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Journal articles on the topic 'Shamans'
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1
Ekaterina, Epikhina. "The "Personal Myth" in the Context of Modern Narratives about Shamans." TECHNOLOGOS, no. 1 (2024): 78–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.15593/perm.kipf/2024.1.06.
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Currently, there is an increased interest in archaic religious beliefs and practices which include shamanism. The image of a modern shaman differs in many ways from the ethnographic descriptions that were collected up to the middle of the XX century. The main informants have always been the shamans themselves. They talked not only about their vision of the world and religious practice but also about their family history and their formation as shamans. In the autobiographies of modern shamans, you can find common motives that make up their image. In this regard, the author defined the purpose of the study: based on the data of field work conducted in Buryatia in 2017-2022, to identify the place of autobiography among modern shamanic narratives, for which it is necessary to classify modern narratives about shamans, characterize the concept of "personal shamanic myth" and determine the role of self-presentation in the life of a modern shaman. Through the labeling proposed by E. S. Novik, narratives about shamans were divided into three types: myths, legends and stories ("bylichki"). It was concluded that the first two types are rarely mentioned in the respondents' tales. The author paid special attention to the third group – "bylichki". She attributed the autobiographies of modern shamans to this group and noted the presence of a certain constant structure in them. The author suggested calling these autobiographical narratives "the personal myth of a shaman." Further, the author drew parallels with the "personal myth" taken from the field of psychology and came to the conclusion that the shaman's personal myth is not just a relatively stable narrative with periodically recurring structures, motives, and plots, but a personal flexible value– semantic coordinate system that creates a vector of development for the shaman and promotes his self-identification. When writing the article, general scientific research methods were used, as well as comparative, functional, structural, semantic, and diachronic analysis, analogy, and an analysis of semi-structured interviews.
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Nikolaeva, Natalia N., and Liudmila S. Dampilova. "Функции шаманов в бурятской эпической традиции." Oriental Studies 16, no. 3 (September 12, 2023): 647–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.22162/2619-0990-2023-67-3-647-659.
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Introduction. It is urgent enough to reveal original features of epic traditions in certain ethnic environments to draw a general epic picture of Central Asian peoples. As is evident, shamanism has given rise to diverse epic and poetic genres. Shamanic and epic texts of Mongols are characterized by identical mythological patterns of world order, unified heavenly pantheons, coherent and synonymous ideas and concepts. Goals. The article aims to identify the functions of a shaman/shamaness in plots of Buryat epic narratives, determine the former’s position and status in the system of images. So, the paper shall analyze epic texts clustering with different local traditions of Cis-Baikal Buryats, delineate images of shamans and shamanesses to consider them in a comparative perspective with the involvement of ethnographic material. Materials and methods. The study employs comparative-historical and contrastive methods as key tools of analysis. It examines Buryat epic texts — both published ones and those contained in archives of the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs (IMBTS SB RAS). Results. The paper suggests that in the Buryat epic tradition shamans and shamanesses can be viewed as traditional characters traced back to most archaic beliefs, though their functions in uligers are essentially limited and monotypic. There is a gender division at different levels of the universe: celestial deities of upper realms are represented by male shamans, while only shamanesses exhibit activity in the Middle World (i.e., on the Earth). The functions of male shaman deities are nominal and not that significant for the plot. The status of a shamaness in variants and versions of the Unga Geseriad is quite high: she serves as mediator between Heaven and Earth, defender, assistant and adviser to the main characters, clairvoyant and soothsayer — and performs the classical role of shamans in society. Narratives recorded from shaman taletellers or individuals with extensive expertise in shamanic traditions tend to entrust shamanesses with larger plot development impacts rather than those delivered by mere narrators. However, in other uligers (not included in Geseriad) the shamaness — though endowed with the same functions of a clairvoyant, soothsayer and adviser — is opposed to the main character and supports his enemies. So, such uligers often contain the motif of her physical elimination. As can be seen from the above, in Buryat uligers male shamans are rather passive and nominal characters, while shamanesses do play most active roles. In general, the status of shamanesses in the epic tradition does not quite correlate with the traditionally high status of shamans and shamanesses among Cis-Baikal Buryats.
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Lun, Yumin, and Xiaomei Dong. "A Study on the Xiuxing of Contemporary Horchin Mongolian Shamanism." Religions 10, no. 2 (February 15, 2019): 112. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10020112.
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Research has been carried out on the procedures for recruiting and training shamans among the Horchin (mainly in Tongliao City, China). This well-known problem is crucial to the development of Horchin shamanism. If a potential shaman wants to complete the transition from an ordinary person to a shaman, they need to repeat religious practices, progress spiritually, learn, and deal well with the role between their daily life and religious life. This process of Xiuxing is full of hardship. However, the issues surrounding the requirements, influencing factors, and evaluation criteria has received little attention. We have been conducting fieldwork in the Horchin area since 2013, have continuously tracked and interviewed more than 100 shamans and prospective shamans, and have obtained much fieldwork data. Through the collation, induction, and comparative study of these materials, we found that Horchin shamans are required to study the knowledge and skills of shamanism, respect their teacher, obey their principles, fulfill the duties and obligations of a shaman, and devote their lives to serving the local community. We also found that Horchin shamans are struggling to adapt their religious practices to the belief systems of the contemporary Chinese world. We also found that it is believed that, in the region, a successful shamanic career presupposes not only knowledge of rituals but also compassionate and principled behavior with respect to the clients and the community.
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LAVRILLIER, ALEXANDRA, and TATIANA YU SEM. "CONTEMPORARY “SHAMANISING PERSONS” AMONG THE TUNGUS-MANCHU (EVENKI, EVEN, AND NANAI): CASE STUDIES ABOUT COMMON COLLECTIVE SPIRITUAL REPRESENTATIONS." Study of Religion, no. 3 (2021): 32–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.22250/2072-8662.2021.3.32-51.
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This article studies common spiritual representations about contemporary Tungus-Manchu “shamanising persons”. It analyses ethnographic material gathered by the authors between 1994 and 2020 among the Evenki, Even, and Nanai of Yakutia, the Amur region, Kamchatka, Novorossiysk, and Khabarovskii krai, as well as the relevant scholarly literature. Under Soviet anti-religious policies, the traditional shamans of these peoples went into significant decline: the last traditional shamans passed away in the 2010s, thus potentially disrupting the transmission of the shamanic function. Nevertheless, according to collective representations, the spirits are still active and continue elect people to become shamans. Our paper argues that these peoples are enduring “ritual wanderings”, wedged between a lack of individuals able to transmit the knowledge required to become a traditional shaman and the fact they reject urban/western neo-shamanism (in contrast to other Siberian peoples like the Buriat, Tuva, Yakut, and Altai). Through the analysis of a mosaic of case studies on shamanising persons who are neither traditional shamans nor neo-shamans, we reveal many relationships with the spirits, the ways these people deal with shamanic election, and the common core of the spiritual representations of the Tungus-Manchu. This paper contributes to the study of contemporary shamanism, Tungus-Manchu cultures, and human-nature relationships.
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Hultkrantz, Åke. "On beliefs in non-shamanic guardian spirits among Saamis." Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 12 (January 1, 1987): 110–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67157.
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Often the saiva (or saivo) spirits have been defined as the guardian and helping spirits of the shaman. In this way, Saami shamanism appears as a counterpart to shamanism in Siberia and North America where guardian-spirit beliefs have similarly played a distinctive role. These beliefs should be considered as one of the constituent elements of shamanism. However, the concept of guardian spirits is not necessarily limited to shamans. The intention of this paper is to try to prove the occurrence of a non-shamanic guardian-spirit belief among the Saamis, and to discuss its religio-historical import. Apparently not only shamans but also other Saamis formerly owned guardian spirits that were handed down in the family. Among the western Saamis these spirits were anthropomorphic (if we may believe the sources), among the eastern Skolt Saamis they were zoomorphic. There is also some information on the purchase of guardian spirits. It seems, furthermore, that some persons—not just the shamans—could achieve guardian spirits through their own efforts. The reasons why the occurrence of this non-shamanic guardian-spirit belief has been so slightly dealt with by research are in particular the following. Firstly, scholarly interest has been directed towards shamanism and the role of the guardian spirits within the shamanic complex. Secondly, the early source writers turned primarily to the shamans in order to secure information on Saami religion, and the shamans of course described saivo from their own points of interest. Seen from a comprehensive circumpolar and circumboreal perspective, the Saami saivo complex may be interpreted as a European counterpart to the North American Indian belief in guardian spirits.
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B., Munkhtsetseg. "Тува бөөгийн дуудлага, тамлагын үг хэллэг." Mongolian Journal of Foreign Languages and Culture 21, no. 467 (March 2, 2023): 80–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.22353/mjflc.v21i467.2760.
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The ancient religion of the tuvans is shamanism. The Tuvans have kept the practice of shamanism alive. Tuvan shamans practice in the Tuvan language and every shaman has his unique calling and invocation. So the invocation for the ongod or spirit vary from shaman to shaman. There are many types of invocations in the Tuvan shamanism because of the origin. Therefore, tuvan shamans are divided into five different categories.
