DE MILLE, RICHARD

De Mille became suspicious that elements ofCarlosCastaneda’sYaqui“ethnography,” and indeed the shamaninformantDon Juanhimself, were inauthentic—an elaborate fiction. He wrote a lengthy volume entitledCastaneda’s Journey:The Powerand the Allegory(1976) assessing the veracity of Castaneda’s work in meticulous detail, with the follow-up work,The Don Juan Papers:Further Castaneda Controversies(1980) presenting arguments from both camps. De Mille pointed to the unavailability of Castaneda’s field notes due to their mysterious accidental loss or destruction, as well as to inconsistencies in dates, locations, and so on. In one specific example of plagiarism, the “waterfall jumping” of Don Juan’s fellow sorcerer Don Genaro replicatesBarbaraMyerhoff’s experience of watching theHuicholshamanRamón Medina Silvaperform this feat. Supporters of Castaneda point to the “validity” of the Don Juan mythos in speaking “truths” that stand outside ethnographic fact, whether the original ethnography was invented or not. Nonetheless, de Mille,Daniel Noel, and Yaqui representatives have conclusively debunked Castaneda.