SCRIPTA INSTITUTI DONNERIANI ABOENSIS I STUDIES IN SHAMANISM Based on Papers read at the Symposium on Shamanism held at Abo on the 6th-8th of September, 1962 Edited by CARL-MARTIN EDSMAN ALMQVIST & WIKSELL STOCKHOLM Studies in Shamanism Studies in Shamanism Based on Papers read at the Symposium on Shamanism held at Åbo on the 6th-8th of September, 1962 Edited by CARL-MARTIN EDSMAN ALMQVIST & WIKSELL STOCKHOLM Printed in Sweden by Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri AB, Uppsala 1967 Contents Preface 7 HELMER RINGGREN The Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History GUSTAV RÄNK Shamanism as a Research Subject. Some Methodological View- points 15 ERIK HOLTVED Eskimo Shamanism 23 ÅKE HULTKRANTZ Spirit Lodge, a North American Shamanistic Seance 32 HALFDAN SIIGER Shamanistic Ecstasy and Supernatural Beings. A Study Based on Field-Work among the Kalash Kafirs of Chitral 69 TONI SCHMID Shamanistic Practice in Northern Nepal 8z ARVID S. KAPELRUD Shamanistic Features in the Old Testament go JENÖ FAZEKAS Hungarian Shamanism, Material and History of Research 97 CARL-MARTIN EDSMAN A Swedish Female Folk Healer from the Beginning of the 18th Century 120 ODD NORDLAND Shamanism as an Experiencing of "the Unreal" 166 Preface On the initiative of Dr. K. Rob. V. Wikman, Professor Emeritus at the Finland-Swedish University of Åbo, (Åbo Akademi), the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History organized in Åbo from the 6th to the 8th of September, 196z, a symposium on shamanism. The In- stitute is described below in an introductory article by its former head, Dr. H. Ringgren, now Professor in Old Testament Exegetics at the University of Uppsala. Some forty specially invited scholars and students from the four Nordic countries as well as Dr. H. Diószegi took part in the symposium. The local arrangements were cared for by Dr. H. Tegengren, Professor of Nordic Culture History and Folklore Research in Åbo. The present writer, who acted as a chairman for the symposium, had the task of editing the lectures for the press. The majority of them are collected in this volume, some in their original form, others in a rewritten and extended form. Unfortunately some of the contributions to the symposium are missing. That of Dr. H. S. Nyberg would have been of great interest. This well- known orientalist has stimulated much international discussion by inter- preting in his work Die Religionen des alten Iran (Leipzig 1938) Zarathustra in the light of north-eurasian shamanism. Some years earlier Dr. D. Strom- back, later Professor of Nordic and Comparative Folk Life Research in Uppsala, demonstrated in his doctorate thesis Sejd (Uppsala 1935), available unfortunately only in Swedish, the striking similarities between the ancient Nordic sejd and Lappish shamanism. From this point of view it would have been valuable if the contribution by Fil. Lic. L. Ejerfeldt on "Sejd and Transformation Cult" could have been included in this volume. Likewise the study by Fil. Lic. H. Mebius on "A Shamanistic Term in G. Tuderus' Description of the Kemi-Lapps' Sacrificial Rites" would have occupied an important place in it. The same is true also of the contribution made by Dr. L. Honko, now Professor of Folklore and Comparative Religion at the Finnish University of Åbo (Turun Yliopisto), based on material written in 8 Preface Finnish and dealing with "Preparatory Rites in Shamanism". This omission is somewhat made up by this scholar's "Varhaiskantaiset taudinselitykset ja parantamisnäytelmä" (Ancient Explanations of Illness and Healing Action) in Tietolipas 17, 1961. The fieldresearch of Finnish scholars among north- eurasian tribes as well as the theory on Kalevala as shaman-poetry, put forward by Comparetti, K. Meuli and M. Haavio, would have resulted in a contribution from the hostcountry that would have been both natural and desired. The omission of Dr. Diószegi's lecture on "Features of Samoyedic Culture in the Shaman Belief of the East Sayanic Peoples" is almost com- pensated for by the fact that this paper is published in German (in Acta Ethnographica Acad. Scient. Hung. 1z, 1963). This scholar is the author of several other publications which deal with different aspects of shamanism in both Finno-Ugric and Siberian forms. It is sufficient here to refer to Glaubenswelt and Folklore der sibirischen Volker edited by V. Diószegi (Buda- pest 1963). The same field is also covered by Studies in Siberian Shamanism, ed. by H. N. Michael (Toronto 1963), where as in the foregoing work modern Russian field researchers are the contributors. An English translation of Dr. Diószegi's work on Hungarian Shamanism from 1958, hitherto only accessible in Hungarian, is just now in preparation. If therefore this volume has certain gaps when compared both to the symposium and the subject itself, it has been possible nevertheless to make certain additions to it that go some way to filling