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History of non-Christian Religions — Topic 2

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History of non-Christian Religions — Topic 2

2.1-2.3

2.1 The Term “Shamanism”

In modern reference works, shamanism is defined as one of the early forms of religion, based on belief in the existence of spirits inhabiting the world around us and in a special intermediary — the shaman, chosen by the spirits themselves, who makes contact between human beings and these spirits possible and who attains such contact by entering a state of trance. A similar definition is offered by V.N. Basilov in the Compendium of Ethnographic Concepts and Terms.

In the eighteenth century the word “shaman” became firmly established in the writings of travelers and researchers, and from this period on, detailed descriptions and the first scholarly studies of the phenomenon began to appear. The verbs “to shamanize” and the adjective “shamanic” already occur in the writings of Archpriest Avvakum, and the Empress Catherine II titled one of her dramatic works The Shaman. The word entered Russian from Siberia. In the Tungusic languages it denotes a master of communion with the spirits — saman (in several dialects s is pronounced like the Russian sh/shch). The word itself, however, is not of Tungusic origin.

In Chinese, sha men can mean both a Buddhist monk and a sorcerer. It reached China from India, most likely with Buddhism. In Sanskrit, shramana means “wanderer” or “vagrant”; this was the term applied to the wandering ascetic sannyasins of India. Among the peoples of Northern Eurasia, the concept of “shaman” is designated by various terms: among the Yakuts, a female shaman is called udaghan and a male shaman oyun; among the Buryats, udagan and bö; among the Altaians a shaman is called kam (whence the derivative kamlat’, “to shamanize”); among the Nenets, tadibey; among the Lapps, noaidi. The fact that the word “shaman” came from South Asia nevertheless suggests that the itinerant preachers of India did not always carry lofty philosophical ideas with them:

“They went into Tibet, into China, into Central Asia. They taught the local inhabitants their arts. It was most likely in this way that the Tungus sorcerers came to be called shamans, and the Kazakh ones baksy. Yet the movement of the word ‘shaman’ from India to Siberia in no way implies that the Siberian peoples were unacquainted with the phenomenon of shamanism itself in the pre-Buddhist era. There is every reason to suppose that shamanism is not a borrowed but a native, autochthonous phenomenon of spiritual culture” [Zubov, A.B. A History of Religions. Book One: Prehistoric and Extra-Historical Religions. A Course of Lectures. Moscow: Planeta Detei, 1997, pp. 273–274].

Shamanism as a distinct form of religion or cultic practice is now known well beyond Siberia. Comparative religious studies have allowed scholars to regard shamanism as a universal phenomenon characteristic of many of the world’s peoples, although this interpretation is not universally accepted. Shamans command the art of communion with the spirits not only in Siberia and Central Asia, but also in North and South America, in Oceania, and on the islands of the Malay Archipelago, as Mircea Eliade discusses [Eliade M. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy 1964]. E.V. Revunenkova likewise does not hesitate to classify as shamans the halaks, pohangs, and dukuns — sorcerers practicing among the tribes of the interior of Malaya and Sumatra.

2.2 Distinctive Features of Shamanism.

The question of whether shamanism may be defined as a religion has been raised repeatedly. Various alternatives have been proposed, such as a worldview or an ecstatic practice.

The distinctive features of shamanism include the following:

The absence of a dogmatic and, on the whole, systematic theology. Shamanism has no dogmas, myths, or universal religious paradigms binding upon all (even within a single ethnic group). To this should be added the absence of canonical, standardized rituals, the absence of a common terminology, and the absence of sacred scriptures.

What unites shamanism is a shared belief in the world of spirits and in the possibility of interacting with it, together with certain patterns of this interaction, ecstatic techniques of trance, and so on.

What unites shamanism is a shared conception of the non-human or superhuman personality of the shaman, who is ontologically bound to the world of spirits.

None of the aspects present in shamanism is specific or unique to it; each is also encountered, beyond shamanism, in other religious traditions.

2.3 The Problem of the Nature of Shamanism.

As early as the nineteenth century the view was advanced that shamanism was, in its nature, a psychiatric illness.

“The view of the shaman as a nervously or mentally ill person became almost universally accepted in scholarship, and the very emergence of shamanism came to be conceived as the result of psychic deviations,” E. Revunenkova noted in her survey of the literature on shamanism [Revunenkova, E.V. The Peoples of Malaysia and Western Indonesia (Some Aspects of Spiritual Culture). Moscow, 1980, p. 14]. This is precisely the way in which the phenomenon of shamanism is explained in Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. In a work devoted to shamanism in the East Indies, the Dutch scholar G. Wilken wrote: “The shaman is a sick, weak personality, suffering from a nervous disorder and often from madness… Shamanic ecstasy belongs to hysteroid epilepsy and to hypnosis, definitively — to somnambulism” [Zubov, A.B. A History of Religions. Book One: Prehistoric and Extra-Historical Religions. A Course of Lectures. Moscow: Planeta Detei, 1997, p. 276].

