A large minority of people in North Asia, particularly in Siberia , follow the religio-cultural practices of shamanism . Some researchers regard Siberia as the heartland of shamanism. [1] [2]
The people of Siberia comprise a variety of ethnic groups, many of whom continue to observe shamanistic practices in modern times. Many classical ethnographers recorded the sources of the idea of "shamanism" among Siberian peoples. [3]
Siberian shamans' spirit-journeys [7] (reenacting their dreams wherein they had rescued the soul of the client) were conducted in, e.g., Oroch, Altai, and Nganasan healing séances.
Shamanistic practice shows great diversity, [3] even if restricted to Siberia. In some cultures, the music or song related to shamanistic practice may mimic natural sounds, sometimes with onomatopoeia. [8]
This holds true for the practices of the noaidi among Sami groups. Although the Sami people live outside of Siberia, many of their shamanistic beliefs and practice shared important features with those of some Siberian cultures. [9] The joiks of the Sami were sung on shamanistic rites. [10] Recently, joiks are sung in two different styles: one of these is sung only by young people; the traditional one may be the other, the "mumbling" style, which resembles magic spells. [11] Several surprising characteristics of joiks can be explained by comparing the music ideals, as observed in joiks and contrasted to music ideals of other cultures. Some joiks intend to mimic natural sounds. This can be contrasted to bel canto, which intends to exploit human speech organs on the highest level to achieve an almost "superhuman" sound. [12]
The intention to mimic natural sounds is present in some Siberian cultures as well: overtone singing, and also shamanic songs of some cultures can be examples.
Sound mimesis is not restricted to Siberian cultures and is not necessarily linked to shamanistic beliefs or practices. See, for example, Inuit throat singing, a game played by women, an example of Inuit music that employs overtone singing, and, in some cases, the imitation of natural sounds (mostly those of animals, e.g. geese). [16] [17] The imitation of animal sounds can also serve such practical reasons as luring game in hunt. [16]
Uralic languages are proven to form a genealogical unit, a language family. Not all speakers of these languages live in Siberia or have shamanistic religions. The largest populations, the Hungarians and Finns, live outside Siberia and are mostly Christian. Sámi people had kept shamanic practices alive for a long time. They live in Europe, but practiced shamanism until the 18th century. [19] Most others (e.g. Hungarian, Finnic, Mari) have only remnant elements of shamanism. [19] The majority lives outside Siberia. Some of them used to live in Siberia, but have migrated to their present locations since then. The original location of the Proto-Uralic peoples (and its extent) is debated. Combined phytogeographical and linguistic considerations (distribution of various tree species and the presence of their names in various Uralic languages) suggest that this area was somewhere between the Kama and Vyatka rivers on the western side of the Ural Mountains. [20]
Among several Samoyedic peoples shamanism was a living tradition also in modern times, especially at groups living in isolation until recent times (Nganasans). [21] There were distinguished several types of shamans among Nenets, [22] Enets, [23] and Selkup [24] people. (The Nganasan shaman used three different crowns, according to the situation: one for upper world, one for underneath word, one for occasion of childbirth.) [25]
Nenets people, Enets people, Nganasan people speak Northern Samoyedic languages. They live in North Siberia (Nenets live also in European parts), they provide classical examples. Selkups are the only ones who speak Southern Samoyedic languages nowadays. They live more to the south, shamanism was in decline also at the beginning of the 20th century, although folklore memories could be recorded even in the 1960s. [24] Other Southern Samoyedic languages were spoken by some peoples living in the Sayan Mountains, but language shift has taken place, making all these languages extinct. [26] [27]
There were several types of shamans distinguishing ones contacting upper world, ones contacting underneath world, ones contacting the dead. [22]
The isolated location of Nganasan people enabled that shamanism was a living phenomenon among them even in the beginning of the 20th century, [14] the last notable Nganasan shaman's seances could be recorded on film in the 1970s. [14] [28]
One of the occasions in which the shaman partook was the clean tent rite, held after the polar night, which included sacrifices. [21] [29]
Some peoples of the Sayan Mountains spoke once Southern Samoyedic languages. Most of them underwent a language shift in the beginning and middle of the 19th century, borrowing the language of neighboring Turkic peoples. The Kamassian language survived longer: 14 old people spoke it yet in 1914. In the late 20th century, some old people had passive or uncertain knowledge of the language, but collecting reliable scientific data was no longer possible. [26] [27] Today Kamassian is regarded as extinct.
