SHAMANISM

a religious phenomenon centred on the shaman, an ecstatic figure believed to have power to heal the sick and to communicate with the world beyond. The term applies primarily to the religious systems and phenomena of the northern Asian, Ural-Altaic (e.g., Mansi, Khanty, Samoyed, Tungus), and Paleo-Asian (e.g., Yukaghir, Chukchi, Koryak) peoples. The term shamanism comes from the Manchu-Tungus word aman. The noun is formed from the verb a- (to know); thus, shaman literally means he who knows. Various other terms are used by other peoples among whom shamanism exists. There is no single definition of shamanism that applies to the elements of shamanistic activity found in North and South America, in southeastern India, in Australia, and in small areas all over the world as well as to the phenomena among the northern Asian, Ural-Altaic, and Paleo-Asian peoples. It is generally agreed that shamanism evolved before the development of class society in the Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age, that it was practiced among peoples living in the hunting-and-gathering stage, and that it continued to exist, somewhat altered, among peoples who had reached the animal-raising and horticultural stage. According to some scholars, it originated and evolved among the more developed societies that bred cattle for production. Opinions differ as to whether the term shamanism may be applied to all religious systems in which the central personage is believed to have direct intercourse through an ecstatic state with the transcendent world that permits him to act as healer, diviner, and psychopomp (escort of souls of the dead to the other world). Since ecstasy is a psychosomatic phenomenon that may be brought about at any time by persons with the ability to do so, the essence of shamanism lies not in the general phenomenon but in specific notions, actions, and objects connected with the ecstatic state. Additional reading I.M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, 2nd ed. (1989), provides an excellent introduction. A thorough description of the shamanism of the peoples of Siberia is given in M.A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia (1914, reissued 1969); and Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy, rev. and enlarged ed. (1964, reissued 1989; originally published in French, 1951), with an extensive bibliography. Eliade's work not only deals with phenomena in Central and North Asia but also in North and South America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania; especially useful are the chapters on Shamanic Ideologies and Techniques Among the Indo-Europeans and Shamanic Symbolisms and Techniques in Tibet, China, and the Far East. Uno Holmberg, Finno-Ugric, Siberian, vol. 4 in Louis Herbert Gray and George Foot Moore, The Mythology of All Races (1927, reissued 1964), describes shamanism among these peoples. A very thorough summary of the worldview and specific traits of shamanism in North Asia, based on a good knowledge of literature on the subject in Russian, may be found in Georg Nioradze, Der Schamanismus bei den sibirischen Vlkern (1925); and the traits considered most significant are discussed by ke Ohlmarks, Studien zum Problem des Schamanismus (1939). V. Diszegi (ed.), Popular Beliefs and Folklore Tradition in Siberia (1968; originally published in German, 1963), contains studies on the shamanistic conceptions of the Sami, Hungarian, and Siberian peoples. Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Shamanism: Soviet Studies of Traditional Religion in Siberia and Central Asia (1990), summarizes contemporary Soviet research. Several studies explore Latin American shamanism. Jon Christopher Crocker, Vital Souls: Bororo Cosmology, Natural Symbolism, and Shamanism (1985), demonstrates the intimate relationship between social structure generallyand the structure of the village community in particularand cosmological symbolism and analyzes the role of the shaman in conserving both the social and the cosmic order; this important study also challenges psychological approaches to the study of shamanism, which focus on the shaman's apparent psychological abnormality, and analyzes the larger social forces that are gradually destroying Bororo shamanism, and with it Bororo culture in general. Johannes Wilbert, Tobacco and Shamanism in South America (1987), examines both the pharmacological and the social aspects of nicotine use by the Warao shamans of Venezuela. A fascinating scholarly and artistic exploration of hallucinogenic medicine is found in Luis Eduardo Luna and Pablo Amaringo, Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (1991), produced through a unique partnership between a professional anthropologist and a practicing Peruvian shaman. Women's roles in Korean shamanism are explored in Laurel Kendall, Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean Ritual Life (1985), while The Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman (1988) chronicles the shamanic career of one South Korean woman through extensive use of her own words and stories and thereby examines the recent social history of South Korea through an interesting lens. David Lan, Guns & Rain: Guerrillas & Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (1985), examines the complex interaction between the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army and the traditional shamanic religious leaders of the Dande and Korekore subgroups of Shona during the 1970s; it is a good example of the study of shamanism in tension with modernity. Vilmos Diszegi Mircea Eliade The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica