SHAMAN

Articles in this volume are dedicated to

Professor Åke Hultkrantz,

Honorary Editor-in-Chief of

Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research

on the occasion of his eighty-fifth birthday

Part Two Sponsored by

Ministry of Cultural Heritage

The National Cultural Fund of Hungary

Front cover: The classic shamanistic initiatory position. Photograph by Željko Jokić

Back cover: The ocelot-spirit is approaching. Photograph by Željko Jokić.

Photographs from Željko Jokić, Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body into a Cosmic Body in Yanomami Shamanistic Initiation

Copyright © Molnar & Kelemen Oriental Publishers Photos © Mihály Hoppál, Željko Jokić, Daniel A. Kister, László Kunkovács and Juha Pentikäinen All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, elec- tronic, photocopying or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publishers.

ISSN 1216-7827 Printed in Hungary SHAMAN Volume 14 Numbers 1 & 2 Spring/Autumn 2006 Contents

Åke Hultkrantz 5

Articles Power of Spirits: Spirituality in Denmark Merete Demant Jakobsen 9 Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body into a Cosmic Body in Yanomami Shamanistic Initiation Željko Jokić 19 Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals: Diversity of Ritual Modes, Participants, and Meanings Daniel A. Kister 41 The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective Juha Pentikäinen 61 The Contribution of Shamanism to Cognitive Science Helmut Wautischer 81 Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity Michael Winkelman 89

Field Reports Batïrkan, a Kazakh Shaman from the Altay Mountains (Mongolia) Dávid Somfai Kara, László Kunkovács and János Sipos 117 Vasiliı˘ Dunkai, a New Shaman for the Udeghe People Kira Van Deusen 139

Book Review Rachel Harris. Singing the Village. Music, Memory and Ritual among the Sibe of Xinjiang (Mihály Hoppál) 145

News and Notes The 8th Conference of the International Society for Shamanistic Research (ISSR), Hungary, 2007 147

Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Åke Hultkrantz

Åke Gunnar Birger Hultkrantz was born in Kalmar, Sweden, on 1 April 1920. On completing his education in Kalmar and Stockholm, he received his school-leaving certificate in Stockholm in May 1939. He then commenced his studies in comparative religion, ethnology and history at the University of Stockholm, where he earned a C.Phil. degree in 1943. His graduate studies earned him a Ph.D. in Ethnology in 1946 and another in Comparative Religion in 1953. He was named a Senior Lecturer at the University in 1953 and served in this capac- ity until 1958. That year he was appointed Professor of Comparative Religion at the same university and concurrently became Director of the Institute of Comparative Religion there. He was named Professor Emeritus in 1986, and received an honorary Doctorate of Theology from the University of Helsinki in 1997. Prof. Hultkrantz was Chairman and Board Member of numerous Swedish associations and learned societies. He was Chairman of the Swedish Americanist Society. He is also a member of Scientific Societies in a number of countries and an honorary fellow of learned Societies and Academies of Sciences in Sweden, Finland, Austria and the United States. He is a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association. He was made Vice President of the International Congress of Americanists held in Stockholm and Uppsala in 1994. He also won prizes for his academic achievements in 1980 (Americanist Congress, Winnipeg) and 1993 (International Society for Shamanistic Research, Budapest). Prof. Hultkrantz was a Visiting Professor in Boston (Brandeis Uni- versity, 1958), Santa Barbara (University of California, 1973, 1977, 1980, 1990), Missoula (University of Montana, 1977, 1980), Budapest (1970), Vienna (1973) and Aberdeen (1976), as well as in Bloomington, Leicester, Frankfurt, Cologne, Oslo, Bergen, Helsinki and Turku. He has participated in a host of conferences (Wenner-Gren Anthropolog- ical Conference, New York, 1968; International Congress of Learned Societies in the Field of Religion, Los Angeles, 1972; Conference 6 on Methodological Progress in Religion, Warsaw, 1979; Conference on Initiation Rites, Rome, 1984; Conference on Methods in Social Science, Durban, 1984). He was chosen President of the Conference on Shamanism in Budapest in 1993. He has also attended numerous Congresses of Americanists (since 1956) and of the Association of the History of Religions (since 1970), as well as other important confer- ences. Prof. Hultkrantz was invited to give the Gifford Lectures (Aber- deen, 1981–82) and the Foerster Lecture (Berkeley, 1983). He was also asked to hold a special lecture at Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill., 1980). He has carried out fieldwork among the Lapps, or Saami, (1944, 1946), the Shoshone of Wyoming and Idaho (altogether one and a half years during the years 1948–1990), the Northern Plains Indians (particularly the Arapaho) and the California Indians. Prof. Hultkrantz has published some 400 papers, including 25 books, in Ethnology, Comparative Religion and Folklore. His main interests are Methodology (including Ethnohistory and Ecology of Religion), the reli- gions of the North American Indians (in particular the Plains and Great Basin Indians), the Saami religion of Scandinavia, circumpolar religions in general, Shamanism and the cultural history of North American Indi- ans. His publications have appeared in Swedish, Norwegian, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Hungarian. A selected bibliography follows:

1. Conceptions of the Soul among North American Indians (Ethno- graphical Museum of Sweden, 1953) 2. The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition (Ethnographical Museum of Sweden, 1957) 3. General Ethnological Concepts (A dictionary, Rosenhilde and Bagger, 1960) 4. The Supernatural Owners of Nature (Almqvist & Wiksell, 1961) 5. Les religions des indiens primitifs de l’Amérique (Almqvist & Wiksell, 1963) 6. Les religions arctiques et finnoises (Payot, 1965) (with Ivar Paul- son and Karl Jettmar) 7. Metodvägar inom den jämförande religionsforskningen [Methods in Comparative Religion] (Esselte studium, 1973) 8. Iconography of Religion: Prairie and Plains Indians (Brill, 1973) 9. Studies in Lapp Shamanism (Almqvist & Wiksell, 1978) (with Louise Bäckman) Åke Hultkrantz 7

10. The Religions of the American Indians (University of California Press, 1979) 11. Belief and Worship in Native North America (Syracuse University Press, 1981) 12. The Hunters: their Culture and Way of Life (Tromsø, Universitetsvorlaget, 1982) (edited with Ørnulf Vorren) 13. The Study of American Indian Religions (Crossroad and Scholars Press, 1983) 14. Saami Pre-Christian Religion (1985) (with Louise Bäckman) (Universitet Stockholms) 15. Native Religions of North America (Crossroad, 1987) 16. Vem är vem i nordisk mytologi [Who is Who in Nordic Mythology] (Rabén & Sjögren, 1991) 17. Shamanic Healing and Ritual Drama (Crossroad, 1992) 18. Soul and Native Americans (Spring Publications, 1997) 19. The Attraction of Peyote (Almqvist & Wiksell, 1997) 20. Das Buch der Schamanen. Nord-und Südamerika (Motovun Book GmbH, Luzern, Schweiz, 2002)

Many of these books have been translated into other languages. Prof. Hultkrantz has edited numerous works, and was the editor of the following series: Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion and Stockholm Dissertations in Comparative Religion (published by the Institute of Comparative Religion at the University of Stockholm). He is also co-editor of many Scandinavian and American journals and Honorary Editor-in-Chief of the new journal, Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research. Prof. Hultkrantz has been honoured with three festschrifts, one American and two Swedish. In 1999, he was awarded the Sparrman Medallion by the Ethnographical Museum in Stockholm.

Editors’ Note. The Editors would like to express their sincere gratitude to Geraldine Hultkrantz for contributing this article to the present special issue of Shaman, as well as for the pictures on plates 1–3 that provide us with a few glimpses of the remarkable life of Åke Hultkrantz.

Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Power of Spirits: Spirituality in Denmark

Merete Demant Jakobsen Oxford

In Denmark many churches are almost empty. While the clergy publicly discuss the existence of God, television programmes on spirit manifes- tations recently attracted high numbers of viewers. These programmes present a “hands-on” relationship to the supernatural in which ordinary people relate their experiences of spirits. The fascination with the spirit world has always existed side by side with established religion and has been frowned upon if not seen as heresy by the church. Earlier it would have been questionable to show interest in the impact of ancestor spirits, but within the last few years it has become commonplace through popu- lar TV programmes and newspapers.

As this volume of Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research is a tribute to a distinguished Swedish researcher I thought it appropriate to give a present day picture of another Scandina- vian country, Denmark, and the growing interest in the world of spirits. I will look specifically at a television programme, “Power of Spirits,” which was extremely popular and had high numbers of viewers. The programme commenced at the start of the new millennium and was created by Thomas Breinholt. It was structured around visits to Danish people in different parts of the country who experienced that their homes had been invaded by spirits. The interviewer would be accompanied by a medium who would search the house and simultaneously explain the behaviour of the spirits present. After this detailed description of the spirit activity the occupants would, mostly astounded by the precise presentation by this complete stranger to their house, confirm the medium’s version. The number of manifestations in Danish homes suddenly seemed to rise and it became common place to narrate similar kinds of experiences in tabloid papers and magazines. As the programme targeted the average family there was an obvious possibility for identification. The themes ranged from the dead father who followed the teen-age daughter’s life 10 Merete Demant Jakobsen and tried from the other world to advise and protect her, over the farm infested with evil spirits where horses and dogs died under mysterious circumstances, to the unknown spirit taking a personal interest in one of the new inhabitants of a villa and trying to scare the spouse away. A variety of this version were several programmes on interviews with people who had close relatives that had died and who felt a need for information. The medium would meet the person in an interview situation and describe the death, often violent, and the spirit’s attempt at contact. As might be imagined these programmes were often very emotional for the relatives of the deceased. At this point the medium, Marion Dampier-Jeans, was introduced and she was to become a very popular media-star. She was born in Denmark but had lived in England for many years and been involved in the Spir- itualist Church where she had trained as a medium. What was readily available to any English person interested in contact “with the other side” every Sunday in the Spiritualist churches all over England became for the Danish population with its roots in the Lutheran church a contact with an exciting unknown world of spirit manifestations. The programme “Power of Spirits” was then followed by another version called “Feeling for Murder.” In this programme mediums were taken to unsolved murder scenes and then asked to describe what had taken place. The role of the medium was presented as more and more powerful as the programmes developed and it was not surprising that especially Marion Dampier-Jeans, who had by now published a book, “My life with the spirits,” which further confirmed her special experi- ences and powers, was inundated with requests for sittings. In an interview in a tabloid-paper (BT, October 2003), she confesses that her fame has been achieved under the wrong conditions. Her reason for participating in the programmes she now claims was to realise whether the world of the media was for her. But she had experienced unreasonable expectations of her skills. She is worried about the focus on her and not on the spirits. She also warns against the headless search for clairvoyant advice. In the article she is portrayed as lonely even though she is in con- stant contact with people but simultaneously she is also grateful for the help she can give people who have lost beloved relatives. At the same time as these programmes created a sudden interest in the spirit world among the Danish viewers different kinds of workshops and fairs became very popular. There were documentaries on the training of mediums, on past life experiences, etc. and these were followed by Power of Spirits: Spirituality in Denmark 11 fairs such as the “Universe of Mysticism,” November 2001, where again the main attraction was Marion Dampier-Jeans. There had been similar arrangements prior to the television programmes’ focus on spirit contact, where the presentations had mostly been a different version of established religions. Now palmistry, clairvoyance, healing, etc. were dominating the scene. In England these arrangements had been very popular in the mid to late 90s, now the Danish people seemed to take this world to heart.

The obvious question is whether people had experienced these super- natural events before the media presented them as acceptable and just had been uneasy talking about them. In a the highly secularised Danish soci- ety, they might have been seen as odd at best, mentally disturbed at worst or whether a perception of ordinary events as inexplicable had been cre- ated. Émile Durkheim describes this expression of magico-religious life:

We have seen that if collective life awakens religious thought on reaching a certain degree of intensity, it is because it brings about a state of effervescence which changes the conditions of psychic activity. Vital energies are over-excited, passions more active, sensations stronger; there are even some which are only produced at this moment. A man does not recognize himself; he feels himself transformed and consequently he transforms the environment which surrounds him. In order to account for the very particular impression which he receives, he attributes to the things with which he is most directly in contact properties which they have not, exceptional powers and virtues which the objects of every- day life do not possess. In a word, above the real world where his profane life passes he places another which, in one sense, does not exist except in thought, but to which he attributes a higher sort of dignity, than to the first. Thus from a double point of view it is an ideal world. (Durkheim 1976: 422)

The media’s orientation on the spirit world, had clearly over-excited passions and sensations. The people who “starred” in the programmes often had deep emotional reactions which to most viewers must have seemed convincing. When a medium explains the events in a household as supernatural and a mostly unwanted contact from a spirit world, a new framework is set up for the members of a family to explain adversity such as interpersonal conflicts arising from a father’s death, the death of a number of otherwise healthy animals on a farm, etc. the responsibility is taken away from the individual and instead ascribed to 12 Merete Demant Jakobsen the interfering of mostly evil forces. The fascination with the power of evil is reflected in several genres of television programmes and in mov- ies such as The Exorcist and The Omen. What made the programmes specifically popular was that they displayed the conditions of spirit invasion in the life of real people living otherwise normal lives.

It is interesting that while spirits suddenly seem to appear frequently in ordinary households, at the same time the clergy in the state church in Denmark have become more and more reluctant to present Christianity as anything but a religion of compassion presently publicly struggling with the concept of God. Recently a vicar was sacked by his female bishop for claiming that he did not believe in God, the other day a rural dean of 21 churches said that the Old Testament God was not the kind of God that he would adhere to, in one stroke cutting half the Bible away. John Shelby Spong, a retired American Episcopal bishop, writes best-sellers and has recently visited a seminar in Sweden. He claims that we today face a total change in the way modern people perceive reality. This change pro- claims that the way Christianity has traditionally been formulated no longer has credibility. That is why Christianity as we have known it increasingly displays signs of rigor mortis. (Spong 2001: 8)

There seems to be a very interesting dichotomy between a revival in a belief in the supernatural by the media and the Lutheran church simultaneously trying to explain that very world away, the miracles in the Gospels are described as just symbolic, the healing undertaken by Jesus only has the function to show him as “Son of Man,” the evil spirits a metaphor for the dark side of human beings etc. This demystification by the church might be understood as the reason for the renewed preparedness to accept the media’s presentation of the inter- vention of spirits in every day life. As Durkheim explains, there is a basis for this religious experience to be awakened in man, a wish for an emer- gence of an ideal world, to which “he attributes a higher sort of dignity.” Several of my informants in the neo-shamanic courses undertaken in the mid 90s had been disappointed in the church’s handling of their spiritual experiences and had sought alternative routes. While the concept of God is dying in the church the spirit world is revived in the media. Spong is aware of this preparedness to move in other direction than the Christian church. Power of Spirits: Spirituality in Denmark 13

This is the reality that is being proclaimed in our time by the birth of reli- gious substitutes for theism, from the New Age movement, to Western gurus, to the religion of diet and exercise. Theism’s death accounts for the fact that the great cathedrals of our generation have ceased to be churches and have instead become athletic arenas and sports stadiums. To these secular cathedrals crowds of worshippers are attracted every Sunday. The objects of their devotion are dressed in colourful vestments called uniforms and are the recipients of rituals, chants, and liturgical dances. Choirs sing their praises to the objects of their devotion and creates moments of ecstasy. They are even gripped, as we say, “by the spirit.” (Spong 2001: 33)

As is clear, Spong (2001: 35) chooses his vocabulary from a world that is closer to the shaman’s than that of the main stream church. He is, however, not setting this scenario as inspiration for his new reformation as he claims that now the theistic God has died, hysteria, fear and the meaninglessness that are part of our human self-consciousness are seen to be rising to frightening levels. The rise in the media of an interest in the spirit world might be a direct product of this fear and meaninglessness. The existential angst has no object and is transformed to a manageable fear of retaliation from a spirit world, which interferes in human life but at the same time confirms the existence of an afterlife. As God and the Holy Ghost in the Lutheran church is transformed to humanistic concepts such as love, compassion and peace, the television programmes preserves a belief that ghosts are indeed real and interacts with peoples’ lives. This polarisation happens because the folk-belief as always is frowned upon by the learned clergy who at the same time have a scientific problem with the existence of any spirit, holy or otherwise.

In 1998 I worked at an archive at the Religious Experience Research Centre, Westminster College, Oxford, founded by Alister Hardy in 1969. I was specifically interested in the negative spiritual experienc- es as they were, as far as I had experienced in my own research into neo-shamanic courses, the more difficult for people to come to terms with. The collection consists of about 6000 letters where I had access to over 4000. These letter were sent randomly to the research centre by people who responded to Sir Alister Hardy’s call for descriptions of spiritual experiences. Alister Hardy was a Professor of Zoology at 14 Merete Demant Jakobsen

Oxford and he published appeals for material in journals, pamphlets and in newspapers inviting people who had experienced some power “whether they call it the power of God or not, to write a single and brief account of these feelings and their effects” (The Observer, 8 March 1970). Reading through all these letters it was clear that the spiritual experience of the existence of God or the Holy Ghost was very much dominating the collection but I found 170 which described the encounters with negative forces. Often the writer found it difficult to write the letter as the person felt that he or she was reliving one of the most frightening moments of their lives. Alister Hardy himself seemed to be reluctant to venture into the area of negative experience. He commented “The possible causes of these horrific conditions probably lie in part within the field of psychology, of which I am not qualified to write: maybe these distressing experiences may be overcome by turning the mind to religious ideas.” (Hardy 1979: 63) There is no obvious reason why negative experiences should be catego- ries as psychological disturbances while literally seeing Christ is accept- ed as a religious experience. Both are transforming, both are recognising the existence of a spiritual realm and both have a lasting effect on the person. Hardy admits that “It seems likely that the proportion of people who have such experiences may be much greater than our figures would suggest, for our appeal was for records of religious or spiritual experience rather than those of an evil nature.” (Hardy 1979: 78) There is no doubt that negative experiences are more common place and less talked about in a Christian society. The experience of evil becomes personal, the person who has been “inflicted” by this will be seen as diverting from normality, whereas the experience of God or Christ is a gift. This dualistic view of spiritual experiences is now becoming even more evident as the church is moving towards demysti- fication, centring on the concepts of love. The accepted division between life and death is being eliminated when dead family members interact with the life of the living. For the shaman this is common knowledge but for a society under the influ- ence of Western spiritual concepts this is questioning the scientific view of belief which attempts to erase the magic of myths. The clergy in Denmark seems presently to be struggling with their own concepts of God and battling publicly over the freedom of speech of vicars on personal religious views. If the concept of the risen Christ is just a Power of Spirits: Spirituality in Denmark 15 symbolic presentation of a love for human kind, then a dead spirit man- ifesting itself in a television studio is nothing but media manipulation. In his impressive work, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Professor Keith Thomas describes the development in England from a society deeply involved in the everyday use of magic in the medieval period to explaining the world in scientific terms. Belief in magic is seen as a preoccupation with relief and explanation of human misfortune caused by the hazards of an intensely insecure society predominantly helpless in the face of disease.

Nearly every primitive religion is regarded by its adherents as a medium for obtaining supernatural power. This does not prevent it from functioning as a system of explanation, a source of moral injunctions, a symbol of social order, or a route to immortality; but it does mean that it also offers the prospect of a super- natural means of control over man’s earthly environment. (Thomas 1971: 27)

The fascination with the “power” of media mediums might then be seen as a need to have that same power reasserted to ordinary people. Praying to a God whose existence is doubted by his own servants is not going to be seen as a “safe” route ahead. A sense of impotence facing adversity will lead to the search for other tools than prayer, to the belief in man’s own means through the use of magic. This is what the televi- sion programmes deliver. Even though the training of the medium has taken place within a version of the Christian Church the explanations of the actions of spirits, benevolent or malevolent, offers the possibility of active counteractions and a dialogue with the supernatural forces. Spong is right when he points to the fact that there is a growing anx- iety in Western societies. It is a fact that the use of psycho-pharmaca is rising with worrying speed but his solution by demystifying the Christian church even further might lead to not more but a sense of less control and it is the lack of control over the environment that has created the anxiety. Performing rituals, using magic gives man a sense of an active role vis- á-vis his own life. Thomas claims that the use of magic started to decline even before remedies were found for threatening diseases.

A religious belief in order was a necessary prior assumption upon which the subsequent work of the natural scientists was to be founded. It was a favour- able mental environment which made possible the triumph of technology. 16 Merete Demant Jakobsen

(Thomas 1971: 786–87)

The mental belief in the 18th century might have been a trust in a man’s capacity to go forward in scientific development that ultimately would create full control over the environment. This kind of belief might be difficult to sustain in the beginning of the 21st century where the destructive aspects of science have been in full flow for decades. The Christian clergy in Denmark are facing half empty churches and focusing on universal and human love, while television programmes on the supernatural have soaring numbers of viewers. Thomas is unable to explain the decline in magic:

We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that men emancipated themselves from these magical beliefs without necessarily having devised any effective technology with which to replace them. In the seventeenth century they were able to take this step because magic was ceasing to be intellectually accept- able, and because their religion taught them to try self-help before invoking supernatural aid. But the ultimate origins of this faith in unaided human capacity remain mysterious. (Thomas 1971: 794)

Presently is seems as if the concept of a spirit world has found its way back into the lives of many Danish people through the media and not through the Lutheran church where an intellectual debate on the existence of God and supernatural explanations of human conditions flourishes, displaying a clergy struggling with their own spirituality in an otherwise secularised society.

References Dampier-Jeans, Marion 2001. Mit liv med ånder. Copenhagen: Borgen. Durkheim, Émile 1976. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. Hardy, Alister 1979. The Spiritual Nature of Man. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Jakobsen, Merete Demant 1999. Negative Spiritual Experiences: Encounters with Evil. Oxford: Religious Experience Research Centre, Westminster College. Spong, John Shelby 2001. A New Christianity for a New World. Why traditional faith is dying and how a new faith is being born. San Francisco: Harper. Power of Spirits: Spirituality in Denmark 17

Thomas, Keith 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic. England: Penguin Books. Merete Demant Jakobsen has been studying the Greenlandic shaman, the angakkoq, for more than twenty years. She has degrees in literature and ethnog- raphy from Denmark and a doctorate from Oxford University in anthropology. She has taught in Denmark, England and Alaska and has published four books, Shamanism. Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing; Negative Spiritual Experiences. Encounters with Evil, and Shamaner; Mellem ånder og Mennesker. Her fourth book, Gudindetilbederen, Frihedsmuseets Forlag, addresses her father’s experiences in the German concen- tration-camps Neuengamme and Buchenwald and as a slave-labourer in Leipzig.

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Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body into a Cosmic Body in Yanomami Shamanistic Initiation

Željko Jokić Sydney

The main aim of shamanistic initiation among the Yanomami people of the Upper Orinoco River region in Venezuela is the metamorphosis of the human body into a Cosmic Body, the “corporeal cosmo-genesis.” During the initiation, the neophyte undergoes an experience of death and rebirth, becomes simultaneously an individual living spirit and a “collection” of spirits who move into his body and become his personal allies and sources of power while at the same time imbuing the shaman’s post mortem ego with certain holographic properties. The fusion of body and cosmos is manifested on two levels (1) The micro-cosmic level whereby the shaman’s body becomes a micro-replica of the Yanomami universe, and (2) The macro-cosmic level whereby the candidate’s ego-consciousness expands and becomes unified with the external dimensionality of the macrocosm.

Introduction In its essence, shamanism can be characterized as a system of different modalities of the transformed ego-consciousness which defines reality and presupposes one of reality. It is arguably a category that describes a variety of interrelated practices, beliefs and traditions that focus espe- cially on trance or ecstasy and the shamans’ specific relationship with their helping spirits. Among the Yanomami shapori (shamans) from the Upper Orinoco River region, the established mechanism for initiation and the subsequent modus operandi for the alteration of consciousness, the mastery of ecstatic trance, and the contact with spirits, is through the use of psychotropic snuff powder, locally known as epena or yopo. The snuff is not only a powerful psychoactive substance which aids the shaman to establishing contact with the spirits but it is conceived by the 20 Željko Jokić shapori as a food for the spirits, who enjoy getting intoxicated along with their master. Past analyses of shamanism mainly focused on describing the mechanism of this process of alteration of consciousness through the rupture from its normal mode during the initiation and later practices. While this mechanism is generally known and described, to date there has been a paucity of information regarding a further systematic explora- tion of the nature of consciousness associated with shamanism. For this reason, I made this the main objective of my ethnographic research. The resulting doctoral dissertation focuses essentially on experiential and phenomenological aspects of Yanomami shamanism, shamans’ roles, activities, their socio-cosmic position, and their changing role in the con- text of cultural change, especially their attitudes and responses towards introduced diseases (and the corresponding new forms of treatment) which have resulted in a terminal imbalance in Yanomami life-world. My specific focus is on shamanistic initiation, the gradual mastery of the trance state, shamans’ shape-shifting abilities, and on methods of further expansion of shamans’ personal powers through the acquisition of new spirits as well as the nature of shamanistic engagement with the spirits in both ritual and non-ritual contexts and at both the intra-communal and inter-communal levels. The ethnographic fieldwork for this research project was carried out during 1999–2000 in two Yanomami villages situated in the Upper Orinoco region.1 During the first six months I was based in the com- munity of Mahekoto-theri situated in Platanal, a Salesian Catholic mis- sion established on the right bank of the Upper Orinoco River, approx- imately a one and a half hour journey upriver by boat from the Mavaca mission, and three hours from the mission in Ocamo. The second half of my fieldwork was spent in Sheroana-theri, a small community of 29 people linked through kinship ties with the Mahekoto-theri, whose village is situated on the left bank of the Shanishani River, one of Ori- noco’s numerous smaller tributaries, approximately eight hours on foot from the Orinoco River. While I was living with the Sheroana-theri I

1 This project was made possible through my affiliation with the School of Anthro- pology at the Central University of Caracas (UCV), under the external supervision of Dr. Daisy Barreto. Furthermore, I was affiliated with the Amazonian Centre for Investigation and Control of Tropical Diseases: Centro Amazonico para Investigación y Control de Enfermedades Tropicales (CAICET), the institution which provided me with the logistical help that enabled the realisation of my project. Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 21 have had an opportunity to observe and participate in a shamanistic initiation of a young candidate from this community and monitor his further progress in the ensuing months. During this time, I was adopted by the Ruweweriwë, the Sheroana-theri master shaman, who eventually initiated me as a shaman. In this paper, I will describe the main components of the process of “corporeal cosmo-genesis” or metamorphosis of the human body into a Cosmic Body in the Yanomami shamanistic initiation (hekura p r a i- ) . During an initiatory ordeal the interiority of the neophyte’s body is fused with the external dimensionality of the Yanomami cosmos through the medium of shaman’s transformed post mortem ego which contains certain properties that can best be described in holographic terms. Thus, the ensuing analysis of the initiation essentially focuses on the relationship between the body and the world or micro and macro dimensions of human existence. More specifically, the relationship between the Yanomami macrocosm (world body as a primal totality) and microcosm (shaman’s body) will be articulated through a dynamics between the whole and the part. I will begin with the representation of the Yanomami macro-cosmos as a fragmented holographic multi-layered totality consisting of a number of separate but inter-connected celestial and terrestrial cosmic discs which together form one bounded cosmic whole, perceived by the Yanomami as a cosmic boa. Although these cosmic discs exist separately as parts of an overall cosmic whole, at the same time they are a certain kind of wholes in themselves as each disc represents a different condition of the same whole or cosmic boa. This is reflected in names of each respective disc. “When a whole is subdivided, it is split into holographs of itself.” (Wagner 1991: 167) Both celestial and terrestrial realms are mirroring each other and together they constitute the primal totality which I will call the “World Body,” or the “Cosmic Body.” These are alternative terms for the classical idea of the macro-cosmos. Explicit knowledge of representations of the Yanomami macro-cosmos is generated implicitly through the lived experience of the shamanistic initiation and the “construction” of the shaman’s corporeal micro-cos- mos (imago mundi), or Cosmic body, which itself is a replica of the Yanomami macro-cosmos. The first complete manifestation of the cos- mos qua the shaman’s body during initiation occurs after the neophyte experiences death and enters his first trance state which is, in fact, his re-experience of death. Precisely at this moment, his body is speckled 22 Željko Jokić with dots, a pattern which resembles boa’s markings. The body, in this sense, becomes a medium for manifestation of a larger structure of the Yanomami cosmos. I will argue that only through mediation of the sha- man’s body will the earth and sky converge and the cosmos fully man- ifest itself as the physical features of the Yanomami life-world intersect with the invisible world of hekura spirits. Therefore, in continuation, I will summarize the process of initiation and explore the horizon of the Cosmic Body as the experiential realm which opens-up during the sha- manistic initiation. To the extent that the structure of the Yanomami macro-cosmos is holographic in its nature, I will also argue that the structure of sha- man’s post mortem ego contains certain holographic properties. In other words, the shaman’s transformed consciousness brought about through the influx of hekura spirits during the initiation, results in the manifestation of the all-encompassing ego which is, in relation to the embodied (transformed) hekura, a whole with its parts. More specifically, through the initiation the shaman acquires a number of spirit-helpers who together form the basis of a new egoic conscious- ness. But, while he is one whole cosmic system he is also a part of that system as he becomes an individual hekura spirit. In sum, each shapori becomes simultaneously a single hekura and a separate cosmic system of personal hekura grouped together. Finally, the enclosed dimensions of existence as revealed through my analysis of shamanistic initiation are not the result of my own interpre- tation or adherence to certain ontological views. They are treated as empirical realities of human consciousness—like the reality of cosmos. I use holography, not as an intellectual conception, alternative viewpoint or a theoretical construction. Nor is holography something that forms the basis of the Yanomami worldview. It is an analytical tool and a particular “mode of understanding” (Wagner 1991: 170) of the world.

