© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/156852711X540087

Numen 58 (2011) 6–70 brill.nl/nu

A Methodology for a Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Concepts

“Shaman” and “Shamanism”

Lars Kirkhusmo PharoPostdoctoral-Fellow in History of Religions, !e Research Council of Norway

Research Associate, Moses Mesoamerican Archive, Harvard UniversityResearch Associate, Institute for Signifying Scriptures, Claremont Graduate University

l.k.pharo@ikos.uio.no & l.k.pharo@gmail.com

AbstractScholars routinely confront the problem of translating concepts from one cognitive-linguistic system to another. !e concepts “shaman” and “shamanism,” which are employed particularly in comparative religious and anthropological studies, are a case in point. Scholars from various academic disciplines make use of di"erent, indistinct, and indeed contradictory definitions of these terms. As a result, their content and meaning have been obscured. My aim in this article is to emphasize the importance of establishing comparative religious concepts as methodical research tools. In particular, I call attention to the need to distinguish between emic (indigenous) concepts and etic (constructed by the scholar) comparative “ideal types” (Max Weber) in cultural and religious studies. !rough the methodology of constructing theoretical analytical notions advocated in this essay, scholars can identify similarities and dissimilarities between assorted phenomena by focusing on what Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss called caracteristiques di"érentielles. I argue that the fundamental spatial feature which distinguishes shamans from other categories of religious specialists is their unique command of ritual techniques that enable them to move between human and preter-natural space, e.g., from the mundane world to the supernatural one and back again. Moreover, I contend that “shamanism” is not a religion in itself but only a “configura-tion” (Åke Hultkrantz) within a religious system. !is point is important because numerous scholars tend to reduce so-called “indigenous religions” to the category of “shamanism,” thereby depriving these religions of their individual identity. Instead, these religions ought to be recognized and analyzed as distinct systems of belief and practice, just as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism are. !e para-digmatic post-colonial reduction of many indigenous religious systems to “shaman-ism” has created an impoverished view of religions that are no less complex and sophisticated than the so-called “Great Traditions.”

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Keywordsdefinition of shaman and shamanism, shamanism as a religious system, translation of concepts of various religious and cultural systems, methodology of constructing ana-lytical comparative concepts, indigenous religious systems

Introduction

In their article “!e Role of Shamanism in Mesoamerican Art,” Cecelia F. Klein, Eulogio Guzmán, Elisa C. Mandell, and Maya Stanfield-Mazzi (2002) question the use of the concept of “shamanism” by scholars in Mesoamerican studies.1 Claiming that they are addressing an essential problem concerning “a Post-Colonial definition of the ‘other,’ ” they argue that many Mesoamerican scholars misinterpret and misuse this term,2 and they call for “. . . a more refined, more nuanced terminology that would distinguish, cross-culturally, among the many di"erent kinds of roles currently lumped together under the vague and homog-enizing rubric of ‘shaman,’ otherwise the term should be discarded from Mesoamerican studies” (Klein et al. 2002:400).

One commentator, Christopher Chippendale, rightly notes that every word within a given language might be “torpedoed” in the same manner as Klein et al. torpedo the notions of “shaman” and “shaman-ism” (Klein et al. 2002:402). No “neutral” words exist in a language. Ultimately, according to this logic, language constitutes a meaningless tool for describing reality. Evidently, this is far from Chippendale’s view, but he fails to propose a methodology for defining comparative analytic notions satisfactorily. His argument does, however, indicate a serious problem with the deconstructive strategy advocated by Klein and her coauthors.

1) !e essay derives from a theoretical chapter in my dissertation for the Norwegian “Magistergrad” (Pharo 2001, equivalent to a Ph.D. dissertation). !ere I analyze the Maya and Nahua concepts way, nawalli, tona/tonal/tonalli and the theoretical categories “shamanism,” “nagualism,” “tonalism,” “soul(s),” and “ritual impersonation.” A revised English version of the dissertation is being prepared with the title Transformations, Manifestations and Identity: An Analysis of the Concepts of “Shamanism,” “Nagualism,” “Ritual Impersonation,” and “Tonalism” in Mesoamerican Religions (Pharo forthcoming).2) Cf. Klein et al. 2002 for a survey of and the historical background to the introduc-tion of the concept of “shamanism” into Mesoamerican art history.

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In what follows I shall suggest a strategy for constructing a redefini-tion or rather for reconstructing the notions of “shaman” and “shaman-ism” as analytical concepts within the field of comparative religious studies. !e same methodology can also be used to (re)define other comparative cultural and religious concepts,3 because even if the notion is lacking in a language of a particular culture, the matter might be present.4 It is important to note that I am conceiving of the terms “sha-man” and “shamanism” in relation to the discipline of history of reli-gions/religious studies. !us, I am not confining my argument to Mesoamerican art history, as Klein et al. do. I am also concerned with religious systems in other parts of the world.

Already in 1903, Arnold van Gennep observed that the field of the history of religions su"ered from a lack of well-defined comparative concepts:

La terminologie de la science des religions est encore si peu fixée, les notions dont elle traite sont tellement complexes et leur étude si peu débrouillée qu’il est néces-saire de n’employer chaque mot destiné à désigner un ensemble de coutumes et de croyances qu’en lui donnant le sens le plus exact possible. Du temps où la science des religions ne s’était point encore a"ranchie de l’histoire en général nous sont restés un certain nombre de ces termes fort vagues et qui s’appliquent à tout ce qu’on veut. . . . . ou même à rien du tout; d’autres ont été créés par les voyageurs, adoptés ensuite sans réflexion par les dilettantes de l’ethnopsychologie et employés aussi à tort et à travers. Parmi ces mots vagues, l’un des plus dangereux est celui de Chamanisme. (Van Gennep 1903:51)5

3) I have previously argued for a similar strategy for the problematic notion “religion” (Pharo 2007).4) !is constitutes a paraphrase of the statement, “Even if the notion is lacking, the matter may be present” (Bleeker 1973: 66). 5) Hubert and Mauss write in agreement with Van Gennep: “Jusqu’à présent, l’histoire des religions a vécu sur un bagage d’idées indécises. Elle est déjà riche de faits authen-tiques et instructifs, qui fourniront, un jour, une abondante matière à la science des religions. Mais ces faits sont classés au hasard, sous des rubriques imprécises; souvent même, leur description est gâtée par les vices du vocabulaire. Les mots de religion et de magie, de prière et d’incantation, de sacrifice et d’o"rande, de mythe et de légende, de dieu et d’esprit, etc sont employés indi"éremment les uns pour les autres. La science des religions n’a pas encore de nomenclature scientifique. Elle a toute bénéfice à com-mencer par en arrêter une” (Hubert and Mauss 1902–1903:1–2).

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Regrettably, the situation has not improved in the time since Van Gennep wrote these words. !is is especially true of the terms “shaman” and “shamanism,” which Van Gennep singled out in the quotation above. It is indeed a predicament that representatives not only of Meso-american studies but also of a wide variety of scholarly disciplines employ the concepts “shaman” and “shamanism” in diverse, indistinct, and often contradictory ways. !e content and meaning of these notions have accordingly been obscured. Åke Hultkrantz has noted that a substantial confusion regarding the meaning of “shamanism” has existed for a long time. !is is lamentable not only because it is one of the most frequently used terms in religious studies but also “. . . because we can hardly abandon the term” (Hultkrantz quoted in Kettunen 1998:2).6 Consequently, scholars should not simply deconstruct or criticize the use of central (religious) concepts such as “shamanism;” they must also develop a strategy for (re)defining or reconstructing these concepts. Within a comparative discipline such as the history of religions, it is essential to employ a terminology that is defined unam-biguously. Despite this fact, many historians of religions, anthropolo-gists, and scholars from other disciplines have neglected this important theoretical task. As we shall see, several definitions of the notion of “shaman” have been proposed, based on various methodologies and empirical data. !e many perspectives that have ensued from the numer-ous e"orts at defining a religious specialist7 as a shaman have most certainly contributed to confusion about the meaning of the term.

An enormous literature exists on the subject of shamanism, but the number of theoretical positions that appear within it is quite limited. Most of the publications about the supposed phenomenon of shaman-ism represent regional fieldwork studies conducted in particular locali-ties in the northern regions of Europe and Asia. But in order to conduct such empirical studies the scholar has to have a clear notion of what this religious phenomenon and this type of religious specialist are. Many of the available studies are valuable; but at the same time I venture to claim that there are no comparative treatments — treatments that are

6) Cf. Hultkrantz (1998) and Znamenski (2007) for an overview of the study of “shamanism.” 7) I apply the concept “religious specialist” as a common denominator for “priest,” “prophet,” “shaman,” “medicine man,” “calendar specialist,” “diviner,” and so forth.

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not confined to one or two major regions — which examine this con-cept critically, in combination with a critical overview of the various theoretical positions and strategies that may be employed in defining this religious phenomenon (cf. Francfort, Hamayon, and Bahn 2001; Hamayon 1994; Humphrey 1994; Hutton 2001; Vitebsky 2001a; 2001b; Znamenski 2004; cf. also, for instance, the recent studies in Pentikäinen 1998a; Pentikäinen and Simoncscis 2005; Humphrey and Onon 1996; as well as Pentikäinen 1998b; Sidky 2008;8 Winkel-man 1990, 1992, 2000). In addition, a comparative religious terminol-ogy that includes the terms “shaman” and “shamanism” has not been proposed.

!e theoretical analysis that follows will discuss and redefine, or rather deconstruct and reconstruct, the etic concepts “shaman” and “shamanism” within the field of the history of religions. I contend that the shaman must be classified according to his or her special religious techniques. !is is not done, for instance, by Michael Winkelman, who stresses, based upon cross-cultural statistical data (which are impossible to substantiate empirically), what he calls the “biologically based altered-state-of-consciousness potentials” of certain individuals (Win-kelman 1990:308).9 Furthermore, I caution against definitions that are too broad, such as those previously suggested by Hultkrantz (1973, 1978) and, more recently, by Piers Vitebsky. !e latter writes that the category of “shaman” “. . . includes any kind of person who is in control of his or her state of trance, even if this does not involve a soul journey . . .” (Vitebsky 2001a:10). !is definition applies to too many religious specialists and consequently does not serve any purpose. As an alternative, I suggest that we define “shaman” and “shamanism” as follows:

!e “shaman” is a religious specialist who, in the context of a ritual, has the ability to travel to a non-human (supernatural) world, to have direct communication with supernatural beings (deities, spirits etc.) there, and then to return to the human world. A supernatural world constitutes a space that ordinary human beings, i.e., individuals who lack a special gift and esoteric knowledge, cannot normally reach during their lifetimes. Supernatural (non-human) space does not

8) I thank Miguel Astor Aguilera for making me aware of Sidky 2008. 9) Cf. also Winkelman 1992:47.

