Abstract
To the Editor.— As one of the few individuals in the United States who holds a doctorate in American Indian art history, I feel that I must respond to the article by Klaus F. Wellmann, MD, North American Indian Rock Art and Hallucinogenic Drugs (239:1524, 1978). While Dr Wellmann admits that his conclusions relating Indian rock art to altered states of consciousness are tentative, he seems unaware that his premise is not only unverifiable, but also that a substantial amount of data suggests that it is wrong. This premise is that certain wierd, mysterious images illustrate a drug-induced, shamanic trance. Although scattered reports of such drug-induced creative activities exist, a careful study of the available literature on shamanism and art demonstrates that rarely does an individual express his visionary experience in an artwork. Ethnographic art, which contains many images that may be strange to Western eyes, is made for a
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