Yanomami Cosmos as a Holographic Totality: The Dynamic Between the “Whole” and its “Part” The totality of the Yanomami multi-layered cosmos is enclosed within an abdomen of a giant cosmic boa (hetu mïsi). In the Yanomami lan- guage, hetu means ‘boa constrictor’ and the suffix mïsi, attached to the Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 23 name of each separate cosmic disc, signifies ‘abdomen’ (Lizot 1999). The skin of the cosmic snake is a membrane which sets the limits of the Yanomami-known universe. If one applies the notion of hologram2 to the totality of the Yanomami cosmos, it can be described as one hologramic whole, consisting of three to five separate but inter-related parts or cosmic discs3 positioned on top of each other along the vertical cosmic axis, forming together one cosmic totality. All cosmic discs exist in their own right but they are directly interconnected with each other so that the bottom surface of each disc becomes the top surface of the one below. Although these cosmic discs together form a part of the whole cosmic totality, they are at the same time a certain kind of whole in themselves. Each separate layer is a world in itself with its proper name and with its own horizontal dimensionality limited by the top and bottom surfaces of each layer. Each disc represents different structural part or changing conditions of the cosmic whole as a set of different stages from new to old and from male to female. The upper- most layer is young cosmos in its genesis (oshe), while the farthest down is described as an old woman (hetu mïsi suwë pata). In sum, each cosmic disc is part of a fragmented totality which replicates this whole as a state of the cosmos or condition of the cosmic boa’s abdomen. The image of a cosmic snake, as we can see, is an image of a closed universe, a bounded whole which represents the totality of existence

2 The term ‘hologram’ derives from the Greek holos meaning ‘whole.’ The basic premise of a holographic worldview postulates that the ‘whole’ is contained within each of its constitutive parts, or, in other words, each part is equal to the ‘whole.’ Holography is a special type of three-dimensional, lens less photography, invented by Nobel Prize winner Dennis Gabor in 1971. Gabor used holographic film which con- tains interference pattern of chaotic light signatures or a hologram. Each illuminated piece of this image-pattern produces the whole three-dimensional, original image. In other words, each part of a hologram has the potential to reproduce the original image. Pribram (1981) identifies the basic principles of holography in his neurological research of the interaction between the brain, visual cortex and memory system. By examining the interaction between vision or perception and previously stored mem- ories, he discovered that they collide with each other and create certain “interference patterns”—holographic in their nature—between visual input of image reception and expectation (Hampden-Turner 1982: 94). He concludes (a) that memory is stored in the brain in a holographic manner, and (b) human brain is a hologram, because in the case of brain damage, brain will continue to store the totality of personal memory. 3 I am indebted to Dr. Jadran Mimica from the University of Sydney for his clarifi- cation of this holographic conception of the Yanomami cosmos. 24 Željko Jokić in past, present and future. In fact, through the shamanistic initiation described below, this mythic image of a cosmic boa fully manifests itself through the medium of shaman’s body as a micro-cosmic totality bounded by the shaman’s skin, which is accordingly dotted in the man- ner that resembles the pattern on the snake.

Yanomami Shamanistic Initiation: a Brief Summary Shapori and hekura are synonyms for the Yanomami equivalent of shaman: the latter term (hekura) also means the ‘spirit.’ The shaman is correspondingly perceived by non-initiated Yanomami as something other than a human being; he is a living spirit in the flesh. With regards to the first term, in the Yanomami language, the common root shapo- as in shapori and shapono, refers to its character of domesticity (Lizot 1999: 38). In other words, shapono, a Yanomami communal house, is a domesticated cultured human space while shapori is a collection of domesticated hekura. Hekura, on the other hand, is the term used when referring to spirit-helpers as parts of the shaman as a whole. I suggest that the distinction drawn between shapori and hekura is in some way misleading because when a person is initiated and becomes a shapori he is also a hekura. Shapori refers to a person who has been initiated, has lost his human components, and has become immortal hekura. In effect, an adjective pra- as in hekura prai-, which literary means ‘to initiate somebody as a shaman,’ indicates the idea of transformation, change of the nature, the state or the form. Thus, the Yanomami term for shamanistic initiation hekura prai- can be translated as the “meta- morphosis of a human being into a hekura spirit,” or human body into a Cosmic Body (“corporeal cosmo-genesis”). Essentially, during the initi- ation, certain hekura spirits, by virtue of being attracted to the sounds of the neophyte’s calling and lip vibration, leave their natural habitat—the mountain tops and the forest—and move into the neophyte’s body which now becomes their abode. For the duration of this process, the neophyte undergoes an intense experience of death through dismemberment by the spirits, and subsequent re-birth as hekura (living spirit). The whole experience of death by the incoming spirits, in fact, consists of a series of quasi-death experiences, before the major death experience, as the neophyte is cut with a machete, torn apart by the jaguar, consumed alive by fire and pierced with an arrow. As the candidate sacrifices his soul Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 25 and humanness to the spirits, the latter become his personal allies and sources of power while at the same time imbuing the shaman’s post mor- tem ego with certain holographic properties. More specifically, through experiences of death and rebirth, the shaman overcomes the human con- dition, becoming simultaneously an individual living hekura spirit and a “collection” of other hekura. To the extent that the process of initiation involves the incarnation of numerous spirits, concurrently, the further fusion of body and cosmos is accomplished through an ordered succession of acts of embodiment of the distinctive body-structural components such as the two head-crowns of light (watoshe), two toucan wings (hoko), the path of spirits (pei yo), spirit-house (shapono), and Cosmic Mountain (pei maki). The shaman’s body in this way becomes a micro-replica of the Yanomami universe, with macrocosmic manifestation of the neophyte’s ego-consciousness which undergoes radical transformation of self-perception and mode of being as it slips out of its usual body-self boundaries and expands into a cosmic, all-encompassing open mode, thus becoming unified with the external dimensionality of the macrocosm.

The Techniques of Spirit-calling and Mechanism of their Embodiment: Day-by-Day Description of the Process The initiation unfolds under one specific section of the shapono’s roof. The complete initiatory ordeal can last up to a month, during which time the neophyte receives large quantities of ready-made psychotropic powder and calls on the hekura spirits to come. The initiation devel- ops as a form of dialogue between the master shapori (shaman), the embodied hekura spirits, and the neophyte. There are about four to five daily rounds, or cycles of embodiment, each one lasting approximately an hour. The first round starts just after sunrise when the morning mist lifts: the last one terminates when the sun is very low in the sky. Upon the completion of each individual round, the neophyte crawls back slowly to his hammock—still facing the same direction—then lies down on his back looking upwards. He rests in this position until the next round and does not talk to anyone. On the first day of initiation, the neophyte’s entire body is covered with circles painted with red ochre. A pair of armbands, made from the 26 Željko Jokić skin of a curassow bird, is placed around his upper-arms; while the bird’s white down is distributed all over his freshly-cut hair. He is seated under the roof in a classic initiatory body posture with his legs spread wide on the ground, his back straight, his abdomen contracted, his chest exposed, and with both arms behind him, pressing against the ground. Simul- taneously great quantities of psychotropic powder are blown into the neophyte’s nostrils: he starts vibrating his lips making a specific sound, a call which attracts the spirits, who soon start coming from all directions, attracted by the calling chants and the characteristic lip-vibrating sound (pl. 4 a). The master shaman simultaneously goes to the village central area and starts singing, in this way inviting the spirits to come and enter his body first, before conveying them to the neophyte. Upon capturing and embodying each individual spirit the shaman traverses the path back towards the neophyte and transfers the spirits directly into his body. After that, the master shaman retraces his steps and repeats the process. On the second day, the master shaman and his helper embody the path of hekura (pei yo) as the first major structural item of the new embodiment. The embodied path of the spirits is described as a “path of light,” dispersing into all the colors of the rainbow along which spirits come dancing towards the neophyte, fluttering and reeling in ecstasy, like a cloud of butterflies. The spirit-path is positioned in the body, with both edges starting from the big toes going along the sides of the legs, and terminating close to the chest on both sides of the rib- cage. The path unfolds between the legs and terminates in the chest where the spirit-house will be embodied. On the third day the neophyte undergoes his first experience of qua- si-death by machete. But before that, in the morning, the master first incorporates Oiriwë or fire hekura. For this occasion, the master sha- man places a basket over his own head and starts waddling towards the neophyte, who in turn starts screaming and panicking. When I asked him later to describe his experience, he replied that the “fire-front” was advancing towards him; the fire engulfing him was extremely hot and he lost consciousness. At noon, Hetureimawë (spirit of boa constrictor) comes with a machete in his hands, to kill the neophyte by cutting him in half (pl. 4 b). As he slowly approaches, the intensity of the neophyte’s singing increases, interrupted only by sporadic screams. When the boa-spirit swings his machete inches from neophyte’s face, the latter drops down instantly and remains motionless for some time, with arms and legs Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 27 outstretched. Later, the neophyte described the experience of cutting as a “kind of explosion of consciousness,” comparable to a lightning strike. He also told me that when he dropped to the ground, although he remained conscious, he was unable to move because his body felt very heavy. He reported experiencing a sensation of sinking and dissolving into the ground. He said that while he was lying motionless, it was as if ants were entering his body through his toes and travelling slowly upward inside his legs. At the same time, he said, the earth became alive, “as if many fingers were touching him from below.” In the afternoon of the same day, a spirit-house or shapono, being another structural body-item, was successfully embodied. The proce- dure for embodiment of shapono was the same as the embodiment of the path the day before, the only difference being that the spirit-path was embodied by the master shaman into the lower part of the neo- phyte’s body, while the spirit-house was embodied directly into the chest. When the moment of actual embodiment arrives, another man supports the neophyte’s back, holding him from behind in an upright position. The neophyte starts screaming, his upper torso twitching in agony. I asked him afterwards to describe the experience of embod- iment and the reason he was screaming. He replied that the newly introduced shapono in his chest was very heavy; its presence left him almost breathless. Immediately after the embodiment, the master shaman restored the neophyte’s breath to normal. The latter, however, continues to make gurgling sounds and vomits saliva. He opens his eyes and continues lip-vibrating, calling the spirits and singing to his newly embodied spirit-house (pl. 5 a). The spirit-embodiment continues in the usual manner and both shapori instruct the neophyte to see the spirits’ faces and recognize them. After doing as told, the neophyte bursts out crying, recogniz- ing his father: “These are my fathers!” he acknowledges. The master exclaims: “They are your proper spirits coming to you. They always belonged to you and from now on they are staying with you!” The shapori helper then tells the neophyte how his own hekura spirits like him very much. The neophyte replies that he wants his hekura to like him very much. “This comes with time,” he is told. “They have to get used to you and your body as their new home. Be patient and respect the rules and they will stay with you for ever.” The morning of day four, and the neophyte experiences another death by machete, this time performed by Waikoyariwë, the spirit of anaconda 28 Željko Jokić who brought with him a head-crown of light (waikoya watoshe) to put it around the neophyte’s head. As the spirit approaches, the neophyte screams and drops to the ground: the spirit swings his machete and dismembers the neophyte’s body. The master, however, straight away instructs the unconscious neophyte to heed his voice and not be afraid. The shaman then kneels down in front of the neophyte and starts “open- ing up” his body with his hands. The hekura opens up one leg first, then the other, then the stomach, arms and the neck. The shaman then walks back to the village centre and incorporates the spirit of the inhaling tube whose healing function is to weld the body back together. Holding a tube in his hands, he moves towards the neophyte. The shaman then starts sliding the tube upwards just above the skin, retracing the line of the previous cut. Finally, another hekura spirit comes and starts singing into the body along the same lines where the previous operations of cutting and sewing occurred (pl. 5 b). After this, the master shaman brings the crown made from palm leaves covered with white down and places it around the neophyte’s head (pl. 6 a). At the same time the anaconda’s spirit crown of light is implanted into the neophyte’s struc- tural stratum of his new bodily mode as hekura spirit i.e. the initiated shapori. Together with the crown, the shaman also embodies a pair of toucan’s wings (hoko) also made from a palm tree. As an individual (living) hekura the shaman will carry a halo of light around his head, the same as those that the hekura spirits have around their heads. This light-crown enables him to “see” far away, and inside others’ bodies. In addition, the embodied toucan wings will enable the shaman to fly just like the hekura fly. These capabilities are non-human qualities. After these key events, the usual hekura-embodiment continues until the end of this round and eventually until the end of the day. On the fifth day the neophyte experiences two further instances of quasi-death. The first was by Wathaperariwë, spirit of “boa tornasol” who arrived adorned with beads and bird feathers dancing and singing with bow and arrow in his hands. He then stood in front of the initiate, placed an arrow in its proper place and pulled the bow-string tight, releasing it immediately with loud noise without letting an arrow go (pl. 6 b). The neophyte screamed and dropped on the ground. In the midday round, the neophyte was eaten by Yaoriwë, the hekura spirit of an ocelot. For this occasion, the master shaman prepared his own body prior to the act, painting black dots all over it and encircling his entire face with a long piece of white cotton-wool. The shaman takes four Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 29 big blows of epena powder, starts singing and dancing thus inviting Yaoriwë to come. The feline spirit soon announces his presence, looks towards the seated neophyte and starts walking towards him as the latter continues lip-vibrating and asking the cat to kill him. As Yaoriwë slowly approaches, wriggling his tongue in the air and with cat-like body movements, (pl. 7 a), the neophyte starts screaming and shouting: “It’s me! Here I am, I am here.” The neophyte knows that he will be eaten soon. The master announces that Yaoriwë brought with him many other spirits, who have come with all their possessions, adornments, bows and arrows. These hekura are migrating, moving, leaving their shaponos in their primordial habitat at the mountain tops (the highest earthly points, and closest to the sky) and moving into the bodily shapono of the neophyte, through the path embodied on the sec- ond day of the initiation. They take all of their possessions with them in the same way the Yanomami do when they move from one shapono to another. The master instructs the neophyte to maintain positive thoughts, or else the spirits will hasten away. Yaoriwë then leaps and attacks the neophyte who drops to the ground: the cat feasts on human flesh while mucus bubbles from the neophyte’s mouth (pl. 7 b). The cat dismembers the body and scatters its parts in all four directions of the cosmos, licking up the remaining blood. Then another spirit arrives and starts putting the new body back together, bones first, followed by the spirit of the inhaling tube sewing the neophyte’s new flesh. The next morning the neophyte experiences another quasi-death, this time by Irariwë (spirit of Jaguar). This will take place at noon before the ceremonial wooden pole (pei maki) is embodied. Jaguar-spirit lives in the forest. In order to bring him to the neophyte, the master has to go outside of the village to find him. After a few moments, Jaguar enters the village: he starts growling and walking towards the neophyte (pl. 8 a). For this occasion, the master shapori decorates his body—a cotton ring circles his face, resembling the facial contours of a jaguar. The neophyte quickly realizes that the beast is there to eat him. He panics, screams, and shakes with fear. The jaguar licks his cheeks. The neophyte shouts: “Bring my bow and arrow to defend myself!” He simultaneously con- tinues calling with vibrating lips, determined to continue. In the mean- time, the people of Sheroana-theri village and especially the neophyte’s family, start crying for him. “He will finish me off!” shouts the neo- phyte, letting out a final agonizing scream; he falls to the ground, swept away by Irariwë’s attack (pl. 8 b). At that moment, the drug, mixed with 30 Željko Jokić saliva, literally bursts out of his mouth and nose. Then comes Jaguar’s feast, who starts eating the neophyte’s body piece by piece and licks the blood. As he dismembers the neophyte’s body, he scatters the latter’s arms, legs, head and trunk in all four directions of the cosmos. After the neophyte’s new body is re-constituted and he is again seated, Jag- uar-spirit places the head-crown around the neophyte’s head: the latter continues to sing and look towards the sky (pl. 9 a). The head-crown or halo of white light, in this way becomes a constitutive component of the new hekura’s body. The Jaguar-spirit informs the neophyte that the crown gives him the ability to see into the distance.

Embodiment of the Pei Maki: the Moment of Separation from the Master Finally, the most important day of initiation has arrived: the embodiment of the ceremonial pole which carries within it a spirit-mountain to be embodied into the neophyte’s chest. The pole was brought to the neo- phyte by the master shaman and his assistant. Immediately before the embodiment, the neophyte sings, complaining that the pole/mountain (pei maki) is heavy and affects his breathing. His voice starts intensify- ing. Finally, when the pole is rammed into the earth between his legs, the neophyte screams in agony; the lingering sound gradually dissolves into the air. At the same time his upper torso is supported from the back by a Yanomami helper. After the moment of embodiment, the neophyte looks up towards the top of the pole, starts repeating the text after the master, and vibrating his lips thus calling the spirits to come. Later the neophyte said that at the moment of embodiment his breath came down to his belly: the throat area was very tight and he could hardly breathe. The shaman soon restored his breath to normal by “lifting it back into the chest area.” He also said that when he looked up the pole, he saw a (spir- itual) mountain that closely resembled the nearby Sheroana Mountain, and was accompanied by many spirits. When the pole was fixed, they started pouring directly into his body (pl. 9 b). Entering the pole first, the spirits sank down along its axis then entered the neophyte’s body through his big toes. He described the experience of incoming hekura as “children lined up behind each other making a long thread.” They were, according to him, the size of the tip of the finger. Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 31 Contemplation of the Pole (Ethnographer’s Personal Experience) The following is my own personal experience of the contemplation of the pole after it was lodged between my legs. Experientially, there is no separation of space between the ego and the pole. The two merge into one with the newly emerged sense of space. The pole itself appears huge, stretching from one extreme of the cosmos to the other. It is axis mundi, which connects all spheres of the universe. In the middle of the pole there is a layer of green parrot feathers, symbolizing this earthly level or the rainforest where Jaguar-spirit lives. After the embodiment, my consciousness became “alive” as the forest opened up and I transformed into a jaguar. The green feathers in the middle of the pole ceased to be simply feathers: they trans- formed into green forest foliage, moving in flux and producing “a feeling” for the forest and its dangers. The top of the pole represents the top of the cosmic mountain which extends to the sky. Positioned near the top is a crown made of black and white bird feathers, which symbolizes the sky and day and night cycles. This is the place where the celestial hekura live. Moving downwards, the pole extends deep into subterranean levels, a cold place of rotten matter and humidity and home to the Amahiri-theri—Yanomami mythological ancestors. Experientially the pole becomes equal to an opening which stretches horizontally. The white down glued to the pole represents the numer- ous hekura who stay in their new house. The pole covered with down thus becomes the equivalent of the mountain full of spirits, which is located inside the neophyte’s chest.

Post Pei Maki Stage of Initiation After pei maki is embodied, the master ceases to be directly involved in the initiation process, no longer a link between the neophyte and the cosmos. The neophyte enters the second stage of the initiation, calling spirits without the master’s direct involvement. From that moment onwards, the spirits come in masses and stay permanently as a part of the neophyte’s new body-hekura system. As the neophyte looks up towards the top of the pei maki pole and starts lip-vibrating and sing- 32 Željko Jokić ing, hekura start coming towards the pole. They enter through the top of the pole and at the same time they make contact with his body. After three days, the wooden pole is removed. It is taken into the forest and left there, affixed to the trunk of a big tree; from then on, the neophyte remains fixed in the horizontal position and continues calling the spirits but without the physical presence of the pole. He no longer looks up: he now looks straight ahead during the chanting. The pole is no longer necessary because the mountain remains in his body: spirits continue coming directly into the body-mountain. This process eventually culminates in the death and total fragmentation of the ego, including temporal loss of identity, followed by the total transforma- tion of the shaman’s post mortem, ego-bound consciousness and the constitution of the new mode of hekura-being.4 The re-birth of the new cosmic selfhood marks the metamorphosis of the human into hekura. After the death experience, the neophyte’s body is carefully washed with lukewarm water for the first time since the beginning of the initi- ation. It is then painted with brown dots. (pl. 10 a). On the eleventh day of the initiation, the shapori embodies the final structural features of the new shapori’s body—hammocks (yï ï) for the hekura to rest in just as the Yanomami do in everyday life. Each spir- it-hammock is individually implanted by the master shaman waving his index finger in short, oscillating movements from left to right as he slowly makes his way alongside the neophyte’s body. At the end of the round I counted in total 127 hammocks, evenly distributed throughout the whole of neophyte’s body. The master shaman later clarified that there are as many individual hammocks as there are embodied heku- ra. Each embodied spirit is assigned his or her own hammock. At the end of this round, the master shaman encircled each of the neophyte’s shoulders with his index finger a few times, not unlike tying a rope. The neophyte later explained the meaning of this final act: the shapori placed two large hammocks designated for the sky-hekura (hetu mïsi: snake’s abdomen) on each side of the neophyte’s head, starting just behind his ears and extending vertically downwards. Finally, at the very end, he made two circles with the thumbs and index fingers of both of his hands and placed them around the initiate’s eyes. He then

4 For detailed description and analysis of my own experience of initiatory death and re-birth, see Jokić (2003: 195). Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 33 looked straight at him and emitted a very loud, high-pitched sound, saying perip/mothoka (sun/moon). Later I was told that the sun and moon are positioned in the same place as the initiate’s eyes. Continual chanting and calling of spirits eventually leads to further expansion and “stretching” of the neophyte’s consciousness until it cul- minates in another rupture. When this occurs, the neophyte effectively enters his first trance state, which is at the same time a re-experience of death. But this time it is less turbulent. When the moment of the first trance/death state arrives, the shapori can not sustain a stable differenti- ation between himself, others around him, the shapono, and the rest of the universe. For him, in fact, the inside and outside dimensionality is dominated by a sense of oneness and unity. There is nothing beyond him for he is all there is—the manifestation of whole. At that very moment, the neophyte’s body is carefully re-washed with lukewarm water and re-speckled with dots. He also dons armlets made of curassow bird feath- ers. White down is again spread all over freshly cut hair, as it was at the beginning of the initiation. The body is decorated and dotted with ochre, a pattern which resembles boa’s markings: during initiation it becomes the cosmic boa, as the shaman becomes the body of the world. After that, the neophyte stands up and starts singing thus taking his first indepen- dent steps of shamanistic practice with the help of the master shapori who takes him by the hand for his very first walk (pl. 10 b).

The Bodily Microcosm: Cosmic Body as a Replica of the Macrocosm By the end of the first two weeks of initiation, the neophyte’s body has completely transformed and become a micro-model of the Yanomami universe (imago mundi). The upper parts of the body (head and shoul- ders) are where the sky hekura are suspended on each side of the head, with the sky-hammocks extending from the bottom of each ear down towards the shoulders. Eyes mark the spot where the sun and moon hekura are positioned. The middle area (the chest) is where the Cos- mic Mountain is planted. The top of the Cosmic Mountain terminates approximately in the base of the neck, which is also the place to which the bottom ends of the sky hammocks are tied, and where the sky hekura are suspended. The base of the neck is the place where the top of the 34 Željko Jokić

Cosmic Mountain meets the low part of the embodied sky. The lower part of the middle area (the rib-cage) is where the base of the Cosmic Mountain is situated. The shapono is positioned next to the base of the Cosmic Mountain. The path of the hekura (pei kë yo) starts from the big toes which are described as the “gates” for the incoming spirits, stretch- es along the sides of the legs, and finally terminates in the shapono. In front of the entrance into the corporeal shapono—a place just under the navel—a pore (ghost of a dead Yanomami) is situated. He guards other corporeal hekura and alerts them if an intruder is nearby. This spot is also the point in the bodily image of the world where the earth surface and underworld (lower abdomen and legs) meet, as opposed to the base of the neck where the sky and earth meet. In fact, mirroring each other, the micro-dimension of the shapori’s body-cosmos corresponds to the exteriority of the Yanomami natural and social world. The head and shoulders are the replica of the celes- tial sphere, stretching above the surface of the earth or the body’s central area where the bodily shapono, spirit-path and inner-moun- tain are positioned. Together, they replicate the Yanomami lived geo- graphical reality. The Yanomami shapono is frequently situated near some mountain peak where hekura live. There are numerous paths which lead to and from the shapono. Inside the shapono, Yanomami sleep in their hammocks; in the same way, hekura sleep inside the shapono located inside the shapori’s chest. The hekura are not, how- ever, confined to their bodily shapono. They move freely through the body, just like the Yanomami venture into the forest, beyond their communal houses. In the Yanomami lived reality there is often a pore (ghost) living in the forest near their shaponos just like the corporeal pore lives near bodily shapono. The main difference is that the dis- embodied pore is considered dangerous because he or she can steal people’s souls and make them sick. Once the pore is incorporated into the shaman’s body he starts serving beneficial purposes. Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 35 Symbolism of the Cosmic Body as the Man Becomes a “Centre” of the Universe5 Pei maki is the polymorphic symbol which in Yanomami language signifies simultaneously the ceremonial wooden pole, the geographical mountain and Cosmic or Inner Mountain. It is symbolically the place where the sky and earth meet and therefore one example of the univer- sal symbol of axis mundi—the World or central axis which connects different cosmic spheres. Eliade writes that axis mundi passes through the “Centre of the World”—a place where the rupture of shaman’s consciousness occurs as a form of passage from the earth to the sky (1960: 113). Pei maki is the manifestation of the symbol of Cosmic Mountain, also called Central because, in this instance, it attracts hek- ura from other (geographical) mountains towards itself; it serves as a point of convergence of hekura. In other words, the Central Mountain is one symbolic manifestation of the absolute “Centre” which draws the universe towards itself. In similar manner, the body is the site of the embodied Central Mountain (pei maki); therefore, it becomes Central Body as man becomes “Centre of the Universe.” Thus during the initia- tory ordeal, the body becomes the “Centre” towards which hekura, as the building blocks of the Yanomami cosmos, will inevitably gravitate. The symbolism of the “Centre of the Universe” in the Yanomami example can be extended from the human body to the Yanomami dwell- ing place (shapono). Eliade comments that every temple, altar, tent, or in fact “every human habitation is projected to the ‘Centre’ of the World ” (italics original) (1989: 265; see also Eliade 1958b: 379 and 1965: 76). In other words, the symbolism of axis mundi is attested in the very structure of humans’ dwellings. The Yanomami circular communal house reflects an image of their conception of the universe. The open central area is the celestial arch (sky) which meets the earth where the shapono’s roof begins (horizon) and human beings—Yanomami—live. It is precisely at this place where the neophyte is positioned during the entire initiation and where the experienced shamans summon their spirits during séances. In the same manner that an individual shapori can be seen as the “Centre of the (Yanomami) universe,” all living shamans across the

5 In the following text I use my own interpretative formulations influenced primar- ily by Dr. Jadran Mimica’s (University of Sydney) concepts. 36 Željko Jokić

Yanomami cosmo-geographical region can be seen as “plurality of cen- tres,” coexisting and operating simultaneously within a transpersonal field of macro-cosmic spirit powers. Each individual shapori participates through his “centreedness” in the sphere of conscious inter-subjective relations with other shapori, mediated by their hekura and the epena psychotropic snuff. They affect each other directly within the field of intra-psychic shamanistic horizons and overlapping modes of shared self-consciousness, generated by their embodied spirit-helpers and, of course, by the copious hallucinogens used in the shamanistic activities.

One and Many: the Holographic Structure of Shapori’s Post Mortem Consciousness The shaman’s transformed body, as an integrated and dynamic whole, provides a model for the integrated and dynamic totality of the cosmos. Each individual shaman represents an autonomous system, a distinct set of embodied personal hekura spirits operating together as a unit. The shaman’s body represents their headquarters. Each time when the shaman engages in his activities, his (Cosmic) body becomes the “Cen- tre,” as he “dies” (nomarayoma) anew through trance and ecstasy and directly re-enters the original primordial condition of the ever-present, mythical dimension of illud tempus—an a priori of human existence. As he becomes the “Centre” of the cosmos and the site of its manifes- tation, his newly expanded ego-consciousness becomes a field of fluid boundaries and continual multiple transformations and shape-shifting. In other words, in this peculiar state of consciousness, the shapori becomes a self-contained but indeterminate cosmic whole with the ability to transform into any of its constitutive components, that is, individual hek- ura-spirits who are certain wholes in themselves. This is determined on the basis of the prevailing evidence of the nature of the shaman’s “post-mortem” consciousness. Briefly, through initiation the neophyte’s self is destroyed by hekura and re-constituted as a multiplicity of various hekura-selves after his death and rebirth. In other words, after the neophyte experiences himself dying, all of the hekura spirits who contributed to the rupture and fragmentation of his ego-consciousness form together the basis of a new totalized and totalizing modality of egoic consciousness. Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 37

When a shapori dies for the second time, he does not become no pore- pi6 like other Yanomami. In other words, unlike all the other souls of the dead Yanomami, the shaman does not journey to the celestial shapono. Instead, after the shaman’s biological death, his hekura disperse in var- ious directions and return to the mountain tops where they lived prior to becoming part of the bodily hekura system at the time the shaman was initiated. Each hekura retains an imprint of the shapori’s perso- na. Accordingly, when a shaman dies his soul multiplies. Each hekura becomes a carrier of his soul image. Some of them will be called upon by future initiates to descend from the mountain tops again and enter a new body. During the initiation in Sheroana-theri, described in this paper, the neophyte repeatedly recognized the multiplicity of his father, who was a great shapori, in the faces of various oncoming hekura. A shapori is generally referred to as the father of all his personal hekura. As they are transferred from father to son, the latter becomes father to his own children (hekura). Accordingly, during my fieldwork the Yanomami frequently pointed out to me that the newly embodied hekura are very young, just like little children. We shall recall that after the ceremonial pole was embodied during the initiation, the neo- phyte also described the arriving hekura as a queue of children. As the shaman matures and becomes more experienced his personal hekura also grow older and become more powerful. The shaman dies but the hekura they can not die as they are perceived by the Yanomami to be indestructible and immortal beings (parimi). Among the Sanema, Yanomami northern cousins, there is a similar belief that hekula (hek- ura) can not die; rather, they mature and grow old together with the shaman whose body they inhabit. After the shaman’s death, these hek- ura become temporarily disembodied, having the ability to rejuvenate, become young again and become embodied again as personal hekura (Colchester 1982). In this way, the continuity of the cosmic unity of primordial time is preserved and maintained through the initiations of human beings who transform into hekura and become the future no patapi or living ancestors after receiving the knowledge, in the words of my informant, from the “ones that are gone before” i.e., other immortal no patapi ancestors or other past shamans.