The shamanism of Samoyedic peoples in the Sayan Mountains survived longer (if we regard Karagas as a Samoyedic people, [26] [27] [30] although such approaches have been refined: the problem of their origin may be more complex [31] ). Diószegi Vilmos could record not only folklore memories in the late 1950s, but he managed also to talk personally to (no longer practicing) shamans, record their personal memories, songs, some of their paraphernalia. [32]
Whether this shamanism is borrowed entirely from neighboring Turkic peoples, or whether it has some ethnic features, maybe remnants of Samoyedic origin, is unresolved. Comparative considerations suggest, that
Starting from the late 9th century onwards, the ancestors of the Hungarian people migrated from their Proto-Uralic homeland in Siberia to the Pannonian Basin, an area that includes present-day Hungary. Today, shamanism is no longer widely practiced by Hungarians, but elements of shamanism have been preserved in their folklore. Comparative methods reveal that some motifs used in folktales, fragments of songs and folk rhymes retain aspects of the ancient belief system. In an effort to prove that shamanistic remnants existed within Hungarian folklore ethnographer, Diószegi Vilmos, compared ethnographic records of Hungarian and neighboring peoples, and works about various shamanic traditions of some Siberian peoples. [47] Mihály Hoppál continued Diószegi Vilmos's work [48] comparing shamanic beliefs of speakers of Uralic languages [49] with those of several non-Uralic Siberian peoples. [50] [51]
Although Ugrian folklore preserves many traces of shamanism, shamanism itself was a dying practice among the Khanty and Mansi people by the 1930s. Shamanism is still practiced by many indigenous peoples, [52] but, among the modern Ugrians, shamanism is largely practiced by the Khanty. [53]
Traditional culture of Ket people was researched by Matthias Castrén, Vasiliy Ivanovich Anuchin, Kai Donner, Hans Findeisen, Yevgeniya Alekseyevna Alekseyenko. [54] Shamanism was a living practice in the 1930s yet, but by the 1960s almost no authentic shaman could be found. Ket shamanism shared features with those of Turkic and Mongolic peoples. [55] Besides that, there were several types of shamans, [56] [57] differing in function (sacral rites, curing), power and associated animal (deer, bear). [57] Also among Kets (like at several other Siberian peoples, e.g. Karagas [40] [42] [43] ), there are examples of using skeleton symbolics, [55] Hoppál interprets it as a symbol of shamanic rebirth, [44] although it may symbolize also the bones of the loon (the helper animal of the shaman, joining air and underwater world, just like the shaman who travelled both to the sky and the underworld as well). [45] The skeleton-like overlay represented shamanic rebirth also among some other Siberian cultures. [46]
Turkic peoples spread over large territories, and are far from alike. In some cases, shamanism has been widely amalgamated with Islam, in others with Buddhism, but there are surviving traditions among the Siberian Tatars, [58] Tuvans, and Tofalar.
The Altai Turks may be related to neighboring Ugrian, Samoyed, Ket, or Mongols. [59] [60] [61] There may be also ethnographic traces of such past of these nowadays Turkic-speaking peoples of the Altai. For example, some of them have phallic-erotic fertility rites, and that can be compared to similar rites of Ugrians. [60] [61]
Among the Tungusic peoples of Siberia, shamanism is also widespread.
The Tale of the Nisan Shaman , a famous piece of folklore which describes the resurrection of a rich landowner's son by a female shaman, is known among various Tungusic peoples including the Manchus, Evenks, and Nanai people. [62] [63]
Linguistically, Koryak and Chukchi are close congeners of Yup'il. Koryak shamanism is known. [64]
Yup'ik groups comprise a huge area stretching from Eastern Siberia through Alaska and Northern Canada (including Labrador Peninsula) to Greenland. Shamanistic practice and beliefs have been recorded at several parts of this vast area crosscutting continental borders. [65] [66] [67]
Like Yup'ik cultures themselves, shamanistic practices reveal diversity. Some mosaic-like examples from various cultures: the soul concepts of the various cultures were diverse as well, some groups believed that the young child had to be taken for by guardian names inherited from a recently deceased relative. Among some groups, this belief amounted to a kind of reincarnation. Also shamanism might include beliefs in soul dualism, where the free-soul of the shaman could fly to celestial or underneath realms, contacting mythological beings, negotiating with them in order to cease calamities or achieve success in hunt. If their wrath was believed to be caused by taboo breaches, the shaman asked for confessions by members of the community.