The same view was a commonplace in Soviet scholarship. “That the nervously ill in Siberia are shamans is known to all and stands in need of no special proof,” D.K. Zelenin wrote in 1936 [Zelenin, D.K. The Cult of the Ongons in Siberia // Survivals of Totemism in the Ideology of the Siberian Shamans. Moscow–Leningrad, 1936, p. 363]. And V.G. Bogoraz, who would later become a prominent figure in Soviet ethnography, had already written in 1910: “In studying shamanism we encounter at once whole categories of men and women suffering from nervous excitability, sometimes manifestly abnormal or completely insane… In any case, in studying shamanism it must not be forgotten that this is a form of religion created by the selection of the most nervously unstable people” [Bogoraz, V.G. Toward the Psychology of Shamanism among the Peoples of Northeastern Asia // Ethnographic Review. Moscow, 1910, nos. 1–2, pp. 3–5].

The Danish religious scholar Å. Ohlmarks went so far as to diagnose the illness, which in his opinion was the well-known “Arctic hysteria” of the peoples of the North. “But how, then, is one to explain shamanism among the peoples of middle and equatorial latitudes? In its forms and manifestations it is almost indistinguishable from the polar variety,” A.B. Zubov writes in reply to Ohlmarks [Zubov, A.B. A History of Religions. Book One: Prehistoric and Extra-Historical Religions. A Course of Lectures. Moscow: Planeta Detei, 1997, p. 276].

The investigations of the Russian ethnologist S.M. Shirokogoroff, who worked in the Far Eastern Republic in 1919–1920, clearly demonstrated that the shaman is not mentally ill but is in fact himself a psychotherapist. The same view was subsequently held by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Mircea Eliade.

During the period of shamanic initiation the initiate has the appearance of someone mentally ill, Eliade emphasizes, but once initiation is past, the shaman is more robust, healthier, and possessed of a better memory than the other members of his tribe. The signs of epilepsy and other mental illnesses that mark out a person’s vocation for shamanism subside after initiation. Among the Yakuts, the scholar notes, the shaman’s vocabulary numbers some 12,000 words, while that of the ordinary Yakut comes to only about 4,000; among the Buryats the shamans are the chief custodians of oral folk poetry. Communing daily with the spirits, receiving them into himself, ascending into and descending from their abodes, the shaman cannot but appear “strange,” “possessed,” “ecstatic.” And so he is. But his strangeness and possession are explained by his simultaneous belonging to two worlds — the human world and the world of the spirits [Eliade M. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy 1964].

2.4-2.5

2.4 Shamanic Cosmology

The shamanic picture of the world is fairly complex and varies considerably depending on the ethnic group to which it belongs, since it is in fact an ethnic picture of the world. It can be described in detail only for each particular ethnic group, in which case, however, it loses its universal character.

As with many other peoples, the universe of the shamans consists of three parts: the upper (celestial), the middle (terrestrial), and the lower (subterranean). The underlying conceptions of the world rest on binary oppositions that reproduce and demarcate the basic opposing categories of the external environment. The world is perceived as dual. The primary opposition — upper/lower — corresponds to the celestial and subterranean worlds, along with their analogues: masculine/feminine, dark/light, left/right, north/south, and so on. This opposition, however, has no ethical specificity. Good spirits, for instance, may dwell in the subterranean world, and the heavens contain not only good spirits but also the supreme evil spirit of the heavens (the highest heaven is an exception, since as a rule no evil spirits dwell there).

Between the upper and lower worlds lies the world of human beings, as a middle term or boundary. Everything that exists, including society itself, belongs or tends toward these oppositions and operates according to their laws, and may accordingly be identified with a definite part of the picture of the world. Thus man is bound up with the upper world, and woman, correspondingly, with the lower.

The threefold structure of the world, transferred to the horizontal plane, reflects the geographical picture. Thus for the Ob Ugrians, upper/lower means south and north, respectively — the upper reaches and the lower reaches of the Ob, which flows from south to north; economic life here depends heavily on cold (the north) and warmth (the south), and the seasonal migrations and weather conditions determine the economic cycle. North and south in this picture are not mere abstractions; they are real geographical places and concepts. “In the north, in the Gulf of Ob beside the cold ocean, dwells Kul- otyr (the master of the lower world); far to the south dwells Numi-Torum (the master of the upper world). For the Turko-Mongol peoples of southern Siberia — pastoralists and mountain-taiga hunters — the division east/west (sunrise/sunset) is more important. Their world is oriented along that axis, and these cardinal points are correlated with the upper and the lower, and there too are the abodes of the masters of the cardinal directions. The actual geography of these inhabitants of the mountains and steppes is bound up with very specific mountain massifs” [Shapovalov, A.V. Shamanism as a Religious System: A Textbook. Novosibirsk: NGPU, 2005, p. 20].