6 After their death and cremation, the souls of (non-initiated) Yanomami migrate to a large celestial shapono where they continue their existence as no porepi (dead souls) practicing hunting, gardening and shamanism just like their living counterparts. 38 Željko Jokić Concluding Reflections In this paper I argued that, after the initiation, the shaman ego-conscious- ness becomes a self-contained but indeterminate cosmic whole consist- ing of numerous individually embodied hekura spirits. Through initia- tion, the shaman incorporates numerous hekura into his body but at the same time he becomes one of the spirits: he is “many within one and one of many.” I stress the word “indeterminate” (whole) because throughout their lifetimes the shamans’ arsenal of their personal spirit-helpers will expand as they continue incorporating an additional Yanomami, and sometimes non-Yanomami, spirits into their bodies. The whole of the shaman’s Cosmic Body can thus be characterized as an “expanding whole”—a whole that is more than sum of its parts. Correspondingly, other shamans are other sovereign self-enclosed, but constantly expand- ing cosmic wholes—all parts of the same overall cosmic totality. If all shamans’ personal embodied spirits form distinct cosmic systems, and if, as I attempted to demonstrate in this paper, the cosmos can fully manifest itself only through the shaman’s bodies, what happens than with other spirits who do not form a part of these cosmic systems, i.e. that exist outside of the shaman’s corporeal cosmic closures? If the totality of Yanomami cosmos is viewed as a whole outside of which there is noth- ing, I propose, following Mimica’s analysis of Iqwaye cosmology (Mim- ica 1988), that these disembodied spirits must also exist within because “. . . [i]n the mythic image (of a cosmic boa) all spatiality is ‘within,’ and this ‘within,’ the ‘inside,’ is all that there is. Wherever there is being, it is within (emphasis original) the totality of the cosmic being.” (ibid.: 97) If hekura are viewed by the Yanomami as eternal, immortal beings, it may then be said that the Yanomami shamans, through initiation, attain status of immortality. This immortality indicates transformation and continuity of the cosmos which is constantly re-generated and replicated through perpetual cycles of shamanistic initiations. This is reflected in the post mortem multiplication of the dead shaman’s soul image and con- tinual re-incarnation of the disembodied hekura spirits who are called upon to invade the bodies of new candidates, make them their abodes, and to contribute to a cosmogonic initiatory act once again. Cosmo-genesis or Transformation of the Human Body 39 References Colchester, Marcus 1982. “The Cosmovision of the Venezuelan Sanema.” Antro- pologica 58: 97–122. Eliade, Mircea 1958. Patterns in Comparative Religion. London: Sheed and Ward. —. 1960. Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. London: Harvill Press. —. 1965. The Myth of the Eternal Return. New York: Pantheon. —. 1989. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. London: Arcana. Hampden-Turner, Charles 1982. Maps of the Mind. New York: Collier. Jokić, Željko 2003. Hekura Mou: A Phenomenological Analysis of Yanomami Shamanism. Ph.D. thesis, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. Lizot, Jacques 1999. Cosmovision, Enfermedad y Muerte entre los Yanomami. Puerto Ayacucho: the unpublished paper for the C.A.I.C.E.T. Mimica, Jadran 1988. Intimations of Infinity: The Mythopoeia of the Iqwaye Counting System and Number. Oxford: Berg. Pribram, Karl 1981. “Behaviorism, Phenomenology and Holism in Psychology: a Scientific Analysis.” In Ronald S. Valle and Rolf von Eckartsberg (eds.) The Metaphors of Consciousness. New York: Plenum Press. Wagner, Roy 1991. “The Fractal Person.” In Maurice Godelier and Marilyn Strathern (eds.) Big Men and Great Men. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Željko Jokić is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology—the School of Society, Culture and Performance—at the Uni- versity of Sydney, Australia. He is currently converting his Ph.D. thesis into a book and preparing a few articles on Yanomami shamanism for publication.

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Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals: Diversity of Ritual Modes, Participants, and Meanings

Daniel A. Kister chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China

This paper discusses ways in which the interaction of participants with the ritual activity in a variety of Chinese shamanist seasonal rites can generate diverse meanings and thus contribute to the rite’s vitality as a living experience for the community. Any rite has a core of common meaning; but its wonder, symbolism, and mimetic activity give it an open-ended, “virtual” aspect that allows each participant to realize its meaning differently in accord with his or her own experience and expec- tancies. The discussion focuses on Qiang, Naxi, Yi, Han, and Manchu rites. For its analytical framework, it borrows concepts from literary criticism, especially “audience response” criticism.

It has been said that shamanism is difficult to pin down as a subject for scholarly investigation. This seems very much the case with shamanist and quasi-shamanist activity in China, beginning with the multiplicity of names applied to shamanist practitioners (Gao 1999: 35–46). The term shaman (saman) is often reserved for practitioners in the far north or west of China. The general term wushi (male) or wupo (female) covers a broad range of shamanist or quasi-shamanist practitioners that are sometimes more properly speaking priests or magicians than entranced shamans (Zhang 1996: 57 ff.). The modes of performance also vary greatly, from simple symbolic rites to dramatic performances of entranced mediums. The present paper describes the seasonal rites of a few of the fifty-six nationalities of China, mainly from the Southwest. Except where other- wise noted, I describe rites I have personally observed. Much shamanist research limits itself to the interaction between ritual activity and the performing shaman, but the present paper focus- es on the interaction between the rite and the whole community. It explores ways in which the interaction with various participants can 42 Daniel A. Kister generate meaning and contribute to the vitality of the rite as a living experience for the community. For an analytic framework, I borrow concepts from other disciplines, especially from literary criticism. This not only broadens the range of theoretical perspectives one can take toward shamanist activity. It also raises such activity from the realm of “superstition” and “primitive culture” and places it on a par with other social, religious, artistic, and cultural activities.

Rites of the Qiang People We begin our investigation with a Qiang People’s family rite held the third day of the Qiang New Year, the middle of November 2001, in a village in western Sichuan Province in the high mountains bordering on Tibet. It was performed for the ancestral gods at the family hearth by two brother shamans (xu). Only a few family members were in attendance, for the most part physically inactive, along with several guest observers. The rite began in the early afternoon as the hearth fire was lit and a coulter placed in the coals (pls. 11, 12 a–b). The younger of the two shamans sprinkles liquor and food before the family shrine behind the hearth. He puts on a monkey headdress with several small, highly valued seashells; and without any appearance of trance, he begins drumming and chanting. He drinks a little liquor from cups that those seated around the hearth pass around and drink throughout the rite. The older shaman burns an aromatic plant around each person pres- ent and over offerings before the shrine. After about an hour, the simple rite reaches a climax when the young- er shaman takes the red-hot coulter out of the fire, licks it several times quickly with his tongue, and then quickly slides the heal of his bare foot over it. Some of the guests do the same. A graduate student who did so said, “It isn’t as bad as I thought”; but he later added that the experience is truly amazing. None were hurt. A little later, the shaman prepares the Peace Flower Plate (tai ping hua ban), molding straw and dough into a boat-shaped affair holding twenty-two pieces of dough that stand for various creatures. About 5:00 p.m., after eating together in the next room, each person present comes before the shaman, kneels, tells him his/her birth date and name, stretches out his/her arms beneath the smoking aromatic plant Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 43 and Peace Flower Plate held by the shaman, and listens to words he gives each. Finally, the shaman alone takes the Peace Flower Plate and, calling out, carries it through the village. He leaves it where wild birds can eat the dough. The degree to which the shaman is in a trance is not clear; but in touching his foot to the red-hot coulter, he fits the classical shaman’s role as wonder worker, though on the present occasion ordinary persons per- form this feat as well. Mircea Eliade calls attention to a shaman’s ability to evoke wonder (Eliade 1964: 551); but he defines shamanic activity rather in terms of an ability to enter trance (Eliade 1964: 4). However, the ability to perform feats of wonder seems more of a common denom- inator for shamanic activity generally speaking than an ability to serve as an entranced medium. Trance or no trance, more important than the experience of a shaman in performing feats is that of the whole body of participants as they get caught up in the wonder that the feats arouse. Wonder is a more open-ended emotion than joy, sorrow, love, or hate; and for different persons present, the wonder evoked in a rite may open their minds to different thoughts and feelings and allow them to experi- ence the meaning of the rite in different ways. For the graduate student in the present instance, wonder amounts to simple amazement. For the believing family it bolsters their faith in the shaman’s powers and in the presence of the gods and spirits in their life of shared warmth, food, hopes, fears, joys, and memories around the hearth. Or rather, their communal belief—a belief not shared by the graduate student—trans- forms this feat, which in other circumstances would be a mere circus trick, into a sign fraught with meaning. The lack of any concrete form of dramatization of the gods con- tributes to the open-ended thrust of the rite. One has the freedom to experience the gods in one’s own way in accord with each one’s own imagination and belief-experience. The simple, rhythmic music of the chant and drumming creates, moreover, a contemplative mood that invites those present not just to stand in awe before the shaman’s feat, but to explore their thoughts and feelings in the presence of the won- drous sign, each in his or her own way. Shaman rites commonly evoke meaning through the language of symbols. Some have a more-or-less clear-cut meaning, such as the use in Chinese shamanism of sesame flowers, which symbolize success because they blossom ever higher and higher, notch by notch, or the use of artifacts whose name rimes with what is sought in a rite, such as flasks 44 Daniel A. Kister

(ping) to signify peace (pingan) (Zhang 1996: 72–73). Giving the food of the Peace Flower Plate to the birds re-affirms harmony with nature in something of this kind of clearly ascertainable symbolism. The symbolic potential of the hearth fire, however, is more open-ended and hard to pin down. It may evoke different meanings for different family members in accord with each one’s memories of life around the hearth and the multiple archetypal possibilities of fire to suggest warmth, comfort, con- stant motion, searing pain, or transformation, such as Gaston Bachelard discusses in Psychoanalysis of Fire (Bachelard 1964b: 7 ff.). In seasonal rites celebrated by a whole village, a tower pointing toward the heavens may well provide the public, cosmic center of Qiang villagers’ lives in accord with Eliade’s well-known theory about such rites (Eliade 1959: 21–30); but the hearth provides the center of every-day family living. A focus of family memories, the flickering hearth fire in the present rite may well have as much power as the shaman’s feat to engage family members in the rite, each along different lines of meaning, as it feeds personal reveries with fire’s contrary suggestions of comfort and pain, “the instinct for living and the instinct for dying” (Bachelard 1964b: 16). To see how different modes of interaction between participants and a rite can generate various possibilities of meaning, the insights of another discipline, literary criticism, can be of help. Twentieth-century criticism has come to stress two ways of understanding a literary work that can apply as well to a ritual work. First, just as a student of shamanism tends to seek a rite’s meaning in terms of its relation to the shaman’s experiences, the reader of a literary work seeks the work’s meaning in terms of the author’s experiences and intentions. Mid-twentieth-century criticism has stressed, however, that a literary text, once it is produced, has its own life and potential for meaning. Readers grasp its meanings primarily from the text itself, not from its relation to its creator. The same is true of a shamanist ritual. Secondly, toward the end of the century, “audience-response” critics stressed that a literary text as produced by the author is never a com- pletely finished work. A part of the richness and lasting vitality of a work depends on its open-ended quality. The author’s work is what Wolfgang Iser calls a “virtual” text (Iser 1980: 106). It suggests multiple possi- bilities of meaning that readers realize, each somewhat differently, as they interact with the text and realize its possibilities of meaning in line with their own experiences and expectations. So, too, with a shamanist ritual. A rite embodies a core of meaning that is basically the same for Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 45 all and explainable by a shaman, knowledgeable informant, or scholar; but its experiential power for the community of participants depends on its character as an open-ended, “virtual” entity that suggests divergent possibilities of meaning to different persons present. As Iser notes for a literary work (Iser 1980: 109 ff.), the study of ritual from the point of view of the response of participants focuses on aspects of the rite that are ambiguous, lack clear definition, or are otherwise hard to pin down. In the Qiang rite, such are the wonder, the amorphous evocation of the gods, the chant, and the symbolism of the hearth fire. These allow for multiple thrusts of meaning precisely because they have no clearly ascertainable, unidirectional significance. Scholars have generated reams of research trying to ascertain what goes on in the mind of a shaman during a rite, sometimes with slim results. What goes on in the minds and hearts of the whole body of par- ticipants as they interact with a rite is as least as significant, but often just as inascertainable. Clues may be gotten by interrogating participants, but many shamanist believers are not used to reflecting on the inner move- ments of their minds or expressing these movements verbally. In any case, the main focus of investigation is the symbols, structure, mode of performance, and thrust of the rite itself. As with a fertile literary work, the meanings radiated by a rite may go well beyond the intention of its creator or performer and the conscious awareness of participants. In a much more elaborate rite worshiping the Mountain God (jishan), Qiang villagers as a whole “fulfill their vow” (zai lai huan yuan) to make offerings to the gods in the hope of benefits for the new year (Zhongguo yuanshi zongjiao 1989: 435). One such rite was held on a mid-summer morning in 2002 near another mountain village, in a meadow by a stone tower topped by a sacred white stone. At mid-morning, numerous shamans, drummers in monkey-skin head- gear, and bands of male and female dancers follow pipers in procession along a mountain stream from the village to the tower (pls. 13 a–b). A goat is led around the tower, incense and candles are offered, liquor sprinkled, firecrackers set off, a rifle fired. After a while, all move to a grassy area below the tower; and the rite comes to a climax when a shaman brings a hot coulter from a nearby fire, sits contemplatively for a while, and then slides his foot over the coulter for several seconds. Then he bares himself to the waist and briefly wraps a hot chain lightly around his neck and head as all watch intently. Colorfully dressed men and women then file out into the area, singing and dancing in a large 46 Daniel A. Kister circle, clockwise, counterclockwise, and finally snake-like, in a series of dances that lasts almost a half-hour (pls. 14 a–b, 15). A little before noon, the pipers lead all in procession back to the village. The performers of the rite are the dancers as well as the shamans. As active participants, they are more likely to experience its full range of meanings than mere spectators. As they process to the ritual site with the shamans at the beginning, the kinetic movement of the colorful pro- cession no doubt gives expression for some to the villagers’ vow to the gods; but for others, it may express rather a movement toward village togetherness or the expectant joy of enhanced contact with the gods, nature, and one another. The dance before the tower at the end may reiterate any or all of these movements of the mind and heart. To sum up the meaning of the morning’s ritual activity unilaterally as the fulfillment of the villagers’ vow says too little. To theorize with Eliade (1959: 21–30) and say that it centers their sense of the cosmos on contact with the heavenly realm of the gods says both too much and too little. His theory says too much because most participants proba- bly have little concern about the rite’s cosmic implications. It says too little because their participation in the rite can give rise to a variety of thoughts and feelings that the theory ignores. Spatial meanings may well proliferate, moreover, in line with what scholars of other disci- plines have said about the symbolic potential of archetypical spatial configurations1. The whole lively scene in the stark mountain setting creates something of the fertile “poetry in space” that the early twenti- eth-century French theater critic Antonin Artaud sees as the aim of all vital theater (Artaud 1958: 38). It has the multiple potential for meaning of any vibrant theatrical experience.

A Rite of the Naxi People Some rites that are said to be shamanistic manifest very little in the way of feats of wonder. Such is the rite worshiping Heaven (jitian) tra- ditionally held every spring and summer by the Naxi People of the high mountains of Yunnan Province, south of the Qiang in Sichuan. The stat- ed purpose of the rite is to “commemorate the protection and blessings

1 See Bachelard 1964a: 17 ff.; Durand 1960: 129, 467. Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 47 of the spirits” (weile jinian shenling de baoyou cifu) while reinforcing communal harmony (Guo and Yang 1991: 176, 186). Though I have seen it only on video, the rite seems to have nothing in the way of trance activity or wondrous feats of power. It consists of purely priestly activity centered on nature and the universal symbolism of a sacrificial meal. As in the Qiang rite, villagers join actively in the performance, each family preparing food for the meal. After days of devote preparation, families leave their homes and join in procession toward an area north of the village because the ancestors are thought to have come from the northwest. Calling out “daji dali” (good luck and success), each family carries food and large incense sticks. The villagers also carry a ritually clean pig for sacrifice and three different kinds of tree branches. At the ritual site, these are set up, one at the right for the God of Heaven (Tien- shen), one at the left for the God of Earth (Dishen), and one in the middle for an ancestral god, with stones set at the bottom of each. On the top of a forked stick behind the center branch, the shaman sets an egg to ward off evil; and before each of the three branches, he sets a cup of rice and liquor. On an altar in front of the branches are placed baskets of rice and large incense sticks for each family, along with jugs of liquor and baskets of other offerings. Male representatives offer incense and then liquor. The rite centers on the sacrifice of a cock and a pig, purificatory procedures with the pig’s blood, the offering of liquor and flesh from the sacrificed animals, the ritual sharing of food, and some ritual play. The shaman (dongba) serves mainly a priestly role (pl. 16). After he pours water on the cock and pig, their throats are slit. He collects some of the cock’s blood in a cup and hangs the dead cock behind the center branch next to the egg on the stick. He collects some of the pig’s blood in a bowl and sprinkles it on the branches, stones, the dead cock, and stones holding up a pot above a fire. While someone reads scriptures praising the God of Heaven, the dead pig is laid out on the grass, its head toward the altar. The shaman puts a sprig of leaves on its carcass and sprinkles water on the altar area and the pig. All the men then bow toward the altar. After the pig’s head is cut off and set in a fire, the sha- man hangs some of its innards as offerings on the three tree branches. The pig’s carcass is split in two. One half is consumed by those present later during the rite; the other is cut into portions, one for each family, which each receives joyfully as a gift from the god(s). The shaman sets cups of liquor and cups containing bits of flesh cut from the pig’s head and cock before each branch. He then sets the 48 Daniel A. Kister pig’s head before the left branch and the cock’s carcass before the right branch. While all men bow, he takes a live cock and holds it toward the altar as if it were bowing. He tosses rice from the families’ baskets of rice on the altar toward the trees, and he tosses the cock behind the center branch. He breaks the egg and the stick on which it was standing and puts them behind the center tree to signify getting rid of evil. The shaman then breaks off parts of the three branches and puts some in each family’s basket of rice on the altar. He collects into a bowl some of the food and drink offerings as well as some grass that was strewn by the branches. He gives them to a young man, who sets them out at a short distance away to be eaten by crows, the messengers between men and the gods and evil spirits. The women now prepare the meal, and all eat. The shaman and young men engage in a game of shooting arrows. Then one young man acts as a tiger protecting eggs (two stones) under him, which the others try to grab. The loser is tossed into the air. Finally, calling out, all pro- cess back to the village with their belongings and the tree branches. For a full description of the whole rite, see Guo and Yang (1991: 168 ff.). Like the Qiang rites, the rite as a whole reinforces communal belief in the presence of the gods and ancestors as a sustaining, harmonizing presence. It verifies this presence, not by feats of wonder, however, but by the reading of traditional scriptures and the sharing of sacrificial food. The idea that the rite commemorates the blessings of the spirits sums up its intended purpose. But it suggests very little about the rite’s possi- bilities of meaning as a living experience for those present. As with the Qiang rite, the kinetic movement of the colorful procession and the ritual gestures of officiants in the lush natural setting create an open-ended “poetry in space.” For all, the symbolic theatrical poetry radiates a sense of contact with the gods, ancestors, nature, and one another. But different participants may respond to different aspects of the rite’s symbolic pos- sibilities, and they may do so to different degrees. Some may experience the rite mainly as an event of contact with supernatural spirits and a chance to commemorate the spirits’ blessings. Others may experience it as a time of contact with the ancestors and an opportunity to reinforce village harmony. Others may be especially sensitive to the harmony with nature that the ritual setting reinforces. Others may respond simply to the comradery of the shared meal and ritual play. Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 49 Rites of the Yi People Many Yi People live in the Liangshan Mountains of Sichuan, south of the Qiang and north of the Naxi. An Yi family new year’s rite celebrated in 2002 had the same basic purpose and meaning as the Qiang family rite described at the outset of this paper, but it employed more varied symbolic activity. Here, too, the performance was mainly the work of a shamanist officiant; but it consisted of a series of rituals aimed in part at the needs of different family members. The rite was held, not on the Yi New Year in autumn, but at the time of the Chinese New Year in February. It lasted three days and was participated in by the whole fami- ly—father and mother, elder daughter and son (both university students), and younger son—along with some relatives and friends. The performing officiant was a bimo (in the Yi language pi-mox), the principal religious representative of the Yi, but not as much a shaman type as the other traditional representative, the sunyi (su-nyit) (Bamo 2004: 5–7) (pl. 17). A bimo is said to be able to put his hand in boiling water or endure a red-hot coil around his neck without injury; but on the present occasion, his feats as wonder worker were limited to “making a dead cock crow” in a rite the first night and divining the state of family members’ health in an egg cracked in a pan of water the next morning. In a purification rite at the family hearth the first evening, the bimo summons two ancestral spirits (linghun)—the grandfather, Grey Tiger (Hui hu), and the great-grandfather, Black Bear (Hei xiong); and he seeks to rid the family of evil perpetrated against it by others’ curses. In a typ- ical Yi purificatory gesture, a hot stone is dipped in water and, steaming, tossed outside by the daughter. Members of the immediate family put their hands on wood chips in a shallow basket to signify that they are present together. Much later, a rooster is killed; and the rite reaches a climax when the bimo makes the dead rooster crow by blowing on a tube inserted in its windpipe. This informs the ancestral gods and the head sky god Nge-tit-gux-nzy, that the rite is being held. A pig is also slaugh- tered. The rite ends about 2:00 a.m., and the meat of the two animals provides the next morning’s breakfast. At mid-morning, the bimo performs a brief rite before the house to diagnose the health of the grandmother and mother. He first dips a small aromatic plant in water and passes it lightly around an egg while chant- ing. He gives the egg to the grandmother, and she rubs it on her legs and feet. He then cracks the egg in water and reads the albumen strands that 50 Daniel A. Kister strangely group around the yoke, signifying the ghosts (gui) of persons who have died unnatural deaths and are believed to be troubling the grandmother. The daughter then tosses out the egg and water; and the bimo repeats the rite for the mother, who suffers from chronic arthritis. At noon around the hearth inside, the main rite summons the two ancestral spirits and prays for the family’s health, wealth, and well-be- ing. The daughter is not initially present; and anyone attending the rite must not talk with outsiders until late in the afternoon, after they eat some of the goat meat from the rite as a sign it is finished. The bimo uses hemp strands to shape sheaves into small figures, binding onto one of these green grass used for calling and sending away spirits. He sticks roughly four rows of wood sticks in earth packed in a shallow basket. A goat is brought in. Then the bimo chants, setting beside him another small basket containing a cup of liquor. He passes a steaming stone over the basket, and an assistant tosses the stone and water outside to cleanse the room. One of the straw figures is put on the neck of the goat, which is sprinkled with water and made to drink some liquor. Later, the father, mother, and two sons, but not the daughter, stand together; and an assistant passes around them a triangular stick figuration, straw sheaves, and finally the goat. With the help of another assistant, he waves the goat over their heads, clockwise, then counterclockwise, and touches it to the back of each. The second assistant then touches each with the wood chips and tosses them out. The family goes out the door and returns under the goat. The goat’s throat is then slit and its blood gathered in a pan and set before the chanting bimo. The straw figure and sticks are laid on its carcass, its head toward the door and hind parts toward the hearth. The bimo sprinkles some of its blood into a bowl; and the youngest son takes this outside, where the smoke of burning straw announces the rite to the god(s). His body swaying to and fro in what seems a kind of trance, the bimo then rings his bell, while the father holds a special wooden bowl containing items used to call back the souls of family members that have been lost, in this case the soul of the daughter, who suffered from chronic fatigue. The father sets the bowl on a cloak on the floor and leads a string from the bowl to the goat as an avenue for the daughter’s soul to return to the bowl. At about 3:30, the rite calling back her soul begins, with her now present. The father waves the cloak and bowl over the smoking fire outside and then lays the end of the string on the goat’s hind parts. The Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 51 bimo puts on his cloak, chants as he rings his bell, and holds one of the small straw sheaves. He moves toward the door and stands before it. His body sways and shakes, and he calls out and lightly stamps his feet. The father gradually draws the string from the goat into the bowl, covers the bowl, and puts it behind the hearth fire. After a rest, the father cuts off a swath of the goat’s breast skin, puts it on the straw-filled basket, and skins the goat. Its meat is prepared; and at about 4:30, each person present eats a morsel of its roasted liver and is free to leave the site. However, the bimo continues. Chanting, he sticks pieces of meat from the goat’s innards on the tip of each stick in the basket of straw and packed earth and binds the sticks together. After all eat supper, the rite to call back a lost soul is repeated, with only men present. Then strings tied on the necks of the family at the very beginning are cut off and given to the bimo, who wraps them around a stick figure in the basket. Father, mother, and first son drink a little liquor. The bimo then uses a hoof of the slaughtered goat gently to smash down some sticks in the earth-filled basket and gives the basket to the father. He next makes a bundle out of the remaining sticks and straw. On it, he sticks the horns of the goat and lays a burning stick from the hearth fire. All family members except the daughter put on their cloaks and huddle together. An assistant takes the bundle and goes twice around them clockwise, then counterclockwise, touching each with it. He then puts it at the doorstep, and it is taken out. At about 7:15, the youngest son tosses a steaming stone outside; and the rite is finished. The grandfather and great-grandfather spirits are thought to remain, enshrined on a cabi- net in the inner room, but the sky god is believed to leave. In the course of his chants, the bimo has a conversation with the family ancestral spirits and his own ancestral spirit(s); he recounts the origins of grass, trees, water, stones, and the present ritual; and he calls upon every mountain god, as well as the spirits (different from the two ancestral spirits) of each individual family member. At 8:30 the following morning, the last of the three days’ rites is performed, a ritual to alleviate the mother’s rheumatism. It was attend- ed only by the bimo, the father, the mother, the daughter, along with myself. Because moisture contributes to rheumatic pain, the rite was held by a spring at the head of a gully near the house. As in other shamanist cultures, participants may know quite well the general sci- entific causes of a disease; but they recognize that science alone does not necessarily explain why a disease affects this particular person and 52 Daniel A. Kister not others. In the present instance, a spirit called Fengshi is believed to give rise to the mother’s arthritis. The rite employs sticks and straws prepared by the bimo, a bowl of buck- wheat grain, and a baby chick. The mother squats before a gully leading out from the spring. Holding a sheaf of straw and chanting, the bimo squats behind her and from time to time brushes the sheaf on the mother’s sides. He fashions the straw into a figure standing for Fengshi and groups togeth- er other straw figures and wood. He sticks these in the ground before the mother, where he also sets the chick and smoking grass. After about an hour, the father passes a steaming stone around the mother and tosses it away; and the bimo gargles water and spurts it out toward her. While the bimo chants rhythmically, the father puts a bowl of water before the mother; and several times, about five minutes apart, she blows bubbles in it with a straw while the father and daughter call out. Finally, at around 10:00, the father digs a hole where the burning grass was. The mother approaches, rubs buckwheat grains on her body, and puts them in the hole. The father pours water on hot stones that are set among the sticks, and the mother walks over them. He uses earth to cover the figure of Fengshi, which is now in the hole; and the rite is finished. The prolonged rhythmic chants that the bimo chants in the course of the rite create a meditative aura as they recall the origin of trees, water, grass, stones, and the spirit causing the mother’s rheumatism. An extended dis- cussion of this kind of rite can be found in Bamo (1994: 191 ff.). Iser says that a literary work has two poles, “the author’s text” and “the realization accomplished by the reader.” The work itself lies “somewhere between the two. It must inevitably be virtual in character, as it cannot be reduced to the reality of the text or to the subjectivity of the reader, and it is from this virtuality that it derives is dynamism” (Iser 1980: 106). So it is with the Yi family rites. Their dynamism derives in part from their vital power as a virtual event. As performed by the bimo, with the help of the father and others, they are unfinished. Their possibilities of meaning are completed only as each person present experiences the understated wonder aroused by the bimo’s acts, the rhythm and poetry of his chants, the evocation of gods that each is free to picture on his or her own, and the fertile spatial poetry of the hearth fire. A young Yi university student from another village says that when a bimo rite is held in his home, the fire means for him the warmth of family togetherness and the flickering of his desires and dreams. For others it may evoke other lines of thought and feeling in line with fire’s shifting archetypal associations. Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 53

Modern psychotherapy commonly seeks to identify specific causes of psychic difficulties and engage patients in explicit verbal exchange to deal with them. Some shamanist rites also seek to uncover specif- ic anxieties or family tensions and deal with them through explicit, dramatic verbal exchange; and the final day’s rite for the mother associates her rheumatism with a specific spirit and a particular nat- ural phenomenon, the spring. However, the previous day’s rite for the daughter exemplifies a more open-ended form of shamanic healing. Its symbolic procedures do not seek to identify the causes of her chronic fatigue in a specific anxiety or interpersonal problem. Rather, they invite her to experience the rite’s healing thrust on her own terms, in line with her own experience and sense of relationship with nature, the gods, ancestors, and her caring family. This implicit, virtual manner no doubt accounts for much of the enduring vitality of such a rite, something that modern psychoanalysis has yet to demonstrate. In any case, over subsequent months, the health of the daughter, and also that of the mother, improved. The prime focus of an investigation into a rite’s virtual power to generate meaning is the rite itself. But in the present instance, attention can also be given to differences in the relation of each participant to the rite. For the daughter, the rite no doubt means a promise of relief from chronic fatigue and renewed inner peace. For the grandmother and the mother, it promises better health in more concrete, physical terms. For the father, as he joins in the performance, it reaffirms his role as head of the family. For the first son, it gives a renewed sense that the ancestors are with him in his university studies, a belief that he says distinguishes him from his Han classmates and contributes to his sense of self-identity.

