Shamanism

Nature of the shamanism?

Etymology

The word Chamane or Chaman is known as of the 17th century. It enters officially the French language in 1842.
Sam is a altaïque root meaning to be agitated by stirring up the rear limbs. Saman comes from the toungouse which means to dance, to leap, stir up, be agitated.
Ojun indicates the chamane at Yakoutes; it means to jump, leap, jouer.
The Turkish equivalent is kam from where Russian drift kamljat , chamaniser, and kamlanie , chamanic meeting.
At the Buriat , boo murgel means encornement (or confrontation) of chamane.
The general idea is that of imitation of the animal species, in particular those which are appraisals with hunting: the gallinacés deer tribe and .

According to Bertrand Hell, others preferring the term of fright to him, the only one to imply an element musical.
Ake Hultkrantz presents the shamanism like a religio-magic cultural complex and concludes: since the supernatural world is the world of the religion, the shamanism thus plays a religious part and it is not interdict to suppose that all the extatic experiments at the origin of religious revivals go up with the Shamans of old times .
Wilhelm Schmidt regards the shamanism as magic, even like a religious degeneration. For Bertrand Hell, the shamanism, following the example possession, is placed under the sign of the practical and pragmatic effectiveness, joining by there Marcel Mauss for which the magic is the handling of the forces immanentes, whereas the religion sticks more to metaphysics, the transcendence and with beyond a meilleur.
Others regard the shamanism as Sorcellerie (Roland Dixon), even like an imposture maintained by the chaman.
Conversely certain authors present the religion of the people of the north of Siberia like chamanic!
The observation, by the colonial doctors and administrators, of the therapeutic aspect and the behavior of the Shaman put a doubt about this religious character, joining the failure of the sociological theories to define it as such, in particular because of absence of doctrines, clergy and liturgie.
Contemporary anthropology rather brings back the shamanism to a mode of organization of the experiments of the individuals chamanes. For Roberte Hamayon, the shamanism enracine in the life of hunting, and, for this reason, is conditioned " by the empirical data which is the unforeseeable character of the appearance of the gibier" , " the chamanic thought is interpreted like the creation of average symbolic systems to act on this aléa" … " the changes in the place and the nature of the risks order the evolution of the chamanisme". In the center of ritual chamanic Buriat, there are the play, ritual play from which the resulting one points out the risks of the life of hunting, and " who challenges the transcendence and imposes the altérité". It is remarkable that the Buriat ones were defined themselves as people in chamanes , in opposition to the people with Gods to be different from the Russians at the time of colonization.

Lastly, the question of the assimilation or not of the shamanism to the religion made it possible (Re) to raise questions as for the nature of the religious phenomenon, leading by there to a reconceptualisation of this one.

Shamanism and prehistory

The first serious attempt to explain the parietal Art European by a paleolithic shamanism was proposed by Horst Kirchner in 1952. Already criticized as of this time, this assumption however was regarded as acquired by Andreas Lommel which, since 1960, wrote: " “One could prove, thanks to the art of Shamans who live at our time, that many franco-cantrabric cave paintings, even old, are `chamanists', i.e. they are the work of Shamans and take as a starting point their way of thinking. To include/understand the cave paintings, it is thus essential to explain well what is a chaman". In addition to this erroneous assertion (because it is false to write on this subject: " prouver" could;), Lommel made another error - which will be largely taken again thereafter - that which consists with systematically associating shamanism, Transe and extase: " The chaman" , he, " wrote indeed; fact office of priest and doctor, but with the difference of the healer, it always acts in a state of fright. When he entreats the spirits or tries a cure, he is never completely conscious but, generally, operates in a kind of extase. This explains the presence of phenomenon psychique" . Starting from these two errors the theory was built according to which in the world, since prehistory, the same elements would be found everywhere chamanic. Thus the concept of a universal art was also built of which the motivation (chamanic) single would be independent of the cultures, of an art anhistoric escaping by nature from the analyzes from the ethnologists and historians.

Several authors, of which most eminent are André Leroi-Gourhan among the prehistorians specialists in parietal art and Roberte Hamayon among the ethnologists specialists in the shamanism, vigorously protested against this way of seeing. However, for a few years, some badly informed prehistorians, asserting obsolete or false neuropsychological considerations, have considered that certain parietal paintings of Europe (like the hybrid characters partly human and partly animals) would represent scenes and symbols of the chamanic type and would be related to these ritual.

Moreover, Michel Lorblanchet showed that in current chamanic companies where paintings within a ritual framework are carried out, it is impossible, without resorting to the opinion of the chamane itself, to guess which are paintings which are chamanic, and which are those which are not it.

