Siberian Shamanism Research Articles

Authorial strategies and tactics of Catherine the Great in the comedy “The Siberian Shaman”

Authorial strategies and tactics of Catherine the Great in the comedy “The Siberian Shaman”

Uralist Aleksei Burõkin – ühe polühistori panus soome-ugri ja samojeedi rahvaste folkloori, etnoloogia ja keelte uurimisse

The article gives an overview of the contribution of Alexey Burykin (1954–2021), doctor of philology and history, to the study of the languages, folklore and ethnology of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyed peoples. Burykin, whose total number of publications exceeds 1,300, has researched the Uralic peoples in a comparative way, in the context of other peoples; above all, the indigenous peoples of Siberia. His field of interests has included the mention of the Uralic peoples in sources, old written texts, folkloristics and ethnology of the Uralic peoples (Ob-Ugric, Samoyed and Sami folklore, Siberian shamanism), etymology of common and proper names, kinship vocabulary and the problems of the Khanty phrasal verb.

‘북방텍스트’에 나타난 에벤키족의 샤머니즘과 생태사상

The aim of this paper is to examine the shamanic worldview of the Evenki people among Siberian shamanism and the ecological ideas associated with it in the literary texts of Siberian ethnic minority authors. Siberia is perceived as a place where shamanism originated. However, as Eliade’s theory of shamanism has been recognized as a representative research methodology, empirical research on the origin and specificity of Siberian shamanism has been stifled, and the concept of shamanism has become ambiguous, resulting in a distortion of the origin and nature of Siberian shamanism. The shamanism of Siberian ethnic minorities is a religious phenomenon that has become embedded in the archetypal structure of their emotions, psychology, and consciousness in the process of interacting with the surrounding natural environment and human and social environment, as a holistic way of life that includes rituals, rituals, myths, moral ethics, and ecological life philosophy, as well as artistic systems. During the Soviet period, shamanism and the traditions and customs of Siberian ethnic groups were increasingly usurped by social reform and Russification policies under atheistic socialism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, writers from ethnic minorities who sought to see their culture through their own eyes, rather than relying on the findings of Western or Russian researchers, emerged and produced literature that expressed their traditional shamanic worldview. It can be said that conditions have been created for the study of Siberian shamanism to be illuminated by literature. This paper examines literary texts about the Siberian Ebenki people to explore the shamanic worldview and ecological ideas of this Siberian ethnic minority.

Eternal Blue Sky 2.0

Abstract The revival of shamanism in Southern Siberia is increasingly characterised by online forms of representation. Through digital ethnographic research conducted in Russian, this paper argues that the internet reproduces non-digital narratives and practices endowing them with global, immediate reach in a very widely recognisable form, thus contributing to the amplification, legitimisation and contestation of shamanic power. Analysing the websites of two Irkutsk-area ‘shamanic centres’, I consider how digitalisation is contributing to the process of institutionalisation of shamanism, reproducing and further legitimising post-socialist hierarchies and structures of power in Buryat shamanism, while highlighting the malleable nature of shamanic power and the web alike. Conversely, I recur to the Buryat concept of khel am (a form of ‘omnipresent witchcraft’) in relation to two recent news stories of national relevance in Russia involving Siberian shamans, to illustrate the challenge posed by the over-amplification of shamanic power through digitalisation to shamans and their institutions’ claims to power.

What does Siberian Shamanism do for the Academic Study of Religion?

What does Siberian Shamanism do for the Academic Study of Religion?

‘He thinks he is inspired, and he is mad’

Abstract During the last decades of the eighteenth century, knowledge about Siberia inspired Catherine II to create the main character of one of her comedies, The Siberian Shaman. Taking Foucault’s dispositif-concept as its theoretical premise, the present paper discusses the historical context in which The Siberian Shaman was written, deconstructs the identity of the comedy’s main character, and explores the socio-political purposes for which the comedy was written. By utilising the perspective of entangled history of religions and the methodology of historical discourse analysis, this paper shows that the comedy’s alleged “shamanic” content and “anti-shamanic” purpose cannot be taken for granted. Rather, the discourse in The Siberian Shaman should be read as Catherine II’s own engagement with the themes of unreason and madness within the philosophical, socio-political and religious context of the period.