The further subdivision of these three worlds may vary. The upper and lower worlds, for example, may be further divided into three, seven, or nine worlds, each of which corresponds to its own gods and spirits.

As a rule, there exists a cosmological connection between the worlds, symbolically represented to the shaman in the kamlanie (shamanic séance) as the World Tree or World Mountain. This tree/mountain is not only a mythologem but also a ritualeme — a distinctive ritual symbol that recurs very frequently in shamanic kamlaniya. Along this tree the shaman moves between the cosmic zones:

“In the northern latitudes it is held that the immovable Pole Star is fastened to the summit of the world mountain. This summit lies in the highest heaven, and the sorcerer who wishes to obtain knowledge or to recover the lost soul of a fellow tribesman must be able to ascend the slope of the mountain. Sometimes the image of the mountain is joined with the image of a tree, or is replaced by it. Among the Khakas, a white birch with seven branches grows upon the summit of an iron mountain. Its branches reach the palace of the ‘emperor of heaven,’ Bai Ulgen, while its roots, descending into the underworld, are transformed there into a black fir growing before the palace of Erlik-khan, lord of the land of the dead. Both the birch and the fir have seven branches each, denoting the number of levels in each of these two zones” [Zubov, A.B. A History of Religions. Book One: Prehistoric and Extra-Historical Religions. A Course of Lectures. Moscow: Planeta Detei, 1997, p. 212].

2.5 Who Becomes a Shaman.

Many ethnographic records of shamans’ autobiographies begin with the words: “When I ceased to be a man…” These words aptly reflect the ontological status of the shaman as a being not fully human, sharing the outward appearance of a man but differing from him on the spiritual level. To begin with, the shaman has an additional soul that ordinary people lack. It is called the shamanic heart. The Ulchi call it puta, the Nanai nyokta. The designations vary, but the belief in this special heart is reproduced with remarkable regularity. The heart does not belong to the shaman and does not embody his personality; it binds the shaman to his clan and is ontologically a spirit, or several spirits.

Shamanism is for the most part transmitted within the clan, from “grandfathers and grandmothers” to grandchildren, though it sometimes passes from father or mother to children, this being significantly less common. The point is that by the moment a new shaman emerges, the previous holder must be either dead or near death, and his puta must pass to a new bearer. This does not mean that one cannot become a shaman “from scratch.” Such cases are attested in ethnographic reports — for example, after a lightning strike or some other accident — yet such shamans are traditionally considered weaker than those of clan descent. An analogous feature of the clan-based succession of sorcery is also found among European peoples, in particular among the Slavs, where the expression “hereditary witch” is well known.

“The shamanists themselves account for the clan-based succession quite convincingly in their own terms. When a shaman dies, his ordinary soul, panyan, sets out for the world beyond — buni. A year later the other soul, upsa, which until then has lived near the grave, does the same. But the shamanic clan heart, puta, remains on earth and seeks out a new master for itself among the relatives of the deceased. The puta is a spirit, the demonic guardian of the shaman. It is accustomed to being cared for, to being ‘fed.’ This shamanic spirit ‘loved the body, blood, and scent of the deceased shaman,’ and therefore prefers to continue living among the blood relatives of the departed” [Zubov, A.B. A History of Religions. Book One: Prehistoric and Extra-Historical Religions. A Course of Lectures. Moscow: Planeta Detei, 1997, p. 282].

“A shaman is usually born of a shaman. The father always designates for shamanship the most sickly, wildest son, to whom his devil, the immortal emiget, passes by inheritance; the other sons remain ‘men.’ As soon as the one designated for shamanship is able to eat meat, a mare is killed for him, and the child alone consumes all of its meat, while the hide is hung upon a tree as a sacrifice. It is said that in olden times even nine-year-olds shamanized. Sometimes a boy is designated for shamanship somewhat later; if it is noticed that he is often ill, they say that devils are tormenting him” [Khudyakov, I.A. A Brief Description of the Verkhoyansk District. Leningrad, 1969, pp. 306–311].

Accustomed to the Orthodox missionaries, who traditionally called the spirits devils and demons, the indigenous peoples adopted these terms, and many such overlaps may be encountered in ethnographic records. The respondents themselves, of course, did not invest the word “devil” with the meaning that the Orthodox missionaries gave it.

2.6-2.7

2.6 The Shamanic Illness.

The shamanic illness is a conventional designation given by ethnographers to the diseased condition of the future shaman in the period preceding initiation. The illness may be intense and dramatic, or it may be practically imperceptible and pass in the form of mild somnambulism. Bogoraz-Tan already observed that this is connected with the will of the initiate: if the person actively takes the initiative and wishes to become a shaman, the illness proceeds with mild symptoms. If, however, the person resists the will of the spirits and ancestors, the illness assumes dramatic forms. Body temperature rises, control over the body is lost, control over consciousness is lost. Such individuals may sleep for very long stretches and then remain awake for many days. They stare for hours at a single point, or, conversely, display abnormal muscular activity, often of enormous intensity and strength, when an adolescent throws off four grown men or tears apart a deer or hare with his bare hands and eats the raw meat. Such cases are known and recorded.