In most cultures, shamanism could be refused by the candidate: calling could be felt by visions, but generally, becoming a shaman followed conscious considerations.
Shamanism was a central part of religious and spiritual traditions of the Nivkhs, who are indigenous to the Amur river basin and adjacent Sakhalin island. [69] [70] [71] Shamans (ch'am) traditionally diagnosed and cured disease. The rare shamans typically wore an elaborate coats with belts often made of metal. [72] Remedies composed of plant and sometimes animal matter were employed to cure sickness. Talismans were used or offered to patients to prevent sickness. [72] Shamans additionally functioned as a conduit to combat and ward off evil spirits that cause death. A shaman's services usually were compensated with goods, quarters and food. [72] Chiyo Nakamura, a Sakhalin Nivkh shaman, was responsible for recording, preserving, and donating artifacts related to Nivkh shamanism as it declined. [73] [74]
The 2002 census of the Russian Federation reports 123,423 (0.23% of the population) people of ethnic groups which dominantly adhere to "traditional beliefs"
Ethnic Group | Population (2002) |
---|---|
Evenks | 35,527 |
Nanais | 12,160 |
Evens | 19,071 |
Chukchi | 15,767 |
Mansi | 11,432 |
Koryaks | 8,743 |
Nivkhs | 5,162 |
Itelmeni | 3,180 |
Ulchs | 2,913 |
Yup'ik | 1,750 |
Udege | 1,657 |
Ket | 1,494 |
Chuvans | 1,087 |
Tofalar | 837 |
Nganasans | 834 |
Orochs | 686 |
Aleut | 540 |
Oroks | 346 |
Enets | 237 |
Total | 123,423 |
Part of Bahn's and others' arguments are based in an arbitrary approach to conceptualizing shamanism. For instance, Bahn characterizes Siberia as 'the heartland of true shamanism' (59), resorting to the idea that the word must be restricted to the cultural region of its origin.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world for the purpose of healing, divination, or to aid human beings in some other way.
The Uralic languages, sometimes called the Uralian languages, are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers above 100,000 are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt and Komi spoken in the European parts of the Russian Federation. Still smaller minority languages are Sámi languages of the northern Fennoscandia; other members of the Finnic languages, ranging from Livonian in northern Latvia to Karelian in northwesternmost Russia; and the Samoyedic languages, Mansi and Khanty spoken in Western Siberia.
The Samoyedic or Samoyed languages are spoken around the Ural Mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 25,000 people altogether, accordingly called the Samoyedic peoples. They derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Samoyedic, and form a branch of the Uralic languages. Having separated perhaps in the last centuries BC, they are not a diverse group of languages, and are traditionally considered to be an outgroup, branching off first from the other Uralic languages.
The Taymyr Peninsula is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administratively it is part of the Krasnoyarsk Krai Federal subject of Russia.
Kets are a Yeniseian-speaking people in Siberia. During the Russian Empire, they were known as Ostyaks, without differentiating them from several other Siberian people. Later, they became known as Yenisei Ostyaks because they lived in the middle and lower basin of the Yenisei River in the Krasnoyarsk Krai district of Russia. The modern Kets lived along the eastern middle stretch of the river before being assimilated politically into Russia between the 17th and 19th centuries. According to the 2010 census, there were 1,220 Kets in Russia. According to the 2021 census, this number had declined to 1,088.
The Nganasans are a Uralic people of the Samoyedic branch native to the Taymyr Peninsula in north Siberia. In the Russian Federation, they are recognized as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. They reside primarily in the settlements of Ust-Avam, Volochanka, and Novaya in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, with smaller populations residing in the towns of Dudinka and Norilsk as well.
A noaidi is a shaman of the Sami people in the Nordic countries, playing a role in Sámi religious practices. Most noaidi practices died out during the 17th century, most likely because they resisted Christianization of the Sámi people and the king's authority. Their actions were referred to in courts as "magic" or "sorcery". Several Sámi shamanistic beliefs and practices are similar to those of some Siberian cultures.