Rites of the Manchu Turning from the Southwest to Manchu rites in the far Northeast of China, we find family rituals that are the activity of an entire clan. The stated purpose of such a rite performed in Jilin Province in the summer of 2001 was to remember the clan ancestors, pray for good health, and ask the Harvest God for aid in reaping a good harvest. The rite was per- formed by male shamans, with an occasional suggestion of trance. Like the Naxi rite seen earlier, it centered on the sharing of sacrificial food. 54 Daniel A. Kister

In the early afternoon in the room of a house, two young male sha- mans drum around a large wooden container of fine yellow rice before an altar, above which are hung the symbolic clothes of the clan gods— Eagle God (Yingshen), Tiger God (Hushen), etc. One of the shamans calls out, “Laila” (He, she, or it comes.) The rice is then cooked in the central entrance hall, put back in the wooden container, pounded into dough on a stone, and molded into cakes by laughing young women. Meanwhile, chicken stew is prepared. Later, the shamans set out chick- ens and rice cakes before the container and chant. They put on waist bells, join assistants in drumming, and process outside. After a while, a pig is brought before the altar; liquor is poured into its ear; and it is taken from the room and slaughtered. At 6:00 p.m., the boiled pig’s parts are arranged in the wooden container as if it were lying on its back, its head pointing toward the altar. To the accompaniment of drumming, one shaman rings bells, goes around the pig, and then suddenly opens the pig’s mouth and falls down, signifying that the god comes and is eating the pig. The pig’s meat is then taken to the entrance hall; and all present eat outside in the darkening courtyard. Around 8:45, the shamans process to an outside altar set up toward the east of the courtyard and drum around it, moving counterclockwise. Assistants light a huge bonfire, and the shamans and assistances drum and bow before the fire, again moving counterclockwise. Participants skewer pig meat and hold it over the fire as a gesture seeking long life. Most of the day’s rites included a good deal of ritualistic rigmarole that filled up the time and gave a sense of serious import, without appearing to engage the minds, hearts, or imaginations of most present. Now, how- ever, all enter into communal festivity as the rite ends with the “poetry in space” of the dance around the bonfire as it lights up the night. For many elderly Manchu, the day’s rites no doubt recapture a sense of clan unity and continuity that extends to belief in the presence of deceased ancestors. For unbelieving Manchu youth, they reiterate clan unity, but as limited to the living. For the many non-Manchu present, the rites achieve their climax in what amounts to nothing more than bonfire revelry. Another rite performed by the Manchu, the rarely held Han Ban- ner Rite of Burning Incense (shao xiang), no doubt also has different meanings for young and old, but it evokes these meanings in a more dramatic kind of spatial poetry. As performed in the late fall, mid- 1980’s, by entranced male shamans, the rite consists of three days of Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 55 vivid theatrical representations of totemic gods.2 I know the rite mainly from a video of this performance, supplemented by a demonstration performance of some sequences observed in 2004. I here note only some aspects of the rite that have the potential to engage participants in multiple possibilities of meaning. The rites begin after sunset, when the gods are escorted into the house of the host family. Later, deep in the night before the family tree enshrined in a room, the shamans invite deceased family ancestors back from the underworld. Watched by spectators gathered in the room or peering in through the windows from the dark cold outside, the sha- mans drum, dance, and chant an account of a shaman’s encounter with the God of the Underworld, Fengdu wangzi. The shaman must journey across the Yellow River in the sky to the underworld to summon the spirits. The shaman thought to be on this mystic journey takes up two large steel chopper blades. Wielding them in the air and hammering them against each other, he symbolically opens the gates of heaven and the underworld (tiantang diyu). This vivid ritual episode is there for all to see, but its meanings are open-ended and virtual. They may differ markedly for the shamans, the host family, and the eager spectators outside. The rite focuses on the shaman’s visionary trance, but the drama and the accompanying chant aim rather at stimulating the imaginative fancies of the others present. The audience-response literary scholar Norman Holland maintains that the pleasure of reading a literary work derives from “a central fantasy or daydream” (Holland 1968: 7). The attraction of the present rite for the freezing spectators outside likewise derives in part from archetyp- ical fantasies that the rite evokes of heroically breaking open secrets of a world of power and mystery, the same fantasies that attract audi- ences to adventure films and youth to computer games. Like a work of literature, however, this kind of shaman drama, “transforms primitive, childish fantasies into adult, civilized meanings” (Holland 1968: 32). It does so by inviting those present to incorporate their childlike fantasies into a mature, culturally accepted religious worldview. Like Iser, Hol- land stresses that the meaning of a literary text “is not simply ‘there’ in the text; rather it is something we construct,” albeit “within the limits

2 For a detailed description, see Kister 1999: 80 ff.; for photos, see Guo and Wang 2001: 84–91. 56 Daniel A. Kister of the text” (Holland 1968: 25). The same can be said of this ritual text. Participants complete the meaning of the rite, each according to his or her own life-experiences, beliefs, and expectancies of the moment. The drama gets more intense the following afternoon when the pres- ence of several gods is dramatized one by one, as they are thought to possess a shaman. As the Wild Boar God Taiwei, one of the shamans vigorously shakes; and, his lips pierced with long, needle-like hairpins suggesting a boar’s tusks, he goes out into the courtyard and returns, waving his arms stiffly. As the God of the Underworld, a funeral mourning cloth around his neck, he does the same. As the Emperor Tang Taizong, he reenacts the sorrow that the Emperor felt when his generals were killed in battle. As the Eagle God, another shaman waves his arms and jumps lightly around. The whole sequence engages the avid interest of spectators, some because it reinforces their belief in the presence of the gods, others because it taps subconscious fancies and fears of unpredictable forces that can prey on a person’s life. What Holland says of animistic fan- tasies as they appear in literary works applies even more aptly to such a ritual sequence: “Animistic fantasies seem to deal with the child’s sense of helplessness in the face of some other nameless power (adult or supernatural), and a vast number of ghost stories and tales of super- natural horrors build on these fantasies” (Holland 1968: 44). The three-day rite ends with a healing rite called Summoning the Ghosts (qing ban) performed deep in the night in the outside court- yard as a mask farce that draws many into the action. Wearing large paper masks, several persons play the roles of ghosts (ban) that stand for hard-to-cure illnesses. They dance around a table of steamed buns, a washbasin, and a burning brazier. Together with the shaman, as he beats his drum, the masked ghosts enter the room where the family tree was earlier enshrined. While laughing spectators crowd outside the windows to watch, the ghosts grab fiercely at persons in the room and wildly toss about bits of rice-cake or buns. A shaman, or perhaps the god possessing the shaman, fights with the ghosts. The ghosts and another shaman then dance around the brazier. The shaman appears to enact an attack of stomach pains and then chews on white paper flowers and vomits them into the basin. He goes out of the door and comes back in with small rope strands dangling from his mouth. The ghosts pull these out. The shaman then grabs at his stom- ach, and the ghosts pull out of his stomach something shaped like the Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 57 large intestine. Finally, the shaman drives out the ghosts, thrashing at them with bunches of straw; and persons outside shoot off firecrackers to send all the spirits away. Whatever effect the rite has for the sick per- son and the host family, it gives expression to the subconscious fancies of the spectators. It provides a humorous catharsis that can tame their fear of ghosts and demons and their sense of helplessness in the face of danger and disease. In addition to ambiguous, unclear aspects of a text, Iser calls attention to contradictory “negations” that add to the obscurity of meaning and invite readers, or in this case participants and spectators, to realize the meaning, each in his or her own mind. Such negations evoke “familiar and determinate elements or knowledge only to cancel them out. What is cancelled, however, remains in view, and thus brings about modifi- cations in the reader’s attitude toward what is familiar or determinate” (Iser 1980: 112). The present rite evokes a familiar Chinese shamanist notion that ghostlike spirits give rise to disease and so are to be feared, but it partially contradicts this notion by having the ghosts participate in this playful healing game. The ghosts seem both fearfully threat- ening and playful. The rite thus dramatizes the ambiguous and unpre- dictable nature of the relations of gods and spirits to human beings that underlies much shamanist ritual. It evokes the typical shamanist view of human life as prone to unpredictable, unnamed forces that cru- elly threaten us, whether they be sensed instinctively by a frightened child or pondered by a knowing adult, whether explicable by modern medical science or not yet understood, whether accepted as part of a culturally accepted religious or philosophical scheme or seen as simply absurd. The wonder that suffuses the ritual game is the awe in the face of the mystery of life that lies at the core of all shamanic worlds. Each person present experiences the wonder, not just in terms of the specta- cle before them, but in relation to his or her own personal experience of life’s mystery. Thus each completes and realizes the meaning of the rite differently.

A Rite of the Han On the level of fantasy projection and lively theater, the Han Banner Manchu rite no doubt represents a more heightened level of experience than the other rites described in this paper. But on the more basic level 58 Daniel A. Kister of religious, social, and personal harmony sought in a shamanist ritual, it does not. Returning to the Southwest, we end with a sketch of an utterly simple seasonal rite performed in a village on the Sichuan agricultural plain in the summer of 2002 by a Han shaman couple that may very well represent a level of religious activity higher than of the Manchu rites. The rite is performed every June by the lunar calendar in the shaman couple’s home for elderly neighbors and friends. On this occasion, it began at around 7:00 a.m. The main shaman, the wife, says the gods possess her; but in the present rite, she has a simple, priestly role, with no evidence of trance or feat of any kind. The rite consists mainly of Buddhistic chanting, the lighting of candles, the burning of paper money, the giving of small monetary contributions by family represen- tatives, neighborly fellowship, and a simple meal at noon. The bright eyes of the wizened old grandmothers as they enter the house courtyard and are greeted by the shaman suggest that one of their prime expectancies for the morning’s rite is fellowship; and the lively manner in which the shaman greets each participant suggests that for her, too, the occasion is as much a matter of socializing as prayer. Still, the reverent attitude with which she bows before the altar in her home and leads participants around the numerous candles burning in the courtyard indicate that religious devotion constitutes the heart of the gathering. The sometimes reverent, sometimes playful attitude that guests manifest as they process around the candles and the way in which they later mix friendly chatter with chants punctuated by the joining of hands in prayer suggest that the rite means for all present a time in which devotion and play are one. If the main ritual means of the Manchu rite are the dramatic repre- sentations of the gods by entranced shamans, the main means here are the chant, the burning candles, and the sharing of food. Indeed, in most of the rites we have surveyed, rhythmic music, fire, and the sharing of food provide more of a common denominator than either trance or feats of power. The chant, of whose verbal content participants may not be well aware, allows each in his or her own way to recapture a moment of peaceful contact with supernatural powers as he or she knows them. On an ascertainable level, the burning candles are offerings to Buddha or the gods. On a more inascertainable, psychological level, the candles’ flickering fire has the power to touch the subconscious of those who process slowly around them. The quietly glowing candles do not burn with the communal warmth of a Qiang or Yi hearth or light up a night Chinese Seasonal Shamanist Rituals 59 of Manchu clan revelry. Their virtual power to engage those present in the spatial poetry of the rite lies rather in an evocation of a sense of devotion, offering, and, in the case of some, perhaps self-immolation. One may seek the meaning of the rite in terms of whatever state the shaman may be in as she bows before her altar or leads participants around the candles glowing in the courtyard. But this ignores the con- glomerate of meanings suggested by the various elements in the rite as a whole. It ignores, too, the nature of the ritual experience as an event whose potential for meaning is experienced in different ways by differ- ent members of the worshiping community.

References Artaud, Antonin 1958. The Theater and Its Double. Trans. Mary Caroline Rich- ards. New York: Grove. Bachelard, Gaston 1964a. The Poetics of Space. Trans. Maria Jolas. New York: Orion. —. 1964b. The Psychoanalysis of Fire. Trans. Alan C. M. Ross. Boston: Beacon. Bamo, Ayi 1994. Yizu zuling xingyang yanjiu [Ancestor worship of the Yi people]. Deyang: Sichuan minzu chubanshe. —. 2004. “The Religious Practitioner Bimo in Yi Society of Liangshan, Southwest China, Today.” Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research 12(1–2) (Spring and Autumn): 3–23. Durand, Gilbert 1960. Les structures anthropologiques de l’imaginaire. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Eliade, Mircea 1959. The Sacred and the Profane. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harcourt. —. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Bollingen Series, 76. 1st ed., rev. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gao, Guofan 1999. Zhongguo wushushi [The history of Chinese shamanism]. Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian. Guo, Shuyun and Wang Honggang (eds.) 2001. Living Shamans: Shamanism in China. Shenyang: Liaoning People’s Publishing House. Guo, Talie and Yang Shiguang 1991. Dongba wenhualun [Studies in Dongba culture]. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Publishing House. Holland, Norman N. 1968. The Dynamics of Literary Response. New York: Oxford University Press. Iser, Wolfgang 1980. “Interaction between Text and Reader.” In Susan R. Sulei- 60 Daniel A. Kister

man and Inge Crosman (eds.) The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 106–119. Kister, Daniel A. 1999. “Present-Day Shamanism in Northern China and the Amur Region.” Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research 7(1) (Spring): 77–95. Zhang, Zichen 1996. Zhongguo wushu [Chinese shamanism]. Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian. Zhongguo yuanshi zongjiao yanjiu ji ziliao congbian 1989. [Studies and research data on primitive Chinese religion]. Qiangzu juan [The Qiang people]. II. No place or publisher.

Daniel A. Kister did his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. He has taught literature for more than twenty-five years in Korea and for five years in China. He has published several books and numer- ous articles on shamanist ritual, especially on dramatic and symbolic aspects of Korean ritual. He is one of the 2004 recipients of the award of the International Society for Shamanist Research for scholarly research in the field. Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective

Juha pentikäinen Helsinki

The mythical relationship between man and bear found in the vocabulary and folklore of Finnish related peoples gives basis to call these cultures “Peoples of the Big Bear” rather than “Peoples of the Water Bird” (Estonian President Lennart Meri’s book and film). Only few pictures of bears are to be found in the North Eurasian and Siberian rock art. Since the bear, however, has been common, His absence in the rock art must be based on ideological reasons. The attitudes to the bear have been ambiv- alent. People have been afraid of Him but at the same time the human animal has been highly admired. This state of affairs is reflected in the bear ritual. The central purpose is to appease the divine predator and to return the soul of the bear to His celestial home. The Saami consider the bear as a man in camouflage, a transformed cultural hero.

Tempus fugit. The time has come to celebrate Åke Hultkrantz’s eighty-fifth birthday. It is my great pleasure to be among the contributors to this Fest- schrift, since I feel I have been privileged to belong to Åke and Geraldine Hultkrantz’s circle of friends and colleagues from as early as September 1962. It was in my first symposium in the study of religions, arranged by the Donner Institute in the History of Religions in Åbo, Finland, on shamanism, that I was happy to meet Åke for the first time. Three of us, Åke, Vilmos Diószegi and myself, joined together for an unforgettable promenade in the Airisto archipelago park before the dinner which was offered to us there that night. Åke was eager to tell us about his fieldwork experiences among the Hopi, and to share his huge knowledge on Arctic mythology and sha- manism with our Hungarian guest speaker, Vilmos Diószegi, and myself— as a young freshman student of the discipline of Finnish and Comparative Folklore under Professor Matti Kuusi at University of Helsinki. Since joining, with Lauri Honko, the newly founded Department of Folklore and Comparative Religion at the University of Turku in 1965, 62 Juha Pentikäinen

I have enjoyed an intimate, friendly and scholarly cooperation within the network forged across the Baltic Sea, at first between the research- ers of the two institutes of the universities in Turku and Stockholm (including Åke with his students: Ivar Paulson, Andrejs Johansons, Louise Bäckman, Bertil Nathhorst, Ulf Drobin, Per-Arne Berglie, Tina Hamrin, and so forth), then on various Nordic as well as international levels. Wherever and whenever we have met throughout this period, which spans more than forty years, it has been an unforgettable jour- ney, full of moments of togetherness shared in a friendly and scholarly spirit, reflecting Åke Hultkrantz’s warmth, depth and brilliance. He has become the grand old man of our discipline, whose charm we know and whom we love. Åke Hultkrantz has always been an extremely productive scholar who is both polite and sharp in his criticism, postulating his broad hypotheses on the basis of his field experiences, his thorough reading and his long memory of many of his colleagues—Ernst Arbman, Uno Harva, Rafael Karsten, Gunnar Landtman, Hilma Granqvist and many others that he has been fortunate to meet during his lifetime career and travels around the world since the early 1940s. Åke is both a skilled homo narrans and a vivid homo ludens, who even has a reputation as a performer of ghost dances and other Native American rituals.

The Place of the Bear in the Foundation of the First University of Finland Åke Hultkrantz is the most appreciated master of shamanism: an honor- ary editor-in-chief of Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research, as well as the grand fellow of students studying the religions of the hunting cultures globally, and famous for his theory of the archaic nature of shamanism among them. His great expertise is in circumpolar societies. His article on Arctic religions in the Encyclopedia of Religion (edited by Mircea Eliade in 1987), is such a classical master- piece on the topic that it was quite natural and my great honour as the editor-in-chief of the Arctic and Uralic religions to propose its inclusion there, as well as in the revised edition of the compendium published in 2005. Bear mythology and ceremonialism on his and Irving A. Hallow- ell’s lines are the key topics in this valuable article. The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 63

My contribution to this Festschrift volume also concerns this field of which he is master. It aims to shed light on bear mythology and ceremonialism from Finnish and Uralic perspectives. It is only natural to start this paper with the painting by Albert Edelfelt in the festival hall of the University of Helsinki (pl. 18), with shared memories of the moment when in May 1997 the University of Helsinki paid tribute to Åke Hultkrantz with the degree of Doctor Honorarius of the Faculty of Theology, with the ceremonies taking place in the same hall. Albert Edelfelt’s painting is about the procession inaugurating Turku Academy on 15 July 1640, led by Pehr Brahe, governor general of Fin- land. A cleric in the row behind is Isacus Rothovius, bishop of Turku, who in his sermon argued the need for the first university in Finland:

We know how rude paganism has been in Sweden as well as here in Finland, but with the mercy of God we have been freed of it. Yet amongst us there are traces that have remained from pagan beliefs, witchcraft and pagan Gods, which people continue to worship, serving the devils . . . When the bear is captured, a celebration is held in the dark, where a toast for the bear is drunk out of its skull, in loudness and groans as that of a bear. Through this, it is thought to gain greater happiness.

What was the reasoning behind this speech? Why so much about the bear in this ceremony? What happened to the bear and bear cult in Finland? All these questions will be discussed in my forthcoming book (2006). The main problem here is in the northern bear myth.

The Arctic Area and the Bear in Classical Literature and History The word ‘Arctic’ has various meanings. The arctic circle (at 66 degrees latitude) defines the polar area surrounding the North Pole. South of that lies the sub-arctic area with its specific climate, fauna and flora. The word ‘Arctic’ has mythical roots. It was used to define Terra hyperborea incognita, which appeared unknown and therefore long remained a grey area on maps. Etymologically, the word ‘Arctic’ still carries its Greek background, arktos meaning ‘bear’ (Ursus arctos). The Arctic cultures have large brown bear, but quite small human 64 Juha Pentikäinen populations, which were believed to inhabit the areas underneath the Great Bear constellation (Ursa major, Otava in Finnish). The old myth about the bear’s origins and how it ended up in the sky was told by the Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C. – A.D. 18) in his Metamorphoses, book 2, which in summary runs:

In Arcadia, Jupiter meets Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon (whom Jupiter had changed into a wolf) and a companion to Diana. Jupiter falls madly in love with the nymph and ends up raping her. When the incident is revealed, Diana banishes her. Callisto gives birth to Arcas, and Juno (Jupiter’s wife) then changes her into a bear. As an adult, Arcas comes across his bear-shaped mother in a forest. He does not recognize her, but she seems to know him. As he is about to kill her, Jupiter intervenes and transports them both to heaven, where they appear as the Ursa major and Ursa minor constellations.

Tacitus wrote in his Germania (A.D. 98) of peoples living beyond “Germans” in the north. These people included the Fenni. On the basis of their life-style the Fenni were rather migrating Lapps than Finns, who had already settled both in the province of Finland (Proper) and Västerbotten at the northern edge of the Gulf of Bothnia—which may be the approximate area Tacitus had in mind, rather than the area around the Gulf of Finland. Living as neighbours to the Fenni, Tacitus wrote, were the two peoples of Hellusians and Oxiones (hellusios et oxionas); these much less known peoples are interesting from the point of view of Northern bear mythology:

The rest is the stuff of tall tales: the Hellusii and Oxiones who have human faces and features, but the bodies and limbs of beasts. This, as something not yet ascertained, I shall leave open.”1

According to Tuomo Pekkanen, oxionas may come from the Finnish word oksi (ohto, otso ‘bear’) and hellusios from the Greek word mean- ing ‘elk, ellos.’ This description thus may refer to bear and elk elements in the mythologies of these two peoples, in the same way as Siberian shamans have dressed themselves in ritualistic bear and elk outfits.

1 Germania, ch. 46., translated by J. B. Rives. The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 65

Fig. 1. An Evenk shaman with horns in his head from N. Witsen’s book Noord en Oost Tartarye (1672), the first picture of a Siberian shaman ever published.

Nordic Bear Repertoire: Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus Magnus, Johannes Scheffer Saxo Grammaticus, writing around 1200, recounts the origin of the Danish Royal family in the relationship between their foremother and a bear. The tale is retold by both Johannes and Olaus Magnus, the two bishop brothers; in summary, it recounts:

A man in Sweden had a very attractive daughter. When the daughter went outside one day a vast bear came and took her away. The bear soon became a suitor, demanding copulation. Nature allowed an ordinary child to be born 66 Juha Pentikäinen out of that cross-breeding: the child had a human appearance but the blood of the beast. His son became father of Ulf, the progenitor of King Sven and all the Danish royal house.2

Olaus Magnus was the last Catholic archbishop of Sweden (and Fin- land), and his brother his predecessor. In 1539, living in exile in Rome and with no more practical duties of office, the Magnus brothers drew up Carta Marina, a navigational map of the Nordic countries. Olaus Magnus’s major opus, Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555) is a thorough description of northern ethnography, including Finnish and Lappish elements. It was soon translated into many other languages. Much of the information is based on Olaus Magnus’s Lapland expe- dition, which began in 1518 and extended at least as far as Pello in the Tornio River valley. Olaus Magnus has nine illustrated chapters with pictures on the bear; “the vast white bears in Iceland,” means of hunting, bear cubs and hiber- nation, their greed for honey and music, and so forth. Interesting from the point of view of bear mythology are Olaus Magnus’s observations on the crossbreeding between bears and humans, which, he argues, with reference to St Augustine himself, is quite possible.

Olaus Magnus and other writers on Lapland’s shamans (noaidis) made continental European people think that the victorious Swedish army made use of noaidi tricks in their battles. The Swedish crown invited the German scholar Johannes Scheffer to Uppsala to write ‘a new and reliable description’ of Lapland and the Lapps, on the basis of the regional reports written by clergy. As his Lapponia (1673) was soon translated into the main European languages, the Lappish bear ritual became more widely known in Europe than it was at that time in the Nordic countries, where it still took place.

2 Olaus Magnus, Historia, book 18, ch. 30. The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 67

Fig. 2. Olaus Magnus himself appears in Carta Marina a little to the northwest of the word ‘Scandia’ as the man in snowshoes leading horses in a journey over the mountains. 68 Juha Pentikäinen

Fig. 3. A pamphlet showing a Saami witch, who claimed to help Swedish armed forces with his pagan tricks during the war.

One of Scheffer’s informants was Gabriel Tuderus (1638–1705), missionary in Kemi Lapland from 1662. His report printed in Stock- holm in 1673 includes a ritual bear song which, however, did not reach Scheffer in time to be included in his Lapponia. This rare example of its kind is in Finnish, probably sung as a kind of jojk (a magical song performed after killing the bear) by a Finnish Lapp who had already become bilingual. It was soon published by Petrus Bång (1633–1696), professor at Turku Academy, in his Swedish church history (1675), who explained that such bear rituals were then still performed in the back- woods of central Finland and Savo province. Another publication of this poem is found in a more fluent Finnish form in the rarely cited Uppsala dissertation by Gabriel Arctopolitanus (1728), whose Latin surname refers to Björneborg (Arctopolis, ‘Bear city’, in Finnish called Pori) in Satakunta province (pl. 19 a). The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 69 The Bear Myth and Burial: Creation, Wedding and Rebirth Drama The bear hunt among the Finns, Karelians and Lapps was a cultic series of events. A correctly performed ritual would ensure that the bear was reborn in the world beyond, where it was expected to tell its fellow bears about how great an honour it had wrested from human beings. The specific knowledge about bear rituals comes from south Scandinavian Saami; bear-hunting among them consists of the following stages: (1) Encircling the bear, after the first snowfall, often with the help of a shaman drum. (2) A festival, whose participants were bound to take part in the hunt in the spring. (3) A few days of celibacy. (4) Departure through the sacred back door of the hut. (5) A solemn procession to the den of the bear. (6) The kill itself. The bear is wakened to ensure that its soul has time to return. (7) The move back to the village singing bear songs that emphasize its divine origin. (8) The bear festival. The meat is prepared and eaten without break- ing a single bone. (9) Purification rituals with fire and lye followed by erotic games. (10) The bear’s burial positioning, its bones being placed in their natural arrangement to ensure the bear’s rebirth. (11) Shooting the bearskin by the women to predict the next bear slayer. (12) A few days of celibacy.

According to Finnish epical poetry, the bear was created in the heav- ens and descended from there to the earth:

Where was Otso born, Honey-paw rolled around? There was Otso born, Honey-paw rolled around: Next to moon, close to day, On the shoulders of Otava. Thence was he placed on earth 70 Juha Pentikäinen

In a golden glowing cradle With chains of shining silver.

The song comes from Christfried Ganander (1741–1790), a chaplain from Rantsila, in Northern Ostrobothnia, who collected Finnish vocab- ulary in a dictionary and Mythologia Fennica, published in 1789. There is plenty of bear vocabulary and mythology in his texts. His ‘Kalev- ala’ would certainly have been a bear epic. When Lönnrot left on his expedition of 1828, his goal was to collect a more extensive mythology. After new poems were found, the Kalevala’s remoteness from bears increased. Ganander’s Mythologia tells that the bear’s death and funer- al are a “wedding” between the community and its totemic animal, the bear, called Kouko, in an astral context. The bear is eternally reborn; in myths and ceremonies its celestial origin and human relations are remembered, recited, danced, sung, played and dramatised in the same pattern as those found in rites of passage (as defined by Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner, Lauri Honko and others).

Fig. 4. A bear’s grave according to the western Saami tradition, with bones in ana- tomical order. A drawing by Ossian Elgström, after Manker 1971. The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 71

Fig. 5. A bear hunt in Finland in the 19th century. A drawing from Zacharias Tope- lius’s famous book Maamme kirja (‘A Book of Our Country’).

The Bear in Finnish-Karelian Forests and Minds Belonging to the mammalian order of carnivores, the family of Ursi- dae is divided into seven species: brown bears, polar bears, North American black bears, Asiatic black bears, sun bears, spectacled bears and sloth bears. The brown bear that spread out over North America is sometimes considered a species in its own right. The giant panda is sometimes included among bears, sometimes among the family of Procynidae. The bears’ distribution range covers the Arctic, North America, Europe, Asia and parts of South America. Except for the tropics, deserts and steppe areas, the brown bear originally appeared across the whole of Eurasia. Nowadays, only Alaska, Canada and Russia have large popula- tions of bears. Bears rarely appear as far west as the Pyrenees. There have been abundant bear populations in Finland and Karelia. In the nineteenth century, the bear was, however, nearly hunted to extinction in Finland. Local historical legends recount the great felling of the bear; for example, it is told that Martti Kitunen from Virrat shot two hundred bears. 72 Juha Pentikäinen

The mythical relationship between man and bear found in the rich vocabulary and folklore of Finnish and related peoples gives grounds for calling these cultures “Peoples of the Great Bear” rather than “Peoples of the Water Bird” (Estonian president Lennart Meri’s book and film). In songs and stories, through their border-crossing ways of life and through northern myths, one hears how bears actually belong to the human family. Marina Takalo (1890–1970), an illiterate traditional storyteller from White Sea Karelia (pl. 19 b), told me the first night we met in Kuusamo in 1960: “Listen, Juha, the bear can indeed be human, do you believe that?” He is a favourite animal in various folklore genres in her repertoire, as indicated in my study (Pentikäinen 1978) where Takalo’s tales are quoted on “the bear and the fox at the ice holes,” the bear hunt, stories of witchcraft with the bear and the bears changing their bodies to human as well as incantations to the bear and prayers to Saint Mary for the protection of the cattle. Nimestä mies tunnetaan (“the name makes the man”), is a Finnish proverb. There are around three hundred euphemisms and roundabout expressions in Finnish and Karelian languages for the bear. Many of them refer to him as God, Man, Forest and Sacred. “‘The forest moves,’ it was said, when a bear attacked the cattle. One should not use the word ‘bear.’ It would hear and come.” (Kustu Korvanen, 73 years, Sompio, Finnish Lapland, told to Samuli Paulaharju in 1937). Samuli Paulaharju concludes his recordings gathered around Fin- land, Karelia and Lapland in his book: “The word ‘bear’ was, of course, known . . . but should one call him with that name, so would he become angry and come all too close when met in the forest. It was better to call him e.g. mehtäläinen, mehällinen (the forest’s inhabitant), metän elukka (a forest animal), and kontio, but the best thing was to call him kouko (i.e. ‘an honoured forefather’)” (Paulaharju 1981: 88). The bear’s special characteristic is a half-year hibernation. During early spring the bear was wakened in its den. This was done in order to prevent its re-birthing soul from leaving the body. The hunters used snow shoes or traditional Finnish skis, which were of unequal length. The longer lyly was the gliding ski while the shorter fur-coated kalhu was used by the hunter to kick up more speed. The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 73 The Bear as Man The bear’s sexuality becomes manifest in rich folklore related to the slay- ing of a bear which in Finland is still accompanied by an ancient ritual in which the bear killer receives the bearskin, the bear’s head and its baculum (penis bone). The baculum tradition is a part of the vital sexual emphasis typical of bear narratives; the mythic northern bear is thought to be male. Furthermore it is said that a bear would never attack a woman—the mythic bear is the suitor of the primordial mother of the clan, in fact. This tradition is known among the Saami as well:

Some Lappish women believe that a bear is angrier towards a woman who is pregnant with a girl baby. If a bear should even bother a woman, she can remedy the matter by lifting her skirt and displaying her organ to the bear. The animal will feel ashamed and go away. (Laestadius 2002: 196)

An occupation of “bear-mooning” is said to have been practised in Northern Karelia. When a bear killed cattle, a female sage was invited to the scene. She would go to the carcass and from there expose her buttocks in every direction. When the returning bear saw her, it fled—as any decent animal would do. The bear would stay away from the cattle for as many years as the number of days the woman kept up her moon- ing. (Aimo Kejonen heard this from his grandfather, Edward Kejonen (b. 1882) of Nurmes in Northern Karelia. “The herd would be spared from bears, if the farmer’s wife in letting the cattle out in the spring climbed on top of the cattle gate and repeated to each cow: ‘No bear bigger than that need come at you this year.’” (Rantasalo 1934)

The Bear in Folk Medicine The bear has an important role in folk medicine, due to its väki, the great ‘force’ (mana) linked to its body. Bear teeth were used to protect men and horses against illness and accidents. Still in the early twentieth century a bear’s gullet was a means to strengthen a child’s teeth: milk was poured through the gullet nine times. A bear’s shinbone was used in many ways, for example to protect cattle against predators. Maria Kataja from Pomarkku, a northern parish located in the area of former Satakunta Lappmark, was a mighty female sage with a collec- 74 Juha Pentikäinen tion of magic items in her practice: (1) Two boughs naturally formed out of wood were used for example in awakening or diminishing love. (2–3) A bear’s body parts aimed at protecting a horse. (4) A bear’s tooth used against toothache and for revenge. (5) A bear’s shinbone used to cure throat diseases and toothache. For adults booze was poured through it, for children milk. (6) Skin from a bear’s claw (pl. 20 a). This tradition is similar to that found by Paulaharju in Lapland:

The bear’s fangs were taken out. They were put in the belt, one for each bear, so you could see how many one had killed. They also worked as good-luck charms when kept in the hunter’s bag. The bile was good for treating bear scars. Out in the woods, you could use a bear tooth to press against a sore tooth. (Ale Alariesto, age 80, Sompio, to Paulaharju in 1937)

Fieldwork in the Footsteps of the Bear: New Archaeology of Religion A long geographical development after the last Ice Age from around 10,000 B.C. has shaped Finnish Fennoscandia. The two-kilometer thick plate of ice melted, moving gigantic rocks and forming ridges (Salpausselkä, Suomenselkä and Maanselkä). The weight of the ice initiated an ongoing process where in the Gulf of Botnia the shores continue to rise approxi- mately 8 mm annually, and the waterways in Finland are being reformed. Lakes Saimaa and Päijänne were once much larger than today, uniting and flowing into the Gulf of Bothnia, until they began to flow via the rivers Kymijoki (Päijänne) and Vuoksi (Saimaa) into the Gulf of Finland. The ancient waterways are a key element to the researchers of Finn- ish prehistory. The rock paintings, of which about a hundred have been found (a number which may be doubled with further investigation), are located on the waterways. The oldest ones were painted during the Great Saimaa period before the emergence of the Vuoksi River around 3800 B.C. There are various painting styles in Finnish pictographs from the Comb Ceramic to the late Iron Age. In my recent fieldwork with archaeologist Timo Miettinen (since 2004 along the inner Savo lakes), I have found signs of an ancient Lake Lapp culture, determining it to be such on the basis of archaeology, landscape memory, place names and folklore. It continued its way of The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 75 nomadic Lapp life until the 1700s in the backwood areas of Heinävesi known as Lappi (in Swedish Lappmark), with many Saami sites, place names and folklore (pls. 20 b–23 a).