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necessarily denote an upper or a lower world; it can also refer to other culturally defined spatial categories to which humans ordinarily have no access. However, “shamanism” presupposes that the “soul” or some kind of substance residing in the body of a human being10 can leave the body in order to travel to these super-natural regions during various types of unconsciousness (dream, sleep, or illness). !is travel is dangerous, because the non-religious specialist does not know the geography of the supernatural world or may have been abducted by hostile pre-ternatural beings, and therefore the “soul” may not return. In these cases the “soul” has to be rescued from the non-human zones by a religious specialist, i.e., the “shaman.” !e preternatural voyage of the “shaman” is accordingly under-taken for the benefit of other individuals or the community.

!is definition accentuates a fundamental spatial dimension of sha-manism, which consists of religious techniques or abilities to enter regions to which other people have no admittance or with which they are not familiar. Furthermore, it is crucial to emphasize that the excep-tional religious practice and faculty mastered by the shaman may be only one of many ritual techniques found within a religious system. !erefore, the religious system of a given culture cannot be classified using the reductionist category “shamanistic.” “Shamanism” merely represents one aspect or “configuration” (Hultkrantz 1978:11) within the religious system of a culture, not its entirety.

!e concepts “shaman” and “shamanism” are not essentialist terms but analytic notions constructed by the scholar in order to compare the di"erences and similarities of various religious systems. !e shaman moves from human to non-human space, but this space does not need to have three cosmic zones, heaven, earth, and underworld, nor is the shaman’s journey necessarily made possible by the assistance of auxil-iary spirits, as the historians of religions Mircea Eliade and Hultkrantz maintain (Eliade 1968:22–23, 88, 90, 215; Hultkrantz 1978:11–12). !ere is great variation from one religious system to the next regarding the details of the spatial travel of this category of religious specialist.

A stringent and proven procedure for arriving at the definition of concepts is absent in the theoretical literature about shamanism. I am suggesting a method for defining comparative religious concepts which does not follow Eliade’s notion of a “historical shaman” (Eliade 1961)

10) A transcultural use of the concept “soul” is of course problematic, but it is here applied as a substance which resides within the body of a being.

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but proposes instead a strategy for constructing such concepts as ideal types.

Barbara Tedlock laments that the existence of female shamans has been underestimated in the scholarly literature, in particular by Eliade, who apparently had the disadvantage of never having met a shaman through field research (Tedlock 2005:63–64). !e issue, however, is not about doing field research per se, but about operating with clearly defined analytical comparative concepts when doing field research.11 !ese cannot be established solely on the basis of working in one or two communities in a certain region, but they also require the employment of a coherent methodology.Tedlock has recently outlined five features of “shamanism” (Tedlock 2005:20–24), but they do not exhibit such a methodology. For instance, she does not explain the origin of the notion that “shamanistic practitioners share the conviction that all entities, animate or otherwise, are imbued with a holistic life force, vital energy, consciousness, soul, spirit, or some other ethereal or immaterial sub-stance that transcends the laws of classical physics” (Tedlock 2005:20). It is problematic that Tedlock does not explain how she arrived at this designation of a particular type of religious specialist, a designation which is not particularly clear. !is lack of method in constructing concepts is, however, quite common in the anthropological literature. !e anthropologist H. Sidky wants to sort out the problem of defining “shamanism” by means of “empirical knowledge,” i.e., through field research (Sidky 2008: 39). Because of the excellent material on sha-manistic practices in Nepal, Sidky contends “that one can productively address many of the central issues in the discourse on shamanism, including the problem of definition . . .” on that basis (Sidky 2008: 23). But how can apparently exceptional data from a particular region provide a methodology for defining or, more precisely, constructing analytical concepts? I do not understand why Sidky and many of his

11) Even under my narrow definition of “shamanism,” female “shamans” can be seen to exist in many religious systems around the world. !ey were, for example, found in pre-Christian Scandinavian cultures, among the Abkhaz in the Caucasus and the Koryak in Eastern Siberia (Hultkrantz 1973:32), and in the Tungus tribe. !ey still exist on the island of Sumatra, as Tedlock herself mentions (Tedlock 2005:73), albeit not based on her own field research, but by referring to the work of Enid Nelson and Ruth Inge Heize (Tedlock 2005:299, note 33).

