Mircea Eliade writes, "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = 'technique of religious ecstasy'."[4] Shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments/illness by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul/spirit restores the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness. The shaman also enters supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans may visit other worlds/dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements. The shaman operates primarily within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment.[4]
Shamanic beliefs and practices have attracted the interest of scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, religious studies scholars, and psychologists. Hundreds of books and academic papers on the subject have been produced, with a peer-reviewed academic journal being devoted to the study of shamanisms. In the 20th century, many westerners involved in the counter-cultural movement have created modern magico-religious practices influenced by their ideas of Indigenous religions from across the world, creating what some call the Neoshamanic movement.
TerminologyEdit
Etymology
The earliest known depiction of a Siberian shaman, produced by the Dutch explorer Nicolaes Witsen, who authored an account of his travels among Samoyedic- and Tungusic-speaking peoples in 1692. Witsen labelled the illustration as a "Priest of the Devil" and gave this figure clawed feet to highlight what Witsen perceived as demonic qualities.[5]
The word "shaman" probably originates from the Evenki word "šamán", most likely from the southwestern dialect spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples.[6] The Tungusic term was subsequently adopted by Russians interacting with the indigenous peoples in Siberia. It is found in the memoirs of the exiled Russian churchman Avvakum.[7] The word was brought to Western Europe in 1692 by the Dutch traveler Nicolaes Witsen who reported his stay and journeys among the Tungusic and Samoyedic-speaking indigenous peoples of Siberia in his book Noord en Oost Tataryen.[8] Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published in 1698 his account of a Russian embassy to China and a translation of his book, published the same year, introduced the word to English speakers.[9]
The etymology of the Evenki word is sometimes connected to a Tungus root ša- "to know".[10][11] This has been questioned on linguistic grounds: "The possibility cannot be completely rejected, but neither should it be accepted without reservation since the assumed derivational relationship is phonologically irregular (note especially the vowel quantities)."[12]Other scholars assert that the word comes directly from the Manchu language, and would therefore be "the only commonly used English word that is a loan from this language".[13]
However, it has been pointed out[14] that the Sanskrit word śramaṇa, designating a wandering monastic or holy figure, has spread to many Central Asian languages with Buddhism and could be the ultimate origin of the Tungusic word. (Compare the Wiktionary entry, which lists further sources for this derivation). This proposal has been thoroughly critiqued since 1917, and ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen regards it as an "anachronism" and an "impossibility" that is nothing more than a "far-fetched etymology."[15]
Recently the proposal has been made that the word "shaman" or "saman" is not of ancient or indigenous Tungus origin. Ethnolinguists have studied Tungusic languages in depth only since the late 1800s and may be making the mistake of anachronistically "reading backward" in time, not appreciating how languages change through the addition of new words based on the speech of conquering or colonizing peoples, or of explorers and missionaries. Anthropologist and archeologist Silvia Tomaskova argues that by the mid-1600s many Europeans applied the Arabic term "shaitan" or "devil" to the non-Christian practices and beliefs of indigenous peoples.[16] "Shaman" may have entered the various Tungus dialects as a corruption of this term, a word parroted back to the white, male and Christian missionaries, explorers, soldiers and colonial administrators withi whom they had increasing contact for centuries before ethnolinguists arrived on the scene to collect and categorize their languages. The analogy can be made to today's Native Americans who use the term "indian" in a self-referential manner.
Definitions