Art and shamanism. An approach to a hermeneutic of visionary images

Within the field of Indigenous art, we define visionary shamanic art as those objects and iconographies that derive from the ecstasy or trance of the shaman and that accompany their dances, chants and other rituals. Here we review studies that have dealt with the relationship between shamanism, art and expanded states of consciousness. We include a critique of the term "hallucinogenic" when used in Indigenous con-texts and o �fer a synthetized theoretical and methodological interpretative perspective that deploys tools such as semiotics, hermeneutics and symbolic anthropology to examine some pre-Hispanic images from Northwestern Argentina.