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fellow anthropologists insist on distorting brilliant field research and reports by employing these concepts in their analyses of religion. Inspired by Eliade, Juha Pentikäinen defines a shaman as principally a “traveler” and “mediator” between “. . . the ‘real’ world, where the sha-man’s family and community members live, and the ‘spiritual’ world of the gods, the deceased, guardian spirits, and other mystical creatures” (Pentikäinen 1998a:31). But like Tedlock and Sidky, Pentikäinen does not make clear how he comes to such a definition of “shaman” and “shamanism,” other than employing various data and terms from cul-tures from northern Asia and Europe, in particular Siberia.

Another interesting question is why the term “shaman” enjoys such popularity among scholars when, as Pentikäinen comments, many indigenous people of North America reject the categorization of their religion as “shamanistic.” He quotes the Mescalero Apache professor of religious studies, Inés M. Talamantez:

!ey raped us by taking away our language. Now they are stealing our religion by calling our medicine men shamans and by telling stories about how you can become a shaman by taking drugs. Our language does not know shamans, and that name is used only by neo-shamans; not our changers. (Pentikäinen 1998a:44)

As Talamantez clearly states, not every culture appreciates the undoubt-edly questionable privilege of being classified as “shamanistic.”

So how — by which method — can scholars characterize certain religious specialists as “shamans” without the peril of reductionism? In what follows I shall argue in favor of a methodology by which scholars may construct not only the notions of “shaman” and “shamanism” but also comparative, analytical religious and cultural concepts in general.

Methodology: !e Strategy of Constructing Concepts as “Ideal Types”

!e Tungus (also known as Evenki) word saman or xaman, from which the term “shaman” is derived, is among the most frequently used emic12

12) It was the linguist Kenneth L. Pike who adapted and refined the terms “emic” and “etic” — “as Propp had used them and as they had become used by formalists thereaf-ter. Pike’s use really just renames the earlier esoteric/exoteric or s/x factors that William

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notions in the history of religions and anthropology. Other examples, historical or contemporary, are fetish from the Portuguese Congo, mana from Melanesia, tabu from Polynesia, totem (dotem) from the Ojibwa in North America, and potlatch from the North West coast of North America. !ese and other concepts were uncritically employed as com-parative notions in anthropology until they fell into disrepute with the abandonment of reductionist evolutionary theory during the 1920s. Since that time, scholars have called attention to the semantic problems of taking words out of their original linguistic, religious, and cultural contexts in order to give them a universal meaning (cf. the quotation from Van Gennep above). It therefore seems relevant to ask whether regional or emic words from a particular non-Western culture may be utilized in comparative terminology.

In most cases scholars write about foreign cultures using a language di"erent from that of the people they study. !ey are therefore com-pelled to translate central religious and cultural concepts of the culture on which they do research. When no conscious strategy of constructing comparative concepts has been established, the translation of concepts causes serious semantic problems. It is essential to acknowledge that every comparative discipline, such as the history of religions and anthro-pology, must utilize an apparatus of comparative concepts, theories, and methods in order to interpret and systematically analyze its objects of study. Cultural and religious analyses done without a philological methodology and without knowledge of the language of the culture studied have no credibility. General concepts have both a classifying and an interpretive function. Only after appropriate translation and classification can a scholar carry out an analysis of a phenomenon. But what kind of method and theory can be utilized to create comparative concepts? I advocate a methodological strategy of constructing tran-scultural concepts by consciously formulating ideal types.13

Hugh Jansen had put forward” (Anonymous reviewer, 2009) — derived from phonemic and phonetic. “Etic” refers to the transcultural or the comparative, whereas “emic” alludes to the specific or indigenous (Pike 1954; 1999). I employ these notions to separate comparative from indigenous concepts and classifications. 13) !e following outline of the notion of “ideal type” is drawn from my article con-cerning the concept of “religion,” Pharo 2007.

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“Shaman” is a Western cultural category; it fits within a tradition that has developed a secularized conception of “religion” as a distinct cultural phenomenon. Notions such as “shaman,” “religion,” “culture,” “history,” “literature,” “politics,” “ritual,” “art,” and so forth are incor-porated into a meta-language, i.e., a language that describes another language. !e history of religions, like other systematic disciplines, has its own meta-language or terminology for use in producing general interpretations and analyses of religious systems. “Shaman” is a com-parative or transcultural analytic concept, derived from indigenous theological terms, which has been translated into and incorporated within the meta-language of the history of religions. Hence the scholar faces a problem of translation in the study of other cultures. A con-scious strategy for constructing concepts is essential for creating truly useful etic notions in a scientific meta-language. !e concept of “shaman” is a cultural category which only gives meaning if, like other transcultural notions, it is defined as what Max Weber called an ideal type (Idealtypus). An ideal type is a general concept which does not have an actual empirical realization. Weber writes: “It is not a description of reality but it aims to give unambiguous means of expression to such a description” (Weber 1969:90). An ideal type is created by abstracting an essential similarity or similarities from particular phenomena or objects, their distinctive traits. Such ideal types or analytical typologies enable scholars to outline similarities, connections, and di"erences among individual objects, individuals, phenomena, and so forth, irre-spective of time or place.