Bear Symbolism of Scandinavian Rock Art and Lapp Noaidi Drums Finally, an attempt to compare bear symbolism between Finnish and Scandinavian rock art and Lapp drum symbolism is called for. In spite of the long gap of as much as 7,000 years, they seem to be on the same continuum of tradition from stones painted with red clay on former Saimaa Lake cliffs and blood towards drums painted with alder. Rock art is realised as painted pictographs, carved petroglyphs and petroforms which are either cut and/or natural. Finland is a territory with around a hundred pictograph fields but with no petroglyph find- ings, as opposed to Karelia, the Kola Peninsula, Finnmark and Scandi- navia where petroglyphs predominate. Petroforms are a new category in the archaeology of religion; once they were defined we found many of them, and many more may be uncovered in the future. Only a few pictures of bears are to be found in the North Eurasian and Siberian rock art. Since the bear was common, however, his absence in the rock art must be based on ideological reasons. Attitudes to the bear have been ambivalent. People have been afraid of him but at the same time the human animal has been highly admired. This state of affairs is reflected in the bear ritual. The central purpose is to appease the divine predator and to return the soul of the bear to his celestial home. The Saami consider the bear as a man in camouflage, a transformed cultural hero. The most common animal in Finnish rock art is the elk, and the pur- pose of the elk pictures was probably to secure the success of the hunt. Painting or drawing bear pictures might have been considered to disturb the balance in Nature since would possibly have brought the bear into the midst of the main game animals such as elks (pls. 23 a–26 a, Fig. 6). 76 Juha Pentikäinen

Fig. 6. The cyclical movement of the seasons is pictured along the rims of several Southern Lapp drums. The bear’s spring trip to its den is shown by dots indicating its route and way of hunting. Along the rim of one drum (Manker 1950, no. 1), there is a bear’s den and a bear and elk trap. The bear encircled by dots and the elk, under which there is a human, may represent a celestial hunting scene, a theme otherwise absent from this sun-centred drum.

Fig. 7. The purpose of the bear rituals is to appease the divine predator. The men in sacrificial dress perform sacred songs that tell the creation legend of the bear. The songs contain instructions on how hunters should behave towards the bear in order to avoid its wrath. As a show of respect towards the bear the hosts call the spirits, who then appear at the ceremonial bear hut, clothed in the finest furs. Towards the end of the ritual, the bear is offered the sacrificed reindeer. Then, in contrast to the devout atmosphere, the masked men present humorous scenes from everyday life. Mansi men performing ritual bear dances for August Ahlqvist in the 1880’s. A drawing from a photograph by Emil Boehm, National Board of Antiquities. The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 77 Ob-Ugric Animal Ceremonialism and Astral Mythology This is how these stars received their names. The bear has always been a beast of prey; it will attack humans and all animals. The god of the earth nevertheless punished it. God cut off its head and put it in the sky. “Because you are not able to live on earth, you will live in the heavens. Should someone get lost in the dark night, he can find his way home by the aid of your stars.” One can indeed find the way home with these stars. There are four main stars that form a quadrangle. Two of the stars signify the bear’s front legs and the other two its hind legs. There is another star a bit above the pattern and in the middle: it represents the bear’s neck. The stars do not have individual names; they are a complete whole.

In Khanty mythology, told me Ivan Stepanovich Sopochin in 1990, the ancestral mother had an affair with a bear, the son of the sky god Num Torum. This affair forms an epic yarn, seen in codes of behaviour, in myths and in the strict taboos concerning women. When the bear was slain, the event gave rise to a great festival in spite of the fact that killing of the bear was strictly prohibited by the taboo rules. The astral origin of the bear also assumes a central role in the reindeer sacrifice of the Ob-Ugric peoples. It is performed in front of the bear’s head. The mythical relationship between man and bear is seen also in the shaman’s dance, during which he also dances in woman’s clothes, acting out the role of the ancestral mother as well as the role of Mother Earth. In the actual performance of the sacrifice, two reindeer are killed. A white one is sacrificed to the younger son of the sky god, since he is believed to ride a reindeer; the black one is for the earth god, because the earth is black and represents the feminine (Mother Earth). Behind the ritual lies the myth of the constellation of the antlered beast:

In ages past, the deer had six legs. It was so fast that not even the swiftest hunter could catch it. The son of the Earth god was angry about this. He thought the deer should not have been created so. In an angry rage, he decided once and for all to catch the deer. Yet, however much the son skied, the deer would not be caught. Finally he did catch the deer as it was crossing over a frozen lake—maybe it was ill or tired. The hunter struck the deer with his knife and cut off the hind legs, saying that they had been his father’s mistake. From now on, the deer would have to be four-legged. Then with his staff he drew a picture of the deer in the sky. The picture would help hunters find their way in the dark. The deer’s head helps find the way home. 78 Juha Pentikäinen

While telling this tale at 7pm on 24 January 1990, Khanty shaman Ivan Stepanovich Sopochin drew a picture in my diary of a deer that had its two hind legs cut off. Then the shaman, in the yard of the winter cottage by the Ob’s Woki-reh-jugan river, showed his guest the North Star, the bear—Ursa major, its hunter (Orion) and the deer in the Milky Way waiting to be struck. He called the deer figure the “evening star.” The shaman’s story and his drawing of the six-legged deer has parallels with the constellations of astronomy. As seen from the Ob against a star map of the northern hemisphere, the drawing is positioned on the map as at that moment, the precise place (latitude 61 degrees north) where, according to the shaman, the reindeer sacrifice was carried out. The horned animal is formed from the Perseus and Cassiopeia constella- tions when a connecting line is drawn between the stars. The Milky Way galaxy forms the celestial hunter’s ski path. Light is cast on the mystery of the two severed legs by the alternations of luminosity of the binary star, Algol. As the two parts of the double-star system cross each other, its bright- ness varies in cycles of just under 69 hours. The change is perceptible. The star’s variation has long been known, its periodicity only since the 1700s. When bright, Algol is the second-most luminous star in Perseus, and it can then be imagined as showing the front leg(s) of the deer formed by Cassiopeia and Perseus. At its dimmest, a phase of about 10 hours, the star is not especially eye-catching. Occasionally the star’s alterna- tions of luminosity can be observed over the course of a single night. This observation explains astronomically the notion of the mythic deer, which originally had six legs, but now only four: of the six lines form- ing the legs of the deer, four are constantly visible, two only now and then (see Pentikäinen 1998: 59–75 and pls. 26 b–27 b).

Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitudes to Risto Pulkkinen for his help in editing the references, to Kaya Brandt, William Mellberg, Francis Joy and Tanja Siitonen for translating this article from Finnish into English, and, finally, to Clive Tolley for revising the translation. The Bear Myth from a Finnish and Uralic Perspective 79 References Arctopolitanus, Gabriel 1728. De Origine ac Religione Fennonum. Upsaliæ: Literis Wernerianis. Bäng, Petrus Erici 1675. Priscorum Sveo-Gothorum Ecclesia. Aboæ: Petrus Hansonius. Edsman, C.-M. 1967. Studies in Shamanism. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboen- sis I. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Hultkrantz, Åke 1987. “Arctic Religions.” In Mircea Eliade (ed.) Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan. —. 2005. “Arctic Religions.” In Lindsay Jones (ed.) Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan. Ganander, Christfried 1789. Mythologia Fennica. Åbo: Ganander. —. 1984. Mythologia Fennica. [Facsimile]. Jyväskylä: Suomalaisen Kirjalli­ suudan Seura. —. 1997. Nytt Finskt Lexicon. Ed. Liisa Nuutinen. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia 676 ja Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskuksen julkaisuja 95. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuudan Seura and Kotimaisten kielten tut- kimuskeskus. Laestadius, L. L. 1997. Fragmenter i lappska mythologien. Ed. Reimund Kvide- land. NIF Publication 37. Åbo: NIF. —. 2002. Fragments in Lappish Mythology. Ed. Juha Pentikäinen, transl. Börje Vähämäki. Beaverton: Aspasia Books. Magnus Gothus, Olaus 1555. Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. Romae: Olaus Magnus. —. 1995 [1539]. Carta Marina et Descriptio Septentrionalium Terrarum [etc.]. [Facsimile]. Uppsala: Uppsala universitetsbibliotek. Manker, Ernst 1950. Die lappische Zaubertrommel 2. Acta Lapponica VI. Stock- holm: Nordiska Museet. —. 1971. Björnfesten. En bildberättelse af Ossian Elgström i tolkning av E. M. Luleå: Norrbottens Museum. Ovidius, Naso Publius 1997. Metamorphoses. I–IV. Ed. D. E. Hill. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Paulaharju, Samuli 1981. Suomenselän vieriltä. Porvoo: WSOY. Pekkanen, Tuomo 1983. “Vanhin kirjallinen tieto suomalaisista.” In Suomal- ais-ugrilaisen seuran aikakauskirja 78. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen seura. Pentikäinen, Juha 1978. Oral Repertoire and Worldview. FFC 219. Helsinki: Suomalainen tiedeakatemia. —. 1987. “The Shamanic Drum as Cognitive Map.” In René Gothóni and Juha Pentikäinen. Studia Fennica 32. Pieksämäki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. —. 1998. Shamanism and Culture. Helsinki: Etnika co. —. 2005. Karhun kannoilla. Metsänpitäjä ja Mies. Helsinki: Etnika co. 80 Juha Pentikäinen

Pentikäinen, Juha 2006. The Golden Ring of the Forest: Northern Bear Lore. Helsinki: Etnika co. (In preparation) Rantasalo, A.V. 1934. Karjataikoja. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituk- sia 76, 4. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Rothovius, Isak 1990 [1640]. En christeligh tacksäijelsepredikan til Gudh wår Herra: hållen i Åbo domkyrckio then 15. Julii anno MDCXL, på hvilken dagh en Konung- zligh Academia ther sammanstädes bleff iaugurerat / aff Isaaco Bergeri Rothovio. [Facsimile]. Ed. and transl. Martti Parvio. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto. Scheffer(us), Johannes 1963. Lapponia. Finnish transl. by Tuomo Itkonen. Hämeenlinna: Karisto. —. 1971. The History of Lapland. Suecica rediviva 22. Stockholm: Förlaget Rediviva. Tacitus, Publius Cornelius 1952. Germania. Ed. Frantz Eckstein. Schatz des Alter- tums Band 10. Bamberg: Buchners. —. 1999. Germania. Trans. J. B. Rives. New York: Oxford University Press. Tuderus, Gabriel [and Thom. von Westen] 1773. Två berättelser om Lapparnas omvän- delse ifrån deras fordna vidskepelse och Afguderi. Stockholm: Johan Arv. Carlbohm. —. 1905. “En kort underrättelse om the Österbothniske lappar, som under Kiemi Gebiet lyda.” In Bidrag till kännedom on de svenska landsmålen ock svenskt folkliv XVII. Stockholm: Landmålsföreningarna i Uppsala och Lund.

Juha Pentikäinen, Founding Professor of St udy of Rel igions at t he Univer- sity of Helsinki since 1970. He was invited to initiate the discipline of reli- gious studies at the University of Tromsö in 1995, and to chair an interdisciplinary research group on shamanhood and Arctic Identity in the Centre of Advanced Stud- ies in the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in 1998–1999. He has held several posi- tions in UNESCO, and several learned societies, the most recent being his position as the Editor-in-chief on Arctic and Uralic Religions of the revised Encyclopaedia of Religion and his nomination by the Rector of the University of Helsinki to the international board of Arctic Universities in 2005. He has published more than 30 books and 300 articles and produced 10 ethnographical film documentaries and 7 museum exhibitions on the basis of his extensive field work among indigenous peoples, with special emphasis on shamans and Uralic Peoples in Northern Eurasia. His books The Nordic Dead-Child Tradition; Oral Repertoire and World View; Kalevala Mythology, Die Mythologie der Saamen (Finnish 1995, German 1997), Bathing Cultures on three Continents and Shamanhood Symbolism and Epic; Shamanhood: An Endangered Language have been rewarded with national and international prizes, and his life time career as an advanced scholar of shamanism with the medal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research. Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

The Contribution of Shamanism to Cognitive Science

Helmut Wautischer california State Univ. At Sonoma

Modern brain research shapes the scientific understanding of human mind and consciousness, and initially challenges the anthropological record related to studies on shamanism. Further analysis, however, clearly reveals that the same anthropological record challenges the computational model of cognitive science. Shamanic states of ecstasy and trance add significant data to the complexity of human intelligence since such states cannot be delegated to categories of abnormal psychology, as pioneering work by Åke Hultkrantz and other scholars in shamanism demonstrates. The sha- man’s skill in claiming authorship during ecstasy exceeds functionalist interpretations of brain activity, providing valid data for understanding mental fields and their role in physical causation.

Since the late 1950s, a radical shift in gathering scientific knowledge about consciousness has occurred. This change altered the reception and interpretation of traditional philosophical, religious, and spiritual domains related to existential, holistic, or subtle bioenergetic models that explain sentience in physical bodies. At that time, bold method- ological choices leading to neuro-surgical intervention on live human subjects clearly boosted emergent-connectionist models of consciousness where the action of neurotransmitters is seen as the causal source for cogitative sentience. Further advances in mapping physical events—by means of quantum theoretical models of explanation, the actualization of artificial intelligence research objectives due to an increasingly potent information technology, and the successful engineering of psychophar- macological agents—have marginalized the epistemic value of religious experience and spiritual practice. Their primary function has become recreational, which may benefit mental and emotional health but which has no significance for unveiling knowledge about the world. 82 Helmut Wautischer

Against this background, the assessment of shamanic practices also faced scholarly challenges, since the worldviews associated with these newly emerging empirical sciences could position shamanic states only into a domain of neuropathology or, at best, into socio-cultural role play. The dogma contained in objectifying methodologies has shifted the value and meaning of first-person authenticity from intentionality to functionality, oddly delegating individual authority of personhood to an institutionalized body of experts. This view assumes that human actions, emotions, and thoughts come into existence due to surround- ing variables of a person, and that a reactive character of intentionality can be sufficiently explained in the context of such boundary variables that presumably trigger reactivity. In other words, volition, sentience, or feelings originate not in a person’s intent but in laws of causation. Consequently, any so-classified claims of “religious experience,” as are typical for shamanic practice, no longer find the objectifiable cor- relate required for scientific study. Such claims include the shaman’s transcending states of consciousness when “traveling” between worlds of different material consistency, and his ability to operate soundly and consistently in his societal function of healer, counselor, or sage. Generally positioned into the domain of religion, the shamanic com- plex, nonetheless, is the most ancient institution for the realization of knowledge pertaining to intentional activity across material and subtle physical action. At its core are two assertions: one relates to a genuine ego-soul that is intentionally functional in a corresponding domain of reality, and the other assumes that intentional action in a given domain will affect causally the events of a different domain. The shaman’s capacity to transfer a domain-specific causal charge into an effect that is noticeable in a different domain is of dire sig- nificance for consciousness research. Here, the correlation between a shaman’s awareness of layers of reality—and his ability to utilize this awareness for transformative change across different layers of reali- ty—challenges the scientist’s preference for an emergent-functionalist model of intentionality that is now contrasted with a shamanic model of intentional state-specific action. Consequently, the legitimacy of authority for knowledge claims is also under review. From the outset, emergent functionalism clearly disenfranchises intentionality as a gen- uine force and, instead, highlights causal triggers from a seemingly neutral material domain (cf. Gazzaniga 2004). The subjective realm then becomes subject to appraisal by objective criteria used to deter- The Contribution of Shamanism to Cognitive Science 83 mine the appropriateness of conduct, emotion, and even thought. This collective validation of individual existence changes accountability for the experts who are authorized to apply such objective criteria. Such validation also changes accountability for subjects themselves since an expert’s presumably objective collective-thought structure of intent is used to marginalize an individual’s intent into a domain of functional- ity in the corresponding socio-cultural setting. In this context, shamanic practice sets the stage for ontological dif- ferentiation since all experience exists in a normative domain. Vine Deloria Jr. (1996: 39) reminds us, “Indians believed that everything that humans experience has value and instructs us in some aspect of life.” One’s assessment of action will range from an infraconscious awareness to cognitive intent; and since all valuation is subject to interpretation, the anomalies of experience that occur outside estab- lished frames of interpretation will now turn into sources for wisdom. Of course, the presupposition of so-called “supernatural powers” has no status in scientific discourse; such assumption is also out of place in shamanism since the recovery of shamanic knowledge does require factual knowledge related to various fields of expertise in folk med- icine that span across cultures and traditions. Besides the generally recognized healing practices related to herbal medicine, chiropractic, and ethnobotany, modern applications of shamanism can be found in ethnopharmacology, homeopathy, osteopathy, and even some forms of allopathic medicine. Nonetheless, it is the material equivalent of such powers that provides relevant data for comprehending intentional action. These data relate to modalities of subjective knowledge that cannot be objectified. In fact, this domain of subjective knowledge is volatile and, as such, is vulnerable to political restriction (cf. Mandels- tam Balzer 1999 for a Siberian example of resilience, or Sorenson 1996 for observations about different types of consciousness observed in isolated human enclaves). Rarely do we find Native American theoret- ical accounts of religious consciousness, but we do find an abundance of ritual, spiritual practice, and oral tradition to maintain the culture’s awareness of the intentional force that shapes subjective experience. Likewise, even with an abundance of objectifying cognitive models and a highly specialized technology, scientific accounts of action can only simulate causal intentionality, without offering any understanding of its generative capacity for individual action ranging anywhere from chaos to order. Åke Hultkrantz has correctly perceived the importance 84 Helmut Wautischer of this matter for shamanism when, for example, he objects to newly emerging interpretations of shamanism that question the role of ecstasy for shamanic practice (cf., the lively discourse between Profs. Hult- krantz and Hamayon in Wautischer 1998: 163–190). Hultkrantz insists that ecstasy is the sine qua non for shamanic practice. His assessment is well grounded in the ontological assertion of dualism—an ordinary, natural world and a so-called supernatural world. In his ecstatic state, the shaman communicates between these domains of reality. The assertion of spirits is a central feature of shamanic practice, where the shaman can recognize localized sentience that is different from his cognitive field structures when he interacts with such sentient domains of reality. The new interpretations contest the reality of spirit, resting on the assumption of role play based on a script that is established by collec- tive community intelligence. This newly defined shaman is reduced to an actor who fulfills the demands of a script, either in a state of focused awareness or by exposure to physiological convulsions. The shaman’s role is now perceived in the context of symbolic representation, shifting the emphasis from the traditional ontological domain of anthropologi- cal or religious assessment to an epistemological domain of a linguistic or sociological assessment. In other words, are there objective dimen- sions to experience that will also affect a quantitative domain outside the quality of an experience? Two critical factors are at the heart of this matter, whether the shaman’s action is to be placed into a context of actualized transformation or into a context of symbolic performance. The first relates to the ontological domain by exploring the embod- iment of intent in different layers of reality and across conceptual boundaries. The other shares kinship with an epistemological domain and explores the transfer of knowledge from arbitrary fractions of the collective self. In the shaman’s world, the collective self includes all living aspects of the universe, regardless of the presence or absence of a human brain, as this passage from Rudolph Rÿser (1998: 28) shows:

Other peoples, like the fish, the eagle, and the mountain, have great knowl- edge that permits them to comprehend the nature of other peoples. They achieve balance in relation to other peoples because of this greater knowl- edge. Human beings are the “little brothers and sisters,” and so they must take special measures to learn to live in proper respect and relation to all things. The Contribution of Shamanism to Cognitive Science 85

The inclusive nature of knowledge systems in indigenous cultures blurs the distinction between localized individuals, their ancestral fields of influence in a broadest-of-possible understanding of “ances- try,” and the metaphysical principles that enable a shaman to know the phenomenal world. Clearly, ecstasy can equip a shaman with insights into the nature of knowledge and agency; thus, the new interpretations of the role of ecstasy in shamanism must be seen in the larger context of shamanic cosmology. The shamanic state of trance or ecstasy elicits a peculiar situation where the shaman’s phenomenological disposition enables him to cross over the boundaries of opposites and transport himself outside his personal condition. The shaman maintains aware- ness of the epistemic charge (force field) in his actual physical domain, while simultaneously maintaining subjective agency to use the knowl- edge of ancestral fields in the shared realm of social existence. Until the epistemic charge of ecstasy is fully attainable for a shaman, vari- ous as-if scenarios can be enacted in rituals of performance, for exam- ple, those Galina Lindquist (1997: 295) describes in her work on urban neo-shamanism. This ritualistic performance aspect reveals itself best in its function as a rite of passage. Its transformative force equips the individual with knowledge and skills that, in principle, can affect physical reality in anticipated ways. Taking shamanic knowledge one step further, the shaman skillfully uses epistemic action as a means to affect physical reality. This is a larger claim than simply referring to “religious experience” or man’s need for myths, or asserting that the purpose of human existence is the creation of consciousness (cf., Edinger 1984, Troward 1991). Epistemic action is the intentional charge of a force field. What, then, is the shaman’s contribution to cognitive science? Instead of acting on faith, the shaman acts with knowledge about realms of existence that restore the unity of reason, creativity, and sensory expe- rience. This unity has no divisible objective accessibility that would enable a cognitive scientist to recreate the force field by means of reverse engineering. Thus, the scientist typically responds in one of two ways: denying the shaman’s force field or insisting on objective measurements of shamanic action. Both ways have failed in the past. Their origin can be traced to ancient Greek philosophy and the chang- ing interpretations of the Greek noun logos, which is derived from the verb lego (“I say”). The divine aspects of logos soon had to make 86 Helmut Wautischer way for logical thought in the context of human needs. Furthermore, mathematical reasoning initiated a secularization process, an idea that was already entertained by Heraclitus (Wautischer 1989). In effect, the divine—as well as its secular counterpart, the mythical—had no further place in logical thought. This did not stop shamans from continuing their craft. In their view, the state of trance in which mythos plants the seed of knowledge is not a state of sleep or dreams, but is instead a state of heightened awareness and creativity. For Naskapi-Montagnais Indians, the mind-soul stands for intellect and comprehension. The Navajo speak of a soul that expresses mind, reason, and awareness. For Iroquois, a mind-soul refers to self-referential cognition that is repre- sented by the faculty of consciousness (Hultkrantz 1953: 211, 1997: 78). However, one cannot use these concepts synonymously with Western interpretations of cognition, since the attributes of knowledge include a broader domain of existence. For example, the epistemology of the Maori in New Zealand recognizes at least three words that translate into the English “knowledge”: matauranga, which essentially means “reliable knowledge” and which is almost synonymous with mohiotanga, knowledge acquired by familiarity and the exercise of intelli- gence; and wananga, knowledge for activating ancestral power... [M]atauranga and wananga are regarded as exhaustible and destructible resources that must be carefully conserved by a group and only given or shared under the correct circumstances. Knowledge is a sacred power that belongs to a group rather than the particular individual who may hold it for a time, and can only be passed on to chosen members of the group.... Likewise, ... ancestors, in claiming territories ... locked together tribal understanding with the entities themselves so that a place and its knowledge could not be separated (Roberts and Wills 1998: 49).

For a cognitive scientist who is concerned with reverse bio-engineer- ing to decode human intelligence, such all-encompassing nature of knowledge poses insurmountable obstacles. Whether the shaman’s way should be shared with modern industries that re-engineer human minds by means of genetics, pharmacology, or artificial intelligence networks will have to be decided by the collective wisdom of our elders. The Contribution of Shamanism to Cognitive Science 87 References Deloria jr., Vine 1996. “If you Think about It, You will See that It is True.” ReVi- sion 18: 3. 37–44. Edinger, Edward F. 1984. The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Mod- ern Man. Toronto: Inner City Books. Guzzaniga, Michael S. (ed.) 2004. The Cognitive Neurosciences. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Hultkrantz, Åke 1953. Conceptions of the Soul Among North America Indians. Monograph Series No. 1. Stockholm: Statens Etnografiska Museum. Hultkrantz, Åke 1997. “Some Points of View on Ecstatic Shamanism with Par- ticular Reference to American Indians.” Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research 5/1. 35–46. Mandelstam Balzer, Marjorie 1999. “Shamans in All Guises: Exploring Cultural Repression and Resilience in Siberia.” Curare 22/2. 129–134. Lindquist, Galina 1997. Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo Shaman- ism in Contemporary Sweden. Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology 39. Roberts, Roma Mere and Peter R. Wills 1998. “Understanding Maori Epistemol- ogy.” In Helmut Wautischer (ed.) Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Phi- losophy of Anthropology. Avebury Series in Philosophy, Aldershot: Ashgate. Rÿser, Rudolph C. 1998. “Observations on ‘Self’ and ‘Knowing’.” In Helmut Wautischer (ed.) Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthro- pology. Avebury Series in Philosophy, Aldershot: Ashgate. Sorenson, E Richard 1996. “Sensuality and Consciousness IV. Where did the Lim- inal Flowers Go?” The Study of Child Behavior and Development in Cultural Isolates.” Anthropology of Consciousness 7: 4. 9–30. Troward, Thomas 1991. “The Creative Process in the Individual.” Marina del Rey: DeVorss. Wautischer, Helmut 1989. “A Philosophical Inquiry to Include Trance in Episte- mology.” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 21/1. 35–46. Also published at http:// sammelpunkt.philo.at:8080/archive/00001116 —. (ed.) 1998. Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthropology. Avebury Series in Philosophy, Aldershot: Ashgate. 88 Helmut Wautischer

Helmut Wautischer is Senior Lecturer at the California State Univer- sity, Sonoma since 1995, and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Graz, Austria in 1985. He is guest editor for a special issue on dreaming in Anthropology of Consciousness (1994), editor of two books Ontology of Consciousness: Percipient Action (MIT Press, forthcoming 2006), and Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthropology (Ashgate, 1998). He has presented papers and organized panel discussions at different venues, such as the American Anthropological Association, the World Congress of Philosophy, and the American Philosophical Association. Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity1

Michael Winkelman arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Origins of the religious impulse and its biological nature are illustrated in the cross-cultural distribution of shamanism and its universal features. The biological bases of shamanism are illustrated by the relationship of shamanic universals to brain processes, reflecting shamanic elicitation of neurognostic structures, innate brain modules, and fundamental struc- tures of consciousness. Shamans’ experiences (e.g., soul flight, guardian spirit quest, death and rebirth) involve fundamental structures of social cognition and representations of psyche, self and other. Shamanism involves social adaptations that utilize biological potentials provided by integrative altered states of consciousness (ASC) to facilitate community integration, personal development and healing.

Introduction: Shamanism in Evolutionary and Cross-cultural Perspectives Understandings of religious impulses in terms of human biolo- gy and evolutionary psychology can enhance our appreciation of innate aspects of spirituality and religiosity and their role in human evolution and psychology. Scholars of religion, psychologists and anthropologists2 have addressed the role of brain functions in spir- itual experiences and religious practices and their roles in human

1 The material presented here has also been published in Winkelman 2000, 2002a, 2002b and 2004. 2 See for instance Ashbrook and Albright 1997; Laughlin et al. 1992; d’Aquili and Newburg 1999; Peters 2001; Ramachandran and Blakeslee 1998; Rayburn and Richmond 2002; Rottschaefer 1999; Winkelman 2000, 2002a, 2002b; see also Zygon 36, #3. 90 Michael Winkelman adaptation. Systematic cross-cultural research (Winkelman 1985, 1986a, 1990, 1992) reveals universal patterns of magico-religious practice and etic frameworks for addressing biological bases of reli- gious practices. Hunter-gatherer societies worldwide had a complex of practices and beliefs labeled shamanism, which Eliade (1964, originally published 1950) characterized as entering an ecstatic state to interact with the spirits on behalf of the community. Eliade and others postulated universals of shamanism that have recently been shown to have direct relationships to innate representational structures and processes (Winkelman 2000). These biological bases help explain shamanic universals and their relationship to cognitive evolution and representation, healing, and social and psychological integration (Winkelman 2002a). This paper outlines a biogenetic structuralist approach (d’Aqui- li et al. 1979; Laughlin et al. 1992) to shamanism, developing an etic paradigm of the biological foundations for humanity’s original religion and neurotheology (Winkelman 2004). Shamanic practices build out of ancient phylogenetic roots involving the use of ritual to communicate and coordinate social activity through intensifying connections of the limbic and lower brain structures with the frontal brain, enhancing awareness, attention, self-awareness, learning and memory, emotions and social bonding. The biological basis of the shamanism reflects an evolved psychology and a natural and ground- ed paradigm for theories of religious experience.

SHAMANISM IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE Many scholars have recognized cross-cultural and universal aspects of shamanism, but others assert that the concept of the shaman should only be used to refer to Siberian practices and the cultures from which the term was originally derived. This perspective is not empirically grounded, but constitutes an arbitrary definitional approach. Empirical cross-cultural studies (Winkelman 1985, 1986a, 1990, 1992; Winkel- man and White 1987) based upon world-wide samples and formal quantitative analysis have established that shamanism has a cross-cul- tural (or etic) status reflecting a specific complex of characteristics found worldwide in hunter-gatherer and simple pastoral and agricultur- al societies. These “core” or classic shamans differ systematically from Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 91 magico-religious practitioners found in more complex societies (e.g., see Winkelman 1986a, 1990, 1992). The characteristics of shamans empirically derived from cross-cultural research include: (1) “ecstasy,” an altered state of consciousness (ASC) as a key aspect of training and practice; (2) an ASC experience known as the soul journey or soul flight; (3) interaction with the spirit world in training and professional practice; (4) activities carried out in a community context, generally overnight; (5) training involving a vision quest, a deliberately induced ASC; (6) an initiatory death-and-rebirth experience; (7) spirit relations as foundational to professional capacities; (7) the use of chanting, music, drumming and dancing in ritual; (8) abilities of healing, diagnosis, divination and prophecy; (9) soul loss and magical intrusion of objects or attacks by spirits and sorcerers as primary causes of disease; (10) soul recovery and the removal of intrusions as the primary ther- apeutic concepts; (11) control of spirit and animal relations as primary sources of power; (12) the ability to transform into animals; (13) charismatic group leadership; (14) an ambivalent moral status reflecting their ability to engage in malevolent acts involving sorcery; and (15) special relations with animals, including the ability to control them and provide assistance in hunting. The core characteristics and other aspects of Eliade’s classic descrip- tion of the shaman are found in the empirically derived profile. Shamans typically engage in all-night ceremonies involving the entire local com- munity and focused on healing and divination. During the ceremony, the shaman dramatically enacts and recounts mythologies and struggles with spirits encountered on their soul journey. The shaman and community spend hours dancing, drumming, and chanting, activities that produce an experience of “ecstasy,” an altered state of consciousness (ASC). These ASC experiences are the basis for the shaman’s engagement with the spir- it world, including travel to the lower, middle and upper worlds through soul flight. The soul flight, where an aspect of the shaman departs the body and travels to these worlds, is a signature ASC of core shamanism, although it is not characteristic of all shamanic ASC episodes. The sha- manic ASC are not, however, characterized by experiences of possession 92 Michael Winkelman

(following Bourguignon 1976), where spirits control the person. Rather, shamans control the spirits.

