The word shaman' was originally used by the Tungus, nomads of eastern Siberia, to designate a man whose association with the world of spirits enabled him to control the weather, predict the future and, especially, heal the sick or mentally deranged. It was subsequently applied elsewhere to men, rarely women, believed to have similar special gilts (18.30). The term shamanism' derived from it is, however, something of a misnomer in so far as it implies a consistent body of religious beliefs evolved at some very early period and diffused across the world. In some places shamans had :he role of priests. But the creation myths and cosmologies of the cultures in which they functioned, including those of autonomous groups of the North American North West Coast, were of great diversity; and sometimes they had positions alongside those of the leaders of organized religions. notably Buddhism and Daoism. I he spirits with whom they associated were usually in an intermediate zone between mortals and the creator gods a zone occupied by innumerable spirits.
A man became a shaman, or claimed to have become one, as a result traumatic or visionary experience sometimes also by inheritance from a relative (a maternal uncle in matrilineal societies), usually followed by a period of apprenticeship to acknowledged shamans. The story of an Inuit (or Eskimo) shaman is characteristic. While running from a summer camping place his village he saw a shaman who had died in the previous year descending from the moon in a boat. This shaman was then transformed into a grotesque figure with one large eye dancing towards the Inuit, who ran away but found he had been possessed by it and some months later was himself accepted by his fellow villagers as a shaman. Among the Tlingit a man who had inherited the possibility of becoming a shaman lived on nothing but roots and leaves retired the mountains, where he until he met and obtained the help of d spirit, usually the soul of a sea- mammal or land animal, that of the land otter being the most powerful. his status as shaman was confirmed when he had effected a cure which depended on his faith in his own spiritual power combined with that of the sick person and the expectations of the group within which the relationship between the two was located. A shaman might also detect witches, foretell the movement of animals that were killed for food, accompany and advise war parties, and preside over rites of passage, birth, initiation and death.