The ancient American universe was dynamic, inexorably alive, and interpenetrating. The shaman was powerful and knowledgeable enough to traverse simultaneous realities, interceding with natural forces, animal spirits, and negative energies to cure illness and discover the causes of ecological, social, and political strife. Thus, this image captures the dual, transformative nature of a truly exceptional person, and is itself thereby exceptional as well. Perhaps this explains the rarity of depictions of the shaman and his animal spirit companion together, a subject so fraught with power as perhaps to be considered dangerous.