. . . those “ideas” which govern the behaviour of the population of a certain epoch i.e., which are concretely influential in determining their conduct, can if a some-what complicated construct is involved, be formulated precisely only in the form of an ideal type, since empirically it exists in the minds of an indefinite and con-stantly changing mass of individuals and assumes in their minds the most multi-farious nuances of form and content, clarity and meaning. (Weber 1969:95–96)

In order to provide meaning and enhance our understanding of cul-tural phenomena, it is imperative that these categorizations and classi-fications be formulated and employed in a precise manner. An erroneous and inaccurate cultural analysis has unfortunate consequences. It obscures the perception of empirical data and thereby results in a

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misguided interpretation of them. If phenomena or objects elude clas-sification, the scholar should always draw attention to this fact. It is my contention that we cannot avoid making use of ideal types as analytical tools in the history of religions. Although some scholars deny that they employ ideal types in their research, language itself forces them to do so, whether consciously or unconsciously.14 It is therefore extremely important to be attentive to the applications of concepts as ideal types. Historians of religions confront challenges of definition not only in the case of “shamanism” but also in the case of many other “religious” com-parative concepts, which must also be demarcated unambiguously. In order to avoid semantic problems, terms such as “soul,” “deity,” “reli-gious specialist,” “priest,” “mana,” “totem,” and “religion”15 must be for-mulated and defined as ideal types.16 !e overused notions “shaman” and “shamanism” are extraordinarily good examples of the inflated use of meaningless concepts because previous scholarship has lacked a clear idea of their semantic value. In this respect, the history of religions can learn from sociology and linguistics, scientific disciplines that have a tradition of employing clearly defined analytical, transcultural con-cepts. Scholars must, however, be critical and careful when they con-struct and apply abstract concepts, particularly when they are studying a non-Western culture. A theoretical classification risks obscuring char-acteristics of the religious system under investigation. When using uni-versal concepts in the exploration of a specific culture or religion, scholars should always consider and include the corresponding word from the language of that culture. In this manner scholars can make explicit nuances of meaning and modify the ideal type. Hence, scholars

14) “If the historian (in the widest sense of the word) rejects an attempt to construct such ideal types as a ‘theoretical construction,’ i.e., as useless or dispensable for his concrete heuristic purposes, the inevitable consequence is either that he consciously or unconsciously uses other similar concepts without formulating them verbally and elaborating them logically or that he remains stuck in the realm of the vaguely ‘felt’ ” (Weber 1969:94).15) Cf. Pharo 2007 on defining the concept “religion.”16) “!e greater the need however for a sharp appreciation of the significance of a cultural phenomenon, the more imperative is the need to operate with unambiguous concepts which are not only particularly but also systematically defined” (Weber 1969:93).

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operate with language at two levels, the universal and the regional, and they must give attention to both. In addition to employing ideal types, historians of religions must include the words for the phenomena in the culture under study; i.e., they must utilize both etic and emic concepts. !e similarities in phenomena from various religions (which it is the task of a comparative discipline like the history of religions to identify) must not obscure the di"erences. If scholars ignore this fact, they run the peril of obscuring and simplifying reality, which is not only scien-tifically unfortunate but also unfair as well as insulting to the people being studied. Comparative concepts are only tools for formulating interpretations and gaining deeper understanding. An ideal type is never an end in itself (Weber 1969:201–202). One must always be on guard against distorting empirical data to make them fit into a theory or a conceptual apparatus. !e methodology for constructing transcul-tural theoretical analytical notions advocated in this study should enable scholars to identify similarities and dissimilarities within various reli-gious phenomena. It attempts to locate the caracteristiques di"érentielles

(Hubert and Mauss 1902–1903) of the comparative concepts in order to construct ideal types (Weber 1969). When a theoretical definition of a phenomenon is sought, it is essential not only to emphasize what distinguishes it from other phenomena but also to identify one or sev-eral analogies from various cultures and historical epochs. Where observable facts appear to share essential qualities, scholars can operate with an ideal type. Because it is constructed, however, an ideal type will never be finally defined within a discipline of cultural studies but it will constantly be subjected to critical scrutiny.

How, then, can “shaman” be defined as an ideal type? In accordance with the method of deconstructing and reconstructing the term, it can be done by addressing three questions:

1. What is the origin of the word “shaman,” and what did this term represent in its original cultural and religious context?

2. In what manner have “shaman” and “shamanism” been employed as analytical comparative concepts by various researchers within di"erent scholarly disciplines?

3. What traits distinguishing the “shaman” from other types of reli-gious specialists can be identified in order to transform this con-cept into an ideal type?

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!eoretical Definitions of “Shamanism”

In order to answer the first two questions, I will give an overview of various theoretical positions concerning the definition of “shamanism.” As already mentioned, a vast scholarly literature has been, and is cur-rently being, produced on the topic of “shamanism.” I have therefore made a selection of the most central (and classic) works to represent the principal theoretical positions.

!e Notion of the “Shaman” as a Religious Specialist in So-Called “Primitive” Cultures

In the history of religions and anthropology the term “shaman” has become a common denominator for religious specialists in indigenous traditions outside the Western cultural sphere, particularly in so-called “primitive” cultures. !e predominant view among specialists on sha-manism has been that the shaman can only exist in simple communi-ties, i.e., in nomadic cultures based on hunting, fishing, and gathering. As we shall see, anthropologists have developed a predilection for the dichotomy “shaman” versus “priest” when describing religious special-ists operating in non-Western cultures. In this model, “shaman” desig-nates a “primitive” religious specialist living in allegedly “simple” tribal communities whereas the “priest” is a religious specialist in hierarchi-cally organized (e.g., self-styled “civilized”) urban societies.