Shamanic Universals from Biogenetic Structuralist Perspectives The distribution of strikingly similar spiritual healers in societies around the world raises the question of the basis for this worldwide phenomenon. This worldwide distribution of shamans is not the result of diffusion of traditions, as assessed by autocorrelation analysis (Win- kelman 1986a, 1992). While shamanic traditions obviously do diffuse, their worldwide distribution derives from human nature, an aspect of an evolved psychology (Winkelman 2002a, 2002b). The uniformities in shamanic practitioners and practices worldwide reflects biological bases involving (Winkelman 2000, 2002b): (1) brain processes related to the biogenetic and phylogenetic roots and functions of ritual as a communi- cation and social coordination system; (2) the elicitation and manipula- tion of innate processing and representation modules or cognitive oper- ators (Laughlin et al. 1992; d’Aquili and Newburg 1999; Mithen 1996; Boyer 1992; Winkelman 2000, 2002b); and (3) neurognostic structures (neural networks that produce basic forms of perception and knowledge and the universal aspects of mind; Laughlin et al. 1992), as manifested in the shaman’s soul journey and other out-of-body experiences. Many aspects of shamanic ritual (group activities, vocalization dancing, imitation) have bases in the biological origins of animal ritual as a sys- tem of coordination and communication. This reptilian and mammalian baseline for communication and representation of intentions was super- seded with the evolution of specialized innate cognitive modules with specific functions (Mithen 1996; Gardener 1983). These innate modules also underlie shamanic universals, providing specialized capacities for processing information relevant to self, social others and the animal world, which provided the basis for animism, animal spirits and guardian spirits (Winkelman 2000, 2002a, 2002b). The spirit world involves the understanding of the unknown “other” through the use of representation- al modules for understanding self and social others. The natural history module, an intelligence for understanding animal species and their differ- ences, is involved in the phenomena of animal allies, guardian spirits and Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 93 totemism, where this intelligence is employed in contiguity metaphors with animal species providing systems for personal and social identities. Specific capacities of shamans illustrate their role in the management of these self, social and animal capacities. This is exemplified in their characteristics as having special relations to animals; the transformation of identity provided by animal familiars and guardian spirits; and their social intelligence as a charismatic group leader and inter-group mediator. Underlying biological processes are involved in core aspects of shamanism: its’ ritual nature as a social communication system; the “ecstasy,” or altered states of consciousness (ASC), central to shamanic practice; in spirit relations which involve forms of self-representation through metaphoric thought; and in community rituals which have a variety of healing mechanisms. The following sections of the paper discusses these aspects, in particular: (1) the phylogenetic basis for shamanic ritual in activities found in other animals; (2) the role of ASC as an integrative mode of consciousness, and the shamanic soul flight and visionary experiences as reflecting an infor- mational capacity known as presentational symbolism; (3) spirits as representations of aspects of the self and socioemotional relations managed by the paleomammalian brain, and forms of thought based in analogical representation system produced through integration of innate modules; (4) community rituals, a hominid potential for ritual coordination of social behavior used to elicit the opioid-attachment mechanisms, and provide processes for forming self and social identity; and (5) healing processes derived from the dynamics of ASC, the hypnot- ic capacity and other integrative processes.

THE PREHISTORIC AND PHYLOGENETIC ORIGINS OF SHAMANISM This biogenetic origin of shamanism is indicated by the presence of sha- manic activities at the dawn of the human cultural revolution, the Upper/ Middle Paleolithic transition approximately 40,000 years ago (Clottes and Lewis-Williams 1998; Lewis-Williams 1991, 1997a, 1997b, 2002; Ryan 1999), and in the continuity of shamanic ritual with aspects of animal rit- uals and behaviors (McClenon 2000; Winkelman 2002a). 94 Michael Winkelman

The legitimacy of applying ethnographic analogies to the interpreta- tion of these activities and their religious, social and mental contexts is justified by cross-cultural ethnological models of shamanism and their neuropsychological basis (Clottes and Lewis-Williams 1998; Ryan 1999; Winkelman 2002a, 2002b). A number of lines of evidence illustrate shamanism was a central features of the Upper/Middle Paleo- lithic transition. This includes: (1) direct correspondences of the art features to universals of shamanism; (2) a basis in hominid ritual for similar group activities involving vocalizations, drumming, dancing and mimesis; and (3) the ability of shamanic ritual processes to meet group needs that characterize the changes associated with this transi- tion (Winkelman 2002a). This central role of shamanism in the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition can be explained from neurotheological perspectives that integrate cross-cultural universals of shamanism with psychobiological perspectives. This provides the basis for a shamanic paradigm that can be used in interpreting a number of features of ancient cave art and its shamanic associations (Winkelman 2002a). These approaches linking shamanic experience and biological processes also helps address why shamanism was central to human cognitive evolution. The pivotal role of shamanism in the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition is indicated by the central role of shamanic elements in the cave art from that period. These included the nature of the artistic depictions, the nature of the representations of animals and humans, and the ritual use of natural cave features (see Ryan 1999; Winkelman 2002a; Dowson and Porr 2001). This art is a key evidence for the role of shamanism in this cultural cognitive revolution. Shamanic ritual, beliefs, practices and cosmology are characterized by cross-modal integrations that typify the emergent features of Paleolithic thought. Shamanic thought forms and ritual practices and beliefs facilitated adaptations to the ecological and social changes of the Upper Paleolithic. Shamanism contributed to cognitive and social evolution through production of visual symbolism and analogical thought processes, and through the ritual activities that promoted group bonding and the identity formation that was central in managing the consequences of the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition (Winkelman 2002a). These activities did not emerge de novo, but had origins in phylogenetically-based ritual behaviors, collective activities with communicative and integrative functions. Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 95

Shamanic Ritual in Biogenetic Perspective. Theoretical and evidentiary frameworks for interpreting human social rituals in evolutionary per- spective and identifying their adaptive functions are provided by The Spectrum of Ritual (d’Aquili et al. 1979). Humans share forms of ritual with other animals. Animal behaviors called rituals, ceremonies, formal- ized behaviors, and displays provide communication and social signaling functions. These genetically based behaviors are forms of information exchange that facilitate intra-species interactions, coordinating the behaviors of individuals. Ritual coordinates individuals into collective, socially coherent and coordinated patterns of behavior. Animal rituals generally precede coordinated behavior, and contribute to cooperative behaviors by facilitating the flow of information that permits synchro- nization of individual behaviors. This coordination links the intraorgan- ismic level of the individual with that of the group, synchronizing the individual with the group. Ritual coordinates internal responses among members of a species, and constitutes a socialization mechanism. Laugh- lin et al. (1979: 40–41) characterize ritual as “an evolutionary, ancient channel of communication that operates by virtue of homologous biolog- ical functions (i.e., synchronization, integration, tuning, etc.) in man and other vertebrates . . .” This biological impulse is manifested in shamanic and other spiritual and religious practices (Winkelman 2002). Ritual provides healing by meeting fundamental human needs for belonging, comfort and bonding with others. Rituals integrate peo- ple, enhancing social support systems and group identity, and healing through eliciting neurobiologically mediated forms of attachment. Shamanistic healing practices reinforce attachments that meet funda- mental humans’ needs in the mammalian biosocial behavioral system. Attachment bonds that evolved to maintain proximity between infants and care givers provide a secure basis for the self by providing feelings of protection by a powerful figure (Kirkpatrick 1997). Attachment rela- tions contribute to emotional development by providing relationships that influence personal and social identity and internalization of self models. These affect altruism through spiritual development involving the incorporation of significant others reflected in spirits who manifest principles of the benevolent helping other.

Group Chanting and Dance. Universal aspects of shamanic ritual involve music, reflecting a uniquely human capacity for music (see Wallin et al. 2000), as well as singing and chanting, reflecting use of 96 Michael Winkelman primate brain modules supporting call and vocalization systems (Moli- no 2000). These expressive systems predate language and evolved as mechanisms for communication of internal states and enhancing group cohesion, synchronization and cooperation (Freeman 2000; Brown 2000; Merker 2000). Vocalizations such as calls, hoots and chanting engage an ancient audio-vocal communication system that pre-dated speech (Oubré 1997), and serves as an expressive system for communi- cating emotional states, motivating other members of the species, and managing social contact, interpersonal spacing and mate attraction (Geissmann 2000). This human expressive capability has deep evolu- tionary roots that provided important adaptations in communicating personal information to members of the group. Chanting and music produce theta and alpha wave brain wave patterns (see Winkelman 1997 for review), and reflect information-processing capacities of the right-hemisphere and sub-cortical areas of the brain. Humans’ ancient hominid ancestors engaged in synchronous group singing, as is found in chimpanzee groups, where it provides an emotional communica- tion system that promotes social well-being, empathy, and social and cognitive integration (Merker 2000; see Winkelman 2002a for further detail). Dancing, imitative enactment, clapping, stomping and dancing and play engage the mimetic modules, and uniquely human capacities that provides expressive modalities found in rhythm, affective seman- tics and melody (Molino, 2000; Donald 1991). Mimesis provides the ability to entrain the body to external rhythms, as manifested in ritual dances and imitation of animals. These bodily movements, gesture and facial expressions are an early form of symbolic communication and exemplified in shamanic practices of drumming, dancing and ritual (Donald 1991). These “rhythmo-affective semantics” express funda- mental emotions (Molino 2000), a mechanisms that emerged early in hominid evolution for producing group coordination.

Healing Practices in Phylogenetic Perspective. Fábrega (1997: ix) takes an evolutionary approach to illustrate that there is a unitary basis in the social institutions concerned with sickness—“behavioral expressions of disease and injury”—and those concerned with healing—“social responses aimed at undoing or preventing the effects of disease and injury.” Fábrega shows that healing adaptations are a specialized evolu- tionary trend that is generalized within the hominoid lineage (humans and great apes), and illustrated in the ways chimpanzees respond to the Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 97 ill and wounded. Primates genetically based empathetic and emotional response to others’ distress is elaborated in shamanic ritual healing practices, which embody altruistic and caring behaviors. This unitary sickness and healing response is a biological adaptation involving social behaviors for the support of others by re-stabilizing homeostatic balance through innate knowledge about self-healing. Fábrega suggests that the evolutionary pressures for social exchange, sharing and reciprocity also selected for healing abilities. Fábrega attributes the origins of healing responses to elaborations on a biologically rooted sociality involved in care of infants and children and helping needy relatives and conspecifics, reflecting an elaboration upon the dynamics of parental investment and self-care activities. These healing abilities are based in an elaboration on emotional responses to others, a primate tendency to respond to the others’ emotional displays of other members of one’s group through expressions of empathy and sympathy. These healing responses are elic- ited by pain, suffering, and distress, which provoke responses of empathy, compassion and altruism. Central to the healing responses is a “theory of mind,” the ability to interpret others’ signals and to make appropriate inferences of their needs. This illustrates that healing requires other awareness and empathic internalizations. The innate basis of healing impulses is also directly related to religiosity, since the need for healing behaviors were linked to awareness of death, an outcome of illness. This relationship of healing concerns with death provided the linkage for extending healing activities into care of the deceased, and contributed to the development of ideas about spiritual domains.

ECSTASY AND ASC AS A MODE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Shamanic practices typically produced an ASC through a variety of activities that generally begin with dietary and sexual restrictions, and then in the context of the ceremony, drumming, chanting and dancing until collapse (or deliberate repose). The overall physiological effects of these activities activate the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system until exhaustion leads to collapse and a parasympathetic dominant phase, which may also be entered directly through relaxation, withdrawal and an internal focus of attention. This activation until col- lapse induces the body’s relaxation response and a condition like sleep, 98 Michael Winkelman but is typically characterized by a continued conscious awareness even through the shaman may appear unconscious to observers. The ASC of shamans and other shamanistic healers reflects a nat- ural human response, a biologically based mode of consciousness that Winkelman (2000) calls “integrative consciousness” based upon its’ systemic properties. The natural basis of the integrative mode of consciousness is illustrated by both cross-cultural and neurological research. The fundamental similarity of the brain conditions produced by a variety of activities and agents (Mandell 1980; Winkelman 1997, 2000) is reflected in the (near) universal distribution of institutional- ized ASC (Bourguignon 1976; Winkelman 1992) and the universality of shamanistic healers that induce ASC (Winkelman 1986b, 1992). ASC involve systematic brain discharge patterns that propagate across the neuraxis of the brain, produce brain wave synchronization and a synthesis of behavior, emotion, and thought. The natural basis of these ASC experiences are illustrated in their production by a wide range of natural activities (drumming, chanting, music, dancing, fasting, sensory deprivation), nutritional imbalances, injury and extreme fatigue, near starvation, and plants substances (i.e., hallucinogens). The natural response to these many different stimuli is the elicitation of slow wave brain discharges that emerge in the connections between the limbic system and brain stem regions and produce synchronous discharges that propagate across the neuraxis into the frontal cortex (Mandell 1980; Winkelman 1992, 1997, 2000). The synchronous pat- terns originating in the hippocampal-septal-reticular raphe circuits are manifested in high voltage slow wave EEG activity (alpha, delta, and especially theta, 3–6 cycles per second waves). These linkages between the attentional mechanisms in the lower brain regions (reticular forma- tion) and the limbic brain (particularly the hippocampal-septal area) produce ascending discharge patterns that synchronous the different levels of the brain and the two frontal lobes. ASC consequently stimulate a reduction in stress hormone levels as well as activate the serotonergic nervous system. This serotonergic action is exemplified in the effects of meditation (Walton and Levitsky 1994) and psychointegrators (hallucinogens) upon the brain (Winkelman 2001a). The serotonergic system acts as a modulatory system, affecting other neurotransmitter systems and managing activities across levels of the brain. The serotonergic system has its highest nerve concentrations in the lower brain raphe and reticular formation and the limbic system Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 99

(especially hippocampus and amygdala), and has intensive projections from these areas into the visual and auditory areas of the frontal cortex. Central effects of serotonin include the integration of emotional and motivational processes and the synthesis of information across the func- tional levels of the brain. ASC in general integrate information from the lower levels of the brain into the processing capacity of the frontal cortex, particularly integrating information from the emotional and behavioral preverbal brain structures. This integration of information from the preverbal brain structures into the language mediated activities of the frontal cortex is why ASC are often characterized as providing under- standing, enlightenment, a sense of unity and oneness with the universe, feelings of connection with others, and personal integration.

The Shamanic Soul Journey. The signature ASC of shamans is referred to as a “magical flight,” a soul journey similar to contemporary out-of- body experiences, astral projection, and other experiences of traveling to a spirit world (see Winkelman 1992, 1997, 2000 for review). A biological basis for soul journey experiences is indicated by their near-universality and continued spontaneous manifestations in near-death experiences, contemporary spiritual practices, and psychological crises known as “spiritual emergencies.” This indicates shamanic experiences of soul flight reflect innate psychophysiological structures, hard-wired poten- tials of the human species. This core aspect of the shaman’s ASC involves a complex synesthesia, a blending of corporeal, visual and auditory sensory modalities. This synthesis provides an experience in the visual modality, combined with a special form of self awareness experi- enced as apart from the body, and derived from one’s “taking the role of the other towards one’s self” (Hunt 1995a). The soul journey engages a self-referential capacity manifested in the visual modality, a non-verbal symbolic system referred to as presentational symbolism. This special perspective on self is reflected in the meaning of “ecstasy,” from the Greek ekstasis, meaning ‘to stand outside of oneself.’ This presentational symbolic system engages potentials that predated language and provided mechanisms for representation and new forms of self-awareness that produced transcendence of ordinary awareness and identity. The body image present in soul flight reflects its role as a natural sym- bol system, a neurognostic model that organizes both internal and exter- nal experiences (Laughlin 1997). Body based representational systems provide a symbolic system for all levels of organization from metabolic 100 Michael Winkelman levels through self-representation and advanced conceptual functions. The body is a neurological basis for human experience and knowing (Newton 1996) and a principal aspect of metaphors used in analogic thinking (Friedrich 1991). Body image combines memory, perception, affect and cognition in a symbolic system involving presentational symbolism, uti- lizing the capacity for cross-modal translation across sensory modalities that is at the foundation of symbolic thought (Hunt 1995b).

Visual (Presentational) Symbolism and Dream-Time. The soul journey involves a capacity for self-reference within a presentational system of symbolic depiction that engages the mammalian capacity for dream pro- duction (Hunt 1995a; Winkelman 2000). Shamanic recognition of the dream capacity in shamanic ASC is reflected in their references to “dream time.” These visual symbol systems are elicited by shamanic practices. Shamanic activities are incorporated into normal dream processes through over-night rituals and other dream incubation activities that deliberately blend waking and dream processes, reducing barriers between dream awareness and consciousness. A primacy of visual symbols is reflected in shamanism’s focus on visionary ASC and on “mental imagery cultivation” as a key feature of shamanic development (Noll 1985). The shamanic visionary experiences engage the self representation capacity that is based in the same symbolic system the underlies dream experiences (Hunt 1995a) and pre-human levels of awareness. Dream- ing is found throughout mammalian species, constituting an adaptation for learning, producing memory associations during sleep (Winson 1985). The universality of dreaming in mammals indicates that this form of consciousness constituted a pre-adaptation for uniquely human forms of consciousness (Brereton 2000). Dreams are the aspect of the unconscious that provides the closest engagement of ego awareness with the operational structures of the unconsciousness (Laughlin et al. 1992). Dreams also reflect an “unconscious personality” (Winson 1985) that shamanism manages through ritual. Symbolic imagery involved in the shaman’s visionary experience and interpretation of these visual images involves basic brain struc- tures associated with processing perceptual information and dreaming. Internal images and visions use the same brain substrate involved in processing of perceptual information (Baars 1997). Images play roles in muscular control, arousing autonomic responses and engaging unconscious muscle control centers (Baars 1997). Images provide a Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 101 pre-verbal symbol system that has the capacity to recruit and coor- dinate muscle systems to achieve goals. Imagery also involves a psy- chobiological communication processes that mediates relations across different levels of information processing, permitting an integration of unconscious and psychophysiological information with affective and cognitive levels. This visual information system provides a basis for communication and representation across domains of experience, linking unconscious, non-volitional, affective, and psychophysiological information (Noll 1985) with somatic, psychological and cognitive levels of the organism through visual images and analogical processes (Winkelman 2000). These visual symbol systems provide advantages in analysis, analogic synthesis and planning.

THE SPIRIT WORLD AS METAPHORIC THOUGHT: NATURAL, PERSONAL AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES The role of animism and animal spirits in shamanism involves the use of fundamental metaphoric processes and analogic thought. Metaphors, and their broader family of tropes, involve using something to repre- sent something else (Friedrich 1991). Imagistic and contiguity-based analogical processes are the prominent tropes in shamanism. Shamanic activities use contiguity tropes based upon the body; Laughlin (1997) characterizes the shamanic world view in terms of body-based metaphor. The most fundamental schema for analogical transfer involves using the body’s ability to act, an innate neurologically based body schema that provides a template for knowing (Newton 1996). The use of body-based models is manifested in many aspects of shamanism—mimesis, imita- tion, ritual enactment and metaphoric representations exemplified in the shaman’s soul journey—an out-of-body experience. Contiguity tropes based in an analogy between body parts are manifested in the universal projection of anatomical relations as forms of metaphoric meaning based in part/whole relations. The magico-religious use of these representa- tional systems is exemplified in sympathetic magic (Laws of Imitation and Contagion [Frazer 1929]), the out-of-body experience of soul flight, animal identity and transformation, and totemism. Animism: The Unknown Other and Self-Processes. The belief in spirits, referred to as animism, was postulated by Tylor (1871) as the source of religion. The inference of spirits was postulated to derive from experienc- 102 Michael Winkelman es in dreams, spontaneous out-of-body experiences, and other anomalous psychological phenomena (e.g., see McClenon 2002). Animism is also motivated by other cognitive assumptions and innate processing modules involved in self and other representation. Guthrie (1993) proposes that a compelling source of the universal human tendency towards animism involves the ubiquitous human tendency to attribute human mental, per- sonal and social qualities to the unknown and natural phenomena. Ani- mism is exemplified in anthropomorphism, attributing human-like char- acteristics to spirits and nonhuman entities. The shamanic acquisition of animal powers specifically emphasizes the attribution of human qualities to animals (and vice-versa). The religious tendency is necessarily anthro- pocentric (Ashbrook and Albright 1997), imposing order on the known and unknown realms through the use of the human models of the self that are inseparably embedded in humans’ representational capacities. Humans are not constrained solely to these representations, but representation through projection of self is an inevitable aspect of human consciousness (Rottschaefer 1999). A basic manifestation of humans’ symbolic relation- ship to the environment involves projection of cognitive similarity, involv- ing the inevitable use of the self as a model for understanding the unknown (Hunt 1995b). This means that the interpenetration of the qualities of the personal with the natural is inevitable. Perception requires that humans be situated in their world and environment, producing what Bird-David (1999) calls a relational epistemology. Animistic principles embodied in spirits are a necessary part of the processes of constituting relationships with the environment and others. This involves the use of spiritual “super persons” in the maintenance of personhood and identity. Spirits and their relational epistemology derive from the innate capacity for social intelligence, the ability of humans (and to a certain extent, chimpanzees) to infer the mental states of other members of the species. This capacity to infer thoughts and intentions of others allows for the prediction of their behavior through an intuitive “the- ory of mind.” This involves the attribution of mental states to others based in the ability to model others’ thoughts and behaviors through the use of one’s own mental states and feelings. Spirits are fundamen- tal representations of the structure of human psychology, a language of intrapsychic dynamics of the self and psychosocial relations with others. Spirits’ characteristics also reflect the dynamics of social and interpersonal relations. Spirits are used in shamanism to manipulate self and personal identity. Beliefs about the particular qualities of spir- Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 103 its are learned, providing symbolic systems that can manipulate lower levels of psychobiological organization. Spirit beliefs are organized in “complexes,” integrated perceptual, behavioral and personality dynamics that operate independent of ego control. Manipulation of these complexes through ritual practices can heal by re-structuring and integrating the unconscious personality dynamics with social models, uniting the unconscious and conscious mind.

Self Transformation: The Death and Rebirth Experience. Shamanic construction of identity also involves a de-construction of identity illus- trated in a universal of shamanic development, the “death and rebirth” experience. Shamanic initiates experience a developmental crisis involving attacks by spirits. These attacks result in death and dismem- berment, followed by re-construction of the victim’s body with sup- plemental spirit powers. The death and rebirth experiences are widely manifested in psychotherapeutic contexts (Walsh 1990). These reflect neurognostic processes of self-transformation, a natural response to overwhelming stress and intrapsychic conflicts that result in the break- down of ego structures experienced in “autosymbolic images” of bodi- ly destruction (Laughlin et al. 1992). This self-destruction experience produces psychological integration by activating holistic imperatives that produce a new identity at higher levels of psychological integra- tion. These higher levels of identity and integration are guided by the relations with spirits and the models they provide.

Spirit Relations and Self: The Guardian Spirit Complex. Shamanic practices of soul recovery, animal allies and guardian spirits reflect aspects of self-representation that involve “sacred others,” the intersec- tion of the spiritual and social worlds in cultural processes that produce personal power and identity (Pandian 1997). Shamanistic relations with spirits engage humans’ capacity to “take the perspective of others,” incorporating other’s perceptions into our own self-identity. Spirit rela- tions also engage self-development by using representations provided by the natural history module, exemplified in animal spirits and allies. Animal powers engage a specialized innate capacity for organizing knowledge about animals and recognizing “species essence.” Animal species provide a universal analogical system for creation of meaning, particularly representations of self and social identification (also see totemism below and Levi Strauss 1962). 104 Michael Winkelman

Animal powers as aspects of the self are exemplified in the guardian spirit complex (Swanson 1973), where self-development involves incor- poration of animal properties within identity and personal powers. Ani- mal relationships provide a representational system used as models for self-development and self-differentiation. Swanson characterizes these allies and guardians as empowering people in adult role development by guiding personal and social choices. Spirits’ characteristics provide ide- als that structure individual psychodynamics and model social behavior in exemplifying norms for self and psychosocial relations. Spirit allies provide alternate forms of self-representation that facilitate social and personal differentiation and provide psychosocial and cognitive mecha- nisms for problem-solving and mediation of personal and social conflict. Spirits provide diverse self-representations that can serve as variable com- mand-control agents for mediating conflict between the different selves and instinctive agents. This enables the operation of the social organism with respect to a hierarchy of goals, using spirit concepts to facilitate orientation of problem-solving modules to non-routine tasks and mediate hierarchies of personal and social goals (Winkelman 2000). The use of spirits to model the self provides processes for social-psychological transformation and therapeutic change. Sha- mans engage spirits to provide cathartic transformations of personal and social psychodynamics. The “shamanistic sacred self” (Pandi- an 1997) provides protection from stress and anxiety through models for self and the management of emotions and attachments. Sacred others become part of personal identity, providing internalized mod- els that enable rituals to affect psychodynamics through effects upon emotions and attachments. Dramatic interactions with spirit pres- ences provide models for self-development, incorporating the spirit “other” to produce identity modification and emotional changes. Shamanism developed these associative processes, constructing and manipulating a variety of selves for psychological and social integra- tion. Animism, totemism, and guardian spirits, as well as soul-flight and death-and-rebirth experiences, are natural symbolic systems for self-representation within which the self is internally differentiated and manipulated in relationships to others.

Totemism: Group Relations and Identity. Shamanism and other group oriented religious practices (e.g., ancestor worship) use animal species for personal and social representations, as manifested in totemism. The Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 105 significance of totemism for anthropological studies of cognition are exemplified in both the classic book by Levi-Strauss (Totemism, 1962; see also Friedrich 1991) and in recent work linking totemic thought to ecological relations and balance (e.g., see Bird-David 1999; Ratha and Behera 1990). Totemism involves establishing a metaphoric relation- ship between the natural history domains of animals and social groups, conceptualizing humans through models provided by the animal world (Levi-Strauss 1962). Totemic thought involves analogical processes, establishing a homology between animal species and human groups, who are represented through the differences among animal species. Totemism distinguishes human groups by attributing the characteristics derived from the animal world, representing group identity and inter- group difference through models provided by animal species. The use of animals in social and cognitive modeling is one of the most fundamental aspects of metaphoric and analogical thought (Friedrich 1991), a univer- sal human system for expression of meaning and creation of social and personal identity through the use of the innate module for animal species categorization. These identity formation mechanisms engage one of the most important aspects of shamanism, community relations.

SOCIOPHYSIOLOGICAL DYNAMICS OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS Eliade’s classic definition of shamanism emphasized that the shaman acted on behalf of the community. Furthermore, the shamanic ritual was the most important community gathering, at which attendance by all of the community was expected. The community orientation of shamanism has important social, psychological and psychophysiological effects. Humans’ evolutionary context produced a neuropsychology for adapta- tion to a social world that made social identity and personhood a neces- sity. A need for emotional life is wired into the human nervous system, which evolved within a context of social interdependency that produces a canalization of individual neurological and psychological development and the coordination of personal emotional life. Social life and its atten- dant conflicts demands a capacity for emotional self-moderation. This self-control is based on social identities and internalizations developed in the symbiotic caregiver-child relations and bonding experiences that engage the mammalian attachment dynamics. 106 Michael Winkelman

Community rituals are tools for producing these powerful effects on personal and emotional life. Individual self and psychodynamics are constituted within the social relations that provide attachment, personal and social identification and self models for internalization. Therapeu- tic psychosocial effects are derived from the orientation of shamanistic healing ceremonies towards personal, interpersonal and social process- es that reintegrate patients into the social group and enhance group identity. Ritual produces physiological changes that enable shamanic practices to have biopsychosocial consequences, a function of ritual that has deep phylogenetic roots. Community relationships elicit endogenous opioid mechanisms through activation of the mammalian attachment system (Frecska and Kulcsar 1989); this has effects on consciousness and health, including immune system responses. Socialization links emotionally charged cultural symbols with physiological and emotional responses, produc- ing a cross-conditioning of the endocrine and immune systems and the mythological, somatic and psychological spheres (Frecska and Kulcsar 1989). Shamanistic rituals use the same symbols and social bonding processes to activate the brain opioid systems. Frecska and Kulcsar (1989) suggest that shamanic healing practices utilize complex forms of opioid mediated attachment. Shamanism socially and ritually manipulates opioid mechanisms to influence core biological functions and attachment bonds, producing psychobiological synchrony within the group (Frecska and Kulcsar 1989, 76, 71). These responses reflect a genetically based “sickness and healing” response based on “elabo- rations of nonhuman primates’ responses to the distress of others and reflect emotional contagion and empathy” (Fábrega 1997, 34). Shamanistic practices also induce production and release of endog- enous opioids through a wide range of other activities: exhaustive rhythmic movement (e.g., dancing and clapping); temperature extremes (e.g., cold or sweat lodges); austerities (e.g., water and food deprivation, flagellation, and self-inflicted wounds); emotional manipulations (e.g., fear and positive expectations); and nighttime rituals, when endogenous opioids are naturally highest (e.g., see Prince 1982; Winkelman 1997, 2000). The release of natural opioids stimulates the immunological system and produces a sense of euphoria, certainty and belongingness. Endogenous opioids enhance coping skills, maintenance of bodily homeostasis (Valle and Prince 1989), pain reduction, stress tolerance, Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 107 environmental adaptation, and group psychobiological synchroniza- tion. These contribute to the healing functions of shamanism.

Biological Bases of Shamanistic Therapies Shamanic therapies involve several mechanisms for the transformation of the patient’s health, eliciting physiological responses and enhanc- ing placebo and other psychosomatic effects. Physiological aspects of ASC—parasympathetic dominance, interhemispheric synchronization and limbic-frontal integration—have inherent therapeutic effects. The relaxation response is elicited by parasympathetic dominance, counter- acting excessive activity of the sympathetic nervous system. This has preventive and therapeutic value in diseases characterized by increased sympathetic nervous system activity and a range of stress-related mal- adies. Shamanistic rituals provide assurance, counteracting emotional distress and anxiety and their deleterious physiological effects. Sym- bolic manipulations are the most effective processes for intervention in stress mechanisms, re-establishing balance in the autonomic nervous system by changing cognitive and emotional responses. Precipitous stress-induced parasympathetic states can cause erasure of memories and previously conditioned responses, alterations in beliefs, increased suggestibility, and reversal of conditioned behavior. Symbolic manipulations elicit emotions and community support that meets needs for belonging, comfort and bonding with others. Shaman- istic healing elicits and restructures repressed memories, providing pro- cesses for expression of unconscious concerns and resolving intrapsychic and social conflicts. Emotional dynamics are typically manipulated by attributing these processes to external forces (spirits). The special role of spirits in healing reflects their exceptional role as coping mechanisms (Spilka et al. 1997), utilizing universal aspects of symbolic healing (Dow 1986). This involves placing the patient’s circumstances within the broader context of cultural mythology, and ritually manipulating these relationships to emotionally transform the patient’s self and emotions. Ritual manipulations of unconscious psychological and physiological structures enable shamanistic healers to evoke cognitive and emotional responses that cause physiological changes. 108 Michael Winkelman

HYPNOSIS AS A RITUAL HEALING CAPACITY McClenon (2002) argues that a central factor in our evolved psycholo- gy and propensity for religious healing involves an inheritable quality manifested in hypnosis. The important contribution of hypnotizability to religious beliefs involve both its role in the induction of ASC, as well as its association with anomalous experiences—spirits and apparitions, souls, life after death, out-of-body experiences, precognitive dreams, extrasen- sory perception—phenomena that provided foundations for shamanism and other religious traditions. McClenon contends that the tendency to suggestibility, which is based in hypnotic capacities, contributed to a bio- logical capacity for religious belief and provided mechanisms to enhance recovery from disease, which in turn enhanced survival and reproduc- tion. The hypnotic capacity provides advantages in enhanced innovation derived from access to the unconscious mind and its creative visions. Hypnotizability produces physiological and psychophysiological respons- es that facilitate shamanic healing. Hypnotizability involves focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an abeyance of critical men- tation that facilitates a focus upon internal imagetic representations and enhanced belief and expectation. These produce placebo effects that have physiological consequences for healing. McClenon reviews evidence for the presence of the hypnotic capacities in other primates, illustrating that it is an ancient primate adaptation. Hypnotic and ritual behavior among other animals provides mechanisms for adaptations to their social environments, reducing stress and engag- ing the relaxation response. Rituals among animals involve the repet- itive movements that facilitate hypnotic induction in humans through producing relaxation and fixation of attention and reducing aggression. In humans, rituals’ repetitive and stereotyped behaviors produce an intragroup cohesion that is experienced as “union” or “oneness,” classic aspects of religious and mystical experiences. Shamanic healing potentials and their effects upon emotions may be based in the hypnotic response since shamanic practices have their great- est success in treating the same kinds of conditions for which hypnosis has been shown to have significant clinical effects: somatization, mild psychiatric disorders, simple gynecological conditions, gastrointestinal and respiratory disorders, self-limiting diseases, chronic pain, neurotic and hysterical conditions, and interpersonal, psychosocial and cultural problems. ASC are a part of a general tendency towards hypnotizability, Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 109 resulting from the brain’s shift towards cholinergic neurotransmitter sys- tems and their associated dream-like mentation (McClenon). Hypnosis interrupts the normal cycles of change between aminergic and choliner- gic pathways. Shamanism exploits the co-occurrence of hypnotizability, dissociation, fantasy proneness, temporal lobe lability, and thin cognitive boundaries. These share a common underlying dimension in a “translim- inality factor” involving enhanced connections the between unconscious and conscious aspects of the mind. Highly hypnotizable people have thin cognitive boundaries that enable greater access to the unconscious and the flow of information from the unconscious to the conscious. The thin cognitive boundaries provided survival advantages by facilitating the development of creative strategies. This capacity of hypnotizability to produce suggestibility, enhance symbolically induced physiological changes, and stimulate therapeutic states of consciousness facilitates psychosomatic change and healing.

THE TRIUNE BRAIN AND SHAMANIC HEALING Human evolution produces a fragmentation of consciousness due to the modular structure of the brain (Mithen 1996), the diversification of personal and social identities, and the automization of brain processes (Laughlin et al. 1992). Shamanistic activities produce psychological, social and cognitive integration, managing relationships among behav- ioral, emotional and cognitive processes, and between physiological and mental levels of the organism. Shamanistic activities use ASC, visual symbols and group rituals to integrate the operations of various brain systems and their functions. One aspect of this shamanic integration involves linkages across the evolutionary strata of the brain. MacLean (1990, 1993) proposes the brain involves three anatomically distinct yet interconnected systems—the reptilian brain, paleomammalian brain, and neo-mammalian brain—which provide the basis for behavioral, emotional, and informational functions which Maclean (1993, 39) calls protomentation, emotiomentation and ratiomentation, respectively. These communication systems have been referred to as “subsymbolic” (Ash- brook 1993) and presentational symbolism (Hunt 1995a). Interactions across levels of the brain are not mediated primarily through verbal language, but through non-verbal forms of mentation that utilize social, affective and presentational (visual symbolic) information. 110 Michael Winkelman

The hierarchical management of behavior, emotions, and reason is mediated both physiologically and symbolically. The relationships among innate drives, social attachment, and cultural demands creates many different kinds of health problems—chronic anxiety and fears, behavioral disorders, conflicts, excessive emotionality or desires, obsessions and compulsions, dissociations, repression, etc. The paleo- mammalian brain mediates many of these processes to promote an integration of the self within the community. The paleomammalian brain’s emotiomentation processes provide a major basis for shamanic healing, based on integrating its’ own subjective evaluative influences and self reference with the instinctual responses of the reptilian brain and the cognitive processes of the neomammalian brain. These inte- grative processes are elicited by key aspects of shamanism—the altered states of consciousness (ASC), the representations of person and social processes in spirits, and the physiological and psychological effects of community rituals.

Conclusions Shamanic traditions produced an integration of consciousness through rituals that induce physiologically-based psychological integration, metaphoric cognitive processes and community bonding. The physio- logical basis of shamanism involves systemic brain integration, a coor- dination and increased coherence of the potentials of many parts of the brain. Central to this enhanced brain integration is the forceful impo- sition of paleomammalian brain’s analogical processes and material of an emotional, social and personal nature into the self-conscious pro- cesses of the frontal cortex. The diverse conditions and procedures that evoke this integrative brain condition indicate that it is a natural state of the human organism. The shaman engages transformative process through ASC that entrain neurognostic structures and provoke restruc- turing of the self at levels below conceptual and operational thought, acting on the psychological and cultural structures of consciousness. All religions are not based on shamanism and ASC: however, all societies have religious practices based in “shamanistic healing,” the use of ASC for healing through contact with the spirit world. Human evolution selected for these potentials because they were adaptive in Shamanism and Biological Origins of Religiosity 111 mediating stress responses, producing psychological integration and enhancing social cohesion. Shamanism’s experiences are among the most fundamental emotional feelings at the essence of religion. But in contrast to the perspective that religion involves a dependence on spirits, the shamanic initiates’ dependence on spirits is overcome and the shaman asserts control over spirit powers. The empirically derived nature of the shamanic paradigm indicates a natural epistemology of cognition and provides descriptive and explan- atory resources contributing to an empirical basis that Rottschaefer (1991) called for in a naturalistic research program into the nature, origins, development and persistence of religious experience. Shaman- ism’s primordial, cross-cultural and empirically derived status gives it a central role in the development of theories of human religiosity. The shamanic paradigm extends naturalizing philosophy perspectives that apply cognitive theory to understanding religious experiences, identifying central issues in the congruence of shamanic elements with those of an evolved psychology, revealing the biogenetic structuralist foundations of religious conceptions and practices.

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Michael Winkelman (Ph.D., University of California-Irvine, M.P.H. Univer- sity of Arizona) is Associate Professor and Head of Sociocultural Anthropolo- gy at Arizona State University. Winkelman’s research and publications focus principally in the areas of the biological bases of shamanism and altered states of consciousness (Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing, 2000). He has also co-edited books on Sacred Plants, Consciousness and Healing (1996), Divination and Healing (2004) and Pilgrimages and Healing (2005). He has explored the evolutionary basis of shamanism (“Sha- manism and Cognitive Evolution,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal April 2002) and the applications of shamanism to contemporary health problems of addiction (“Alternative and Traditional Medicine Approaches for Substance Abuse Programs: a Shamanic Perspective”, International Journal of Drug Policy 12: 337–351, 2001). He can be contacted at michael.winkelman@asu. edu. See his web page at www.public.asu.edu/~atmxw. Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Batïrkan, a Kazakh Shaman from the Altay Mountains (Mongolia)

D. Somfai Kara, L. Kunkovács and J. Sipos budapest

This field report was based on two expeditions, one by László Kun- kovács in the autumn of 1994 and another by Dávid Somfai Kara, who visited the same area two years later in the summer of 1996. Both of us conducted one month’s fieldwork in Mongolia among the Kazakhs of the Altay Mountains in the so-called Bayanölgiy Region (aimag in Mongolian), where Kazakhs comprise 80 per cent of the population. Kunkovács visited this aimag to take pictures for his photo exhibition on Mongolia and shamanism, while Somfai Kara travelled there to col- lect folklore and folk songs among the Kazakhs of Mongolia.1 During our fieldwork both photographer László Kunkovács and myself had the chance to meet one of the most famous shamans (baksï in Kazakh) in the region, Batïrkan Abïlkasïmulï (‘son of Abïlkasïm’) of the Kerey tribe (pl. 28 a). Kunkovács not only took pictures, but also recorded a shamanic song sung by Batïrkan. As Kunkovács’s photographs and sound recording as well as the data collected by Somfai Kara happily explain and complement each other, it was decided that they should be published together in the present article. Furthermore, ethnomusicolo- gist János Sipos was invited to analyze the song. The reader will find his ethnomusicological notes at the end of this article. During my field trip in 1996, I had the opportunity to interview Batïrkan. Later, this information enabled me to transcribe and translate the text and gain a better understanding of the material produced by Kunkovács, who had himself witnessed Batïrkan’s trance and shamanic dance during his trip. He was a very tall man in his sixties (born in 1933), when I met him in his brother’s yurt (kiyiz üy in Kazakh, meaning ‘felt house’). Inter-

1 Some of this material was published in 2001. See Somfai Kara 2001: 23–28. 118 Field Reports estingly, his brother was a famous ‘falconer,’ (bürkitši in Kazakh), who actually hunted with eagles. I had a long conversation with the baksï, who told me a great deal about his shamanhood. He explained to me how he came to be a shaman and how he acquired his magic axe. This information aided me greatly in understanding some of the expressions mentioned in the shamanic song recorded by Kunkovács. In the inter- view the baksï said that he was attacked by spirits ( j ïn) at the age of six or nine. He fell seriously ill at the age of 28. The “madness” drove him up to the mountains. He could not sleep for days and walked barefoot on the ice of a lake, thus giving him strength. Later, he met Kuseyin, a great shaman, who initiated him into the spiritual world by giving him his blessing (bata). Batïrkan even mentioned this event in his shamanic song. The old shaman promised him a dombïra, a two-stringed instru- ment, which could help him to make contact with the spirits, but he died suddenly a few days later. After his death, Batïrkan started to see him in dreams, in which the shaman ordered him to find his magic axe, which would aid him in his shamanizing. Batïrkan eventually found the axe in spite of the fact that a molda (a Muslim teacher, a literate man) had hidden it. He still remained ill so he went to another shaman, Abïl- mayïm, who chased away the evil spirits with a piece of cloth (šüperek) placed in boiling water. After that his health improved and he began to shamanize, or, as the Kazakhs say, dem sal- ‘to heal.’ On shamanizing, he said the following. When he does a ritual he calls his helping spirits (jïn šakïrïw), which appear in the shape of a camel, a snake or an eagle. In order to heal a person the shaman must frighten his free soul (ürey). Healing generally involves the use of heated objects, such as a shovel or an axe. This is called ušïktaw. Another method is to blow the evil spirits off the sick person (üškiriw, ürlep dem salïw). When Kunkovács visited him in 1994, Batïrkan conducted a shaman- ic ritual in order to make a prediction about the relations between the Chinese and the Muslim peoples of Xinjiang (the Uygurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz). 2 The prediction was requested by Kazakh relatives from Xinji- ang. During his shamanic song (sarïn) Batïrkan addressed that question to the spirits, but he did not tell us if he received any answer. The ritual was also intended to save his people from all kinds of misfortunes

2 Xinjiang, formerly known as East Turkistan and Jungaria, is now an Autonomous Province of China, where 1.3 million Kazakhs live in its northern parts (Altay, Tarbag- atay, Ile). Field Reports 119

(bäleket). He began the ritual by stripping to the waist and tying a wide leather belt tight around his midriff. Then he asked a local Kazakh to kiss his magic axe (balta) before the ritual (pl. 28 b). This local Kazakh man also tied Batïrkan’s belt so tight (pl. 29) that one would have thought that he could hardly breathe, a fact which apparently assisted him in falling into trance. Then he took his magic axe and heated it up by the fireplace. He grabbed the axe and started to move around the yurt. Only then did he begin to sing his shamanic song, which lasted for about five minutes. During the song he walked around continuously, hitting his breast three times with the hot axe and shouting “hopp” (pl. 30). When he hit himself the third time he truly fell into a trance, which was indicated by the strange sound he uttered (“phuu brrr”). Apparently, this was the moment in which his helping spirits “entered” his body. After that he stopped briefly and then contin- ued his song but was now calmer. At the end, he hit his breast again and the song ended. He put down his axe, sat down and loosened his belt, which had been digging into his flesh throughout the ritual. In what follows, I will provide the text of the shaman song with a translation.3

Batïrkan baksïnïng sarïnï

1. Mang-mang, mang baskan Tört ayagïn teng baskan Aldïngg(ï) örkešin šang baskan Artkï örkešin may kïskan Kerdeng, kerdeng, ker jïlan Kerdeng demey kel jïlan Aynalayïn däw perim Šakïrganda kel (perim)

3 The informant was Batïrkan Abïlkasïmulï, born in 1933. The song was recorded by László Kunkovács in September 1994 at the Tolbo Lake summer pasture, in the Bayanölgiy region (Nogoon Nuur county) among the Altay Mountains of Western Mongolia, and it was transcribed and translated by Dávid Somfai Kara. 120 Field Reports

2. Altï Atantay Isämbet Jaratkan Alla, jär(dem) et Karatï Kerey Kabanbay Šawkïn suw boyïnda Akïlï är kimning tagïlïm Süyenši bir Alda, özinge sïyïndïm Kudayïm järdem kïl Ata-babam ar(wagï) Hopp

3. Alda, Kudayïm Merek kör(e) aldï arwagïn Sïyïndïm bata bergen Atam Kuseyin arwagïna, Kudayïm, Tokak jaldï torï aygïr Togay bir örley šapsangšï oy

4. Osï düniyege kelgen bäleket Alastasïn Kudayïm Alla bis(i)milla Söz söyleymin zaman atam Kolday kör, ata-baba arwagï Key pende mal körse sonday pïsïk Oylasam sonday adam sarga(yad) Hopp

5. Allam, jarïm, Allam, jar oylasam, biler meken musïlmanïm, kuday aw mïnda togïz düz toksan besinši jïlï bir närse bola meken, Kudayïm Field Reports 121

6. akïldï osï aytkan närsemdi kabïl alïp kolday kör düz jïyïrma tört mïng paygambar otïz üš mïng sabaka tört šahar Phuuuu, brrr, hopp

7. surasang mening äkem atï Abïlkasïm öz atïm Batïrkan kelippin Tolba köli, Kök-töbe jagasïnda Ablïkasïm kenže ulï bop düniyege kelippin Elestedi bu düniyem Altï jasïmnan bastap aw Kudayïm aw kurmeting arkasïnda Kašïp šïktïm üš-tört jïl boldï Hopp

Shaman Batïrkan’s Song

1. It stepped with a beat, It stepped simultaneously with four legs. Its front hump was covered with sand, Its rear hump was full of fat. You are a proud magic snake, Don’t say proud, just come. My dear great helping spirit, When I call you, come (my spirit).

2. Isambet from the Altï-Atantay clan, God, Creator, please help us. Kabanbay from the Karatï Kerey clan, By the side of a fast river, Everybody loses his mind. Allah is our saviour, I pray to you, 122 Field Reports

My God, please help me, The spirit of my ancestors. Hopp

3. Allah, my God, Merek4 could see the spirits. I pray to him who gave his blessing, to the spirit of Kuseyin. My God, black stallion with the long mane, run through the woods.

4. The suffering that comes to this world, Let it disappear, my God! Allah, Bismillah,5 I speak the words of the past generations. Support me, spirit of my ancestors. Some people are interested in goods, Well, these people suffer much. Hopp (He hits his breast with the axe)

5. Allah, my saviour, Allah, Do they know, My Muslim people, oh my God, Here in 1995, What awaits them, my God?

6. Please listen to my wise words, Support me, 124 thousand prophets, 33 thousand wise men of four cities. (He falls into a trance)

4 As Batïrkan explained it to me, Merek was the name of a deceased shaman. 5 In the name of Allah (in Arabic). Field Reports 123

7. If you ask me, my father is Abïlkasïm, My own name is Batïrkan. I am from Tolbo Lake near Blue Hill, I was born as Abïlkasïm’s youngest son. I have had visions, Since I was six. By the grace of you, my God I was freed (by the spirits) 3–4 years ago. Hopp!

If we examine the text of the shamanic song, we see that in order to achieve shamanic trance, besides Allah, the shaman also invokes sev- eral kinds of spirits:

(a) animal-shaped helping spirits (jïn) (b) the spirit of a shaman (peri) (c) the spirit of the forefathers (arwak) of his tribe (d) Islamic saints and prophets (sabaka, paygambar)

It is important to note that while shamans in Central Asia usually call their helping spirits peri (Somfai Kara and Torma 2005: 185), the Kazakhs of the Altay refer to these spirits as jïn, which in Central Asia is usually a term for evil spirits that cause illnesses (Divaev 1899: 307). Batïrkan mentions a peri in the text, but it is the spirit of a deceased shaman, Kuseyin, who was his master. The phenomenon of a deceased shaman’s spirit turning into a powerful helping spirit is quite unknown among the Kazakhs of Central Asia, but I found data on this among the Turkic peoples of South Siberia (Tuva čayaan).6 The text itself consists of six parts: (1) In the first part the baksï calls his helping spirits (jïn), a camel and a magic snake (ker jïlan). These are common spirits, which appear in the shape of animals. In the mythology of the Altay-kizhi we also find data on a magic fish (ker balïk) that carries the World upon its back. (2) In the second part the shaman turns to the spirits of his ancestors (arwak), who belong to the various clans of the Kerey tribe, e.g. Isambet

6 Data from my field trip among the Tuva (Tofa) of Khövsgöl in 1997. 124 Field Reports and Kabanbay. He addresses Kuseyin, his master as däw-perim (‘my great spirit’), who gave his blessing (bata bergen) to Batïrkan. During this part the name of God is mentioned several times (Alla, Jaratkan, Kuday). (3) In the third part another very peculiar mythological expression can be observed. The shaman says that a black stallion (torï aygïr) is running up the hill. This symbolizes the soul of the shaman as it travels on a symbolic mount that carries him to the Upper World. Among Tur- kic people of Southern Siberia, the shamans (kam in Altay-kizhi) turn to their shamanic drums (tüngür in Altay-kizhi) as their magic mount. The shamans (baksï) of the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz do not use drums. In some regions the drum was replaced by a shamanic musical instru- ment (kobïz7), but it is more common for them to use an ordinary tool that aids them in the trance and can chase away evil spirits (j ïn in Kazakh), e.g. a whip (kamšï ), stick (asa-tayak), shovel (kürek) or axe (balta). As far as the heating of the shamanic instrument is concerned, I col- lected data among the Kazakhs of the Altay region and the Jayïk (Ural) river, according to which the baksï sometimes heated up a shovel8 or an axe, licked the hot instrument and blew steam on the ill person (ušïktaw) to chase away the evil spirits (Malov 1918: 12). These things were intended to have a psychological effect on the shaman’s clients, as in the case of Batïrkan, who impressed us with the axe. (4) In the fourth part Batïrkan asks God and the spirits to chase away the evil (alastaw). The word alas is a magic term used by the Kazakh and Kyrgyz nomads as well as other peoples of the Altay region. The Muslims utter this word during the New Moon Festival of Nawroz (nawrïz in Kazakh) when they purify their houses with the smoke of the sacred juniper tree (arša in Kazakh). While doing this the Kyrgyz say the following: alas, alas, alas ar baleeden kalas ‘Alas, alas, alas, save us from all trouble.’9 (5) In the fifth part the actual question of the foretelling ritual is asked of God with the help of the spirits of ancestors. (6) In the sixth part the shaman invokes certain Muslim saints and prophets who are difficult to identify. This was the point at which

7 See Somfai 2005: 182–187. 8 On a field trip in Kazakhstan in 1994, Ötemis Salamat (1937), Orda, West Kazakh- stan, told me about a shaman who chased away evil spirits (jïn) with the help of the severed head of a wolf and a hot shovel. 9 From data collected on my field trip to Kyrgyzstan in 2001. Field Reports 125 the Batïrkan reached the pinnacle of his trance and almost lost con- sciousness. (7) In the seventh and final part the baksï regained a calmer state of mind and simply introduced himself to the spiritual world. He also mentioned that he began to have contact with the spirits at the age of six, which is quite young for shamanic initiation. If we compare Batïrkan’s shamanic song (sarïn) with, for example, the shamanic zikir (invocation) of a baksï named Zamanbek from Sayram (Shymkent) in Southern Kazakhstan from 1994,10 the difference is quite clear. The influence of Islam is much stronger among the Kazakhs of the Syr-Darya Region, who had direct contact with the Uzbeks, whose sacred pilgrimage places and saints are also always incorporated into the shamanic song of the nomads. While shamans of Southern Kazakh- stan always place the emphasis on proclaiming their faith in Allah and his prophet Muhammad, in Batïrkan’s song the significance of the help- ing spirits (jïn) and the spirits of forefathers (arwak) is much stronger. Another important aspect is that among the Kazakhs of the Altay there are no “white” or “black” shamans (shamans who have contacts with good or evil spirits). Batïrkan had contact with all kinds of spirits and the Kazakhs in Ölgii did not consider the helping spirits (jïn) as merely evil ones; all shamans could make contact with them. I suggest that this can be explained by the fact that the syncretic element of their faith is much weaker. (We can observe the same process in the shamanism of the Altay-kizhi and the Telengit.11) In regions where Islam influenced shamanism the syncretic religion is characterized by the formation of “black” and “white” shamans and the separation of their activities, while we cannot find this separation of shamanic activities in regions where traditional shamanism sur- vived, a fact which is also indicated in the terminology of the spirits of the shaman. In the Altay the shaman’s helping spirits are called jïn, which in Southern Kazakhstan is the term for evil spirits related to Satan (saytan), while the term for helping spirit is peri (Basilov 1992: 236) in the South.

10 See Somfai 2005: 182–187. 11 See Potapov 1991: 92, 132. 126 Field Reports Ethnomusicological Notes on Batïrkan Shaman’s Song

We have seen a series of melodies described within their cultural con- text and rounded out with photographic material. What follows is an ethnomusicological transcription and analysis of the melody itself, and a comparison to the musical styles of certain other peoples. According to the principles of ethnomusicology (Merriam 1964, Nettl 1983), instead of examining only the abstract musical structures we should also explore the social context of the musical performance. However, as the first part of this article has already shed light on the background, these few pages will be devoted to an examination of the music alone. Though there have been several efforts, the music of a number of Turkic peoples is unfortunately not very well explored. This is also true of the music of the Kazakhs living in Bayanölgiy, but here we can men- tion at least one useful book: Mongoliya Kazaktarïnïng Khalïk Jïrlarï, which contains numerous transcriptions but no information about the performers or any analysis. It should be noted here that the music of the Kazakh people living in Bayanölgiy county (West Mongolia) has previously been studied and compared to Kazakh folksongs recorded in Mangishlak (West Kazakhstan) (Sipos 2001). In illiterate societies, perhaps one of the most important and frequent uses of music is to assist in religious rituals. Examples include the music and dance of the Bektashi order, the songs of the Dakota singers and Navajo medicine man and that of Mongolian shamans.12 The musical material of these people is different, but a link usually exists between the songs the shaman sings and other songs of the community of which the shaman is a part. Even today there are numerous peoples with no system of reading and writing. Their music is referred to as “primitive” though it is often quite complex and developed.13 At first sight, our melodies also appear to be simple. A layman may feel that the singer is repeating the same melody again and again. In reality, however, every rendering is differ-

12 On the dance and songs of the Bektashi, Dakota and Navajo people, see Koca and Onaran 1998; Birge 1937; Powers 1990; Jurrens 1965; McAllester 1949, 1973. On Mongolian shamanic songs, see Birtalan and Sipos 2004: 51–59. 13 For more details, see e.g. Nettl 1972. Field Reports 127

- 128 Field Reports Field Reports 129

l ï 130 Field Reports

gïz Field Reports 131 132 Field Reports

s - t

ting Field Reports 133 ent. They are not merely simple personal variations; here we can admire the continuous remolding of a basic musical idea. In this respect, the performance is similar to that of the Kazakh terme songs, but the act of variation happens on different musical foundations.14 Before comparing the melodies in question with melodies of other peoples, let us take a closer look at some musical attributes, and then let us examine the series of melodies. The melody moves on the three tones of the E–D–C trichord, with an intonation of pitches familiar to a Western ear. The three tones are not insufficient: the entire folk music of some peoples is founded on these tones, and they dominate the musical styles of others. Melodic movement may be ascending, descending or undulating: the melodies in question are undulating with a descending trend. Despite the undulating movement, we have a descending feeling because the first line is dominated by higher tones and ends on E or D, while in the second line the C occurs more often and C is the closing tone. The characteristic movement has a C–D–E–D–C–D–E–D… character; that is, the melody advances on neighbouring tones between the two edges of the C–E interval. Interval jumps can be seen only at the beginning of lines or between the end of a line and the beginning of the next line. The shaman sings at a comfortable pitch level with a somewhat pressed timbre. Notes with short durational values are sung in a nat- ural way, but we often hear a quick vibrato on the longer ones. There is another interesting phenomenon: the pitch of the long notes descend slightly. The base sound of the melody thus becomes a whole step high- er during the four minutes of the performance. The singer sings the two-line musical units without any break. There is a special tonal organization in the melody. E has a strained relationship with the C closing tone. We might say that D has the sub- dominant tonic function, E the dominant one and C the tonic one. The total duration of the E, D and C tones are equal. Not counting the con- tinuous descent in pitch, the C tonic does not change during the perfor- mance; that is, there is no modulation. The tempo accelerates steadily and moderately from the beginning to the end.

14 I write more about the Kazakh terme melodies in Sipos 2001, otherwise see Alekseev 1947; Beliaev 1962, 1975; Dernova 1967, Erzakovich 1955, 1957, 1966; Zataevich 1925, 1931, 1935, 1963, 1971; Zhanuzakuv 1964. 134 Field Reports

The rhythm patterns are quite varied. This may be the aspect of the performance that is most difficult to grasp and describe. At the begin- ning ddvd n and its variants dominate, but here d nvd nvd nvvddvd n too we are in the first half of the performance. At the beginning of the sections the following patterns are common: ddvv nn or d n. The durational values are also varied. Besides dotted rhythm we see eights, quarters, whole notes and breves, with the whole notes and breves usually found at the end of the lines. Under the parlando-rubato-like performance there pulsates a rhythmic pattern, as is also common among the parlando-rubato songs of many peoples. The lengthening of final notes—and thus the last bar of the lines—is also a common phenomenon. Importantly, the duration of the lines is very similar, independent of the number of syllables in each line. It is usually the durational value of the final notes that makes the difference: longer lines end with a whole note or a breve followed by a pause, while shorter ones end with a quarter. Some extended lines also last one and half times longer than the usual duration: lines 30 and 32 (10 syllables), lines 36 (12 syllables) and line 40 (13 syllables). The skeleton of the two sections of the basic melody is as follows:15

A = CDEE / ED E16 B = ECDD / CC C

Shamans and bards are specialists in the community; they are semi-professional musicians. They must possess the gift of singing long series of songs, improvising, and arousing and maintaining the audi- ence’s attention. A drum or other instrument (a lute with two or three strings among Turkic peoples) helps them to fall into trance. In this case we hear solo singing. The process of the performance has four sections. (a) Similarly to the great performers, the singer first presents the theme in the most simple 5-syllabic form (lines 1–2), and then follows a 9-syllabic extended variation (lines 3–4). After this for a relatively long

15 It has several variants, e.g. CD E / ED E / DCDD / CC C or CE ED / DC E // ECDE / CC C etc. 16 The first line typically ends on E, rarely on D, or shows uncertainty between the two notes. Field Reports 135 time he varies the most typical 7-sectioned form. The musical form elastically adjusts itself to the lengthening or shortening of the text. (b) Before the repetition becomes too monotonous, the singer begins to sing longer lines, thus allowing for more extended variations of the basic musical idea and from time to time to tripartite rhythmic forms (e.g. lines 21, 32 and 37). (c) The most complex form, the climax of the performance, can be found in lines 38–40. Here it is not very easy to recognize the basic melody form. This part ends with a closing cadence (line 41). (d) The last part is composed of somewhat simple lines, but the musi- cal structures are more complex that those at the beginning of the series of songs. In lines 42–44 we see an AAkB three-line structure, followed by a four-line form (lines 45–48). The series is closed by two short mel- odies with a Kudayïm! “My God!” exclamation between them (line 5). After presenting the theme and then varying on different structures, the shaman returns to the basic form at the end. The scheme of the process of the performance is as follows:

(a) AB / AB / AB / AB / AB / AB / A... AkB / AB / AB / (b) Kudayïm! A + AB + Kudayïm! AB / A + B / AAk + B + / A + B+ / AAB / A + B + / A + A + B + closing cad. (c) AAkB / AkAAB / (d) AB Kudayïm! AB

Examining the folk songs in Bayanölgiy, we realize that the pres- ent zikir series has certain features similar only to the lament of the area. However, the laments in Bayanölgiy use the G’–E–D–C tetraton instead of the E–D–C trichord and their melodic movement is always definitely descending in contrast to the undulating, melodic lines of the shaman’s songs that have a narrower range. Though there are other melodies in Bayanölgiy with undulating movement, they always have a much wider range. Among Anatolian laments with a small range, we find similar mel- odies freely performed, but these are also dominated by descending melodic lines. Similarly to the Anatolian lament, the small form of the Hungarian lament usually has a wider range and descending charac- ter. We have not met similar melodies in the folk music of the Kara- chay-Balkar, Tatar, Bashkir, Cheremis, Chuvash, Kazakh or Kyrgyz peoples. Nor, according to an examination of the folk music of certain 136 Field Reports

American Indian tribes, do the Sioux or Navajo use this musical form. The closest variants of this style may be found among Azeri laments.17 In conclusion, we may think that this simple musical form is common and can be found in the folk music of various peoples. As a matter of fact, as we have seen, it not so easy to find parallels. True, the laments of many of the world’s peoples are characterized by a relatively simple musical form more or less freely performed, and in some sense we can list here the improvised and elastic performance of the ashik musicians of Asia. However, what makes this melody unique is that the improvi- sation happens exclusively on the C–D–E trichord with an undulating movement and a descending trend. Despite the small trichord range we see a complex musical world with diversified and genuine musical forms.