The Performative (Bio)Politics of Bare Life: between Putinism and Shamanism

Abstract This article has two focal points and two protagonists. First, it aims to look at the case of the self-proclaimed rebellious Siberian shaman Alexandr Gabyshev who became known in Russia since 2019 as a public figure and an anti-Putin crusader. Secondly, Gabyshev’s political crusade made the Russian president himself – even if indirectly – part of the ensuing public narrative that popped up around the shaman. The key research question I wish to address in this article is how the inner and public meanings of Gabyshev’s actionist protest might be interpreted through the lens of political theories, and what does a combination of theoretical perspectives bring for academically unpacking the case?

A Critique of Philosophical Shamanism

A Critique of Philosophical Shamanism

A study on shaman costume from the perspective of Siberian shamanism spiritual culture

This study interprets Siberian shaman costumes from the perspective of Siberian shamanism’s spiritual culture by combining theoretical and empirical studies. According to the natural environment and language families, the Siberian people are classified into the Altai, Tungus, Ural, and Paleo-Siberian groups. Se Yin’s research classifies the spiritual culture of Siberian shamanism as cosmic, spiritual, and nature view. Eliade’s research has divided Siberian shaman costumes into form, headdress, and ornament. According to the present study, shaman costume form and decoration reflect the Siberian three-tiered cosmic view, such that the shaman’s head, body and feet correspond to the upperworld, middleworld and underworld. In addition, animism, totemism and ancestral worship appear in the shamanism’s spiritual view. For example, the costume’s form shows the totem of each tribe, while the costume accessories reflect animal worship, plant worship and ancestral worship. Finally, shamanism’s nature view mainly manifests through three processes: personification, deification, and ethics. As an intermediary between man and the spirits, shaman use their clothing to reproduce the image of half man and half spirit. The shaman’s costumes are deified and considered to have divine power. For example, the animals represented on the costume help the shaman travel through space. Generally, good animals help a shaman enter the upperworld, while animals that help a shaman enter the underworld are considered evil. Also, the number of hanging accessories represents the shaman’s ability.

시베리아 샤머니즘의 신령, 옹곤의 형태와 그 조형 원리

시베리아 샤머니즘의 신령, 옹곤의 형태와 그 조형 원리

Interpretation of Siberian shaman costume through Roland Barthes’s semiotics approach

This study attempts to analyze the social and cultural meanings of the ethnic groups to which different types of shamans belong in Siberia from the appearance characteristics in terms of clothing through Roland Barthes’s semiotic theory. The research method here is to analyze three types of shaman costume classified by Holmberg, which are bird-type, deer-type, and bear-type, through theoretical research and to investigate the analysis process of Roland Barthes’s semiotics theory. Roland Barthes’s approach to semiotics presents an analysis model that can explore the sociocultural meaning of the Siberian shaman costume. The research results are as follows. In the first type, to be closer to the god of the upperworld, shamans transform themselves into birds by decorating their costumes with the characteristic elements of birds such as feathers and wings. In the second type, the shamans’ costumes are made of deerskin, and the headdress is shown in the shape of antlers to make it easier to receive messages from the upperworld and run fast in the underworld. In the third type, the shaman’s costume is made of bearskin, the head is covered with bearskin, and the body is decorated with bear pendants. Through the power of the bear, the shaman is sent to the underworld to defeat evil gods and remove diseases. Shamans can show their particularity of being a demigod and non-binary gender through clothing. They use this to reflect their authority as a medium of communication between man and god.