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Furtsev, D. O. "Soviet Researchers about Shamanic Initiatory Sickness and “Shamanic Madness”." Bulletin of Irkutsk State University. Series Political Science and Religion Studies 44 (2023): 90–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.26516/2073-3380.2023.44.90.
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The purpose of this article is to review various opinions of Soviet scientists about mental health of shamans. The task of this paper is to analyse a wide range of Soviet sources on shamanism, identify their attitude to “shamanic madness” and possible reasons for its formation, and compare positions of different authors on the subject. The following methods were used: comparative, causal analysis, historicism, and typological methods. In modern Russia, there is a preconceived opinion about the sharply negative attitude to religion in the Soviet era. In the USSR, there was indeed active antireligious propaganda, but it is an exaggeration to say that it represents the entire complex layer of relations between representatives of different faiths and Soviet institutions. Soviet science was based on the aspiration for objective knowledge of the world. This also applied to the primitive beliefs that existed at that time in the Northern and Eastern regions of the country, in particular shamanism. This article deals with the issue of shamanic initiatory sickness and shamanic activities based on communication with spirits. On this issue, there was a lively debate – whether these diseases are the result of psychological abnormalities or have a different origin. The article provides a wide range of sources about shamanism and the personality of the shaman, from the works of exiled revolutionaries to professional researchers done in the 80s. The main theories about the reasons for the shaman's ritual behaviour are briefly presented. The dependence of scientists' representation of the shamans during the development of Soviet state and science is shown.
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Epikhina, Е. А. "Shamanic Narrative in Modern Buryatia." Bulletin of Irkutsk State University. Series Political Science and Religion Studies 42 (2022): 117–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.26516/2073-3380.2022.42.117.
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The article provides a semantic, functional and structural analysis of the autobiographies of modern Buryat shamans in order to determine stable elements and functions, which can later help in determining the relationship between tradition and innovation in shamanism. The article is based on the author's field material collected in August 2021 in Ulan-Ude in the local religious organization of shamans “Tengeri”. A semi-structured interview method was used in the survey. The field research data are compared with the results of the analysis of the autobiographies of the Nganasan shamans, given in the article by O. B. Khristoforova. In the course of the study, it was revealed that the narratives of modern Buryat shamans are rather spontaneous arguments of interlocutors (in response to the researcher's questions), rather than stable established stories. Nevertheless, elements of traditional shamanic folklore can be found in the autobiographies of modern shamans: narratives about shamanic illness and election. These two motives act as some kind of identification marker of belonging to the tradition (the function of substantiating the truth of the shamanic gift), which is important for modern shamans. However, we can notice that the function of “interpretation of psychophysiological states” is weakened due to the formation of a shaman in a different socio-cultural context, and the description of visions during shamanic illness is either absent or taboo. New motives are highlighted in the autobiographies of our respondents: “the search for a solution to the crisis”, “shamans of the Soviet period” and “changing lives”. These motifs can be attributed to the elements of innovations that complement and develop traditional plots.
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Sem, Tatyana Yu. "From the History of Shamanism: Images of Shamans and Shamanistic Rituals on the Petroglyphs of the Upper Amur, Olekma, and Aldan Rivers (article one)." Study of Religion, no. 3 (2019): 53–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.22250/2072-8662.2019.3.53-61.
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The article deals with the ancient roots of shamanism according to the materials of the petroglyphs of the Upper Amur, Aldan and Olekma of the Bronze Age and early Iron Age (2000–1000 BC) with the ethnographic parallels. In order to analyze the material, the author uses a set of methods – diachronic archaeological and ethnographic comparative research, iconographic and semantic analysis. According to the petroglyphs of the 11 images of shamans of the specified period, and two of the 18th century, describing the personality of shamans with ritual paraphernalia – a suit, a tambourine, a mallet, a baton, masks and a headdress. Two images in costumes were also dressed in masks of the supreme gods of heaven and thunder. All shaman figures are painted in the process of ritual actions. There are hunting rituals, ritual of receiving the heavenly grace of the calendar type, circular dances associated with the cult of the sun at the new year’s holiday, the ritual of seeing the soul into the world of the dead and the shaman's initial ritual of sacrifice to the spirits to strengthen the shaman's power depicted among the shamanistic rituals on the petroglyphs. The vast majority of the considered images of shamans with attributes and costumes, shamanistic rituals depicted in the petroglyphs of the Upper Amur and Aldan rivers have direct correspondences in the shamanism of the Tungus-Manchu peoples (Evenki, Nanai, Udege), which indicates a possible direction of cultural genesis in the region. In addition, some of the images have parallels with the spiritual culture of the ancient Indo-Europeans and Turkic-Mongols. Some images – radiant headdress, figures of thunderbolts – have analogies among the ancient Indo-European population of Karakol and Pribaikalye. Separate stories are genetically related to the Okunevites. Shamanic tambourines with vertical rungs are typical for the Altai and Tuvinians and were found in the Yakut group of Evenks.
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Buyandelgeriyn, Manduhai. "Who ‘Makes’ the Shaman?: The Politics of Shamanic Practices among the Buriats in Mongolia." Inner Asia 1, no. 2 (1999): 221–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/146481799793647979.
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AbstractThe number of shamans among the Buriats of Dornod in Mongolia has been dramatically increasing since the mid 1980s, when the gradual dissolution of the socialist system and Soviet domination took place. By placing the shamanic practices in a context of historico-political changes, the paper questions what constitutes a shamanic practice and what makes and what unmakes a shaman nowadays. The paper examines the shamanic experience of the Dagdan shaman and his relationship with his community, in order to illustrate the complex and dynamic nature of shamanic practice. While the locals’ knowledge of spirits (ongons), the belief in their own lineage ongons and the local standards for moral disposition all control and limit a shaman’s power and prestige, the shaman attempts to supersede the local standards by restoring symbolic capital and by seeking power and recognition outside of the community. The search for power and recognition outside of the community becomes the shaman’s arena for creating, transforming and acting out multiple identities: ethnic, national and personal.
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Unru, S. A. "INSTITUTE OF FEMALE SHAMANISM AMONG THE EVENKS OF THE FAR EAST (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF THE MATERIALS OF THEIR RESEARCH)." Northern Archives and Expeditions 5, no. 4 (December 30, 2021): 154–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.31806/2542-1158-2021-5-4-154-164.
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In the course of field research on the territory of three Evenki settlements (Iengra Neryungrinsky ulus of the Yakutia, Pervomayskoye and Bomnak of the Amur region), we collected information about the features of mythology, genealogy, formation, equipment and practice of female shamans. The purpose of the study was to describe female shamanism among the Evenks, its current state, work with shamans, their clients, interviewing the local population, meetings and conversations with representatives of local administrations, work in scientific archives and local history museums, video recording of interviews, rituals, holidays, ceremonies, daily life of the Evenks. During the expedition, 35 people related to shamanism were interviewed. A video recording of shamanic ritual was made. More than 1000 photos, 20 hours of audio, 22 hours of video were recorded. Archival videos on the traditional culture of the Evenks of the Far East, including female shamanism, have been collected. The materials of the expedition work confirmed the existence of female shamanism as a separate institution in the culture of the Far Eastern Evenks. In the studied areas, both male and female shamans really practice, and ethnophores were able to describe the differences between male and female shamanism. While observing the general principles of the cult, the female version of shamanism has specific features. This is found in the form of shamanic gift transmission, the course of shamanic disease, the age when shamanic practice begins, the field of activity and the style of the ritual. Female shamans use special methods of treatment and divination, have a costume and attributes that differ from men's. Often male shamans and female shamans are in a confrontation at the sacred level. The status of female shamans is quite high and is not inferior to the status of male shamans.
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Zhukovskaya, N. L. "Neo-Shamanism in the Context of the Contemporary Ethno-Cultural Situation in the Republic of Buryatia." Inner Asia 2, no. 1 (2000): 25–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/146481700793647959.
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AbstractIt is often said that there is a ‘revival’ of shamanism in Siberia today. The article argues, however, that in Buryatia alongside this resurgence there are new phenomena, which we would more accurately call ‘Neo-shamanic’. Amongst these phenomena are: the combining of shamanic with secular careers; the creation of an Association of shamans; the participation of shamans in popular media events; the desire of shamans to express their point of view in the academic environment; and the contemporary shamans’ elevation of shamanism to world religion status. The Association has promoted some mass rituals, which have been integrated (often problematically) into local mythic worldviews, and the combination of shamanic with academic pursuits has also turned out to be an uncomfortable one. Such new activities show that shamanism evolves historically, though it also retains a fundament based on locality and ancestors.
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Burnakov, V. A. "The Image of a Horse in the Shamanic Attributes of the Khakas (Late 19th to Mid-20th Century)." Problems of Archaeology, Ethnography, Anthropology of Siberia and Neighboring Territories 27 (2021): 775–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.17746/2658-6193.2021.27.0775-0780.
