Would it be fair to call the trance work that the Tuareg do a type of shamanism?
That word obviously doesn’t exist in their culture. I think one would have to separate oneself and say, yeah, if you look at it from the outside. If you put a music or a dance therapist there, it’d be like a hundred percent yes. [Laughs.] But they don’t look at it that way. That’s the duality, though, that in modern society we don’t necessarily live it the way they do, intrinsically. Their community life is therapy. That’s what keeps the tribe together, that’s what keeps the vibration high. And that’s what keeps them able to live there, and not be like, “Screw it, I’m leaving.” [Laughs.] “I’m done with this!” [Laughs.] Right, of course! But there was one healer that we put in the film, which was the Koranic old guy at the beginning, and he said to us, as a joke, “Had you come another day, I would’ve had a man tied to a tree.” “Oh, what do you mean with that?” And he said, “Well, when people are mentally ill, we tie them to a tree for a few days.” So basically to instill the silence of
