Shaman

The shaman is a ritual specialist who is a healer and spiritual mediator. He or she entertains a close relationship with the larger spiritual universe, endowing him or her with powers to divine or to heal and act as a psychopomp—a guide of the souls of the deceased to their afterlife. The word shaman is derived from the verb Šaman meaning “to know.” The term was borrowed from the Manchu-Tungus languages (comprised of, among others, the languages of the Even and the Evenki peoples of the Russian Far East and northern China). Shamanism is a powerful vocation, at times hereditary but always achieved through demonstrated expertise in the shamanistic arts. Though the first descriptions of shamanism were recorded in the Russian Far East, anthropologists and others now use the term to describe an array of ritual and religious practices that are found across the planet.

The classic work that summarized and defined shamanism was Mircea Eliade's Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. First published in French in 1951, this text provides a detailed account of shamanism in all its facets. Eliade's work highlights some of the characteristic features of shamanism, which include the initiation of the shaman, the powers of the shaman, and the shaman in traditional cosmology. The term shaman is, in many ways, synonymous with the term “medicine man” or “curer” that was often applied to comparable ritual specialists in the Americas and elsewhere.

Central to shamanism is the spiritual death and rebirth of the shaman. Among the Sakha (Yakut) of the Russian Far East, a great bird carries off the future shaman's soul to the underworld where it must ripen. Once ready, the bird carries the soul back to the earth where it is cut into pieces and devoured by spirits of disease and death. It is through the feasting that the shaman gains power over these spirits, and the greater the number of spirits partaking in the feast, the greater the powers of the future shaman. In other regions, the shaman is spiritually tortured and killed by the souls of shaman ancestors who also cook the flesh. While the spirit is being devoured, the physical body of the shaman remains inert, and the community waits for the rebirth of the shaman. Shamans do not always willingly accept the “call” of the spirits or ancestors: in certain cases, future shamans will become physically ill and incapacitated if they resist the call to the vocation.

Once reborn as shaman, the new initiate must master shamanic techniques including songs, ritual techniques, and knowledge of medicinal plants. The shaman's assemblage often includes a drum or other musical instruments. The shaman is seen as having the power to communicate with spirits and the [Page 2080]shaman's spirit can often travel to distant locations, often the upper or lower spirit world. Central to the practice of the shaman is the altered state of consciousness or psychosomatic trance, in which the individual enters into a highly charged emotional state and is carried beyond normal consciousness and rationality. Though hallucinogenic plants are sometimes used to achieve this altered state, the shaman can achieve this state through the use of rhythmic sound and movement, thus the importance of the drum that can mimic the rhythm of the beating heart. However, achieving an altered state of consciousness is not the end; rather, it is simply the means to the end. The purpose of the ceremony and the ritual is to permit shamans to channel their souls and spirit-helpers to communicate and interact with the supernatural universe, exercising their power over the spiritual domain.

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