It usually all begins with dreams. The future shaman begins to see in his dreams spirits in human and animal form. The behavior of the sick person changes accordingly. Often, for instance, the spirit sings in the dream, and the person begins constantly to hum the melody. With this song he will later summon the spirit. Or the person may begin to imitate the animal in whose form the spirit appears: barking, crowing, growling, and so forth. The animal’s habits are also often copied in the movements of the body.

“If a child is designated for shamanship, he is sickly, small, and frail, and between the ages of fifteen and sixteen he falls ill with a grave malady, so that he cannot rise from his bed (others begin to learn shamanship still later). The youth lies there and feels nothing of what is happening on earth; his relatives see him only groaning, lying motionless and silent, but if they give him food he eats it. Meanwhile his soul is being instructed on the tree of shamanship” [Khudyakov, I.A. A Brief Description of the Verkhoyansk District. Leningrad, 1969, pp. 306–311].

We cite a long excerpt from the article of the Soviet physician Suslov, who observed the shamanic illness at first hand:

“In the loft of the cooperative shop several Tungus were sleeping. One of them, eighteen-year-old Nikolai, the brother of Tyyorcha, suddenly leapt up from his bed and began to sing loudly a shamanic melody with words unintelligible to anyone. The song rapidly gained in force, passing into a nervous shriek; Nikolai began to rage, trying to draw the knife from the wooden scabbard tied to his thigh. Four healthy young men seized him to prevent him from beating or stabbing himself, and with great difficulty brought him down from the loft by the narrow ladder. Once on the ground, Nikolai grew still more violent, but his shriek took on the form of a coherent shamanic melody with a wholly unintelligible text.

The Tungus say that Nikolai is ‘circling.’

At my insistence they tied a wet cloth around Nikolai’s head and placed a cold compress on his heart, after which I tried to administer a large dose of valerian, which the Tungus would not let me give in a porcelain cup — he will eat your cup, they said. But as soon as I brought the medicine in a tin ladle of fairly thick metal, he seized the ladle savagely with his teeth (his hands were bound behind his back) and quickly drank down the medicine, dropping the ladle from his teeth. The thick wall of the ladle turned out to have been bent. His teeth were stronger than metal.

For about two hours the poor youth endured his attack. The tenacious arms of those holding him could barely cope with the task. Nikolai dragged all four of these subduers back and forth across a small clearing on the bank of the river. His wild eyes, at the beginning of the attack, gradually grew dull and entirely lifeless. His lips, bitten until they bled, were covered with foam” [Suslov, I.M. Shamanism as a Brake on Socialist Construction // Antireligioznik. 1932. No. 17. pp. 19–23].

Similarly, V.L. Sieroszewski records the speech of a sixty-year-old shaman: “At twenty years of age I fell gravely ill and began to see with my eyes and hear with my ears what others did not see or hear: for nine years I endured it and told no one of what was happening to me, since I feared that people would not believe me and would laugh at me; at last I fell so seriously ill that inevitable death threatened me; but when I began to shamanize, I felt better; and now, if I do not shamanize for a long time, I begin to feel ill — I fall sick!…” [Sieroszewski, V.L. The Yakuts: An Essay in Ethnographic Research. Leningrad, 1896, pp. 624–632].

In the same vein, Sternberg records: “To become a shaman it is necessary either to find favor with some kehn or to receive such a kehn from one’s father or uncle. Becoming a shaman constitutes a turning point in the life of the chosen one, a turning point accompanied by very complex psychic phenomena.

Before becoming a shaman, one shaman of my acquaintance told me, he was ill for more than two months, during which he lay motionless and flat, in complete unconsciousness. He had no time to recover from one attack before he would fall into another. ‘I would have died,’ he told me, ‘had I not become a shaman!’ During those months of trial he had grown as dry as a stick. At night he began to dream that he was singing shamanic songs. Once a white owl appeared to him and stood right beside him, while a little farther off stood a man who said to him: ‘Make yourself a drum and everything befitting a shaman, and sing songs. If you are a common man, nothing will come of it; but if you are a shaman, then you will be a true shaman.’ He slept long — how long he does not know — but when he awoke, he saw that they were holding him over a fire by the feet and the head: those around him thought that the kehn had killed him. He then ordered them to give him a drum and began to sing songs. He felt himself half drunk, half dead. It was then that he first saw his kehn and kenchkh, and the former said to him: ‘When you see a sick person, heal him; do not trust the kenchkh: it has a human face but a bird’s body; trust only us.’ Once I myself was a witness to the first onset of such an attack. A Nivkh (Gilyak) boy named Koinyt, about twelve years old, the son of a shaman, who was staying with me, fell asleep after dinner and, accidentally awakened by my companion, began to thrash about violently and to shriek, reproducing all the frenzies and frantic shrieks of the shamans. When the attack ended, the face of the poor boy was dreadfully exhausted and looked like the face of an elderly man. In his sleep two kehn had appeared to him, one a man, the other a woman; these were the kehn of his deceased father. They had said to him: ‘We played with your father; now let us play with you.’ Another Nivkh boy, Indyn, who was also present, observed the manifestations of the attack with deep astonishment. ‘Well, now Koinyt will not be a man,’ he said; ‘the kehn wishes to compel him to keep its law’” [Sternberg, L. Ya. The Religion of the Gilyaks // EO. 1904. No. 2, pp. 50–53].

