Magical Death is a documentary film by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, that explores the role of the shaman within the Yanomamo culture, as well as the close relationship shamanism shares with politics within their society.

Chagnon and frequent collaborator Tim Asch allegedly disagreed over the content of the film, when Asch objected to its graphic depictions of the Yanomami, engaging in symbolic death and cannibalism.^[1]

The film was awarded the American Film Festival Blue Ribbon.

• The Ax Fight
• Yanomamö: The Fierce People

• 'Reviewed by Eric Almquist in American Anthropologist Vol. 77, No. 1 (Mar., 1975), p. 179'
• Reviewed on page 17 of Robert Borofsky's Yanomami: The fierce controversy and what we can learn from it
• Macho Anthropology, an article written by Juno Gregory for Salon.com that discusses the filmmakers' differences over the film.