these gaps. Among them are the contribution on the Eskimoes by the Professor in Eskimo Language and Culture in Copenhagen, Dr. E. Holtved, and the paper on Hungarian Shamanism by the Hungarian linguist now active in Uppsala, Dr. J. Fazekas. Among other participants who read papers dealing with their various specialist fields at the symposium, now printed in this volume, is Dr. G. Rank who has contributed a survey of research. Formerly Professor in Folklore at the Estonian University at Dorpat (Tartu), he is now working in Stockholm. Dr. Hultkrantz, who as an eye-witness has described a shama- nistic seance among North American Indians, is Professor of History of Religions at the University of Stockholm. Dr. H. Siiger represents the same subject at the University of Aarhus, Denmark; he uses material obtained during a Danish expedition to the Black Kafirs on the north-west border of India, now Pakistan. Dr. Toni Schmid, formerly of Austria, author among Preface 9 other works of The Cotton-Clad Mila: The Tibetan Poet-Saint's Life in Pictures (Stockholm 1952), has also contributed The Sherpas of Northern Nepal, based on personal experiences. Dr. A. Kapelrud, Professor in Old Testament Studies at the University of Oslo, finds traces of Ancient Near Eastern shamanism also in the Old Testament. His compatriot, Dr. O. Nordland, who applies the McGill experiments on "sensory deprivation" to the psychology of the shamans and quotes some Rorschach interpretations of shamanism, is primarily a folklorist and teaches Old Nordic Culture at the University of Oslo. The Editor, who comments on an eighteenth century female folk-healer from historical, folkloristic and psychological points of view, holds the Chair of History of Religions at the University of Uppsala, (Faculty of the Humanities). At the symposium the religious-psychological aspect of the subject was also attended to by Dr. Hultkrantz who cited extracts from the great post- humous work of his teacher, E. Arbman, Ecstasy or Religious Trance. The first volume of this work has since been published with the subtitle "Vision and Ecstasy" (Uppsala 1963). The Nordic scholar, Dr. J. B. Björkhem, who perhaps better than anyone else could have treated shamanism as a psycho- logical phenomenon, was unfortunately unable to be present and died prematurely in the Spring of 1963. It is not my intention to discuss here the varying definitions of shaman- ism that the reader will come across in the following papers. Since the con- cept is used partly in a sense that has a terminological and a geographical limitation, and partly as a synonym for ecstatic religion in general, the subject is inexhaustible. Here it is only necessary to recall that classical scholars have used the term shamanism for varieties of pre-Hellenic, Hel- lenic and Etruscan religion. (K. Meuli in Hermes 7o, 1935, E. R. Dodds in The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley—Los Angeles 1951, W. Burkert in Rheinisches Museum 105, 1962, E. A. S. Butterworth, Some Traces of the Pre- Olympian World in Greek Literature and Myth, Berlin 1966, pp. 135 ff., and W. Muster in Frühgeschichte und Sprachzvissenschaft, edited by W. Brandenstein, Vienna 1948). The same is true of the ancient cultures and religions of the Far East, which is why A. Waley has given his work The Nine Songs (2nd ed. London 1956) the subtitle "A Study of Shamanism in An- cient China" (cf. also Festgabe E. Vögelin, Munchen 1962, pp. 581 ff.). 10 Preface In current Japanese research the indigenous and aboriginal folk religion is characterized in the same manner (see W. P. Fairchild, "Shamanism in Japan" in Folklore Studies 21, 1962). During his stay in Hong Kong in 1958 the Editor was able to attend in person a spiritmedium séance that had been arranged for healing purposes (see A. J. A. Elliott, Chinese Spirit-Medium Cults in Singapore (London School of Economics), London 1955, and R. W. Lieban, "Shamanism and Social Control in a Philippine City", in the Journal of the Folklore Institute 11: 1, 1965). The aboriginal tribes of South and South-East Asia are also investigated from a shamanistic point of view (see two unpublished doctoral dissertations from the Institute for Ethnology at the University of Vienna: J. B. Balys, Der Shamanismus in Malakka und Indonesien, 1933, and R. Rahmann, Gottheiten und Shamanismus bei den Mundavölkern und ihren dravidischen Nachbarn, 1935; cf. idem in Anthropos 54, 1959, and G. D. Berreman, "Brahmins and Shamans", in E. B. Harper, Religion in South Asia, Seattle, 1964). Even in descriptions of magical healing among Central and South American Indians the term in question is used (cf. L. Sebag, "Le Chamanisme ayoréo" in L'Homme 5, 1965).1 The authors are themselves responsible for their articles. The Editor has only revised Dr. Fazekas' contribution, added the pronunciation of a number of Tibetan words in Dr. Toni Schmid's article, inserted subtitles in Dr.