2.7 Shamanic Initiation.

During the shamanic illness discussed in the previous lesson, close relatives invite a shaman to attend the sick person in order to conduct an initiation. Often no shamanic instruction is given, and the future shaman must learn everything for himself; initiation, however, is nonetheless required. According to the conviction of the Siberian shamanists, a shaman who is called by the spirits but has not undergone initiation will remain “weak” and will be exposed to many dangers from harmful demons. The outward course of shamanic initiation has been described many times:

“Among the Buryats, a felled birch, with its crown protruding from the smoke hole, is set up in the yurt of the shaman being initiated. This will be the permanent sign that a shaman lives in the yurt. Explaining this custom, M. Eliade observes that the birch in the dwelling, protruding through the smoke hole, is a symbol of the world tree, which breaks through the boundaries of our world and reaches the Upper Heaven. The shamanic birch is called by the Buryats udesi burkhan — ‘guardian of the gates [of heaven].’ The newly initiated shaman climbs to the top of this birch along nine steps cut into its trunk (the symbol of the nine heavens) and squeezes through the smoke hole — that is, reaches heaven, as it were. Throughout this rite an old shaman is present beside the initiate’s yurt. Then both shamans and all those taking part in the initiation leave the village for the taiga or the hills in search of a suitable living birch (according to Siberian conceptions the birch is a celestial tree, in contrast to the fir, which is the tree of the subterranean kingdom). When such a birch is found (the young shaman often sees ‘his’ tree in dreams and therefore leads the people to it with considerable confidence), the old shaman climbs it first and cuts off nine branches; then the newly initiated does the same. At the roots of the birch a goat is offered in sacrifice, with whose blood the eyes, ears, and crown of the head of the neophyte are anointed. Both shamans then fall into a trance and begin to shamanize. Before the initiation, Eliade reports, the candidate observes for some time a dietary fast and sexual abstinence, which symbolize his detachment from earthly life and his readiness to pass over into the world of the spirits” [Zubov, A.B. A History of Religions. Book One: Prehistoric and Extra- Historical Religions. A Course of Lectures. Moscow: Planeta Detei, 1997, p. 285].

The spiritual meaning of shamanic initiation is everywhere the same and consists in the ontological union of the shaman with his spirit. This may be expressed in the erotic symbolism of the initiation rite (for example, the rite of initiation as a marriage with the drum-dwelling of the spirit [Sexual Election // Sternberg, L. Ya. The Gilyaks, Orochi, Goldi, Negidals, Ainu: Articles and Materials. Khabarovsk, 1933, pp. 461–65]), but more often it is expressed in the bloody image of the devouring of the future shaman’s body by the spirits. Here is an example of a shamanic narrative recorded by Khudyakov:

“The tree of shamanship is a great dry fir, growing before the yurt of the master Khara Sylgylakh Begi Dyuortu, and on this fir, among the branches, nests are arranged: in the upper nests are the best shamans, and the lower one descends, the worse they become. Others add that this tree is called the ‘venerable curly tree,’ and that the shaman whose nest stands on a bough turned to the east will be a fortunate shaman, granting healing to sick people; the one whose nest is on the western side will be a malicious shaman, working misfortune for people; the one with a nest on the northern side will both spoil and heal; finally, the one with a nest on the southern side will be a shaman of many transformations. In these nests the souls of the future shamans, having turned into birds, were (and are) reared; from the west came (comes) a blood-savras mare, in whom there was blood instead of milk, and she suckled those birds destined to become devourer-shamans, evil demons; from the east came a white mare and nourished with thick white milk those birds destined to become good shamans who help people. When they grow up and become men, the master Khara Sylgylakh Begi Dyuortu takes them down, chops the body into small pieces, scatters them through the air, and the winds carry these pieces far in different directions; and if any piece of this flesh has not reached some master somewhere, that master will not come at the call of this new shaman” [Khudyakov, I.A. A Brief Description of the Verkhoyansk District. Leningrad, 1969, pp. 306–311].

In other words, those spirits which have not partaken of the shaman’s body, have not become one with him, have not joined themselves to him, will accordingly not come at his call. Such accounts are encountered frequently.

