SHAMAN
Volume 28 Numbers 1 & 2 Spring/Autumn 2020
Articles
TOM BERENDT (TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, PHILADELPHIA, PA, USA):
Bovine Shamanism: The Integral Role of Buffalo in Shamanic Practice
The buffalo plays such an integral role in multiple Native American shamanic practices that there is credence to separate and highlight it as a unique form of shamanism. The term “bovine shamanism” has therefore been specifically coined in order to differentiate this system of shamanic practice, that places unique emphasis on members of the even-toed ungulate bovinae familia. Lakota Sioux shamanic practices are delineated as an exemplary case study of bovine shamanism, highlighting the central role of buffaloes as spirit guides in prophesy (Tatanka and Pte Ska Win), in ceremonies (Išnati Awicalowan), and in vision quests (Haŋblečeya).
GIOVANNI KEZICH (SAN MICHELE ALL’ADIGE (TN) ITALY):
Shamanism in the Early Iron Age: Ancient Sacred Fraternities and their Contemporary Followers
As a direct sequel to a paper presented at the ISARS conference in Warsaw in 2011 under the heading “The Bear and the Plough: Shamanism in the Neolithic,” the present contribution attempts a further step forward, to the social context of mature chiefdoms and/or pristine states in the Western Mediterranean (early Rome and Sardinia) around the Bronze Age – Iron Age transition. Within this field, a number of archaeological, textual and ethnographic testimonies are discussed on the basis of new comparative research on winter masquerading in Europe, under the heading of “Carnival King of Europe” (www.carnivalkingofeurope.it), which may provide evidence for the metamorphoses of shamanic practices in the context of emerging religious fraternities and collective cults of that age. Espousing an evolutionist paradigm, the paper also draws some suggestions from Julian Jaynes’s seminal work, applied to the emergence of the anthropomorphic mask in proto-history as a marker of modern human consciousness.
JEFFERY L. MACDONALD (PORTLAND, OR, USA):
Building Bridges between the Spirits and the Living Iu-Mien (Yao) and Hmong (Miao) Rituals
The Iu-Mien (Yao) and Hmong (Miao) ethnic groups of southern China, Southeast Asia, and their refugee communities in the U.S. and France both build physical bridges that serve as the ritual basis for souls and spirits to pass from the spirit world to the living world. This paper explores and compares the bridge building rituals of both ethnic groups, the types of bridges and their functions for individuals and the community at large. For example, Mien and Hmong shamans may conduct bridge building rituals for fertility, healing, or longevity. The paper focuses on Mien refugee shamanic practice in the U.S. compared to descriptions of the similar Mien and Hmong rituals conducted in Southeast Asia to examine the interdependent relations between the living, the souls of the dead, and the spirit world. The effects of cultural change for refugees in the U.S. on bridge-building ritual performance and ethnic identity are considered. Finally, the paper examines the material culture of the bridges themselves, their construction materials and symbolism and the relation to the ritual spaces in which they are built.
MICHAEL KNÜPPEL (LIÁOCHÉNG, CHINA):
Yukaghir Shamanism: State(s) of Research
In this article the author deals with the history of research on Yukaghir shamanism. While we have much information from early travel accounts regarding the shamanism of Tungus and Mongol peoples, more extensive descriptions of Yukaghir shamanism were recorded only from the late nineteenth century. These data were mostly collected by Waldemar Jochelson, on whose works later publications were based.
DIRK SCHLOTTMANN (BERLIN):
The Hwanghaedo Jinjinogigut in South Korea: Culturally Specific Challenges in the Study of a Korean Death Ritual
This ethnographic study, based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Seoul and its suburbs between 2008 and 2017, examines the shamanic death ritual jinjinogigut of the Hwanghaedo tradition imported from North Korea. The jinjinogigut is a shaman ritual for recently deceased people. The exploration of this ritual presents the researcher with various culture-specific challenges, issues of spirituality and science, and seeming contradictions. This article categorizes and explains terms, examines various spiritual aspects of the ritual and unravels ambiguities. In most cases, previous studies have concentrated on the form of the ritual, all but ignoring the nuanced role of the shaman who conducts the transcendent ritual. This paper references the form while investigating the content of the jinjinogigut, using the shaman’s point of view as a focal point for analysis of the ceremony from both scientific and religious perspectives.
DÁVID SOMFAI KARA (BUDAPEST) and SEIDIN AMIRLAN (NUKUS, KARAKALPAKSTAN/UZBEKISTAN):
Traditional Spirituality among the Karakalpak of Central Asia
In the rural areas of Central Asia among the nomadic peoples (Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Karakalpak and Turkmen) and sedentary groups (Uzbek and Uigur) traditional spirituality was influenced by popular Ṣūfī tradition. In this traditional spirituality we find various spirit mediators that are called bakšı in Kyrgyz and baksı in Kazakh; south of the Syr Darya River they are called porkan. Very few data have been published on the Turkmen or Karakalpak porkans of Western Turkestan. In 2018, the two authors, Seidin Amirlan from Karakalpakstan and Dávid Somfai Kara from Hungary, had the chance to conduct fieldwork among the Karakalpak. They met an old spiritual leader, Berdimurat, and interviewed him about the Karakalpak porkans. Unfortunately, the last active porkans had died in the 1970s. Berdimurat was one of the last elderly people who had witnessed rituals performed by a porkan in his childhood. The present article is based on data collected by the authors in the field that were later supplemented by Seidin Amirlan with further pieces of information he found in the Karakalpak-language literature as well as from his own experiences.
GÁBOR VARGYAS (BUDAPEST):
The Bru Shaman’s Headdress
On the basis of two years of fieldwork in the Central Vietnamese Highlands, the author’s aim is to provide a detailed ethnographic description and analysis of the Bru shamanic headdress, of its manufacture, use and symbolism. Departing from a minute description of the headdresses and especially of a full list of their “accoutrements” (symbolic objects attached to the pigtails hanging from the back of the wreath-shaped headdresses), the author sets out seven groups, based on their explicit or implicit symbolism. He argues that (Bru) shamanic headdresses are “open” art works, each piece representing a unique assortment, depending on time, place and person, from a large pool of symbolic possibilities.
MICHAEL KNÜPPEL (LIÁOCHÉNG, CHINA):
On the Use of Daoist Talismans (符 Fú) in Chinese Shamanism
Book Reviews
Vilmos Voigt
NEIL PRICE. The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia