Abstract. – Drawing on eighteenth-century Jesuit sources as well as on results of an extensive fieldwork conducted since 1983, the author analyzes phenomena of persistence and change in the shamanism of the Secoya Indians (Western Tucano) in the Amazon region, on the Peruvian-Ecuadorian border. The changes include the gradual contraction of the social power of shamans to the religious realm, the reduction in the use of hallucinogenic plants, and the expansion of shamanism beyond the traditional sphere of action. [Ecuador, Amazonia, shamanism, hallucinogens, cultural change, globalization]