Let us give one further example of initiation as it is performed by the Nanai of the Lower Amur:

“The initiate usually suffered grievously from attacks of the shamanic illness. Often he could not even stand without assistance. An experienced shaman, invited to attend the sick person, would at once recognize that this was no ordinary illness but a calling to the shamanic path. He would order a wooden figure of the spirit — ayami — to be made for the patient. It was set on a platform in the patient’s home, and all those present danced, taking turns to put on the shamanic belt and take the drum in hand. They called upon the spirit tormenting the patient to enter the figure. At last the old shaman began to shamanize and settled the ayami in and fed it. The sick person experienced what was taking place deeply. At times he leapt up, whirled about the room, sang in a shamanic manner, often fell unconscious for a moment, and then in exhaustion fell asleep.

The next morning the rite entered its main phase. The old shaman, in full vestments, stood before the initiate. From the belt of the old shaman a thin thong, soona, ran to the idol ayami, and from the figure a second thong ran to the belt of the neophyte. Usually, as Anna Smolyak notes, the initiate is in a slack state at this point. Nevertheless, a drum and a beater are placed in his hands, and the two shamans, thus bound together through the ayami, first walk around the dwelling of the neophyte and then around all the houses of the village. In each house they are offered boiled water with little leaves of marsh tea (the plant of the spirits, according to shamanic conceptions), thereby signaling their participation in the rite of initiation. At the outset the newly initiated cannot walk by himself and is led by the arms. The old shaman continually sings shamanic hymns and ‘shamanizes,’ and ever more often the neophyte repeats his actions. At last the soona is untied from the belt of the old shaman; the man supporting the figure ayami quickens his pace more and more, then breaks into a run, and the neophyte, bound by the thong to the figure, is compelled to run after it. His legs grow strong, his body is filled with strength, he feels entirely well, and, as a rule, actually recovers. If, however, the illness recurs, the rite is repeated with a new figure ayami. In that case it is not one but two spirits that wish to be with the initiated shaman, and all of them must be settled in idols and ‘tamed’” [Zubov, A.B. A History of Religions. Book One: Prehistoric and Extra-Historical Religions. A Course of Lectures. Moscow: Planeta Detei, 1997, p. 287].

2.8

2.8 The Aims and Examples of Recorded Shamanic Kamlanie (Ritual).

Shamanic kamlanie (ritual, seance), and the activity of the shaman as a whole, may be divided into the following kinds:

Healing the sick

Conducting the soul into the world beyond

Private predictions (concerning the fate of a particular person), recommendations on proper conduct

Public predictions (concerning, for example, the time of sowing or the direction of hunts)

Conveying petitions from people to the spirits and gods

Increasing shamanic knowledge and acquiring new helper spirits

Combat with another shaman

Interpreting dreams and various phenomena.

Here is an example of a recorded healing kamlanie:

“The patient was a little girl into whom, it was alleged, the devil Khara Sylgylakh uola (‘the son with the black mare’) had entered. Striking the drum three times, the shaman began to sing: ‘Ye who have peered in through the chimney, who have appeared darkly through the window, my devil-comrades, my strong invisible neighbors, my friends, ye who led me forth when I was at the threshold, before the fire (that is, into the company of men), I call upon you out of pity for the black soul, for the ransom of the thick soul; ye who wished to be holy, blessed, ye who wished to be gods. Go, go. Draw near!’ He yawns like a dog: ‘Ang!’

He walks before the fire. ‘Spirit of the sacred fire, Aan Dyasyn-toyon. Sitting before thee, I conjure. Shaman of the lower place, Adam Buray-lord. Aan Arballyn-shaman, having come up above through the middle of the fire by thy successful chanting, do not join thy chant to mine. Do not take by spell the people, the cattle, them that have breath. Coming with thy broad thought, look — take not from me thy share!’ He yawns: ‘Ang.’ Sitting, he shakes his head so violently that his cap flies off; the cap falls and is caught up. ‘My sun-people, lions-ravens, come and, sending down the brilliance of the sun, give it unto me!’ Two men run up and strike sparks from flints with steels upon his head and shoulders.

The shaman then leaps up, walks about, approaches the chief window, springs in place three times, and three times says: ‘O Egyur Keelyaeni, given by the highest, the best parents, the best one, come!’ Three times he extends his arms and embraces the air, cries out in an unnatural voice; Egyur Keelyaeni (the devil) flies into his mouth.

The shaman now speaks in the person of Keelyaeni. He walks about, stops before the fire, and questions the master of the house.

Keelyaeni: ‘For what calamity have ye made this shaman cry out to the upper place and to the lower?’ The master of the house respectfully rises from his bed and bows, while Keelyaeni props one hand against his side. The master: ‘Behold, my daughter, born of my womb, was dying, dear to me as the apple of my eye. Therefore I begged him, asking whence and from what beginning she is dying, in the hope that some remedy might be found.’