Although the shamanism is always alive, including that which is declared like such in the modern Western companies, it thus remains dubious to bring its nature and its functions to with the shamanism closer to the currently disappeared traditional companies. That does not mean that there would never have been prehistoric shamanism. Simply, in spite of its media success, this idea is still not provable by the only means of current prehistoric science, and it thus remains one of the many assumptions of interpretation of parietal art which were not validated.

the worship of the celestial deer tribe

It is Spitsyne which revealed with the public the discovery of chamanic plates run in bronze, named the plates of Perm , on the edges of the Kama and the Ob, in the the Ural. They date from the Middle Ages.

Covered with semi-human figurations semi-deer tribe, heads of dashes, dragons, animals with fur and birds , of which some with human mask on the chest. The biped creatures with animal figures were called by Spitsyne souldé .

On some of them, it acts of figuration of two woman-swallow hawks, upright on an enormous dragon and formant, using their heads of swallow hawks, the vault of heaven under which one can see either of small human silhouettes, or a capped male silhouette of a mask of swallow hawk.

For some of these plates, a parallel was made, by A.V. Schmidt, with the oral literature Lapp fixed in 1926-1927 and reporting the legend of the man-reindeer. For Boris Rybakov the worship of the celestial deer tribe, that one also finds on some of these plates, is very widespread among Siberian people: at the Evenki of Toungouzka it there with the celestial swallow hawk Bougady Enintyne , at Kéty it there with the goddess Tomane , at Selkoupy there is Yliuonda Kotta . The worship of the two celestial mistresses of the world, semi-women semi-deer tribe is also widespread (Nganassanes, Evenki, Dolganes, Nivkhi of the islands Sakhaline).

woman-reindeers:

While entering, the chamane saw two nude women, similar to reindeers: they were covered with hairs, carried wood on the head. The chamane approached fire, but what it had taken for fire, they was the rays of the sun. One of the women was pregnant. It put at the world two fawns… The second woman also put at the world two fawns… These fawns must become the ancestors of the wild reindeers and domestiques.
City by Boris Rybakov quoting Anissimov.

The chamanic hairstyle decorated with a muzzle of swallow hawk is also attested by archaeological data. One finds it on a sculpture of bone coming from the Mesolithic necropolis of the island to the Reindeer of the Onéga (Vè thousand-year-old before our era) and capping an officiant rising towards the celestial world, surrounded by two women, the head turned towards the chamane. Spitsyne identifies it with the helmet of souldé of the plates of Perm. One also finds it in the island with the Reindeer of the Mer of Barents, in the peat bog of Chiguir in the Ural, close to Palanga on the edges of the Baltique.

For Boris Rybakov, the worship of the celestial deer tribe, closely associated with the shamanism, is thus attested with the Mesolithic era five thousand years ago, during the period of bronze the folklore of the century, and in the Siberian cosmogonic myths collected with. Its wide geographical is that of the ethnic unit tongouze, Samoyède and ougrien, but extends well beyond according to its conclusions (Europe and Asia). On the other hand, according to this author, no base makes it possible to suppose that there existed at the hunters of the diluvial period. Although the figurations of deer tribe are frequent in art Paléolithique, they are not distinguished from the mass of the other animals. Concerning perhaps the only exception, the Horned God can-being finally, according to Rybakov, only one simple hunter having put on him a skin of reindeer to approach a herd, within the framework of a disguise. The interpretation of the anthropologist Margaret Murray, whereby horned God would be called upon in a ritual chamanic, seems discussed.

Principles of the shamanism

The chamane
The Chaman E is a complex being in which one wanted to see an healer, a wizard, a priest, a magician, a soothsayer, a medium or one had.

There exists in fact a versatility in its attributions. Those are carried out within a ritual framework precise good, within its community. They vary from one area to another, but more especially time to another. Most important are:

- to make wrong to an enemy
- treatment of the nervous and mental diseases
- therapeutic functions
- to name a child
- to make fall the rain
- to make come the game
- to find an object lost

to communicate with the spirits, the chamane is put in fright during the ritual ones. Those are characterized by a body expression and a particular psychic state, whose tremors are the most evocative element (a spirit is present in the body of the Shaman). Fright is always associated with a musical element and in its etymology it there with the concept of passage and change. Lastly, fright is carried out with the service of the belief. One considers sometimes that the Shaman also contacts with beyond by the means of dreams or of visions (Search of vision)

the ritual of the chamane is not solidified, it exists a personalization of his practice. Each chamane does others differently, there is no liturgy and it has a personal talent to exert a hereditary function.

the expression of the chamane when it is in contact with the spirits gives an appearance of madness. In fact it is misleading. The chamane is normal apart from the meetings. Its behavior during the ritual affects neither its authority nor its direction of the responsibilities. Are entrusted to the chamane capital functions for the life of its community.

