An Introduction to ShamanismShamans are an integral part of communal religious traditions, professionals who make use of personal supernatural experiences, especially trance, as a resource for the wider community's physical and spiritual well-being. This Introduction surveys research on the topic of shamanism around the world, detailing the archaeology and earliest development of shamanic traditions as well as their scientific 'discovery' in the context of eighteenth and nineteenth century colonization in Siberia, the Americas, and Asia. It explores the beliefs and rituals typical of shamanic traditions, as well as the roles of shamans within their communities. It also surveys the variety of techniques used by shamans cross-culturally, including music, entheogens, material culture and verbal performance. The final chapters examine attempts to suppress or eradicate shamanic traditions, the revitalization of shamanism in postcolonial situations, and the development of new forms of shamanism within new cultural and social contexts. |
Contents
Section 1 | 3 |
Section 2 | 4 |
Section 3 | 12 |
Section 4 | 26 |
Section 5 | 41 |
Section 6 | 56 |
Section 7 | 75 |
Section 8 | 82 |
Section 14 | 183 |
Section 15 | 193 |
Section 16 | 194 |
Section 17 | 197 |
Section 18 | 198 |
Section 19 | 202 |
Section 20 | 221 |
Section 21 | 246 |
Section 9 | 109 |
Section 10 | 133 |
Section 11 | 153 |
Section 12 | 176 |
Section 13 | 181 |
Section 22 | 248 |
Section 23 | 264 |
Section 24 | 291 |
Section 25 | 295 |
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Common terms and phrases
activities acts angakok audience ayahuasca became become belief body Bogoras Buddhist Buryat ceremonies Chapter Christian clients community members context Core Shamanism cosmology cosmos costume culture dance dead deities described discussed disease divination Dunne-za elements Eliade entheogen ethnographic experience Harner healer helping spirits Hmong Ho-Chunk Hultkrantz human Hunt Ikule ekule illness indigenous individual Inuit itako Khanty Korean living Michael Harner missionaries movement mudang Naachin narrative Native American Native American Church neoshamanism Nganasan noaide Ojibwa one’s particular patient performance peyote possession potential recounts regarded relations religion religious traditions Ridington role Russian sacred Sámi scholars séance shamanic calling shamanic practices shamanic practitioners shamanic rituals shamanic traditions Siberia singing social society sometimes song soul spirit helpers spirit journey spirit travel spirit world supernatural Temiar Thai notes tion Tlingit traditional shamanism trance tutelary spirit Tuva Tuvan twentieth century various village visions Western worldview writes