Keelyaeni says that now this person, now that one — various people — die; now this person, now that one is in want; ‘this shaman keeps calling upon me, cries out.’ He sings as he walks: ‘The girls of the nine clans of the upper place — all are my mistresses; the girls of the middle place — all are my mistresses; the girls of the lower place — all are my mistresses. And how should they not fall in love with me?’ With his middle fingers he stretches his mouth and pulls a grimace. ‘In face too I am a glorious man, an excellent man. Look how tall I am — am I not a glorious man?’ He strikes himself on the Adam’s apple. ‘My shoulders are broad — am I not a glorious man?’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘My side is long — am I not a glorious man?’ He draws in his belly, tries to appear slender, and stretches himself out. ‘My shins are long (he stretches out his legs) — am I not a glorious man?’

The master: ‘Indeed thou art a glorious man! If thou dost not know, who will know? If thou dost not act, who will act? Stand up for us, have pity on us!’

The shaman again begins to walk back and forth, shamanizing, and approaches the sick girl.

Keelyaeni: ‘I bow with my nape, I bend with my shoulder bones, my joints, I kneel down; O son of the master with the black mares, enter, I pray, into my laughing silver seine!’

Falling upon the sick girl, he embraces her from the very middle and cries out three times; thereupon three strong men run up to him and seize him by the bridle, whereupon he leaps up, gasping and emitting muffled, unpleasant guttural sounds. He then runs, kicks, and screams like a bear, while three men are dragged after him, holding on to the reins of the bridle.

The master rises and says: ‘Having entered among men, do thou, man, behave humanly, talk like one that has a mouth, and having come to the Yakuts, speak in Yakut!’

The shaman suddenly sits down upon the floor, strikes himself on the belly, and sings as the son of the master with the black mares: ‘My madness has come upon a man who is going mad. I have been seized with a desire to sing devilish songs. I, a man grown up in the ringing sky, have been seized with the desire to chant broad chants; this wife of mine — if I were to make the heart-veins of my wife fly forth to the upper place, whence would ye find and take me? If, having chanted with a successful magical devilish chant, I were to sink her into the lower place, whence would ye find her?’

The master begins to weep and wail, imagining that the devil wishes to ‘eat’ and carry off his daughter: ‘What is the matter with thee? Have mercy, walk in the broad pasture; canst thou not walk on the other side of the bicomponent (?) forest, after the broad-eyed, after the high-legged ones (that is, torment and “eat” others, but not our patient)? From beds of ashes, with a pillow of coals, with a coverlet of dust, we two orphans came together, having found each other: both of us people doubled over by misfortune. We have but one child bent under torment. Save her!’

The devil: ‘The place where I lay, the place where I spent the night, have been impregnated with my underarm scent; if thou desirest my departure, then tie to my mast a seven-grass-broken stallion, black-piebald to its bowing neck, with four legs like birchen stakes, with a white patch on the tail; have him ready by the third night!’

The master: ‘We shall search, we shall beg from those who have nothing, we shall extract from those who have!’

The shaman quietly rises, swaying; with various cries he walks about, turns to the west, and, bending low, mumbles indistinctly. After three days they hang a hide for him” [Khudyakov, I.A. A Brief Description of the Verkhoyansk District. Leningrad, 1969, pp. 313–329].

The next example of a kamlanie represents the final day of a multi-day funeral commemoration among the Goldi, during which the soul of the deceased is prepared for its final journey into the world beyond (buni). For several days the soul, residing in the ritual figurine “fanya,” is fed, given vodka to drink, and offered tobacco. The participants commune with it as with a living person, gradually preparing it for the journey. The living people present at the commemoration do the same. For these obsequies a special ritual hut, “itua,” is built beside the house of the deceased, in which part of the commemoration takes place; in addition, a second ritual doll, “mugde,” is made, into which the soul of the deceased is transferred at certain stages of the rite:

“In the morning the shaman dresses with special solemnity and sings particularly long songs, in which he forewarns the seon (spirits), and in particular the seon Buchu, that there will be heavy work today; he asks for their help. After this, with singing and dancing, he goes to the itua to wake the fanya and give her tea to drink. He does not then change his attire, as on the preceding days, but remains in the itua and prepares the fanya for the long and arduous journey to the buni. He sings for a long time to the accompaniment of the drum, dances, and converses with the fanya. He advises her to eat more, but asks her to refrain from vodka, since it is dangerous to set out drunk on a difficult road. At midday the usual feeding of the fanya and the feast of all the guests take place. The guests on this occasion likewise do not depart from custom: they overeat and drink themselves with vodka to the point of losing the ability to stand. The shaman, however, abstains both from food and from vodka. So matters drag on until evening. In the evening the time comes for the most important rites of the commemoration. After sunset the shaman begins his kamlanie. First he sings songs and dances, as in every kamlanie; then he paints his face with charcoal and, beating the drum loudly, summons all his seon. He asks them to enter into him. He opens his mouth wide and makes as if to swallow them, moving his face vigorously, shaking his head, and leaping in place. He calls out the names of the seon that have entered into him and makes the bodily movements and emits the sounds of those animals and birds in whose forms the seon appear. After this the shaman takes two sticks from his assistants and, leaning on them, in the gait of an animal or a bird (now in the leaps of a tiger, now in the rolling gait of a bear, now in the bounds of a hare, in the leaps of various birds, and so on) goes to the itua, growling, snorting, and generally emitting the sounds of all the above-named animals. The strongest and most agile Gold, chosen by the entire company and armed with a bow, dashes to meet the shaman and pushes him away from the hut. The shaman must run three times around the itua, and the Gold armed with the bow must push him away and not let him burst into the hut. Often the shaman becomes so absorbed in the struggle that he falls into ecstasy, and his partner must exert all his strength to manage him. Fists and sticks often come into play.