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Horse is a domestic animal of great importance in the economic life and spiritual culture of the Khakas, in particular, in shamanism. In the Khakas ethnography, the question of the meaning of the horse in the ritual practice of the shamans remains little studied. Due to this, the purpose of this article is to characterize the image of a horse in the shamanic attributes of the Khakas. The chronological framework of the work covers the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. The choice of such time limits is determined by the state of the database of sources on the research topic. The main sources are ethnographic and folklore materials. The work is based on the methodological principle of historicism. Historical and ethnographic methods are used: relict and semantic analysis. In the course of the study, it was determined that the horse and its image had one of the main places in the attributes of the Khakas shamans. In particular, the image of this animal was presented in the key cult items, such as a tambourine (tyyr), a rod (orba), and a costume (hamdykh/hamnyg kip). It was found out that, in the traditional beliefs of shamanists, the image of a horse was endowed with a special aura of sacredness. It was associated with the idea of a chula — the soul of a shaman in the guise of a horse. It was revealed that the shaman’s tambourine, covered with the skin of this ungulate, symbolized the mount on which kam traveled during his mysteries. It is shown that the ritual use of the tambourine by the shaman was preceded by a sacred act of its revival and introduction into the ritual sphere. It was determined that it was customary to depict horses and horsemen on tambourines, who personified the shaman’s spirit assistants and had a significant role in his ritual practice. It is highlighted that the horse symbolism was found on shamanic rods in the form of a protoma. During the shamanistic rituals, it was identified with a mystical steed. It was revealed that the shamanic costume also included elements associated with the image of a horse: bells, metal rattles and horse hair, which performed an auxiliary function in the process of shamanic rituals.
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Ivanescu, Carolina, and Sterre Berentzen. "Becoming a Shaman: Narratives of Apprenticeship and Initiation in Contemporary Shamanism." Religions 11, no. 7 (July 17, 2020): 362. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel11070362.
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This article, based on an open-question survey completed in 2018, engages with McAdams and Manczak’s approaches to life stories (2015) and Mayer’s ten elements of the shaman myth (2008) to explore the way contemporary people based in the UK, who define themselves as shamans, talk about their becoming a shaman. Individual narratives point out the intricate meeting points between different shamanic traditions and the importance of continuous innovation. They highlight the complex network of human and beyond-human authority and problematize the place, meaning and agency of the self. Contemporary shamanism is a widespread, manifold and multifaceted phenomenon, which we argue is not as different from traditional forms of shamanism as some studies suggest.
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Bristley, Joseph. "Transformation and Multiplicity." Inner Asia 17, no. 1 (April 21, 2015): 31–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340032.
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This paper explores perceptions ofzoos, objects which are generally replicas of Manchu-era coins attached to the surfaces of some shamans’ coats in present-day Mongolia. Beginning by noting that the general perception of these objects in shamanic praxis is to protect the shaman who wears them, I explore another way in which they are perceived: as things which connote particular aspects of money used in present-day Mongolia. I take two aspects of Mongolian money—its multiplicity and capacity for transformation—and use these to account for the presence ofzooson shamans’ coats. I argue that the multiplicity aspect of money is analogous with the multiplicity of objects attached to a shaman’s coat, and that the multiplicity aspect of money connoted byzoosis something into which can be read the operation of this type of garment. I also explore the capacity of Mongolian money to be transformed into other things, and suggest this is analogous to the transformative nature of spirits which possess shamans during seances. In doing so, I propose thatzoosare able to elaborate the operation of the garments to which they are attached, in a way that is informative of particular perceptions of money in present-day Mongolia.
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Qu, Feng. "The Double Identities of the Shaman and the Dualistic Attitudes of the State: An Exploration of Contemporary Organizational Shamanism in Northeast China." Religions 15, no. 4 (March 28, 2024): 415. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15040415.
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This paper presents a case study of the first shamanic organization in China and argues that organizational shamanism in Northeast China is characterized by the double identities of the shaman and the dualistic attitudes of the national authorities. The analyses in this paper reveal how the shamanic organization created a modernized and globalized space for traditional shamans and specialists to connect with the outside world, enabling them to gain empowerment, legitimacy, and agency. Chinese authorities hold dualistic attitudes towards shamanism: the positive attitude of seeing shamanism as part of cultural heritage has always been coupled with the negative attitude of seeing shamanism as superstition. The studies in this paper demonstrate that organizational shamanism in Northeast China has played a crucial role in negotiating with political authorities and linking local traditions with global discourse. In this sense, the traditional eco-cosmological way of maintaining relationships with natural forces and nonhuman beings has been irrevocably transformed into a cosmopolitical form for the shaman, where the animistic world engages with the outside world, global currency, and political forces.
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Lee, San Yun. "Shaman Motive in Korean Literature." Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies 14, no. 4 (2022): 679–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2022.407.
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This paper analyzes literary works that allow one to trace the changes in the perception of shaman cult in various periods of Korean social development and sheds light on the popularity of shaman motive in the 21st century. In Kim Tonni’s “Portrait of a shaman” (1936), the conflict between traditional and Western beliefs is shown through the image of a shaman woman symbolizing the ignorant Korean past and her son who converted to Christianity. Han Seungwon in his novels, uses the motive of the call for blood of those people possessed by ghosts and describes shamans’ life, traditions, and rituals. Shaman rituals are also described in the works of Park Wanseo. In her childhood memories, shaman women are depicted as transcendental beings tied to the other world. Epic novels by Park Kyongni, Cho Chongnae, Choi Myunghee describe the life of ordinary villagers against the backdrop of historical events. The main character is usually a shaman or her daughter in a love relationship. Shaman motive is also present in some novels written in the 21st century, in which main characters believe in spirits and shamans’ prophecies coming true. This implies that the belief in spirits is an inseparable part of Korean cultural identification, even for those who claim to be an atheist. Because shamanism in Korea is perceived as an important part of culture, the interest in shamans and shamanism continues to grow.
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Yusha, Zhanna M. "Oral stories about shamanic formation in the folklore tradition of Tuvans." Sibirskiy filologicheskiy zhurnal, no. 4 (2022): 21–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.17223/18137083/81/2.
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The study examines the mythological conceptions and archaic beliefs of the Tuvans about becoming shamans, as presented in oral narratives. Two groups of texts have been identified in shamanic narratives, collected from shamanic practitioners and from ordinary people. In addition, the specificity of shamanic narratives in Tuvan culture was analyzed. A description is given of the main signs of shamanic illness in hereditary shamans who had a shamanic ancestor in their maternal or paternal line. Memoirs of hereditary shamans mark the stages of shamanic development in the lives of the ritual specialists, with an emphasis on confirmation of the shamanic gift by an experienced magic practitioner. The texts describe the stages that an ordinary person “chosen by the spirits” goes through when accepting to follow the “will of the spirits.” It is noted that when telling about shamanic illness, the narrators pay attention to the physiological changes experienced by the future shaman. As a result, the study has revealed the cases when ordinary people with no shamanic “roots” received their shamanic skills from spirits of the Middle World (aza, albys, diiren) or from the rainbow and lightnings. Oral narratives demonstrate that the shamans of this category did not exhibit the shamanic illness peculiar to hereditary magical practitioners. The sources for the study were published folklore texts and the author’s new field recordings collected from Tuvans in Russia and China in 2010-2020.
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Fonneland, Trude. "Shamanism in Contemporary Norway: Concepts in Conflict." Religions 9, no. 7 (July 23, 2018): 223. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel9070223.
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To choose a terminology for an investigation of shamanism in contemporary Norway is not entirely without problems. Many shamans are adamant in rejecting the term religion in connection with their practices and choose broader rubrics when describing what they believe in. When shamanism was approved as an official religion by the Norwegian government in 2012, the tensions ran high, and many shamanic practitioners refused to accept the connection between religion and shamanism. This chapter provides an account of the emic categories and connections used today by shamanic entrepreneurs and others who share these types of spiritual beliefs. In particular, the advantages and disadvantages of the term religion and how it is deployed on the ground by shamans in Norway will be highlighted.
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Chini, Michelangelo. "Eternal Blue Sky 2.0." Inner Asia 25, no. 2 (November 17, 2023): 277–302. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22105018-02502023.
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Abstract The revival of shamanism in Southern Siberia is increasingly characterised by online forms of representation. Through digital ethnographic research conducted in Russian, this paper argues that the internet reproduces non-digital narratives and practices endowing them with global, immediate reach in a very widely recognisable form, thus contributing to the amplification, legitimisation and contestation of shamanic power. Analysing the websites of two Irkutsk-area ‘shamanic centres’, I consider how digitalisation is contributing to the process of institutionalisation of shamanism, reproducing and further legitimising post-socialist hierarchies and structures of power in Buryat shamanism, while highlighting the malleable nature of shamanic power and the web alike. Conversely, I recur to the Buryat concept of khel am (a form of ‘omnipresent witchcraft’) in relation to two recent news stories of national relevance in Russia involving Siberian shamans, to illustrate the challenge posed by the over-amplification of shamanic power through digitalisation to shamans and their institutions’ claims to power.
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Hatimah, Andi Husnul, Sukri Tamma, and Ariana Yunus. "Peran Dukun dalam Pemilihan Kepala Desa Pasir Putih." Palita: Journal of Social Religion Research 8, no. 2 (July 31, 2023): 145–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.24256/pal.v8i2.3952.