Many scholars claim that the locus classicus of shamanism consists of small-scale hunting and nomadic cultures in Northern and Central Asia (Eliade 1968; Gilberg 1984; Hultkrantz 1978; Ohlmarks 1939). Others argue that shamans basically have the greatest influence in soci-eties with a simple social and political structure. !e more “primitive” the cultural level, the more important the shaman is in the community, according to Alfred Kroeber.17

Interestingly, Wilhelm Schmidt put forth quite the opposite argu-ment. He writes in Der Ursprung der Gottesidee (1912–1955) that the non-ecstatic “white shamanic” symbolic journey to heaven is a result of a southern matriarchal agricultural economy (Hultkrantz 1989:45). !e original ecstatic form of shamanism, which he calls “black shamanism,”

17) !e Religion of the Indians of California (1907:327, quoted in Hultkrantz 1989:45–46).

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e.g., the journey to the world of the dead, has its place of origin in Cen-tral Asia (Eliade 1961:156).18 László Vajda maintains that Siberian sha-manism had its foundation in the meeting between ancient hunting cultures in the north and the high cultures in the south, which gradu-ally invaded the northern regions (Vajda 1964:295).19 Eliade agrees with Vajda. According to him, shamanism in the north was influenced not only by Buddhism and Lamaism but also by cultures in the Middle East (Eliade 1968:389). Eliade argues that the ritual of the shaman is first and foremost an ancient technique in “primitive” cultures (1968). He claims that the shaman has a long history. His or her archaic tech-nique, which came into being in prehistoric Paleolithic cultures, has nevertheless undergone changes in the course of time (Eliade 1968:27). !is is partly in agreement with Hultkrantz’s historical theory of sha-manism, according to which the phenomenon constitutes a heritage from Paleolithic hunting and gathering cultures (Hultkrantz 1973:35). !e position of the shaman was weakened but retained in pastoral soci-eties. In more complex agricultural communities shamanism disap-peared and was later replaced by more “advanced” religious systems such as Buddhism and Lamaism (Hultkrantz 1989:47–49). Hence, in highly complex, organized societies shamanism as an ideological and ritual system collapsed. Nevertheless, in the Arctic and the sub-Arctic regions shamanism has kept most of its original archaic elements and has a social structure that is typical for cultures in which the religious specialists are shamans. According to Hultkrantz these are “basically individualistic, predominantly bilateral hunting societies” (Hultkrantz 1973:35, 37; 1989:47).20

Both Hultkrantz, in his study of soul beliefs among the Indians of North America (1953), and Ivar Paulson, in his investigation of the

18) !is distinction is, however, not universal, writes Eliade: “Central Asiatic and Sibe-rian shamans know the ascension to heaven as well as the descent to the netherworld, although there are also ‘specialists’ in these two types of ecstatic voyages” (Eliade 1961:156).19) Cf. also Shirokogoro" 1935:279, 282.20) “Shamanism deteriorated in agrarian societies where sacred rulers and priests took over many shamanic functions. In the emerging grand-scale civilizations shamans operated on the family level, but gradually their art got lost. In nomadic societies, however, and particularly in North Asia where reindeer nomadism spread, shamans retained their influence” (Hultkrantz 1978:27–30; 1989:47).

20 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

belief in the soul in North Eurasia (1958), assert that shamanism is typical of regions where there is a belief in a double soul, that is, the belief in the existence of a free soul and a body soul. On this view, “soul-dualism” is an ideological precondition for the idea that the soul can undertake a journey and therefore for shamanism (Hultkrantz 1984:29). Hultkrantz writes: “Where shamanism is strong, so is soul-dualism; where shamanism is weak, so is soul-dualism” (Hultkrantz 1973:33). He also sees a dualistic notion of the soul as symptomatic of “primitive” cultures (Hultkrantz 1953:24).21 Conversely, “soul-monism” is characteristic of more “developed” cultures (Arbman 1927:90–92; Bremmer 1983; Hultkrantz 1953:23–24, 108–114; 1973:34; Paulson 1958). For instance, in the indigenous “high cultures” of North Amer-ica the monistic concept of the soul dominates (Hultkrantz 1953:144). !is is an indication that shamanism does not exist in “high cultures.” Another sign of an absence of shamanism in so-called “high cultures” is that in non-stratified societies the shaman does not have to compete with other types of religious specialists (Gilberg 1984:23–25). “Sim-ple” nomadic cultures are more exposed to adversity than more “advanced” agricultural societies. !e shaman frequently operates in unstable societies or “crisis-prone societies,” where war, hunger, extreme climate, disease, and so forth are the norm (Gilberg 1984:25–26; Siikala 1978:15).

