Who are recognized "experts" in different cultures?

What distinguishes a payé from others is that he is an intellectual....he is immensely curious; he is always interested in animals and plants, the weather, the stars, diseases -- anything that to others is unpredictable....A Tukano payé ... develops his personality slowly and steadily, the driving force being a truly intellectual interest in the unknown; and that not so much for the purpose of acquiring power over his fellow men as for the personal satisfaction of "knowing" things....

G. Reichel-Dolmatoff, The Shaman and the Jaguar, 1975

This reminded me a lot of scientists when I read it. (See entry on 22nd May 2005.) From what I’ve read, indigenous cultures recognize their healers as men and women of knowledge, experts in their culture on how the world works, and how to deal with the natural world in which their people live: finding cures for disease, predicting weather, finding food in hard times. These healers are seekers after knowledge and understanding. Their techniques for finding knowledge -- intuition, communication/communion with nature in altered states -- are quite different from those of science, being both more ecstatic, and more demanding of personal insight, with science being more replicable and controllable. (Repeatability and controllability being hallmarks of industrial culture.) However, some of the underlying motivation is the same. Curious.

The traps are the same, too. What distinguishes a good scientist from a bad scientist? Often, it's ego and pride, vs. being open to what nature has to show you.