Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a 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.
Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Today many Inuit follow Christianity, but traditional Inuit spirituality continues as part of a living, oral tradition and part of contemporary Inuit society. Inuit who balance indigenous and Christian theology practice religious syncretism.
The Aymara or Aimara people are an indigenous people in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America; about 2.3 million live in northwest Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. Their ancestors lived in the region for many centuries before becoming a subject people of the Inca in the late 15th or early 16th century, and later of the Spanish in the 16th century. With the Spanish American Wars of Independence (1810–25), the Aymaras became subjects of the new nations of Bolivia and Peru. After the War of the Pacific (1879–83), Chile annexed territory with Aymara population.
Traditional healers of Southern Africa are practitioners of traditional African medicine in Southern Africa. They fulfill different social and political roles in the community, including divination, healing physical, emotional and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witchcraft, and narrating the history, cosmology, and concepts of their tradition. There are two main types of traditional healers within the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, and Tsonga societies of Southern Africa: the diviner (sangoma), and the herbalist (inyanga). These healers are effectively South African shamans who are highly revered and respected in a society where illness is thought to be caused by witchcraft, pollution or through neglect of the ancestors. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 traditional healers in South Africa compared to 25,000 doctors trained in bio-medical medicine. Traditional healers are consulted by approximately 60% of the South African population, usually in conjunction with modern biomedical services. = For harmony between the living and the dead, vital for a trouble-free life, traditional healers believe that the ancestors must be shown respect through ritual and animal sacrifice. They perform summoning rituals by burning plants like imphepho, dancing, chanting, channelling or playing drums. Traditional healers will often give their patients muti—medications made from plant, animal and minerals—imbued with spiritual significance. These muti often have powerful symbolism; for example, lion fat might be prepared for children to promote courage. There are medicines for everything from physical and mental illness, social disharmony and spiritual difficulties to potions for protection, love and luck.
Korean shamanism or Korean folk religion is an animistic ethnic religion of Korea which dates back to prehistory and consists of the worship of gods and ancestors as well as nature spirits. Hanja: 巫俗; musog or musok), the term Muism is also used. Korean shamanism has been influenced by Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
A curandero is a traditional native healer or shaman found primarily in Latin America and also in the United States. A curandero is a specialist in traditional medicine whose practice can either contrast with or supplement that of a practitioner of Western medicine. A curandero is claimed to administer shamanistic and spiritistic remedies for mental, emotional, physical and "spiritual" illnesses. Some curanderos, such as Don Pedrito, the Healer of Los Olmos, make use of simple herbs, waters, and even mud to allegedly affect their cures. Others add Catholic elements, such as holy water and pictures of saints. The use of Catholic prayers and other borrowings and lendings is often found alongside native religious elements. Still others, such as Maria Sabina, employ hallucinogenic media. Many curanderos emphasize their native spirituality in healing while being practicing Catholics. Most of the concepts related to curanderismo are words in Spanish language, often with Medieval, vernacular definitions.
Stories and practices that are considered part of Korean folklore go back several thousand years. These tales derive from a variety of origins, including Shamanism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and more recently Christianity.
Filipino shamans, commonly known as Babaylan, were shamans of the various ethnic groups of the pre-colonial Philippine islands. These shamans specialized in communicating, appeasing, or harnessing the spirits of the dead and the spirits of nature. They were almost always women or feminized men. They were believed to have spirit guides, by which they could contact and interact with the spirits and deities and the spirit world. Their primary role were as mediums during pag-anito séance rituals. There were also various subtypes of babaylan specializing in the arts of healing and herbalism, divination, and sorcery.
A machi is a traditional healer and religious leader in the Mapuche culture of Chile and Argentina. Machis play significant roles in Mapuche religion. In contemporary Mapuche culture, women are more commonly machis than men but it is not a rule.
The Hmong people are an ethnic group currently native to several countries, believed to have come from the Yangtze river basin area in southern China. The Hmong are known in China as the Miao, which encompasses not only Hmong, but also other related groups such as Hmu, Qo Xiong and A-Hmao. There is debate about usage of this term, especially amongst Hmong living in the West, as it is believed by some to be derogatory, although Hmong living in China still call themselves by this name. Throughout recorded history, the Hmong have remained identifiable as Hmong because they have maintained the Hmong language, customs, and ways of life while adopting the ways of the country in which they live. In the 1960s and 1970s, many Hmong were secretly recruited by the American CIA to fight against communism during the Vietnam War. After American armed forces pulled out of Vietnam, a communist regime took over in Laos and ordered the prosecution and re-education of all those who had fought against its cause during the war. While many Hmong are still left in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and China, since 1975 many Hmong have fled Laos in fear of persecution. Housed in Thai refugee camps during the 1980s, many have resettled in countries such as the United States, French Guiana, Australia, France, Germany, as well as some who have chosen to stay in Thailand in hope of returning to their own land. In the United States, new generations of Hmong are gradually assimilating into American society while being taught Hmong culture and history by their elders. Many fear that as the older generations pass on, the knowledge of the Hmong among Hmong Americans will die as well.
