Shamanism Book

Wow, what a slippery subject this book tackles. What is a shaman? Possibly the oldest form of something that could be called more or less organized religion in the world? Yes, that seems to be case, though it is not "just" religious, as a shaman is interested in a great many practical, hands-on things, like healing. The most widespread religious phenomenon in the world, with shamans being found everywhere from north of the Arctic circle to the Amazon rain forest to modern South Korea and with apparent shamanistic elements found even among the ancient Greeks? Yes, but to put all of these shamans under one neat title is to invite frustration. Even the term shamanism is not really a truly useful term; it has no set texts (or really usually texts of any kind), it does not have a set doctrine or philosophical ideals or goals, and varies tremendously in terms of the influence of the culture it came from on it and even to the degree from which it is separated from other cultures and religions. At best one can speak of shamanisms, but how many? Twenty? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand?

What author Piers Vitebsky did was to look at a variety of cultures around the world and how shamans operate, what they believe, how they become shamans, and how they are viewed by their people and outsiders. He studied such cultures as the Sora (a "tribal" people in the state of Orissa, India), the Eskimo (he does get into whether or not this is a correct term or if Inuit is a better term), the Mazatec of Mexico (users of the psilocybe mushrooms), the Huichol (also of Mexico, users of peyote cactus), the San (or Bushmen), and the Evenk (Siberian hunters; it is from their language that the word shaman originated) just to name a few.

In a subject perhaps maybe too large for this book, Vitebsky takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of shamans through the ages and around the globe. He does find common elements among many types of shamanisms around the world. There seems to be near universal belief in a spirit world, one populated by good spirits and bad spirits, though this world can be just an unseen part of our world (something the shamans can see, perhaps only through special means), and/or another separate world, above and/or below us (but not necessarily heaven or hell per se). Spirits might consist of nature spirits of various land forms, animal spirits, ancestral spirits, and/or monstrous entities. Spirits can be the cause (or a cause) of a great many things, such as disease or injury, either through their own actions or by being used by others (such as other shamans or enemies of the shaman or tribe), or have to be interacted with to provide a tribe or a clan with enough animals to hunt for the coming season or year, successful childbirth, or good crops. Shamans interact heavily with spirits, not only fighting them or sacrificing to them but also serving as conduits for them, but are not possessed by them in a Christian "exorcist" sense; the shamans are in control. The means to interact with the spirit world, either to interact with spirits directly or to journey to other realms, often involve trances and spirit journeys, with altered states of conscious needed, though the way to this can vary a great deal (some groups, particularly in the tropical Americas, use plants or fungi for psychedelic drugs, though this is by no means universal among shamans).

Shamans don't seem particularly interested in spreading their religion as say adherents of Christianity are, but rather focused on much smaller groups; the clan, the tribe, the family, or even themselves (in some cultures a large percentage of adults may be "shamans"). Shamans seem to have a fairly practical focus, protecting people from hostile spirits, healing disease or injuries, seeing to the overall success of a tribe or clan, and attending to the souls of their people in the afterlife. Physical objects play a huge role with many shamans, though they are not necessarily sacred or holy relics as one might find among some sects of Christianity, but more like tools, whether they are drums or rattles or rather culturally specific objects to do certain things (a favorite was the kikituk, an animal effigy carved by Alaskan Eskimo shamans, usually produced from wood or ivory, an item that could be used to heal patients by biting the spirits attacking them but also be sent to kill an enemy by burrowing into their heart).

The author ended the book with a discussion of the history of shamans in general, how they interact with other cultures, the modern world, and discussions over whether or not shamans are "insane." The section on neo-shamans and shamans in New Age religions didn't particularly interest me.

I hope I did a fair job of summarizing some of the points of the book. It had a very odd format for a book for me. It was heavily illustrated, and had many sub sections with different sized fonts and many sidebars to discuss things such as mythic tales of particular shamans, the function of some shamanistic tools, shaman costumes, modern stories of shaman healings and initiations, etc. The author never seemed to get really deep into a subject before whisking the reader off to another subject. I couldn't tell if this was because the author was just trying to write a very general introduction, didn't want to get bogged down on one particular subject or a certain culture, or if this was meant to be a browse book of sorts, a coffee table book to just leaf through (smallish in size for a coffee table book though it may be). Though it had lots of text, it had lots of pictures, and with all the easy to read bold captions and obvious sidebars, could be picked up and read by a very casual reader. To its credit, it did have an extensive bibliography and a discussion of other sources (I looked up some, some are out of print and/or quite expensive).