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The role of shamans in the 2019 local elections is the focus of this study. In addition, the issue of the shaman's position in village elections is discussed in this paper. This study uses a qualitative method. This study relies on primary and secondary data for its findings. The Library Research method was used for data collection purposes in this study. The writer collects information from scientific writings, such as thesis diaries and documents. The author processes the information he collects according to the requirements of the analysis. The research findings show that residents still believe a certain kind of shaman exists. This kind of shaman is used to illustrate when village head elections are held. In regional head elections, especially village head elections, village head candidates develop a belief system to shape social and political attitudes. Whereas shamans rely on mystical reasoning as the foundation of their abilities and take advantage of the mystical devices they have, shamans are used as a guide to progress, what percentage of victory is desired and as a political network for electing village heads and instilling influence over residents so that they get the mass support that shamans have for their political goals.
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Kazakevich, Olga. "A Selkup family legend about a great shaman." Rodnoy Yazyk. Linguistic journal, no. 1 (June 2023): 150–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.37892/2313-5816-2023-1-150-168.
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This paper presents a family legend about the great Selkup shaman Tama-ira. The legend was recounted by his great granddaughter Arina Alekseevna Tamelkina (neé Kalina) (1932–2022) in July 2013 in the town of Krasnoselkup, the centre of the Krasnoselkup district, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area. Her daughter Valentina Vladimirovna Tamelkina helped me to transcribe and translate the audio recorded text. I got acquainted with Arina Alekseevna in 2002 in Krasnoselkup. She worked with us as a language consultant for three weeks, during which time we audio and video recorded her performance of several texts and made an audio recording of a Selkup word list of 2000 lexemes with contexts. Working with her was a real pleasure. She told us about her life, but did not mention her great ancestor then. Apparently, the memory of the persecution of shamans on the Taz River and feelings that talking about such things might still be dangerous were deeply rooted in her. Only after more than 10 years of acquaintance was I fortunate enough to hear her Tama-ira story. Quite often the heroes of Selkup folklore appear to be shamans, but in most cases the hero’s shamanic gifting remains at the periphery of the story. Shamanic texts proper, in which the personality and/or functions of the shaman occupy the central position in the story, are not numerous. Among them there are very realistic descriptions of the everyday life of shamans, legends telling about certain shamans’ great deeds and wars, descriptions of shamanic rites as recounted by eyewitnesses, and, finally, ‘inside’ texts – shamanic incantations summoning spirits, telling about travels to other worlds, etc. In this case we have a shamanic legend as a part of the story-teller’s family history.
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Sa, Minna. "The Contemporary Shamanic Healing: A Case Study of the Daur Shamanic River Spirit lʊs Ritual." Religions 15, no. 4 (April 15, 2024): 484. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15040484.
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In traditional shamanism, the sacred mission and responsibility of a shaman is to provide healing and salvation for individuals. Today, with continuous advancements in science, technology, and medical expertise, the content and methods of shamanic healing are quietly evolving, alongside the upholding and preservation of traditional beliefs. The case study of the Daur shamanic lʊs (river spirit) ritual in this paper discusses the concepts of actual disease and virtual disease in contemporary Daur shamanism. By briefly describing the key processes of this ceremony, including the involvement of shaman spirits and the main elements of divine songs, this paper analyzes the characteristics and functions of the modern-day Daur shaman river spirit ceremony. During the ritual dedicated to lʊs, Daur shamans perform symbolic ceremonies while receiving oracles from their spiritual guides. The ceremony itself incorporates various unique healing techniques such as dʊməl, tærmit, xʊræ- xʊræ, arʃan, altəŋ sʊlʊ; kʊtʊr bʊjin, taboo, etc. These distinctive methods aim to achieve preventive healing as well as realistic healing on both the individual and collective levels. In summary, the lʊs ritual itself serves as a transformative process that encompasses diverse forms of healing through its ceremonial practices.
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Gibson, Todd. "Notes on the History of the Shamanic in Tibet and Inner Asia." Numen 44, no. 1 (1997): 39–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1568527972629939.
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AbstractHistorical treatments of the shaman have often been crippled by dubious and untestable assumptions on the nature of shamanic religion. Anthropological investigations in their turn have seldom dealt with historical issues in any depth. The first part of this contribution attempts to point out the advantages and dangers involved in applying an anthropological perspective to historical issues. A broad definition of the shaman is proposed which is anthropological in intent, while avoiding some possible errors in method. The second part of the article begins by documenting the “shamanic sickness” — widely acknowledged in the ethnological literature — in the careers of several tertons (major figures in the history of Tibetan Buddhism), illustrating that the shamanic role was not limited to the healing and divination that are usually associated with Inner Asian shamans. Buddhist derivations for the names of shamans in modern non-Buddhist cultures are presented; these argue for an association between Buddhism and the shamanic in early Inner Asia that went deeper than the mutual borrowing of cultural forms commonly supposed to have taken place.
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AIYZHY, E. V., and A. A. OORZHAK. "EERENS - SPIRITS ASSISTANTS OF SHAMANS OF TUVA." Ethnography of Altai and Adjacent Territories 11 (2023): 65–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.37386/2687-0592-2023-11-65-66.
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The article is devoted to the shamanism of Tuva, which considers the attributes, like eeren spirits, assistants of the shaman. Numerous shaman’s eeren, created by masters and the shaman himself, serve as protective magic, both for the shaman himself and for the one to whom the eeren was made. In addition to the protective and security function, eeren attract well-being, wealth and good luck.
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Hwang, Jihye. "Exploring Secular Spirituality in Korean Muism (Shamanism) through the Lens of Grotowski." Korean Society of Culture and Convergence 45, no. 11 (November 30, 2023): 439–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.33645/cnc.2023.11.45.11.439.
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This study explores the convergence of Jergy Grotowski's ‘Secular sacrum in the theatre’ and Korean Muism(Korean Shamanism)’s shamanic rituals in the context of secular spirituality. Grotowski advocates for the theatrical stage as a sacred space, breaking barriers for genuine inner exploration, with the ‘holy actor’ crucial for manifesting secular spirituality. Drawing parallels, Muism’s shamans(mudang) embody the ‘holy actor’ through acts like ‘self-sacrifice’ and ‘emptying oneself’, seen in rituals such as the initiation ceremony(Naerim Gut). The shaman, bridging the divine and human realms, seeks to heal through spiritual power in a sacred space. Embedded in Korean culture, Gut rituals serve as a pillar of secular spirituality, transforming the worldly into the sacred. The shaman(mudang), a key practitioner, orchestrates these spiritual rituals, playing a central role in communal life.
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Lee, Sang-Dong. "Hungarian Primitive Religion and Shamanistic Epic." East European and Balkan Institute 47, no. 2 (May 31, 2023): 63–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.19170/eebs.2023.47.2.63.
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The main elements of Hungarian primitive religion are based on Eurasian shamanism. Similarities are found in the shamanistic folk cultures of the Mansis and the Hantis, the closest relatives in the Ugric language family, and the Samoyeds in northeast Siberia. However, after the acceptance of Christianity, Hungarian shamanism gradually declined under the Christianization policy of the Hungarian national ideology. During this period, as a social class system was consolidated in Hungary, folk beliefs were practiced among the serfs and peasants, who made up the majority of the population. Shamanism continued in Hungarians’ lives as the Kumans and the Jassics, Turkic tribes with shamanistic cultures, later migrated from Central Asia to Hungary.
This study analyzes Hungarian primitive religion in association with studies of shamans by investigating the role, function, and characteristics of the shaman as distinct from those of other beings with supernatural power, focusing on research on ancient Hungarian beliefs and folk beliefs after the Hungarian acceptance of Christianity, which bears close connections with research on shamans. Moreover, the shamanistic aspect of the Hungarian is examined regarding connections with primitive religion. Táltos, a figure in Hungarian folk beliefs, appeared not only in the people's daily lives but also in oral literature and folk rituals; as a valuable supernatural being. This study also examines the lyrics, content, rhythm, structure, meaning, ideology, and religious consciousness in táltos' shamanic songs. It is expected that the meaning of the structural archetypes of Hungarian primitive religion and shaman song analyzed in this study will contribute to opening a new horizon of comparative folklore and cross-cultural study in Korea.
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Юша, Жанна Монгеевна. "The Tuvan Depictions of Shamanic Headdresses." Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology, no. 3(45) (July 18, 2024): 113–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.23951/2307-6119-2024-3-113-122.