신라 금관과 시베리아 샤머니즘 - 신라 미술문화의 북방성 -

신라 금관과 시베리아 샤머니즘 - 신라 미술문화의 북방성 -

Anthroposoomorphic Shaman Buckles of Transitional Period from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age

The article is dedicated to discussions with R. O. Mymokhod on the issue connected with the genesis and semantics of anthropozoomorphic figured buckles of the transitional period from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age of southern Europe that were discovered in burials. The author focuses on the semantics of figured buckles of the Dnieper-Don Babynska (DDBC) and Lolinska archaeological cultures. He argues that these buckles are anthropozoomorphic, and not anthropomorphic, as R. O. Mymokhod considers. The attention is paid to the maskoid character of Lolinska culture figured buckles, which links these artifacts to the performance of shamanic practices by the deceased. The specificity of the DDBC figured buckles is in the combination of a headless torso of a human with zoomorphic pedestal-bucranium. Two buckles of this type were found in the Shagar burial ground of Meshchyora lakes (Riazan region, the Russian Federation). The torso of one of them was decorated with a carved bird’s head. The author proves that bronze idols from the Galich shaman treasure (Kostromskaya region, the Russian Federation) were used as buckles — an element of shamanic clothing. Analogies have been drawn from the practice of Siberian shamanism. The author points out that the manifestations of shamanism along the Seim-Turbino (Galich treasure) — Shagara — Lola — DDBC belong to the early phase of the transitional period from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age (XXII—XX c. BC). Such a conclusion is supported by the calibrated radiocarbon dating of the corresponding complexes. In general, the group of figured DDBC buckles is sufficiently homogeneous, and while determining their semantics it is necessary to take into account the heredity of ceremonial and ideological traditions of Trypillia and Yamna communities, considering a certain “Yamna culture renaissance” during the transitional period from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The alternative view of the DDBC and Lola cultures buckles semantics does not in any way diminish the value of interesting observations, the analogies listed, and the conclusions of the R. O. Mymokhod article under disscussion.

Rethinking Mediumship in Contemporary Wenzhou

The study of spirit mediums has drawn the attention of international scholars from the 1960s onward, and the topic continues to thrive. Yet little work has been done on spirit mediums in mainland China, which have mainly been glimpsed through studies of mediumship in Taiwan. This article draws on ethnographic research to explore the diverse traditions of spirit mediums in Wenzhou. While spirit mediums are viewed with ambivalence, they play a significant role within broader Chinese folk religions. It is crucial to understand spirit mediums through the appropriate cultural context in order to understand their diverse practices and roles in local society. I discuss why Wenzhou’s mediumship should be regarded as a form of shamanism in spite of differences between its discourse and practices and those of Minnan mediumship, as well as those of Siberian or Korean shamanism.

Burāq depicted as Amanita muscaria in a 15th century Timurid-illuminated manuscript?

A series of illustrations in a 15th century Timurid manuscript record the mi’raj, the ascent through the seven heavens by Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. Several of the illustrations depict Burāq, the fabulous creature by means of which Mohammed achieves his ascent, with distinctive features of the Amanita muscaria mushroom. A. muscaria or “fly agaric” is a psychoactive mushroom used by Siberian shamans to enter the spirit world for the purposes of conversing with spirits or diagnosing and curing disease. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author explores the routes by which Burāq could have come to be depicted in this manuscript with the characteristics of a psychoactive fungus, when any suggestion that the Prophet might have had recourse to a drug to accomplish his spirit journey would be anathema to orthodox Islam. There is no suggestion that Mohammad’s night journey (isra) or ascent (mi’raj) was accomplished under the influence of a psychoactive mushroom or plant.

Czyżby przedwczesny krzyk sowy Minerwy? O renesansie syberyjskiego szamanizmu

In this study, I refer to the metaphor of the cry of Minerva’s owl, which was supposed to herald the twilight of a given phenomenon into the classic scientific descriptions of Siberian shamanism, which was treated by many scientists as part of the phenomenon “universal” for the history of the religion of humanity, and at the same time belonging only to the past. I am analysing the concepts of Mircea Eliade and Andrzej Wierciński in the context of my own field research on the Renaissance of Siberian shamanism. I propose a reflection on the usefulness and limitations of classical models of shamanism for studying contemporary religions of ethnic peoples traditionally considered to be shamanic. Certainly many researchers have become interested in issues related to shamanism thanks to the suggestive descriptions of the classics. The classic model of shamanism is therefore useful as a free frame of intellectual inspiration. Their usefulness decreases abruptly when we treat them as a summary of knowledge about shamanism. I argue that in modern research, it is certainly necessary to take a critical approach to individual statements and holistic assumptions that have grown around shamanism for decades.

