Mark J. Plotkin, born May 21, 1955, is an ethnobotanist, neotropical plant explorer, and advocate for tropical rainforest conservation. Mark began his education at the Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, worked at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. After completing his liberal arts degree from Harvard Extension School, he earned a master's degree in forestry from the Yale School of Forestry and his Ph.D. at Tufts University. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The book Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice is 328 pages long with the last 38 pages giving the reader more recommended readings on the topic and a plant glossary. This book was first published in the United States by Viking, a member of the Penguin Group LLC, in 1993, then published by Penguin Books in 1994. Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice is a well-written nonfiction book that takes you on the journey of the author. in search of the incredible powers of the plants that Shamans use in the Amazon rainforest. In 1974, during a lecture given by Richard E. Schultes at Harvard night school, Mark went to the rainforest for the first time in 1979. Russ Mittermeier was once again on his way to the Amazon. , this time looking for endangered crocodiles and asked if Mark would be interested in going with him. It wasn't a medicinal plant trip, but Mark had dreamed of going to the rainforest since he was a child. With Mittermeier's help this is how Mark learned about all the old ecosystems that survive in the rainforest. A year later Mark set out for Maroon country in search of forest plants. One of the first lessons Mark learned is that everything in the jungle happens in its time. A year later Mark followed the advice and went into the forest to learn from the Indians. Mark considered himself an unlikely student for the Tirio and Wayana shamans, offering in exchange to write down what he had been taught, thus preserving the shamanic tradition. During his first days in Suriname, he learns about a plant that, when boiled into tea and taken twice a day, will cure if you have too much sugar in your blood or what biomedicine calls diabetes. By the end of his second expedition to the land of the Tirios and ignoring the warnings of his Indian friends, he decided to travel to Brazil in 1984 to research the Palu Tirios. Mark decided to travel (walk) to Brazil with the help of Kamainja. Halfway along the route they met a man and his wife from the village. They told both of them that it was too dangerous for a white man to be there, that the Brazilian army was there in the village. Mark wanted to move on, so the two men continued their journey. When the men finally reached the village of Palu, Mark was disappointed by what he was seeing. Building, Indians deliver me closely. The missionaries had been here. After reassuring the sergeant that he would not bring the Brazil plants back to America, the sergeant let him continue his journey. Disappointed to see that the Brazilian Tirios had already lost much of their culture, they returned to Kwamala. Having been back for a month, Mark's friend Kamainja came to the door and ordered Mark to remove his hammock and put it in his hut. Kamainja told Mark about the curse placed on the village by the Wayana sorcerer. A couple of days later Mark decided to travel to the Wayana tribe to work with a shaman so powerful it was tempting. Learning from Shaman Wayna I found that the practice of being a shaman was diminishing..