Shamanism of hunting
The purpose of the shamanism of hunting is to meet an essential need: to find game. Certain people of Siberia or North America living hunting preserved its primitive functions. It is believed that the animals are animated by spirits. The Shaman joined them in the nonsensitive world of “surnature”. With this intention, it must itself be transformed into animal and marry the girl of the donor spirit of game (the spirit of the forest), which will be used to him as guide. This spirit often has the form of a stag. The gesticulations of the Shaman, that Europeans sometimes took for madness, are anything else only the demonstration of its animal nature. From his wife, using seduction and from trick, it obtains promises of game, animals which will come to give to the hunters their vital principle. But hunting is an exchange: the spirits of the hunters themselves are devoured, which causes them diseases and conduit with an inescapable death. The role of the Shaman is not, normally, to cure it. It must only make so that the exchange occurs, but in order to delay the expiry of the counterpart as much as possible, i.e. the second phase of the exchange, by the means of a handling.

Shamanism of breeding
The shamanism is marked by changes and changes when hunting yields the step to the agricultural activities and of breeding. The survival of the community does not depend then any more of the spirits on the animals, but on spirits in human matter, in particular on those of the ancestors. The world of the spirits, confined before with the forest, is stretched to the top and bottom, towards what will become the Sky and the Hells. This nonphenomenal world is often perceived as being a scale with bars or sometimes a tree, with its branches and its roots. The Shaman is that which with the capacity to go up and go down along these various levels from reality, towards the Sky or the Hells, to meet entities of the higher and lower worlds (of the spirits, for example) and to bring back of its voyage councils, care and capacities " magiques" , expansion of conscience etc
Thus, to carry out a care, the chamane enters initially a state of consciousness modified by the means of caused fright and extases, for example, by techniques of visualization, of breathing, the music, the dance or the use of psychoactive plants. This state is supposed to give access to him the nonphenomenal world. It is often helped by one or more allied spirits (animal, plants, objects or even ancestors) and must then face the disease of its patient, who can be visualized in the form of a monster or a bad spirit. It uses a whole of techniques chosen according to its situation and its culture, and which can go from the aspiration of the bad spirit to the gift of energy… At the end of the process, the patient is often supposed to have recovered a piece of his heart which would have been stolen to him, or to have made leave out of his body a bad spirit.

Major topics of the shamanism
August 1st
The " disease initiatique"

It reveals the election of the future chamane. The symptoms conventional, are awaited, more or less caused, even simulated. She is interpreted as an absence of the heart which left in surnature, towards her voter. Fainding is the symptom characteristic of the disease. In the case of the shamanism of breeding, the spirits were humanized, and the voter is the spirit of an ancestor. Fainding is the particular moment where the ancestors take along the heart of future the chamane to be informed there.
Elle gives the appearance of the madness and expresses the presence of a danger of death. It indicates a future career.
L' election of the future chamane is lived, in general, like a plague, as well by the candidate as by the family of this one. The danger of death is related to the refusal to take up the duty of chamane. It is the voter who undertakes some.

Cutting-up and the devoration of the body

Parcelling out of the body, or cutting-up, or devoration is a ritual death which is followed of a resurrection. It marks the passage of the layman with crowned, initiation by the spirits, and lies within the scope of the " disease initiatique".

These physical sufferings correspond to the situation of that which is " mangé" by the demon-deer, is cut up in the mouth of the initiatory monster, is digested in its belly
The drum, just as the costume, is an obligatory accessory in all the Shamans. Other instruments can also be used as drum: equine canes, a bell, a Old crock, a frying pan, a cord. The sexual identity of the drum is at the same time male (for the skin) and female (for the framework). The animation of the drum is crucial for the entry according to the Shaman.
Its functions are multiple:

function of musical instrument. Its sonority must resemble (Mongolian) slab of the stag to frighten the enemy spirits. The skin is heated to be tended so that it resounds better (but also because fire is related to the idea of reanimation: to see below).

function of vehicle, terrestrial, air mounting or of boat (in the watery world).

the function of mounting is only one particular case, and generally does not represent an act of tender of the animal to the man. It is of an art other than that of horsemanship in question: the reputation of the heat in love with the supernatural wife of the Shaman in is an example.

of defensive and offensive weapon

of spokesperson

of double animal (that its skin tears and its Master dies about it). The drum and the Shaman form the couple chamanic .

of support of spirits and hearts, human (those of the group) or animal (paid at the spirit of the forest in game pledge to come).