Trance, Dissociation, and Shamanism: A Cross-Cultural Model

AbstractReligious practices centered on controlled trance states, such as Siberian shamanism or North African zar, are ubiquitous, yet their characteristics vary. In particular, cross-cultural research finds that female-dominated spirit possession cults are common in stratified societies, whereas male-dominated shamanism predominates in structurally flatter cultures. Here, we present an agent-based model that explores factors, including social stratification and psychological dissociation, that may partially account for this pattern. We posit that, in more stratified societies, female agents suffer from higher levels of psychosocial trauma, whereas male agents are more vulnerable in flatter societies. In societies with fewer levels of formal hierarchy, males come into informal social competition more regularly than in stratified contexts. This instability leads to a cultural feedback effect in which dissociative experiences deriving from chronic psychosocial stress become canalized into a male religious trance role. The model reproduces these patterns under plausible parameter configurations.

A Method for Determining the Practice of Shamanism in Archeological Cultures

Researchers have frequently noted traces of shamanism in cultures of the ancient world, although the methodology for determining it is underdeveloped. Such a method is proposed here, to identify where shamanism was practiced. It is based on comparative research of written sources, archeological materials, ethnography, linguistics, and the natural sciences. Acceptable results require that the data corroborate one another, illustrating common worldview. The proposed method is tested on examples of Cimmerian and Scythian cultures, and their precursors. Ethnographic analogies should originate from the same region as the archeological culture being researched or an acknowledged site of migrational origin. Relevant here is the region ranging from southern Siberia to the Urals. Results indicate Cimmerians and Scythians had shamanistic worldviews, techniques and rituals identical to those of Siberian shamans. Archeological materials and written sources enable identification of some aspects that are already dying out in Siberian shamanism, although the cases covered do not exhaust all available information about rituals and objects that have analogies in ethnographic materials about the shamanism of peoples of Siberia. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the proposed research method in action.

Поездка на Окинаву: опыт использования результатов научного туризма в образовательном процессе

The author of this article has been researching Shamanism of Siberian people over 20 years, and has been teaching religious studies in the higher education system for the last 5 years. When she had a chance to visit Okinawa as the researcher in 2010, the Japanese colleagues advised her to make the individual research project. Its purpose was comparison of Siberian Shamanism with Okinawan one, detection of similarities and distinctions between them. In order to realize it the author chose the Tuvan variant of Siberian Shamanism as an object of comparison that is familiar to her not only as the researcher, but also as this culture-bearer. The trip to Okinawa can be carried to a scientif c tourism since during travel the author actively observed, carried out research works, interviewed local people and regularly kept diary. The target of trip was collecting of f eld work data that was processed, comprehended and used subsequently by the author in the scientif c and educational purposes. The author’s article shares her own experience, which has two posing — a research tourist and a lecturer of religious studiy.The similarities and distinctions between Tuvan and Okinawa Shamanism are studied. The basic attention is given to a social role of the shaman in the Tuvan and the Okinawan societies, display of «shaman illness», ceremonial practice, persecutions on shamans in Tuva and on Okinawa in dif erent periods.This material provide the basis for the author`s course on comparative religious study.

Suffering as Potentially Transformative: A Philosophical and Pastoral Consideration Drawing on Henri Nouwen’s Experience of Depression

The idea of the transformative nature of mental distress and, more particularly, of the wounded healer is geographically and temporally widespread, being attributed variously to classical Greece, biblical Judaism, Siberian Shamanism, the Jungian analytical psychology tradition, Alcoholics Anonymous, and self-help movements. It is also a commonplace in modern and contemporary Christian theology and spirituality. This paper will explore the idea as it is found in the writings of Henri Nouwen, focusing on his experience of depression as an occasion for spiritual growth. It will then critically evaluate a potentially transformative view, drawing on Nouwen and other sources, and suggesting some important emphases a transformative view needs to adopt if it is to avoid philosophical and pastoral pitfalls.