A dukun is an Indonesian term for shaman. Their societal role is that of a traditional healer, spirit medium, custom and tradition experts and on occasion sorcerers and masters of black magic. In common usage the dukun is often confused with another type of shaman, the pawang. It is often mistranslated into English as "witch doctor" or "medicine man". Many self-styled dukun in Indonesia are simply scammers and criminals, preying on gullible and superstitious people who were raised to believe in the supernatural.
The Nahua of La Huasteca is an indigenous ethnic group of Mexico and one of the Nahua peoples. They live in the mountainous area called La Huasteca which is located in north eastern Mexico and contains parts of the states of Hidalgo, Veracruz and Puebla. They speak one of the Huasteca Nahuatl dialects: western, central or eastern Huasteca Nahuatl.
Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous peoples of the Andes. In Inca mythology she is an "Earth Mother" type goddess, and a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. She is also an ever-present and independent deity who has her own creative power to sustain life on this earth. Her shrines are hallowed rocks, or the boles of legendary trees, and artists envision her as an adult female bearing harvests of potatoes and coca leaves. The four cosmological Quechua principles – Water, Earth, Sun, and Moon – claim Pachamama as their prime origin. Priests sacrifice offerings of llamas, cuy, children and elaborate, miniature, burned garments to her. Pachamama is the mother of Inti the sun god, and Mama Killa the moon goddess. Mama Killa is said to be the wife of Inti.
The Ryukyuan religion (琉球信仰), Ryūkyū Shintō (琉球神道), Nirai Kanai Shinkō (ニライカナイ信仰), or Utaki Shinkō (御嶽信仰) is the indigenous belief system of the Ryukyu Islands. While specific legends and traditions may vary slightly from place to place and island to island, the Ryukyuan religion is generally characterized by ancestor worship and the respecting of relationships between the living, the dead, and the gods and spirits of the natural world. Some of its beliefs, such as those concerning genius loci spirits and many other beings classified between gods and humans, are indicative of its ancient animistic roots, as is its concern with mabui (まぶい), or life essence.
Vegetalismo is a term used to refer to a practice of mestizo shamanism in the Peruvian Amazon in which the shamans—known as vegetalistas—are said to gain their knowledge and power to cure from the vegetales, or plants of the region. Many believe to receive their knowledge from ingesting the hallucinogenic, emetic brew ayahuasca.
Pulingaws are known as shamans for the Taiwanese indigenous peoples of Puyuma and Paiwan, which in general would share the same roles as the Puyuman pulingaw with some distinctions. Pulingaws are, claimed to be, selected by their electing ancestors known as kinitalian, who often turn out to be the pulingaws' ancestors, which happen to also be another form of spiritual entity called birua. Kinitalians can choose whoever they please as the next pulingaw amongst its immediate or extended family members. Although females were often selected to continue the line of shaman-ism, not all pulingaws are female and there were rare instances where males were selected to take up the role. However, the pulingaw's gender issue is still an ongoing debate as certain sources insist that only females become pulingaws. The pulingaws are considered as therapists, who are responsible for mediating and bringing peace to social and biological disorders. They are also responsible for various rituals that range from hunting ceremonies, exorcisms and funerals.
Kev Dab Kev Qhuas is the common ethnic religion of Miao peoples, best translated as the practice of spirituality. The religion is also called Hmongism by a Hmong American church established in 2012 to organize it among Hmong people in the United States.
Mu (무) is an ancient Korean word defining a shaman in the Korean traditional religion. Korean shamans hold rituals called gut for the welfare of the individuals and the society.
Shamanism is found in many countries around the world, in different regional forms.
The mengdu, also called the three mengdu and the three mengdu of the sun and moon, are a set of three kinds of brass ritual devices—a pair of knives, a bell, and divination implements—which are the symbols of shamanic priesthood in the Korean shamanism of southern Jeju Island. Although similar ritual devices are found in mainland Korea, the religious reverence accorded to the mengdu is unique to Jeju.