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Рассматриваются мифологические представления тувинцев о шаманских головных уборах. Выявлено, что роль и значение ритуальных шапок магических специалистов, используемых в камланиях, широко трактовались в тувинской среде. В народных толкованиях о шаманских головных уборах нашли отражение главные концепции шаманизма – трехчастное деление мира, представления об избранности шамана, его роли в качестве посредника между миром людей и духов, духах-покровителях и помощниках шамана, значении и символике шаманской шапки в проведении камланий. Проанализированы семантические и прагматические аспекты изображений человеческого лица, часто встречающихся на головных уборах ритуальных специалистов. Описаны представления носителей традиции о нарисованных частях человеческого лица (глаза, нос, рот, уши) на шаманских шапках, которые должны были оказывать магическое влияние на ход камланий, выполнять обрядовые функции – увеличивать ритуальную силу шамана, оказывать ему содействие в камлании и защищать его от враждебных сил. Установлено, что тувинские шаманы в ритуальных шапках использовали не только перья птиц, но и птичьи головы, а также шкурки, снятые с головы животных, которые считались духами-покровителями и помощниками шамана. Согласно воззрениям тувинцев, во время камланий шаман для достижения положительных результатов обряда принимал образы тех животных и птиц, которые присутствовали на его головном уборе, были его покровителями и защитниками. Рассмотрены различительные особенности шаманских шапок в контексте ритуала в зависимости от его целей – во благо или во вред, от возраста магического специалиста, нередко от видов лечебного обряда – тяжелобольному или умирающему человеку, поскольку сильные шаманы, ведущие ритуальную практику, могли иметь два головных убора, в зависимости от семантической направленности обряда. В представлениях тувинцев головной убор тувинского шамана как часть его ритуального костюма выполнял ритуальную, магическую, коммуникативную, контактную, символическую, дифференцирующую, защитную функции. This article examines the Tuvan mythological representations of shamanic headdresses. It shows that the role and meaning of the ritual hats of magical specialists used in rituals were interpreted differently in the Tuvan environment. The popular interpretations of shamanic headdresses reflect the most important concepts of shamanism - the tripartition of the world, ideas about the shaman’s choice, his role as a mediator between the world of humans and spirits, the shaman’s guardian spirits and assistants, the meaning and symbolism of the shaman’s hat in the performance of rituals. The semantic and pragmatic aspects of images of the human face, often found on ritual headdresses, are analyzed. The ideas of the tradition bearers about the painted parts of the human face (eyes, nose, mouth, ears) on shaman hats, which were supposed to have a magical influence on the course of rituals, fulfill ritual functions – increase the ritual power of the shaman, support him in rituals and protect him from hostile forces. It has been proven that the Tuvan shamans used bird feathers for their ritual hats and bird heads and animal skins, which were regarded as protective spirits and helpers of the shaman. According to Tuvan belief, during the rituals, the shaman took on the form of the animals and birds that adorned his headdress and were his guardian spirits to achieve positive results from the ritual. The distinguishing features of the shaman’s hats within the ritual depended on its goals – for better or for worse, on the age of the magical specialist, often also on the nature of the healing ritual – for a seriously ill or dying person, because strong shamans leading the ritual practice could wear two headdresses depending on the semantic orientation of the ritual. According to the Tuvans, the headdress of a Tuvan shaman as part of his ritual clothing fulfilled ritual, magical, communicative, contacting, symbolic, differentiating, and protective functions.
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Dobzhanskaya, Oksana, Vera Nikiforova, and Varvara Dyakonova. "Reflection of Arctic geocultures in the sounding attributes of the shaman costumes of Sakha, Evenks and Nganasans." SHS Web of Conferences 134 (2022): 00060. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202213400060.
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The purpose of this research is to study the sounding pendants on the shamanic costume of the Evenks, Sakha and Nganasans in the unity of the shamanic ritual complex and ritual musical traditions. Shamanic pendants are interpreted as a special text of culture, a reflection of the geocultural ideas of the peoples of the Arctic. The paper is based on the materials of field research carried out by the authors in Taimyr in 1989-1990, in the Olenek Evenk national region of Yakutia in 2014 and scientific publications. The sound world of shamanic ritual is a complex phonic picture, which is formed when using vocal, verbal, vocal-speech, signal, instrumental types of intonation. The movements of shaman are accompanied by the sound of colliding pendants on the costume of shamans and its components (headband, shoes, mittens). The sounding pendants were described by ethnographers and musicologists, but they were not considered in connection with geocultural studies. Metal pendants on a shaman costume mark sacred spatial models of the Universe (images of heavenly bodies - the sun, the moon, stars), mythological spaces of the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds inhabited by the shaman's helper spirits - birds, animals, anthropomorphic creatures, they symbolize parts of the human body, etc. The prospects for the study of shaman costume pendants as a symbolic embodiment of the landscape are contained in a more complete description and generalization of all known materials, including the analysis of shaman costumes from ethnographic museum collections.
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Winkelman, Michael James. "Chinese Wu, Ritualists and Shamans: An Ethnological Analysis." Religions 14, no. 7 (June 29, 2023): 852. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel14070852.
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The relationship of wu (巫) to shamanism is problematic, with virtually all mentions of historical and contemporary Chinese wu ritualists translated into English as shaman. Ethnological research is presented to illustrate cross-cultural patterns of shamans and other ritualists, providing an etic framework for empirical assessments of resemblances of Chinese ritualists to shamans. This etic framework is further validated with assessments of the relationship of the features with biogenetic bases of ritual, altered states of consciousness, innate intelligences and endogenous healing processes. Key characteristics of the various types of wu and other Chinese ritualists are reviewed and compared with ethnological models of the patterns of ritualists found cross-culturally to illustrate their similarities and contrasts. These comparisons illustrate the resemblances of pre-historic and commoner wu to shamans but additionally illustrate the resemblances of most types of wu to other ritualist types, not shamans. Across Chinese history, wu underwent transformative changes into different types of ritualists, including priests, healers, mediums and sorcerers/witches. A review of contemporary reports on alleged shamans in China also illustrates that only some correspond to the characteristics of shamans found in cross-cultural research and foraging societies. The similarities of most types of wu ritualists to other types of ritualists found cross-culturally illustrate the greater accuracy of translating wu as “ritualist” or “religious ritualist.”
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Степанова, О. Б. "“He Is Hidden So That He Has No Appearance, But I Found Him, I Bow to Him”: About the Shamanic Mark on Modern Views of the World Among the Northern Selkups." ТРАДИЦИОННАЯ КУЛЬТУРА, no. 4 (November 25, 2023): 99–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.26158/tk.2023.24.4.008.
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Актуальным для сегодняшней науки является вопрос сохранения и изменения традиционного мировоззрения, и прежде всего его шаманистической составляющей у современных народов Сибири и Севера. Статья посвящена изучению воздействия шаманской традиции на мировоззрение и образ жизни современных северных селькупов, влиянию шаманизма на формирование новой селькупской идентичности — к этим темам пока никто из ученых не обращался. Рассматривается и вводится в научный оборот ряд до сих пор неизвестных данных по традиционному селькупскому шаманизму и истории шаманства. В фокус исследования поставлены мировоззренческие установки селькупской семьи Тамелькиных, среди предков которой был знаменитый шаман Давыд Калин. Несмотря на то что нынешний глава семьи Тамелькиных обладает исключительными, сближающими его с шаманом, способностями, его взгляды на мироустройство типичны для большинства современных селькупов и лежат в русле традиционной духовности. Сегодняшние селькупы массово верят в существование по- потусторонних существ — духов, в сверхъестественные силы духов и старых шаманов, боятся духов и почитают их в обрядах жертвоприношения. В последние годы отмечается всплеск интереса селькупов к своим родовым шаманам и к сюжетам селькупской истории, связанным с шаманами. Исследование позволяет сделать вывод о том, что шаманизм оставил глубокий след в сознании селькупов и породил парадокс: шаманы ушли в небытие физически, но живут в народной памяти и владеют умами своих потомков, шаманская вера в селькупах никуда не исчезла, а только укрепила свои позиции. The issue of preserving and changing traditional worldviews is very relevant for today’s scholarship, especially as it relates to the shamanistic component among the modern peoples of Siberia and the North. This article is devoted to the impact of the shamanic tradition on the worldview and lifestyle of modern northern Selkups and the influence of shamanism on the formation of a new Selkup identity — a topic that scholars have not yet addressed. It introduces various hitherto unknown material on traditional Selkup shamanism and on the history of shamanism into scholarly circulation. The study focuses on the worldview of the Tamelkin Selkup family, among whose ancestors was the famous shaman, Davyd Kalin. Despite the fact that the current head of the Tamelkin family has exceptional abilities that bring him closer to a shaman, his views on the world are typical of most modern Selkups and are also in line with traditional spirituality. The majority of today’s Selkups believe in the existence of otherworldly beings — spirits — and in their supernatural powers and those of old shamans; they are afraid of spirits and revere them in sacrificial rites. In recent years, there has been a surge of Selkup interest in their tribal shamans and in Selkup history relating to them. The study concludes that shamanism has left a deep mark on the minds of the Selkups and has given rise to a paradox: while shamans have physically disappeared, they live on in people’s memory and have a hold on the minds of their descendants. The Selkups’ shamanic faith has not disappeared, but only increased.
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Dampilova, Liudmila S., Evdokia E. Khabunova, and Balzira V. Elbikova. "Шаманские лечебные обряды западных бурят." Oriental Studies 16, no. 3 (September 12, 2023): 673–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.22162/2619-0990-2023-67-3-673-681.
