contrasting point between two quotes though is apparent upon closer inspection of the word usage. In the passage by Abrams, he uses words like "traditional" and describes the rituals and customs of how the Shaman abides by this "trans-species psyche," as Siebert would say, for readers to get an understanding of how old this has been in effect. Meanwhile, Siebert uses the wording "newly emerging," so it is clear that Siebert is arguing that this necessary reciprocal relationship has yet to spread. Taking Abram's ideas in context with the passage by Siebert, there seems to be a vast gap between the two cultures in discussion. Abrams is describing a closed off set of people, by bringing up villages only. Siebert's idea, while whimsically brought up by Bradshaw, is calling for widespread apprehension of what Abrams is describing of the Shaman; bringing it to light for a more westernized culture.