Recount patterns and situations from other cultures. This technique requires some knowledge of cultures in other parts of the world.

A missionary with S.I.L. in Peru reported how a team of workers had been stymied in their attempts to elicit folktales from the Indian informants of a given tribe. They just were not able to get across the idea of what they wanted. Someone suggested they get Indians from another tribe to tell some stories in Spanish to the semi-bilingual Indians who seemingly had no stories. After listening to a few stories the informants suddenly realized what the team was after and, thus prompted, they could provide a wide selection of myths and folktales. In the Chaco this technique was most profitable for the investigation of shamanism which had been under rather strong missionary condemnation and for that reason had come to be associated with severe inhibitions.

Lengthy discussions of a series of slides illustrating a Colombia Choco shaman in action in action effectively set the stage for a discussion of shamanism as it prevailed in the pre-Christian environment of the Chaco tribes. This discussion readily lent itself to spot questions to locate areas where former practices had been syncretized with the newly adopted Christian patterns.