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Introduction. In the Buryat tradition, healing was a most common function attributed to shamans. The main pragmatic aspect of healing depends on the semiotic component of a ritual, communicative connection with the other world being a key indicative. Healing practices of Turko-Mongolian shamans were distinguished by that rituals were accompanied by spells aimed at propitiating or neutralizing spirits of disease to be communicated with during the ritual. Goals. The study seeks to analyze archival shamanic verbal materials of Western Buryats once articulated in the course of utilitarian pragmatic ritual efforts supposed to treat the sick. The Buryat shamanic practices have not yet been considered in this perspective. Materials and methods. The work involves scientific and methodological experiences of scientists who had investigated main issues of traditional Mongolian medicines from historical and ethnographic perspectives. The paper approaches medical practices of Mongols in the context of religious and mythological ideas. The main research method is the semantic-hermeneutical analysis of verbal material. Results. Shamanic healing practices of Buryats are ritual and magical activities serving to propitiate and appease the mythological spirit of disease. The shaman/shamaness implement no therapeutic measures, they only somewhat actualize some magical functions aimed at eliminating causes of the disease. Conclusions. Semiotic rituals are main elements of a ritual performance; the ritual basis of Buryat shamanic healing practices is essentially monotypic, and rests on belief in magical powers of word and ritual; the actual types of rituals implemented during treatment correspond to main calendar and life-cycle rituals. The healing ritual uses rudiments and fragments of earlier healing methods preserved in the folk tradition.
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Grant, Bruce. "Slippage: An Anthropology of Shamanism." Annual Review of Anthropology 50, no. 1 (October 21, 2021): 9–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110350.
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If our knowledge of shamanism has been so abidingly partial, so impressively uneven, so deeply varied by history, and so enduringly skeptical for so long, how has its study come to occupy such pride of place in the anthropological canon? One answer comes in a history of social relations where shamans both are cast as translators of the unseen and are themselves sites of anxiety in a very real world, one of encounters across lines of gender, class, and colonial incursions often defined by race. This article contends that as anthropologists have cultivated a long and growing library of shamanic practice, many appear to have found, in a globally diverse range of spirit practitioners, translators across social worlds who are not unlike themselves, suggesting that in the shaman we find a remarkable history of anthropology.
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Погадаева, Анастасия Викторовна. "The Shaman Kim Keum Hwa - Korea’s National Treasure." ТРАДИЦИОННАЯ КУЛЬТУРА, no. 1 (May 10, 2022): 22–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.26158/tk.2022.23.1.002.
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В статье рассматривается шаманизм в Корее - мусок. В первой части выделяются основные особенности данного явления, а также перечисляются работы на русском языке, в которых коротко или более подробно рассказывается о корейском шаманизме. Но главный акцент в статье делается на роли профессионального посредника, медиатора между миром людей и миром духов - шаманом мудан, которым в Корее, как правило, является женщина. На протяжении истории Кореи положение шаманок и отношение к ним со стороны государства менялось, а их социальное положение было невысоким. Во второй части статьи на примере биографии известной шаманки Ким Кымхвы анализируется статус шаманок в XX в. В первой половине столетия отношение к мудан остается сложным. Во время японского господства, а также во время Движения за новую деревню они даже подверглись серьезным гонениям. В 1970-е гг. ситуация начинает меняться: фольклористы и этнографы проявляют большой интерес к шаманизму. Шаманские обряды признаются государством. Теперь шаманизм в Корее больше воспринимается как часть национальной культуры и самоидентификации, а не религиозного культа. Исследование актуально в свете изучения корейского шаманизма и его современного положения на Корейском полуострове. Материалы о шаманке Ким Кымхвы представлены на русском языке впервые. This article is focused on “musok.” Korean shamanism. It highlights the main features of this phenomenon, and also lists works in Russian that discuss Korean shamanism and describe the role of the shaman-mudang. The shaman is a professional mediator between the world of people and the world of spirits, who in Korea is usually a female. In the course of Korean history, the position of shamans and the attitude of the state towards them has changed, although their status was usually low. In the second part of the article, the author analyzes the changing position of shamans in the twentieth century based on the example of the famous shaman Kim Keum Hwa. In the first half of the century, the attitude towards mudangs was complex. Under Japanese rule, as well as during the movement for the New Village, they were severely persecuted. In the 1970s the situation began to change, as folklorists and ethnographers showed great interest in shamanism. Shamanic rituals were recognized at the state level. Now shamanism in Korea is perceived as a part of national culture and self-identification, and not as a religious cult. The article is relevant in light of the study of Korean shamanism and its current situation on the Korean Peninsula. Material about Kim Keum Hwa is presented in Russian for the first time.
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Illarionov, Vasilii Vasil'evich, and Aitalina Anatol'evna Maksimova. "Forgotten rituals of white shamans." Человек и культура, no. 6 (June 2020): 141–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.25136/2409-8744.2020.6.34222.
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The subject of this research is the repertoire of the white shaman I. A. Suzdalov-Sapalay. The object of this research is his shamanic rituals. Chronologically, the study covers the first half of the XX century. Methodological framework is comprised of the empirical method of description; general logical method of analysis by chronological principle; synthesis of the rites as a part of Aiy rituals. The method of synthesis, analysis and description of shamanic rites reveal certain pages of the ancient religious beliefs of the ancestors of Sakha people. The article examines the repertoire of shaman Sapalay – Ivan Andreevich Suzdalov, born in Abyysky District of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). The authors introduce into the scientific discourse the unique materials on Yakut shamanism. A detailed description is given to the rituals of the last Aiy shaman (white shaman) I. A. Suzdalov-Sapalay, docymented by the folklorists-collectors. The heritage of Ivan Andreevich Suzdalov-Sapalay reveals new nuances of the forgotten early religious beliefs of the Yakut people. His description of the rites gives representation on the worldview, faith, afterlife, three souls of human being, and rituals of the Yakut people.
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Risma, Olivia. "Study of Shamanic Witchcraft (Santet) Culture in the Indonesian Archipelago." Enigma in Cultural 1, no. 1 (November 9, 2023): 13–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.61996/cultural.v1i1.19.
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Various ethnic groups in Sumatra also possess shamanic traditions that involve traditional rites and the involvement of shamans or individuals with specialized skills in countering black magic. Each of these ethnic groups possesses distinct practices and beliefs. The Batak tribe has diverse ethnic subgroups, including Toba Batak, Karo, Mandailing, and others. Within Batak culture, there exist shamanistic rituals, and individuals who perform these rituals are referred to as "datu" or "Batak shamans." The shaman has a crucial function in upholding social and spiritual equilibrium within society. They possess the ability to retaliate against dark sorcery or provide healing for ailments through their expertise and spiritual wisdom. The Minangkabau tribe upholds robust traditional customs, which encompass shamanic rituals associated with the veneration of ancestors and nature deities. Within Minangkabau society, there exist individuals known as "bundo kanduang" who possess specialized expertise in countering the effects of black magic and healing ailments by traditional means. The Bukit Barisan tribe is an indigenous population dispersed over the Bukit Barisan region, encompassing a significant portion of Sumatra Island. Their religious system encompasses shamanic ideologies and rituals that revolve around the veneration of nature spirits and ancestral figures. Shamans, or spiritual leaders, play a crucial role in upholding social and spiritual equilibrium within their communities. It is crucial to bear in mind that these shamanic rituals exhibit variations among different ethnic groups and subgroups in Sumatra. Moreover, the impact of religions like Islam and Christianity has also had an influence on certain shamanic activities within these communities. Shamanic practices encompass a range of functions, including customary rituals and endeavors to address societal and metaphysical discord. Gaining insight into this cultural legacy and shamanistic customs enables us to value the cultural variety in Indonesia and the ongoing evolution and adjustment of various cultures in response to changing circumstances.
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Kamal, Zahara. "NYANYIAN ANAK BALAM: TERAPI MISTIK PERDUKUNAN KE SENI PERTUNJUKAN RABAB PASISIE DI PESISIR SELATAN SUMATERA BARAT." Humanus 14, no. 2 (November 30, 2015): 165. http://dx.doi.org/10.24036/jh.v14i2.5683.
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This article is part of reserch,which reveals the problem of singing of anak balam in the context of shamanism entered the real of the performing art tradition of rabab pasisie in south pesisir.in the context of shamanism,the singing of anak balam serves as a means of communication between shamans and spirit of ancestor to identify a patient’s disease and type of medicine.while the singing of anak balam in context of performing arts rabab, serves as ameans of intertainment to enliven various local community activities.this reserch use a quanlitative method sosiology approach,antropology approach,easthetic approach.data colected through observasion, interview and documentation.this research found that in term of aesthetics singing of anak balam in context of shamanic different with the singing of anak balam in the context of art performing rabab pasisie, because in shamanism context eathetic value is not considered by shamans, because preferred here is to communicate with the spirit of ancestors,while in the context of performing arts rabab,aesthitic value higly considered by rabab artists both from the cultivation of musical and singing text.
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Rock, Adam J., and Stanley Krippner. "Is a realist interpretation of Shamanic ‘non-physical’ worlds logically incoherent?" Transpersonal Psychology Review 12, no. 2 (September 2008): 23–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.53841/bpstran.2008.12.2.23.