Natural sounds are any sounds produced by non-human organisms as well as those generated by natural, non-biological sources within their normal soundscapes. It is a category whose definition is open for discussion. Natural sounds create an acoustic space.
The Selkup are a Samoyedic speaking Uralic ethnic group native to Siberia. They live in the northern parts of Tomsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Tyumen Oblast.
The Soyot are an ethnic group of Samoyedic and Turkic origin who live mainly in the Oka region in the Okinsky District in Buryatia, Russia. They share much of their history with the Tofalar, Tozhu Tuvans, Dukha, and Buryat; the Soyot have taken on a great deal of Buryat cultural influence and were grouped together with them under Soviet policy. Due to intermarriage between Soyots and Buryats, the Soyot population is heavily mixed with the Buryat. In 2000, they were reinstated as a distinct ethnic group.
Mator or Motor is an extinct Uralic language belonging to the group of Samoyedic languages, extinct since around 1839. It was spoken in the northern region of the Sayan Mountains in Siberia, close to the Mongolian north border. The speakers of Mator, Matorians or Mators, lived in a wide area from the eastern parts of the Minusinsk District (okrug) along the Yenisei River to the region of Lake Baikal. Three dialects of Mator were recorded: Mator proper as well as Taygi and Karagas. Mator was influenced by Mongolic, Tungusic and Turkic languages before it went extinct, and may have even been possibly influenced by the Iranic languages. It went extinct as a result of the Mator people shifting linguistically to the related Kamas language or nearby Altaic-sprachbund languages, like Buryat, Soyot, Khakas, Evenki and Tatar.
Hungarian mythology includes the myths, legends, folk tales, fairy tales and gods of the Hungarians.
Siberia is a vast region spanning the northern part of the Asian continent and forming the Asiatic portion of Russia. As a result of the Russian conquest of Siberia and of the subsequent population movements during the Soviet era (1917–1991), the modern-day demographics of Siberia is dominated by ethnic Russians (Siberiaks) and other Slavs. However, there remains a slowly increasing number of Indigenous groups, accounting for about 5% of the total Siberian population, some of which are closely genetically related to Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Soul dualism, also called dualistic pluralism or multiple souls, is a range of beliefs that a person has two or more kinds of souls. In many cases, one of the souls is associated with body functions and the other one can leave the body. Sometimes the plethora of soul types can be even more complex. Sometimes, a shaman's "free soul" may be held to be able to undertake a spirit journey.
Traditional Alaskan Native religion involves mediation between people and spirits, souls, and other immortal beings. Such beliefs and practices were once widespread among Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, and Northwest Coastal Indian cultures, but today are less common. They were already in decline among many groups when the first major ethnological research was done. For example, at the end of the 19th century, Sagdloq, the last medicine man among what were then called in English, "Polar Eskimos", died; he was believed to be able to travel to the sky and under the sea, and was also known for using ventriloquism and sleight-of-hand.
Hungarian shamanism is discovered through comparative methods in ethnology, designed to analyse and search ethnographic data of Hungarian folktales, songs, language, comparative cultures, and historical sources.
The imitation of natural sounds in various cultures is a diverse phenomenon and can fill in various functions. In several instances, it is related to the belief system. It may serve also such practical goals as luring in the hunt; or entertainment.
Shamanism in various cultures shows great diversity. In some cultures, shamanic music may intentionally mimic natural sounds, sometimes with onomatopoeia. Imitation of natural sounds may also serve other functions not necessarily related to shamanism, such as luring in the hunt; and entertainment.
The Proto-Uralic homeland is the earliest location in which the Proto-Uralic language was spoken, before its speakers dispersed geographically causing it to diverge into multiple languages. Various locations have been proposed and debated, although as of 2022 "scholarly consensus now gravitates towards a relatively recent provenance of the Uralic languages east of the Ural mountains".
Shamanism is a religious practice present in various cultures and religions around the world. Shamanism takes on many different forms, which vary greatly by region and culture and are shaped by the distinct histories of its practitioners.
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(help). The songs are online available from the ethnopoetics website curated by Jerome Rothenberg.