a sign of entrancement: M. Ripinsky-Naxon The Nature of Shamanism. Albany, NY., 1993.

masked shamanic figure: "It concerns a drawing in Lascaux Cave from the Old Stone Age, that is, from about sixteen to seventeen thousand years ago. The cave was discovered near the French village of Montignac in the Dordogne in 1940. It contains a profusion of drawings of animals executed with consummate skill, but also a drawing of a human figure. At a cursory glance, this naked man seems to have fallen over backward, right in front of a huge wounded aurochs. It has usually been assumed that the two images represent an integral composition, that the enormous beast had something to do with the fallen man--that the man was frightened or killed, or perhaps was carrying out some hunting magic. At closer inspection, however, it seemed to me, that certain feature of the drawing of the man did not fit any of these conjectures." F.D. Goodman, Where the Spirits Ride the Wind. Bloomington, ID., 1990.

Some view: "these rock carvings invite a response from us, the infusion of our subjectivity. The carvings present a vocabulary, a cosmological thematics, which not only allows but necessitates a variety of readings. There is no fixed meaning and we must remember that images cannot in fact be reduced to words 'read'. This 'reading' always results, is intimately linked, with textual production which both inevitably goes beyond the carvings themselves and yet simultaneously portrays a lack, a failure....understanding of this material, and 'data' in the human sciences does not conclude. It just stops when we get bored or do not have anything else to say." C.Y. Tilley, Material Culture and Text: Art and Ambiguity. London, 1991.

with rock art: L. Martineau, The Rocks Begin to Speak. Las Vegas, NV., 1990.

Yes, man: F. Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead. H.S. Edwards, translator. New York, 1975.

their threads: "As a host of men, the shaman's spirit helpers pour into Muu's gate. Forcing their way through, they overcrowd her house, which is gorgeously bedecked with cloths (molas), cutting, tearing, and gathering up the molas and the threads that obstruct them. The song pauses and gathers force here, repeating again and again the actions of the (predominantly male) spirit helpers as they are urged by the shaman into tearing and winding up and gathering the molas--the quintessential sign of femininity amongst the Cuna, and their signature as a species of people in the eyes of the outside world." M. Taussig, "The Nervous System, Homesickness and Dada." Stanford Humanities Review #1 (1989)

are simple: W. Davis, "The Origins of Image Making." Current Anthropology. June, 1986.