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Previous research concerning the relationship between the shaman’s conscious experiences and the ‘spirit world’ suggests that shamans are realists in the sense that they conceptualize their multi-layered universe (e.g., upper, middle and lower world) as real, objective and independent of the perceiver. However, these studies have neglected to analyze the logical coherence of a realist interpretation of these shamanic ‘nonphysical.’ worlds (NPWs). We address this lacuna first by determining which variant of realism is most consistent with the shaman’s purported views concerning the ontological status of the aforementioned NPWs. Subsequently, we consider sk.a-ma-nic journeying imagery with regards to the key definitional elements of the term ‘mental image.’ Finally, we formulate three premises pertaining to shamanic journeying imagery and NPWs with the aim of assessing the logical coherence of the shaman’s realist ontology. We conclude that if sk.a-ma-nic journeying images constitute mental images, then this does not necessarily preclude shamanic NPWs from existing independently of the percipient’s mindbody state(s).
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Бурнаков, А. А. "ON KHAKASS SHAMANS AND THEIR ACTIVITIES IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY: THE WITNESS'S RECOLLECTIONS." SCIENTIFIC REVIEW OF SAYANO-ALTAI, no. 2(38) (January 18, 2024): 91–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.52782/kril.2023.2.38.012.
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Шаманизм/шаманство является одной из форм религиозных верований, ранее распространённая у многих народов Северной Европы, Центральной Азии, Сибири, Северной и Южной Америк и т. д. В традиционной религии хакасов шаманизм также широко представлен и является её второй крупной компонентой. Своё название шаманизм получил от ключевой фигуры этой системы - шамана, являющегося его священнослужителем. У хакасов шамана называют хам (мн. ч. хамнар), а шаманизм (шаманство) - хам кирегНхам чозагы. В представленной расшифровке полевых материалов автора, собранных в ходе экспедиции ХакНИИЯЛИ (2023 г., Таштыпский р-н РХ), одним из информантов преклонного возраста, лично общавшегося с шаманом и другими представителями хакасской мистики, даётся наиболее яркий позитивный отзыв о хакасских шаманах, который в корне отрицает расхожие представления, сформированные христианскими священниками и их последователями о шаманах как о «слугах дьявола». Видеозапись интервью на хакасском языке хранится в Рукописном фонде ХакНИИЯЛИ. Shamanism is one of the forms of religious beliefs previously common among many peoples of Central Europe, Central Asia, Siberia, North and South America, etc. Shamanism is also widely represented in the Khakass' religion and is its second major component. Shamanism got its name from the key figure of this system - a shaman, who is its priest. Among the Khakass, shaman is called kham (plural: khamnar), and shamanism - kham kiregi/kham chozagy. In the presented transcript of the author's field materials collected during the expedition of Khakass Research Institute for Language, Literature, and History (2023, the Tashtyp District, the Republic of Khakassia, Russia), one of the elderly informants, who personally communicated with a shaman and other representatives of Khakass mysticism, gives the most vivid positive assessment of the Khakass shamans, which fundamentally negates the popular ideas formed by Christian priests and their followers about shamans as "servants of the devil". The interview video was made in the Khakass language and is stored in the Manuscript Fund of KhRILLH.
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Wallis, Robert. "Art and Shamanism: From Cave Painting to the White Cube." Religions 10, no. 1 (January 16, 2019): 54. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10010054.
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Art and shamanism are often represented as timeless, universal features of human experience, with an apparently immutable relationship. Shamanism is frequently held to represent the origin of religion and shamans are characterized as the first artists, leaving their infamous mark in the cave art of Upper Palaeolithic Europe. Despite a disconnect of several millennia, modern artists too, from Wassily Kandinsky and Vincent van Gogh, to Joseph Beuys and Marcus Coates, have been labelled as inspired visionaries who access the trance-like states of shamans, and these artists of the ‘white cube’ or gallery setting are cited as the inheritors of an enduring tradition of shamanic art. But critical engagement with the history of thinking on art and shamanism, drawing on discourse analysis, shows these concepts are not unchanging, timeless ‘elective affinities’; they are constructed, historically situated and contentious. In this paper, I examine how art and shamanism have been conceived and their relationship entangled from the Renaissance to the present, focussing on the interpretation of Upper Palaeolithic cave art in the first half of the twentieth century—a key moment in this trajectory—to illustrate my case.
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Lee, Ju-young. "A Study on the Image of Shamans from the Perspective of the Scholar-gentry(士大夫)." Research of the Korean Classic 65 (May 30, 2024): 117–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.20516/classic.2015.65.117.
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This article examines the portrayal of shamans through the perspective of the scholar-gentry(士大夫) class as reflected in various records, such as Pilgi(筆記) and Yadam(野談), and explores the significance of these portrayals. From the late 13th century, shamans were subjects of rejection and criticism by the scholar-gentry, and after the founding of the Joseon Dynasty, they were perceived as antagonists disrupting the order of Confucian society. Shamans were negatively depicted, labeled as “wicked shamans” or “fake shamans.” The literati aimed to emphasize the legitimacy of rejecting shamans through these depictions. The literati focused their criticism on shamans who deceived people and gained undue benefits by exploiting superstitions about spirits. Male shamans dressed in women's clothing were recognized as the primary image of the “wicked shaman.” On the other hand, shamans were unique beings capable of communicating with spirits or ghosts through possession(降神/憑依). Although the scholar-gentry rejected shamans, they were very interested in their spiritual abilities. This is connected to verifying the authenticity of “spiritual shamans” and “genuine shamans”. As the Joseon Dynasty progressed, the scholar-gentry increasingly acknowledged the spiritual power of shamans through their experiences and observations of possession phenomena. Consequently, they began to view shamans and shamanistic practices more positively compared to earlier periods. Narratives from the late Joseon period include acceptance of shamanistic phenomena and rituals, and shamanistic practices often served to complement or even replace Confucian rituals. Shamans were depicted as marginalized figures, yet they secured their position by serving as spiritual intermediaries for the common people. This dual perspective on shamans reflects the contradiction between the literati's ideals and the reality of their perception. The scholar-gentry show a more flexible and reserved attitude toward shamans than before, expecting an interest in the unknown world, experiences with them, and solving practical problems through shamans. That is, shamans were portrayed as beings who were excluded from the Confucian society, but simultaneously, they were seen as entities filling the gaps within that society, thus maintaining their vitality.
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Gantogtox, G. "Rituel de consécration du bélier à Ciel-Rouge-de-Vengeance, suivi de Fragments de cérémonies chamaniques des Bouriates de Mongolie." Études mongoles et sibériennes 25, no. 1 (1994): 101–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/emong.1994.1057.
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In this article dealing with the shamanic traditions of the Buryats living in eastern Mongolia, and which have been the subject of filmed documentaries at the beginning of the 90’s, the author describes in detail the consecration of a ram, a ritual carried out by the shaman at the invitation of a family eager to guarantee their well-being and their prosperity. Through his invocation, the shaman calls the spirit of an ancestor shaman, feeds him and charges him with transmitting the [soul of the] ram to its supernatural destination. Besides this ceremony, extracts of other rituals are also presented here as, for example, a ritual « washing » that shamans have to do several times in the course of their lives.
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Sundström, Olle. "Is the shaman indeed risen in post-Soviet Siberia?" Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 24 (January 1, 2012): 350–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67426.
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In his exhaustive study of ‘shamanism’ among the Altaic peoples in Southern Siberia, the renowned Soviet ethnographer Leonid P. Potapov contends that ‘under the present conditions there are no remnants or survivals of Shamanism as such left in Altai’. What remains are legends and reminiscences, but these can no longer be told by people with personal experiences of Altaic ‘shamans’ and their rituals. According to Potapov, modern socialist culture has changed the minds of the Altaic peoples to the degree that they are now a materialistically thinking people, and ‘shamanism’ has completely disappeared. In addition, he contends that there are no prospects of its return after the deathblow dealt by Soviet anti-religious repression in the 1930s ‘shamanic’ rituals were forbidden and ritual paraphernalia such as drums and costumes were expropriated by the authorities. Considering that Potapov in his study follows Altaic ‘shamanism’ through 1500 years, depicting it as a ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ which stayed more or less intact over the centuries, his statement seems more like a pious hope based on the Soviet vision of a society liberated from superstition, religion, and spiritual exploitation. Potapov himself delineates Altaic ‘shamanism’s’ development from a ‘state religion’to a ‘folk religion’. From this perspective it might seem remarkable that ‘shamanism’ should not have survived 70 years of atheist repression, missionary work and the Soviet transformation of society. Already by the time Potapov’s book was published, during the very last months of the existence of the Soviet Union, there had, in fact, appeared a number of persons claiming to be ‘shamans’, with an ancestry dating from the time of ‘shamans’ of the first half of the twentieth century. These individuals were also part of organisations and movements promoting the revival of ‘shamanism’ in the autonomous Altai Republic. In other parts of the former Soviet Union similar processes took place. Today, in post-Soviet Altai, as well as in many other parts of Siberia, shamanism exists in the same sense that there is Buddhism, Christianity and Islam in the region.
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Sukru, Burbar. "The Shamanism in Altai and Tuva from past to present: Universal and Local Aspects." Turkic Studies Journal 4, no. 2 (2022): 22–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.32523/2664-5157-2022-2-22-34.
