A Methodology for a Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Concepts “Shaman” and “Shamanism”

Abstract

Scholars routinely confront the problem of translating concepts from one cognitive-linguistic system to another. The concepts shaman and shamanism, which are employed particularly in comparative religious and anthropological studies, are a case in point. Scholars from various academic disciplines make use of different, indistinct, and indeed contradictory definitions of these terms. As a result, their content and meaning have been obscured. My aim in this article is to emphasize the importance of establishing comparative religious concepts as methodical research tools. In particular, I call attention to the need to distinguish between emic (indigenous) concepts and etic (constructed by the scholar) comparative ideal types (Max Weber) in cultural and religious studies. Through the methodology of constructing theoretical analytical notions advocated in this essay, scholars can identify similarities and dissimilarities between assorted phenomena by focusing on what Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss called caracteristiques differentielles. I argue that the fundamental spatial feature which distinguishes shamans from other categories of religious specialists is their unique command of ritual techniques that enable them to move between human and preternatural space, e.g., from the mundane world to the supernatural one and back again. Moreover, I contend that shamanism is not a religion in itself but only a configuration (Ake Hultkrantz) within a religious system. This point is important because numerous scholars tend to reduce so-called to the category of shamanism, thereby depriving these religions of their individual identity. Instead, these religions ought to be recognized and analyzed as distinct systems of belief and practice, just as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism are. The paradigmatic post-colonial reduction of many indigenous religious systems to shamanism has created an impoverished view of religions that are no less complex and sophisticated than the so-called Great Traditions..