Some scholars have maintained, however, that despite the fact that the shaman has disappeared from cultures with a di"erentiated hierar-chical socio-political structure, one can still find traces of shamanism in “high cultures.”22 Åke Ohlmarks believed he had identified shamanistic elements in various cultures and religions: in Scythia and Iran, narcotic shamanism (the smoking of hemp) in India, the use of narcotic drinks in China, exorcism, the imitative journey of the soul by the dervish in Islam, in Buddhism, and elsewhere (Ohlmarks 1939:157–170). As has been noted, Eliade admits that one can find traces of the ideology of the shaman in “advanced cultures,” but, he states, these cannot be con-sidered to be shamanistic (Eliade 1968:23–24). Because shamanism is an original phenomenon (un phénomène originaire) in the history of

21) But there are many “primitive” cultures where there are no traces of a dualism of the soul (Hultkrantz 1973:30).22) We recall the argument by Schmidt.

L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70 21

humanity, it has, according to Eliade, undergone changes in di"erent cultures. “Shamanic” elements like myths, symbols, ecstatic rituals, institutions, and so forth have survived in “more developed civiliza-tions.” But they no longer constitute a dominating force in the religious system, since “shamanism” has lost its supreme position in “the higher developed cultures,” which are influenced by urban and agricultural values (Eliade 1968:298–299, 392). One set of examples comprises the Indo-European “high cultures” that are not shamanistic but have kept certain features of shamanism. !ese societies have only retained une structure chamanique (Eliade 1968:267). Moreover, a concept of (male-dominant) shamanism in hunter-gatherer cultures has recently been proposed by Vitebsky, suggesting that this theoretical position has not lost its ground in contemporary scholarship.23 On the background of these arguments it would be surprising to find shamanism in an osten-sible “high culture,” i.e., an urban culture, with a di"erentiated and hierarchical structure.24

But is there a natural law that shamanism cannot appear outside small-scale nomadic hunting and gathering cultures? Anna-Lena Siika-la’s study of shamanism in Siberia and in the interior of Asia modifies the deterministic civilization theory that suggests that there can only be shamans in so-called “primitive” nomadic hunting and gathering cul-tures. Siikala asserts that she has located shamanism in both hunting-based, small-clan communities in North Asia as well as in South Asia, where there are communities with a complex social structure and an agricultural economy. In this cultural context the shaman functions as a “sacrificial priest,” according to Siikala (Siikala 1978:2–4). Roberte N. Hamayon’s study of cultures in Siberia similarly leads her to identify both “hunting shamanism” and “pastoral shamanism” in that region (Hamayon 1994:77–78).

It is, however, how the scholar defines the shaman in his or her role as a religious specialist that determines the cultural, historical, and geo-graphical dissemination of shamanism. !is premise is fundamental to the employment of analytical concepts in categorizing cultural and

23) Cf. Tedlock 2005:64–65.24) !is has, however, not bothered numerous scholars who have defined the urban Classic Maya culture as “shamanistic.” Cf., for instance, the influential book, Maya Cosmos: !ree !ousand Years on the Shaman’s Path (Freidel, Schele, and Parker 1993).

22 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

religious phenomena. For instance, Laurel Kendall’s claim that shaman-ism exists and was supported by the state in modern South Korea can-not be corroborated. Kendall maintains that the mansin — who masters supernatural powers, is sanctioned by the community or state, and can enter a state of “culturally acknowledged trance” — constitutes a sha-man (Kendall 1987:28–29). But Kendall does not formulate a method-ology that allows her to set up such a broad definition. !us, her data cannot substantiate a theory of shamanism existing in “advanced” (modern state) societies.

Caroline Humphrey provides interesting data which corroborate my argument that this type of religious specialist is not restricted to certain cultural systems. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in an aristo-cratic state founded by the Mongols, certain individuals were said to be able to ascend to the sky (Humphrey 1994:201–202, 204). In the twentieth century a Mongolian-speaking agricultural people, the Daur, represented the lower world, named ukel-un gurun, “the empire of death,” as an urbanized state where the yadgan (i.e., the “shaman”) was able to travel (Humphrey 1994:217–219). On this analysis, shaman-ism is not restricted to particular social and cultural systems nor is it reserved exclusively for a particular gender.

An Etymological Definition

We have already seen that there are some scholars who have doubted whether it is correct to employ “shaman” and “shamanism” as analytical concepts outside of their original cultural and historical contexts, namely, Siberia and Central Asia. Humphrey employs a rather confus-ing definition of “shamanism,” stating that “. . . the term shaman is used for the specialists called by equivalent words in native languages, and shamanism refers to their practices and beliefs” (Humphrey 1994:192). I. M. Lewis (1984, 1989) defines “shaman” according to the prove-nance of the word. Pentikäinen proposes that “Siberia is the cradle of shamanism,” because the word saman comes from a Siberian language, although most Siberian languages and religions do not include the word (Pentikäinen 1998a:30).25 Such an etymological approach to definition does not, however, constitute a satisfactory methodological strategy.