References

Alekseev, A. 1947. “O kazakhsko ıdombrovŏ ımuzyke.”̆ Sovetskaia Musyka 1, No. 3. Basilov, V. N. 1992. Shamanstvo u narodov Sredneı̆ Azii i Kazakhstana. Moskva: Nauka. Beliaev, V. M. 1962. Ocherki po istorii muzyki narodov SSSR. Moskva: Gosudarst- vennoe muzykal’noe izdatel’stvo. —. 1975. Central Asian Music. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Birge, J. K. 1937. The Bektashi Order of Dervishes. London: Luzac, Hartford, Conn: Hartford Seminary Press. Birtalan, Ágnes and János Sipos 2004. “‘Talking to the Ongons.’ The Invocation Text and Music of a Darkhad Shaman.” Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research 12(1–2), 25–62. Dernova, V. 1967. Narodnaia muzyka v Kazakhstane. Almaty: Izdatel’stvo Kazakhstan. Divaev, A. A. 1899. “Iz oblasti kirgizskikh verovaniı ̆. Baksy kak lekar’ i kol- dun (Ėtnograficheski ı̆ ocherk).” Izvestiia Obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i ėtnografii pri imperatorskom Kazanskom universitete XV/3. Kazan’. Erzakovich, B. 1955. Narodnye pesni Kazakhstana. Alma-Ata. —. 1957. “Kazakhskaia SSR.” In Muzykal’naia kul’tura soiuznykh respublik. Moskva: Nauka. —. 1966. Pesennaia kul’tura kazakhskogo naroda. Alma-Ata: Nauka.

17 See Sipos 2004, melody nos. 22–30. Field Reports 137

Jurrens, J. W. 1965. The Music of the Sioux Indian of the Rosebud reservation in South Sioux and Its Use in the Elementary School. Research Study No. 1. Col- orado State College, Greeley, Colorado. Koca, Turgut and Onaran, Zeki 1998. Gül Deste. Bektași Kültür Derneği Yayınları. Ankara: Bektași Kültür Derneği. Malov, S. E. 1918. Shamanstvo u sartov Vostochnogo Turkestana, (k poiasneniiu kollektsii Muzeia Antropologija i Ėtnografii po vostochnogo-turkestanskomu shamanstvu). Sbornik Muzeia Antropologii i Ėtnografii, V/1. St. Peterburg. 1–16. McAllester, D. P. 1949. Peyote Music. Publications in Anthropology. New York: Viking Fund. —. 1973. Enemy Way Music. Kraus Reprint Co., Millwood, New York, N. Y.: Kraus Reprint Co. Merriam, A. P. 1964. The Anthropology of Music. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. Mongoliya Kazaktarïnïng Khalïk Änderi. 1983. Bayanölgiy. Nettl, B. 1972. Music in Primitive Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (3rd edition). —. 1983. The Study of Ethnomusicology. Chicago, London: University of Illi- nois Press. Powers, W. K. 1990. War Dance, Plains Indians Musical Performance. Tucson and London: University of Arizona Press. Potapov, L. P. 1991. Altaiskiı̆ shamanizm. S. Peterburg: Nauka. Sipos, János 2001. Kazakh Folksongs from the Two Ends of the Steppe (with a CD). Budapest: Academia Publishing House. —. 2004. Azeri Folksongs – At the Fountainhead of Music (with a CD). Buda- pest: Academia Publishing House. Somfai Kara, Dávid 2001. “Collecting among the Kazaks of Bayan-Ölgii in Mon- golia.” In János Sipos (ed.) Kazak Folk Songs from two Ends of the Steppe. Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó. Somfai Kara, Dávid and József Torma 2005. “The Last Kazakh Baksï to Play the Kobïz.” Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research 13(1–2), 181–187. Zataevich, A. V. 1925. 1000 pesen kirgizskogo naroda. Orenburg and Alma-Ata: Kirgizskoe gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo. —. 1931. 500 kazakhskih pesen i kiui’ev. Alma-Ata: Narkompros Kazakhskoı ̆ ASSR. —. 1935. O kazakhsko ımuzyke.̆ Literaturnyı̆ Kazakhstan. —. 1963. 1000 pesen kazakhskogo naroda.2 Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe muzy­ kal’noe izdatel’stvo. —. 1971. Pesni raznykh narodov. Alma-Ata: Zhasushy. Zhanuzakov, A. 1964. Kazakhskaia narodnaia instrumental’naia muzyka. Alma-Ata. 138 Field Reports

László Kunkovács is a photographer, visual anthropologist and journalist. His main interests are in ethnography and cultural history, and he has done fieldwork in Hungary, the Balkans, the Ukraine, the Volga region, the Ural Mountains, Central Asia, Siberia, Mongolia and Tibet. The themes of his books cover Hungarian folk architecture, fishing and the stone idols of Eur- asia. Thematic exhibitions of his photographic work have been held in 15 countries from Estonia to China.

János Sipos ([email protected]) is senior researcher at the Institute for Musicology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He conducts fieldwork among Turkic peo- ples (Turkish, Azeri, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Karachay-Balkar), and has published eight books on Turkic folk music. His main field of interest is comparative analysis of folk music of various Turkic and Mongolian peoples. He has recently published his monograph on Azeri folk music. His main publications include In the Wake of Bartók in Anatolia; Kazakh Folksongs From the Two Ends of the Steppe and Azeri Folksongs – At the Fountain-Head of Music.

Dávid Somfai Kara ([email protected]) is a Turkologist and Mongol- ist. He graduated from the Department of Inner Asian Studies, Roland Eötvös University, Budapest, and he currently works at the Institute of Ethnology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1993–94 he spent a year in Kazakh- stan studying the Kazakh and Kirghiz languages. Between 1994 and 2004 he did fieldwork in Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Siberia and Western China. He collected oral literature (folksongs and epics) and data on Inner Asian Shamanism among Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Tuvas, Tofas, Altay Turks, Abakan Tatars (Khakas), Sakhas (Yakuts) and Sart-Kalmaks. Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Vasiliı˘ Dunkai, a New Shaman for the Udeghe People

Kira Van Deusen Vancouver, B. C.

The last elder Udeghe shaman died several years ago and until recently no new younger shaman had emerged. This report describes a brief visit with Vasiliı˘ Dunkai, who has undergone a shamanic illness and conse- cration, and begun practicing in the village of Krasnyı̆ Iar within the last two years.

On a visit to the Russian Far East in June 2005, I met the new Udeghe shaman Vasiliı˘ Dunkai in his home village of Krasnyı̆ Iar, Primore Ter- ritory. My friends in Khabarovsk had seen him on television. A special report was devoted to his work and to his consecration by Buriat sha- man Valentin Hagdaev. I came to the Russian Far East for other purposes—celebration of the publication of a tri-lingual Udeghe folktale book I had worked on and seeing to the book’s distribution in schools, a seminar for leaders of folklore ensembles, visits with friends. It was not meant to be a research trip. But as soon as I heard about Dunkai I decided to make a side trip to Krasnyı̆ Iar. In many parts of Siberia new young shamans have been emerging and practicing ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. Most claim sha- manic heredity. They have set up village practices and urban clinics, travelled abroad giving workshops, and generally been the focus of much attention. This ranges from rabid criticism to cautious acceptance inside their own cultures, where many people look for the appearance not only of competent healers but of strong spiritual leadership. There is also avid interest in the new shamans from the outside. The new shamans’ practices include traditional forms of healing, divination, seasonal ceremony and accompanying the dead, as well as 140 Field Reports adaptations of methods from other cultures. Some also run eco-tours to sacred places and compile information from surviving elders. In the Amur River region of the Far East, however, the few remaining elder shamans are gradually dying out, and to date no new ones had emerged publicly. Why is difficult to say. Perhaps the fact that the native populations are very small has something to do with it—the Slavic population is an overwhelming majority. Perhaps it is caution about approaching spiritual matters and a distaste for their commercializa- tion. Whatever the reason, there are no more than five living shamans today among the Nanai and Ul’chi people, all elderly, and none among the Udeghe since their last shaman, Adikhini, died a few years ago.1 The one exception is Ul’chi Nadezhda Duvan, who for years was entrust- ed with valuable information by shamans and other elders of her people. She began to visit North America in the mid 1990’s accompanying elder shamans Mingo Geiker and Mikhail Duvan, (both now deceased), and later began running workshops on her own. Within a short time American organizers were calling her a shaman, although she herself was modest about it. In 2000 in Iakutsk she told me very quietly that she was doing a few things at home, although this still seemed not to be recognized by people outside her own village. She was living primarily in the city of Khabarovsk and only returning to the Ul’chi village of Bulava, a 14 hour hydrofoil ride away, for visits. Now however, it is known even in Khabarovsk and beyond that she is practicing shamanic healing in Bulava. On this trip I heard that the venerable Nanai shaman Lindza Beldi of Naikhin had searched before her death for a student but had not found a match—someone she wanted to work with and entrust her valued knowledge to. On the other hand, some young people who felt them- selves to have the illness and the gift could not find an elder shaman they wanted to learn from, and so they remain untrained and inactive. One Udeghe woman became terribly ill when she began to practice skills learned from her shaman grandmother, but saw that as a reason to quit rather than a reason to go ahead. And a number of people who grew up around practicing elder shamans may well have inherited the talent, and yet feel their own calling to be in the performing arts or education instead. These people have much to offer an emerging shaman (Van Deusen 2000).

1 Adikhini’s picture is on the cover of my book (Van Deusen 2001). Field Reports 141

I had never heard this problem of finding a match discussed in my pre- vious twelve years research experience in the area, but it makes sense in light of the small native population and even smaller number of shamans. At the seminar I attended for ensemble leaders, Nanai perform- ing artist Liubov Beldi demonstrated shamanic healing methods using wood streamers and a woven ring of willow. She made special remarks about how to present these things on stage, even including facial expressions. Clearly this was a secular context, although it is said quietly that she too can heal people and she admitted that people often feel better even after her “demonstrations.” (She herself seemed to suffer from headaches afterwards.) I found it frustrating that peo- ple were still looking at spiritual matters on the level of “how people used to live” and not using the information to enliven real ceremonies. But I also realized that this lively group of young people were taking spiritual matters very seriously and might take the information home to use in their own contexts. Some of them regularly conduct seasonal and other celebrations “for real.” After the seminar I went out to Krasnyı̆ Iar, a four hour car trip, the last half over bumpy unmarked dirt roads, beautiful and cool with tree-tops meeting overhead. Udeghe elder Valentina Kialundziuga from Gvasiugi village came with me. She was curious to know what this young man was up to. The other member of our excellent group was Liubov Passar, an Udeghe psychiatrist who grew up in Krasnyı̆ Iar with Dunkai and now works primarily treating alcoholism. Her interest in the trip was both personal and professional. She too has felt a shamanic calling but so far is working it out in her medical practice. We met Vasiliı˘ Dunkai walking on the street almost as soon as we arrived in the village, and agreed to have tea later in the day. It was a relaxed chat, and later he showed us video of the television production, and other matters pertaining to ecological and political issues affecting the village. Krasnyı̆ Iar is remarkable in having defeated an effort to log the old growth forest on their hunting territory—although they are now feeling repercussions from the government. They currently battle efforts to construct a Russian Orthodox church in their overwhelmingly non-Russian village where very few are Christians. This is clearly an effort to co-opt potential activists and change the spiritual and social character of the village. Dunkai was modest but open about himself. A major issue is his finding consecration outside his own people. Some see this as a rea- 142 Field Reports son to discount him, whereas we felt inclined to find out why it had happened that way. Both Udeghe women would like to see a spiritual leader evolve, if possible. I was particularly interested since I had met the Buriat shaman Valentin Hagdaev when he first was starting on his own shamanic road (reported in Hoppál 2000 and Van Deusen 1999). Just meeting Dunkai, already it felt like a good match. Dunkai explained that he had suffered for nine years from debilitat- ing headaches. I understand from others that he had serious problems with alcohol, which he quietly acknowledged as well. A common sha- manic illness in our time. He realized it would end in summer. After trying many kinds of treatment with little success, he wound up seeing a Buddhist lama in Vladivostok. Already this was outside of tradition on both sides, as Buddhism did not reach as strongly into this area as it did in Tuva and Buriatia. The lama told him he should practice shamanism and recommended getting in touch with Hagdaev. Dunkai made the trip to Lake Baikal and the two men found the match they were looking for. Later Hagdaev came out to Krasnyı̆ Iar. Dunkai has since returned to Irkutsk, near Baikal, to a big gathering of shamans. He is also busy reading ethnographic works from the 19th and early 20th centuries and building his practice. Valentina Kialundziuga listened to this with a mixture of pleasure and distress. “It’s all right to go out and learn from others, but you must do your own,” she said, emphasizing how important it would be for him to learn from his own traditions and also to trust his own instincts. He agreed wholeheartedly, saying he had done it mainly in order to gain recognition as a real shaman. Again and again she emphasized that he should do his own work in his own way. She also feels that it is not a good idea for shamans to meet in big groups, because it brings up bad energies. (This has been borne out among the Buriat themselves. Within a few months of a conference and gathering of shamans at Baikal in 1996, two of the shamans died unexpectedly, and the buildings we used burned to the ground. Many Buriats attribute this to the concentration of energies from that gath- ering. Problems have also arisen around the shamans’ clinics in Tuva, where shamans work in close quarters.) “The consecration could be done alone,” she said. “People did it in the old days, out in the taiga.” This is also clearly documented in the liter- ature, although today there is more focus on the teaching of shamans than on their finding the gift spontaneously. I suppose this has come Field Reports 143 about because young people brought up outside a traditional context had never seen shamans at work, nor had they been taught the many other aspects of traditional culture that surround the shaman’s work. That being so they were more in need of instruction. Spontaneous, self-di- rected initiation has been recently overlooked. Dunkai’s work has two main parts, a healing practice, and working with children. He now does distance healing as well as working with patients who are physically present. Valentina consulted him for pain in her shoul- ders as a kind of test. He worked with her energy using both “non-contact massage” and a light touch. She felt better as a result. In more serious cases his healing practice involves drumming, which he used extensively in his own healing before beginning to practice with others. Here again the elder woman was able to teach him rhythms she had learned from elder shamans in her own community. There was much discussion about shamans of the past. Interestingly, Kialundziuga said that the shamans she knew had not practiced soul retrieval—instead they simply instilled a sense of well-being into the patient, who would get better as a result. The sick person could also pray to the sevekhe (spirit figures), which were made specifically for the purpose, and this method was even more direct and very effective. Shamans’ promotion of self-healing is another thing that seems to be de-emphasized by outsiders today, although I have expe- rienced it in Khakassia. On other occasions Kialundziuga has told me about Udeghe ceremonies of accompanying the dead to the next world which she experienced in childhood. This ceremony was the main focus of traditional shamanic work in the Amur. I’m very inspired by Dunkai’s work with children. In conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund, whose work with the Siberian tiger has brought them into the community, he is starting a “hunters’ school,” where the children will learn not only traditional hunting skills but also the spiritual practices used by their ancestors when approaching the great taiga forest and its inhabitants. We attended a meeting where he explained the plan to a group of about 20 excited children. Liubov Pas- sar said that spiritual values need to come first—without that no amount of money can help. Those values are being honoured in Krasnyı̆ Iar, whose economy depends to a large degree on hunting. Pavel Fomenko of the World Wildlife Fund was present and says he has high hopes for Vasiliı˘ Dunkai as a spiritual leader. We walked to a little house newly built at the edge of the taiga for hunters to make offerings to the spirits before going out. The Udeghe 144 Field Reports word for the process is khengki, sometimes translated as prayer (Rus- sian molitva). Valentina prefers to use the Russian poklon, a bow or a worshipful rendering of respect. Of all the Amur peoples, these houses are used only by the Udeghe. Called Miao in Krasnyı̆ Iar from its Chi- nese name, the huts are known by the Udeghe name, khengginku bua, (a place for paying respects), in Gvasiugi village, which is geographically further from Chinese influence. Other Amur peoples make offerings without building the little house. I felt great encouragement seeing that this development is real and not just demonstrated. The next day Dunkai took us on a boat trip on the Bikin river. We pulled up on a pebbled point and most of us went for a swim. Valentina and Vasiliı˘ sat in the boat and talked seriously. Although not a shaman, she grew up participating in shamanic ceremonies frequently and has devoted years to recording and understanding the intricacies of the Udeghe language and culture. Thus she was an ideal mentor for this emerging shaman, transmit- ting information from elder to younger in a time-honoured way. I will look forward to hearing more about Vasiliı˘ Dunkai in the future.

References

Hoppál, Mihály 2000. Shaman Traditions in Transition. Budapest: International Society for Shamanistic Research. Van Deusen, Kira 1999. “In Black and White: Contemporary Buriat Shamans.” Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research 7(2), 153–166. —. 2000. “The Shamanic Gift and the Performing Arts in Siberia” In N. L. Zhukovskaia et al. (eds.) Shamanskiı˘ dar (The shamanic gift). Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences. —. 2001. The Flying Tiger. Women Shamans and Storytellers of the Amur. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Over the last twelve years Kira Van Deusen has been conducting independent research on Siberian storytelling and shamanic traditions, both in their tradition- al and contemporary forms, in the Amur River region of the Russian Far East, Tuva, Khakassia, Buriatia and Chukotka. She is a professional storyteller/musi- cian and the author of four books including The Flying Tiger: Women Shamans and Storytellers of the Amur. See her website at www.kiravan.com. Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

Book Rewiev

Rachel Harris. Singing the Village. Music, Memory and Ritual among the Sibe of Xinjiang. 2004. ISBN 0-19-726297-X. £50.00. Published for the Brit- ish Academy by Oxford University Press. 227 pp. + CD.

Sometime in the autumn of 1995, during my first visit to Xinjiang (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) in the People’s Republic of China, I remember well how the local researchers introduced me to a young doctoral candidate from England who told me of her work on the folk music of the local Sibe people. This young scholar was, of course, Rachel Harris and this book represents the outcome of the research she had embarked on then, an achievement that would not have been possible without the assistance of those local researchers—and of Qi Cheshan in particular, who is himself a member of this tiny nation (and who may actually be familiar to regular readers of Shaman from his excellent article “Contemporary Shamans and the ‘Shaman’s Hand- book’ of the Sibe,” in Vol. 5(1), 69–90). An important fact about the Sibe people is that in 1764, during the Qing dynasty, 4,000 Manchu troops were ordered by the emperor to make the long trek with their families from the northeastern border of the Chinese Empire to its western frontier. And so it was that ancestors of the Sibe came to guard the border in the Chapchal area of the Ili river valley in Xinjiang and it is here that they maintain their traditions in their customs, in the genealogical tables that preserve the memory of their ancestors, in the melodies of their folk music and, naturally, in their shamanism. The first chapter of the book provides a historical overview of the Sibe and the salient points of their social structure from their Manchu origins to their current status among the 55 minorities of the People’s Republic of China. It is estimated that this originally Manchu ethnic group numbers around 16,000, and it can be distinguished from the neighbouring Uyghurs and Chinese in that it proudly cultivates its folk traditions. This fact greatly aided Dr. Harris in gathering the excellent 146 Book Rewiev material she did during her several sojourns in the region between 1995 and 2001. Still, she writes that her work was not without its stum- bling blocks; for one, the Chinese authorities do not look particularly kindly on research into minority groups such as this one. Nevertheless, Dr. Harris has succeeded in charting the most diverse areas of Sibe folk music, from individual narrative songs to ritual drumming and from a two-stringed plucked lute called the dombur to the performanc- es of folk opera found there. One of the most fascinating chapters of the book is the third, in which the author discusses the way in which social memory makes use of music to strengthen the identity of the community. She examines in particular detail songs from wedding banquets and funerals, laments and music associated with calendric festivals. Chapter 4 covers the tradition of singing among shamans and other religious specialists. It discusses how remembering rituals comes to be an important ethnic marker. Chapter 5 examines how shamans and shamanic songs have survived in the modern Chinese state even during the Cultural Revolution—in spite of persecutions. It paints a vivid picture of contemporary Sibe shamans and the rituals they perform. And we learn, promisingly, that more than a dozen youngish shamans live among the Sibe today. Dr. Harris’s study also describes the way that nations living in mod- ern-day China are re-creating their ethnic identity by reviving their music (with traditional instruments) or their local shamanic traditions. The book is rounded out with two handy glossaries and a useful refer- ence list of 300 items. It also features an audio CD of recordings made on site by the author in 1995 and 1996, including a set of shamanic ritual songs (tracks 17–22) which totals around 12 minutes in length. In conclusion, Dr. Harris’s book represents a valuable contribution not merely to ethnomusicology, but also to research on shamanism in general. Indeed, I know of few other monographs that cover the music of the shaman.

Budapest Mihály Hoppál Vol. 14. Nos. 1-2. Shaman spring/Autumn 2006

News and Notes

THE 8TH CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR SHAMANISTIC RESEARCH (ISSR), HUNGARY, 2007

The 8th Conference of the International Society for Shamanistic Research will be held in Hungary, on June 2–9, 2007. The central themes of the conference will be:

(1) The Revival or Continuation of Shamanism (2) Visual Presentation of Shamanic Rituals (3) Shamanhood as Means of Identity of Minorities

The attendance fee for the conference will be approximately €200- 250. Titles of papers and abstracts of max. 200 words should be sent to the Organizing Committee by October 31, 2006. Authors can email these to [email protected] The presentation time for papers will be limited to 20 minutes. The working language of the conference will be English. For further information, please visit our web site at www.etnologia.mta.hu

Mihály Hoppál Adam Molnár President of the ISSR Secretary of the ISSR [email protected] [email protected]

Address for correspondence:

Mihály Hoppál Institute of Ethnology Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest, Pf. 29. Hungary, H-1250 Phone: +36 1 224-6781 Fax: +36 1 356-8058

Plates 1 (a) Åke Hultkrantz after taking his student’s examination in Stockholm, 1938.

1 (b) In Wyoming together with the famous Shoshone Medicine Man, John Trehero (who adopted Åke Hultkrantz), 1948. 2 (a) Åke Hultkrantz and his wife Geraldine in their home in Lidingö, Sweden, 1997.

2 (b) Juha Pentikäinen (on the left) and Åke Hultkrantz (on the right) at a conference on shamanism in Tampere, Finland, 1998. Photo: Mihály Hoppál. 3 (a) Åke Hultkrantz with war bonnet from 1900 in his home in Stockholm, 1960.

3 (b) Åke Hultkrantz on his 75th birthday in Lidingö, Sweden, 1995. 4 (a) The classic initiatory position. Photo: Željko Jokić.

4 (b) Spirit of a boa arrives with machete. Photo: Željko Jokić. 5 (a) Embodiment of the spirit-house (shapono). Photo: Željko Jokić.

5 (b) Death by the spirit of anaconda. Photo: Željko Jokić. 6 (a) Embodiment of the anaconda’s head-crown. Photo: Željko Jokić.

6 (b) Spirit of a boa-tornasol launches an arrow into the neophyte. Photo: Željko Jokić. 7 (a) Yaoriwe (the ocelot-spirit) is approaching. Photo: Željko Jokić.

7 (b) The ocelot-spirit is “eating” the neophyte. Photo: Željko Jokić. 8 (a) The Jaguar spirit is arriving. Photo: Željko Jokić.

8 (b) Jaguar leaps and kills the neophyte. Photo: Željko Jokić. 9 (a) The neophyte receives Jaguar’s head-crown. Photo: Željko Jokić.

9 (b) The spirits enter the pole in masses. Photo: Željko Jokić. 10 (a) Post-mortem body wash and decoration. Photo: Željko Jokić.

10 (b) The master shaman takes the neophyte for his first walk. Photo: Željko Jokić. 11 Qiang shaman with coulter at the hearth, 2001. 12 (a) Qiang shaman performing rite at the family hearth, 2001.

12 (b) Qiang shaman performing rite at the family hearth, 2001. 13 (a) Qiang procession to ritual site, the shaman is in yellow with monkey-skin headdress, Photo: Daniel A. Kister, 2002.

13 (b) Qiang procession to ritual site. Photo: Daniel A. Kister, 2002. 14 (a) Qiang rite dancers. Photo: Daniel A. Kister, 2002.

14 (b) Qiang rite dancers. Photo: Daniel A. Kister, 2002. 15 Sacred tower at a Qiang village. Photo: Daniel A. Kister, 2002. 16 Blind Naxi shaman. Photo: Daniel A. Kister, 2002. 17 Yi bimo (shaman). Photo: Daniel A. Kister, 2002. 18 The procession in Turku on 15 July 1640. The original painting was made by Edelfelt in 1904. However, it was ruined during the bombing raids on Helsinki in 1944, and was at a later date reconstructed on the basis of Edelfelt’s original drafts. 19 (a) Both the city of Pori and the province of Satakunta still today use the embla- zon of the bear on the first page of the dissertation defended by Gabriel Arctopoli- tanus at the University of Uppsala in 1728.

19 (b) Marina Takalo (1890–1970), an illiterate traditional storyteller from White Sea Karelia, visited the graduate seminar led by Professor Matti Kuusi in 1962. 20 (a) Skin from a bear’s claw was used in black magic to arouse a bear to attack the cattle of one’s enemy.

20 (b) Off Leppäsaari Island by the rapids of Kärängänvirta stream at the former Saimaa Lake waterways there has been a salmon-spawning area from time imme- morial; in the rapids, there is a set of sejd stones with bear, seal and other zoomor- phic shapes visible. 21 (a) The well-known Uhrikivi (‘sacrifice stone’) of Koukunvirta in Heinävesi in Eastern Finland is a cave, shaped like a seal and bear. Deer were possibly sacrificed after driving them down its nearby slope, and young hunters were initiated beside it into the community after crawling through a narrow cave underneath. Nearby, there is another stone with a human face, which Leo (on the left), the archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Finland, is studying along with the author (on the right): “I wouldn’t call this a place of collision between pagan versus Christian religion, but rather a place of ancient encounter between two aspects of the sacred.”

21 (b) The quartz stone cave with pictographs on Ukonvuori is a Stone Age temple in the nearby Kolovesi National Park. It has got its name from the half face of an anthropomorphic cliff. Seeing animal and human shapes in petroforms seems to have been a primary reason why certain rocks were chosen for painting. The face profiled was not painted, however, but a nearby smooth rock surface instead; Stone Age people clearly sensed the sacred in rocks. 22 (a) It is typical of eastern Finnish waterways to find natural bear petroforms such as this Alttarikallio rock (‘altar rock’), in Kynsikaivonniemi, Hirvensalmi. There is an unusually clear bear head which, according to local tradition, has served as a fishermen’s sacrificial sejd. Anthropomorphic profiles are more common than bear motifs in the Finnish pictograph fields as well as in the neighbourhood of the Finnish sejd stones and sacrificial rocks.

22 (b) The Heinävesi Kermajärvi area was a centre of the Lake Lapp culture. This is appar- ent from the rich Saami and Karelian place names of lakes and islands dedicated to Ukko, Louhi and the sacred animals of nature. Examples of the archaeological findings made by Reijo Kinanen, master of Kuusranta mansion, after the excavations by Professor Fredrik Meinander in 1961: a flat rock, 65 x 36 x 7 cm, with six formed holes (in the picture), was probably a sacrificial stone carried by the Lake Lapps during their migrations: its bear, deer and Saimaa seal (norppa) forms, depicted from various angles, are reminiscent of those found on pictographs and sejds during the Great Saimaa area fieldwork in 2004, with the “hitting rock,” perhaps used to form the six holes of the stone, a hand chisel, a stone with human features, possibly for sacrificial use, items from the Comb Ceramic period and Asbestos Ceramic artefacts. 23 (a) Such bear-head objects (National Board of Antiquities) as this Paltamo shaft- hole totem are recognisable and naturalistic bear-head ornaments. Animal-head artefacts with elk and bear forms of this kind were used as either marks of social status or parts of ceremonial staffs.

23 (b) Some bear pictures are found in Scandinavian Neolithic rock carvings. One of the most impressive is the picture in Valle, Norway. 24 (a) Petroglyph field in Slettnes, Norway, includes some bear and bear foot-print motifs.

24 (b) In the Alta rock-carving field there are over thirty bear motifs. In Hjem- meluft field there is a series of carvings showing realistic scenes of the bear hunt. Other animals and the boat offer further possibilities of interpretation. 25 (a) The bear in Flattruet. What is the meaning of the lines going through the neck and the muzzle of the bear? Photograph: P. Kivikäs.

25 (b) Painted on the upper skin of the drum at Pigorini Museum in Rome, a celestial hunting drama is represented in its entirety. The Hunter (Orion) with the cap of the four winds on his head is aiming his bow towards the bear (Otava/Ursa major) with an enormous horned animal overhead (the constellation of Perseus), see Pentikäinen 1987. 26 (a) The signs painted with alder on the inner core of this Saami drum may be interpreted by comparison with Siberian parallels. The Saami also seem to have painted their mythologies on the inside with inner esoteric messages. The back skin of the Pigorini Museum drum has animal patterns, as seen in my picture (taken in 2004).

26 (b) The northern celestial map (drawn by Hannu Karttunen, Ursa), as seen from the area of Ob, 61 degrees north on 24.1.1990, a star-lit sky reaching up to Siberia. 27 (a) The Mansi word nait has the same origin as the Finnish word noita and the Saami word noaidi (‘shaman’). Shamanic beliefs among the Finno-Ugric peoples of the northern woodland borders are associated with the bear. The bear was the strongest expression of the shaman’s nature: his spirit travelled through the three levels of the world, swimming downwards to the underworld, and climbing upwards up the tree. Ursa major is a mythical bear whose hunt occurs in the upper world, and the cycle continues on the earth. During the field work of 2002, a friendship developed between the shaman and myself, in memory of which a Mansi nait of Pelym river donated his guest a drum made of his own cloak, a Mansi fish-shaped sangvyltap instrument, its carrier bag made of birch bark, and a mask, made of birch bark used in the bear dances. The Khanty and Mansi were playing the sangvyltap in bear rituals. Shamans also use it in their incanta- tions in order to achieve an ecstatic state and arouse the spirits. My item is in front of the picture taken by U. T. Sirelius (1898–1900).

27 (b) Khanty shaman Ivan Stepanovich Sopochin uncovers the holy sleigh, in front of which the reindeer sacrifice occurs. There is a bear’s head in it, as well as house- hold deities and the shaman’s drum, with a sun on the outer surface of its drumhead and the face of a bear—an animal sacred to the Khanty—on its hidden inner side. The bear is the source of the drum’s spiritual energy; only the shaman can see it during the ritual performances. Photo: Juha Pentikäinen, Fall 1991. 28 (a) Batïrkan the shaman in Kazakh folk costume and silver-mounted belt next to his neighbour in a fur hat (tïmak). Photo: László Kunkovács, 1994.

28 (b) The shaman asks a local Kazakh to kiss the axe before he begins to heat it up. Photo: László Kunkovács, 1994. 29 A local Kazakh ties the shaman’s belt tight, thus aiding him in achieving trance. Photo: László Kunkovács, 1994. 30 The shaman holds the hot axe in front of his breast while singing and dancing. Photo: László Kunkovács, 1994. 31 Batïrkan in trance. Photo: László Kunkovács, 1994.