After this the shaman takes the drum and with a song turns to his seon, asking them to show him the road to buni. Once the song is finished, he passes the drum to an assistant and goes to a ladder prepared especially for the kaza. He climbs to its very topmost rung and makes as if to look attentively at his surroundings. In this way the shaman seeks out the road to buni. Those present at this rite always take the opportunity to put to him questions that interest them, since they believe that in his ecstasy the shaman possesses clairvoyance. Among these questions are: Will there be deep snow this winter?

Will the Amur freeze soon?

Will the run of fish be strong (if the kaza takes place in the spring)?

Will there be many sable this year? and so on.

The shaman, having received the question, looks for a long time about himself from beneath his hand and gives an answer to each question, which is heard attentively and taken into account.

Having ended the rite of looking out the road to buni, the shaman descends from the ladder and proceeds to the chief rite of the kaza — that is, the journey to buni with the deceased. Before this rite the shaman sits upon a mat before the fanya, lowers his head, and, as though doubting his strength, is sunk in thought. The relatives of the deceased come up to him, bow at his feet, and beg him to set out for buni in order to conduct the deceased thither. The shaman raises his head, asks for the drum, and in a quiet, mournful voice sings a song in which he begs his patron seon not to forsake him in the difficult task, calls upon the seon Buchu, who alone is able to conduct him to buni, and likewise begs him to send the bird Koori, on whose back the shaman will fly there and back. Then he dances for a long time and, having entered a highly excited state, sits down on the forward end of a board. His assistants have already laid in advance, on the rear end of this board, the fanya, the mugde, and a basket with food, tobacco, and vodka. The shaman faces west. This board lies on the ground and is meant to represent a sled. The shaman calls out to his helper seon to harness up the dogs more quickly, instructs them on how to harness them, and, when everything is ready, commands his nyaka (slave) to sit down behind him. There are, of course, no dogs in reality, but the shaman acts out the ride on dogs in every detail. He shouts at his dogs: ‘Takh! Takh!’ — turns them to the right and to the left, halts them. To the nyaka he constantly gives all sorts of errands, sternly reproves him for sluggishness and incompetence, scolds him, and sometimes, in the heat of the moment, punishes him with blows of his staff; with the fanya he keeps up a conversation throughout, turning to her and constantly asking: ‘Art thou seated?’ At the same time the shaman, in the form of exclamations of thoughts aloud and of remarks and counsels to the fanya and the nyaka, describes the road. He is horrified at the sight of a dangerous place, sighs with relief once the danger has passed, beseeches the seon Buchu and the bird Koori to make haste and to be cautious, and so on. The shaman is greatly agitated at this time. His voice trembles, his limbs twitch nervously, his face contorts in the most varied grimaces.

Along the way, at the most dangerous places — a steep descent, the crossing of rivers, and so on — the shaman sees souls that perished under an inexperienced shaman. He recounts to those present whom he has found and calls out names; if any relative is present of a deceased named soul who was not delivered to buni, they ask the shaman to take the soul along and bring it to buni.

At last, after grievous adventures, the shaman approaches buni. Traces of people meet him, the barking of dogs is heard, and the smell of smoke is carried to him. The outermost fanzas (dwellings) appear. At last the shaman drives into the center of the dwelling of the souls beyond. The souls crowd around him from all sides, asking whence he has come, whom he has brought, and so on. The shaman deceives the dead, calling himself by a made-up name, and does not tell them everything about the living. He conveys greetings from living relatives, recounts the news of what has happened in the encampment and among the neighbors, and, having taken leave of the deceased he has brought and of the other inhabitants of the world beyond, sets out on the return journey” [Lopatin, I.A. The Goldi of the Amur, Ussuri, and Sungari // ZOIAK VOPORGO. Vladivostok, 1922. Vol. XVII, pp. 283, 294–318].

Bibliography :

Eliade M. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy 1964

Hutton, Ronald. Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination. 2001

Price, Neil S., ed. The Archaeology of Shamanism. Routledge. 2001

Kehoe, Alice. Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. London: Waveland Press 2000

Znamenski, Andrei. Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Siberian Spirituality. Dordrech and Boston: Kluwer/Springer 2003

Znamenski, Andrei. The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press 2007

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