Although the skin of the drum often carries a drawing of cervidé to broad foliage, the drum is not only one simple figuration of spirit. It is a support or a gathering place of the spirits (auxiliary in particular). Statute of object, it thus passes to the statute to be animated thanks to the ritual ones of animations which gives again life (or the life renews) with the animal of which the skin was used for the fabriquer.
In certain groups (Sor) the Shaman marries his drum (the female spirit of the drum is then a true wife), thus concretizing the marriage with surnature (the girl of the spirit of the forest) and translating supernatural alliance (the drum lodges the supernatural wife).
The ritual ones of animation are variable from one region to another. They require the co-operation of the members of the community. The ritual ones of great widths are done mainly in spring (Selkup). The animation of the drum, within this framework, is a game promise, guaranteeing success with hunting. The ritual ones evoke then a hunting symbolic system with the imaginary animal. But the ritual ones of animation can be more autonomous, making continuation, for example, with the real hunting of an animal intended to provide the skin of the drum: the song of the Shaman can then recall the life of this animal.
It is the clannish spirit (for example the spirit of the mountain) which will determine the future use of the drum, as well as the number of its replacements.

Shamanism in the world

The shamanism existed in China. It was taken again by the Taoïsme. According to a work of the 3rd century, the Baopuzi , the priest knows voyages extatic which take it along to the sky, where it can meet gods, ancestors, or find remedies medical. It is helped by animals, dragons, tigers or stags. A general characteristic of the Shamans is precisely of being able to go to the Sky or in the Hells.
There are examples very Nets of shamanism in the Indo-European world, especially in its mythology. Thus, the god Odin of the Scandinaves can leave his body, which to lie then as deadened, in an animal form, and to travel where it wishes it. He has a horse with eight legs, very rapid, which is also identified with a cosmic tree (Yggdrasill) similar to that used by the Shamans at the time of their voyages. In addition, Odin is a large magician and it can force deaths to deliver the secrecies of Au-delà, which is a prerogative of the Shaman. In the ancient Greece, one knows the poet Aristée de Proconnèse. It was transported to far at the time of “are delirious Apollinian” (Apollon being a connected god with Odin). It gave up its body, which lay like death. On its island, a statue represented it beside Apollon (Hérodote, IV, 13-15). Pline Old the reports that it represented its heart leaving its body in the shape of a corbel.
In truth, Indo-European cosmology is in conformity with the Neolithic shamanism: the universe consists of three worlds, the Sky, the Earth and the Hells, which are connected by a tree. Clairvoyance, the divination or the magic are more the business of the women than men (from where the beliefs in the witches). The male shamanism is seen relegated in mythology while the sacerdotal functions are exerted by a class of priests.
The Scandinavians regarded their neighbors Lapons (of Finno-ugric language) as large magicians. They called also these people Sameh (singular Same), like the Lapps name them-even. Obviously, the shamanism was very developed on their premises. The Shamans sameh were called noaides . Their practices were described at the 13th century in the Historia Norwegiae . They officiated thanks to assistants who sang and they used a drum (like their Siberian counterparts) and a hammer of horn. They could take an animal form to go to fight against a fellow-member, to discover a robber or even to mutilate it remotely, attract game with range of the hunters or fish in the fjord, to cause states of hypnosis or illusion of the directions. The Finno-Ougriens are originating in the forests of the north of the Russia. In a manner or of another, a fine analysis of the shamanism always makes it come from north from the Eurasia.
In Corsica, can be found Mazzeru (see Mazzérisme). Mazzeru is not always regarded as belonging to this world with whole share. Not being neither of the world of alive, nor of the world of deaths, it is located rather at the limit of these two worlds. It is also indicated, according to the areas, under the names of Culpadore, Acciacatore and of course of Mazzeru. These three terms are formed starting from the verbs acciacà, culpà, amazzà, which mean “to kill” while striking. This function to kill comes from the capacity of Mazzeru “to drive out in dreams”. At the time of the sleep of Mazzeru its spiritual double will take part in the world of the dreams has a shooting party, Mazzeru killing the first animal (wild or domestic) that it crosses. While turning over the animal on the back, the head of this one will be transformed into human face. This human, known of Mazzeru, is condemned to die between three days and a year later. Men and women can be of Mazzeru, even if the women are famous being keener than the men in their way of killing. But there exists also Spalisti.
French Mario Draper, writer, poet, artist is one of rare the French chamanes today in activity, published a " Proclamation for new a chamanisme".

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