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Shamanism is a system composed of various elements of culture and belief, created by people to understand life and come to grips with what is happening around them. It has an elaborate structure in terms of existing in well-rounded communities. It has various features that have different aspects compared to the different times and conditions of the society. It also adopts local beliefs and the beliefs of the surrounding tribes. Shamanism allows everyone to have a religious concept and to have his or her own God or Gods. The technique of trance, also called «ecstasy», is an essential part. It is based on the worship of magic, curses, divination, polytheism, ancestral spirits and nature beings. Those who practice and teach shamanism are called Kam/Shaman. To some they are magicians, witch doctors, illusionists and to others they are oracles, doctors, sages, philosophers, pagan priests, fortunetellers and storytellers. Attempts have been made to either control or abolish shamanism and shamans because many of their characteristics are in opposition to other belief systems such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and communist ideology. In addition, the economic suffering caused by the constant blood sacrifices of the society who live on herding led to the emergence of Burhanism among the Altaians, another factor that weakened shamanism from within. Over time, shamanism acquired a status that the oppression of the shamans who led their communities sought to end. Despite all this, shamanism resisted the pressure and disguised itself when necessary. It always managed to update itself and has survived with some changes until today
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Barcelos Neto, Aristoteles. "Tobacco visions: shamanic drawings of the Wauja Indians." Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas 13, no. 3 (December 2018): 501–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1981.81222018000300002.
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Abstract This article analyzes shamanic drawings based on research of two ethnographic collections gathered between 1978 and 2004 among the Wauja Indians of the Upper Xingu. The drawings present a visual interpretation of animal-spirits (the apapaatai) and their transformations, as seen by Wauja shamans in tobacco-induced trances and dreams. This article argues that drawing on paper allowed the shamans to broadly express their understanding of the many potential bodily forms the apapaatai can take, either voluntarily or involuntarily. The lack of a visual canon for visual representation of the apapaatai on paper gave the shamans the freedom to produce drawings which reflect an extraordinary diversity of singular perspectives. These singularities, when associated with the narratives of myths and dreams, potentiate the drawings as a kind of visual exegesis of Wauja cosmology. Further analysis considering material culture objects shows that the appropriation of pencil and paper by Wauja shamans channelled their creative energy towards an unexpected expansion in the conceptual boundaries of shamanic translation.
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Kristianus, Kristianus. "The Dayak Selako Shamans Oral Tradition: Intermediary Between People, Culture And Religion." Al-Albab 10, no. 2 (January 12, 2022): 241–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.24260/alalbab.v10i2.2093.
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The Dayak Shamans of Western Kalimantan of Borneo mediate between people and the Makhluk halus or invisible beings. The Makhluk halus who have their own well-defined roles, live in the sky, earth, water and other places, with similar needs as the humans, and the relations between humans and spirits in the context of traditional beliefs are inseparable. Interestingly, these beliefs are common to both Dayak Selako Shamanism and Kalimantan Islam. The Malay oral tradition has a major influence on the Dayak Selako culture in Western Kalimantan. In fact, both ethnic groups had originated historically from the same roots, but later separated by Islam and Christianity. Thus, irrespective of their affiliations to the major religions of Christianity and Islam, the Dayak Selako Shamanism and the Islamic spiritual healing practiced in Western Kalimantan follow the same oral tradition when conducting spiritual communication and shamanic healing. For the Malays, communication with the spiritual world begins with the recital of the Islamic verses, forming an essential part of the the Malay identity. Interestingly, the Dayak Selako Christians too use the same verses. We argue that the Dayak Selako Shaman is not only an intermediary between the Dayaks and their spirits, but also between the Dayak, Islam and Christianit religions. The mutual values of oral tradition in shamanism’s of the Dayak Selako and Malays have created a societal structure based on the natural cycle and life pattern.
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Sianipar, Godlif. "The correlation between faith and self-esteem with shamans and supernatural power." Masyarakat, Kebudayaan dan Politik 32, no. 1 (April 1, 2019): 46. http://dx.doi.org/10.20473/mkp.v32i12019.46-59.
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This research aims to provide empirical data about the relation between faith and self-esteem with shamans and their supernatural power among the tribal-based religious community in North Sumatra. The main issue this research tackles is that in this modern society, there are those who still trust and use shamans and their supernatural power termed “Begu Ganjang”. Despite this, the development of the global economy can often cause difficulty, and as such, humans must possess the ability to survive and to overcome problems, in a term known as the “Adversity Quotient” (AQ). However, instead of using their AQ, some individuals with low self-esteem tend to place more faith in shamans and supernatural powers. This study uses a quantitative approach in the form of a questionnaire. By using either a Purposive or Judgmental Sampling method, from 600 people asked, there were answers from a total of 100 respondents (50 men and 50 women) from each of the following tribes in North Sumatra: Batak Toba, Mandailing, Pakpak, Simalungun, Karo, and Nias. The study applied SEM to analyze the relationship between endogenous variables of faith and self-esteem with the shaman and Begu Ganjang. The study found that the relation of faith to shamans = 0.19, and faith to Begu Ganjang = 0.00. This means that there is a small relation between faith and shaman, while there is no relation between faith and Begu Ganjang. Furthermore, the relation of self-esteem to shaman = - 0.13, and self-esteem to Begu Ganjang = - 0.06. The result of this study shows the following: 1) There is a correlation between the growth of the respondent’s faith and their trust in the shaman, and 2) The decrease of trust in shamans and Begu Ganjang will occur only if the respondent’s self-esteem increases. Finally, the results of this study may act as a point of reference for other studies that will examine the phenomenon of syncretism in Indonesia.
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Chen, Zhengfu. "Syncretism in Miao Healing: Bridging Shamanic Practices and Scientific Treatments with Religion, Ritual, and Local Knowledge." Religions 15, no. 3 (March 6, 2024): 320. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15030320.
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The Miao (Hmong) community in Southwest China, deeply entrenched in a religious belief system acknowledging the omnipresent spiritual essence and venerating ancestor worship, perceives life as a harmonious blend of the “soul” and the “body”, intricately interwoven and mutually reinforcing. Within this cultural milieu, shamanism and healing practices form an inseparable nexus, epitomizing a worldview characterized by the harmonious coexistence of gods, spirits, ancestors, ghosts, and shamans. This study scrutinizes the syncretism employed by the Miao to address illness, bridging shamanic practices and scientific treatments with religion, ritual, and local knowledge. Through methodologies such as autoethnography, participant observation, and in-depth interviews, the research explores a Miao woman’s healing journey, synthesizing shamanic traditions with scientific interventions to reveal the nuanced interplay between traditional customs, environmental influences, and health beliefs. Despite encountering challenges like limited healthcare access and high costs, numerous Miao people seek assistance from shamans, underscoring the community’s resilience in navigating the intricate interrelationship between traditional practices and modern healthcare systems. By emphasizing the significance of syncretism, this study contributes to a nuanced understanding of how the Miao seamlessly integrate shamanic practices with scientific treatments, fostering improved intercultural communication and cultivating culturally sensitive healthcare practices, ultimately enhancing the overall well-being of the Miao community.
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Bulgakova, Tatiana. "La vengeance clanique dans les contes épiques nanaïs. Essai d'interprétation à partir de conceptions chamaniques." Études mongoles et sibériennes 32, no. 1 (2001): 163–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/emong.2001.1142.
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The author interviews present-day Nanai shamans on the meanings of the Nanai epic tales, the niŋman. According to the shamans, the blood vengeance described in the niŋman is not that practiced in the past by the Nanais in their wars between clans, but rather the blood vengeance of the shamanic lineages. The fantastic battles recounted in these tales are the same as those usually held — in their sleep — by rival shamans (or rather by their souls) with the aid of their helping spirits, the sêvên.
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Mainagasheva, Natalya V. "Images of Shamans and a Werewolf Girl in the Khakass’ Heroic Epic." Polylinguality and Transcultural Practices 19, no. 3 (September 30, 2022): 471–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.22363/2618-897x-2022-19-3-471-480.
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We have considered the images of shamans and a werewolf girl in the Khakass’ heroic epic. The appearance of the images of shamans and female shamans is due to the influence of shamanism, which has been developed among all the peoples in Siberia. There is no complete description of these images in the Khakass’ heroic epic, they are pictured schematically. Shamanic elements, actions, peculiar to shamans, are manifested in the descriptions of some magic objects used by this or that character. The werewolf girl’s image attracts attention: it has a special functional role - she turns out to be the donator of a soul to a child, the defender of a churt (home, homeland), the patroness of a brother and a sister. In her image, the influence of mythological ideas associated with totemism is discernible. The werewolf girl’s image is a personification of the image of a swallow, which has the idea of patronage and helping people. A swallow is a popular character in legends of not only the Khakass people, but also other Siberian peoples. The image of a cuckoo, which is a symbol of a heroine’s soul, became widespread in the Khakass epic as well. In the studied heroic tales, the mythological basis is seen in the presence of motifs of the first creation, childlessness, miraculous conception and miraculous birth, which receive a full-fledged artistic development in the epic. The mythological origins lie in the metamorphism of the characters, which can be explained by the ancient culture-bearers’ totemic notions.