25) Moreover, he writes that his “perception of shamanism has changed dramatically

L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70 23

As mentioned earlier, the term “shaman” derives from the Tungus/Evenki language.26 !us, Lewis derives his notion of “shaman” from the saman as found among the Tungus people (Lewis 1989:43–44), relying upon the account given in S. M. Shirokogoro"’s classic study of the Tungus tribe from 1935, !e Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. “Sha-man” was first understood by Russian explorers as denoting some kind of “pagan sorcerer.” It later became a general concept for specialists in the matter of spirits (Shirokogoro" 1935:268). Shirokogoro" writes that in all of the Tungus languages this term refers to persons of both genders who master spirits, which means that they can introduce spirits into themselves and use the power over these spirits in their own inter-est, particularly helping other people who su"er from the spirits. In such a capacity they may possess a complex of special methods for deal-ing with the spirits (Shirokogoro" 1935:269).

!is etymological method is not particularly helpful, because the Tungus and other linguistically related tribes of North Asia applied the term saman to various religious specialists (Shirokogoro" 1935:271). Shirokogoro" notes that both the ecstatic religious specialist and the clan religious specialist (or “priest” according to Shirokogoro") were called saman by the Tungus:

Yet, the Manchus used the institution of shamans for creation of a special kind of clan o#cials dealing with the souls of dead clansmen. !ese are p’oyun sàman, poixun saman (Manchu), boigon saman (Manchu) who are not usually the sha-mans as they will be later treated, but who may be better regarded as clan o#cials whose function is that of THE CLAN PRIESTS. (Shirokogoro" 1935:218)

since meeting Siberian shamans . . .” (Pentikäinen 1998a:29). !us, Siberian cultures apparently function as the model for the definition (Pentikäinen 1998a:44).26) !is language is presently spoken by 10,000 of a total population of 30,000 Tun-gus. !e Tungus live in the region from the northern part of the Baikal Sea to the area around the rivers Lena and Aldan in the eastern part of the middle of the Siberian high land (sibirskoye ploskogorye) and all the way to the Indigirska plains (Indigirskaya nizmenost) to the northeast (Kettunen 1998:1). !e word “shaman” (derived from saman or xaman) was introduced into the Russian language in the middle of the 17th century by the religious specialist Avvakum, who lived in exile among the Tungus. He was the first person to write about the Tungus (Kettunen 1998:1; Pentikäinen 1998a:30). Many theories have been proposed about the etymology of the term “sha-man.” For an overview cf. Voigt 1984; Kettunen 1998.

24 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

!e Tungus and Manchu employed several words for the “shamanistic ritual.” Some of the terms for this ritual practice are derived from the root saman, but in a few dialects words so derived do not exist and are replaced instead by other, local words. Shirokogoro" concludes that there is no special word or general notion that describes a “shamanistic ceremony” (Shirokogoro" 1935:304). He emphasizes that he uses the word “shaman” as a terminus technicus in order to avoid confusion with “sorcery, witchcraft, medicine men, etc.” (Shirokogoro" 1935:271).27

Consequently, there are many di"erent names for the various reli-gious specialists among the linguistic groups of North and Central Asia. !is diversity makes it meaningless to define “shaman” in terms of the word’s etymology (Siikala 1978:1).28 !e designations “shaman” and “shamanism” — the term “shamanism” being derived from “shaman” — are thus constructions of Western anthropologists (Shirokogoro" 1935:268–269). !e Tungus never employed the concept “shamanism” in their own language. It was used by Western anthropologists to describe a certain religious complex or ideology which they thought they had identified in Siberia and North Asia. Both George Foster and Claude Lévi-Strauss reached the same conclusion with regard to other local words that anthropologists have used to categorize non-Western religious systems. “Totemism,” writes Lévi-Strauss, does not exist. It is an illusion constructed by Western scholars in order to describe “prim-itive religion” (Lévi-Strauss 1962:25). Foster similarly states that “Nagualism is not really a culture trait or complex at all; it is a word which does not per se exist” (Foster 1944:87). In other words, it is by chance that Western scholars employ “shaman” as a scholarly term, when they could just as easily have used another word from the many languages in North and Central Asia.

A Geographical Definition

Because the word “shaman” (saman; xaman) originates from the Tungus tribe in the northeast of Central Asia, ethnographic data have been

27) “!e absence of the term saman will not prevent us from including the bearers of di"erent terms into groups of shamans. !us the term ‘shaman’ will be used as a ‘tech-nical scientific term’ ” (Shirokogoro" 1935:271).28) “Local terms prevail for shamans everywhere in Siberia and the earliest accounts usually imitate or quote foreign words” (Voigt 1984:15).

L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70 25

applied from this region in order to categorize this religious specialist. As mentioned above, northeastern Central Asia has been perceived as the locus classicus of shamanism (Vajda 1964:268; see also Hultkrantz 1973:27; Pentikäinen 1998a:30). A debate has thus raged among schol-ars about whether “shamanism” can exist outside of this geographic zone. !us, we must now enquire whether “shamanism” constitutes an “authentic” historical phenomenon that can only appear in a definite geographic area.

Eliade asserts that shamanism stricto sensu is a phenomenon belong-ing to Siberia and Central Asia, since it is from this region that the word has its provenance and it is here that its morphology is best man-ifested (Eliade 1968:23). Nevertheless, Eliade admits that there are examples of this type of religious specialist outside Siberia and Central Asia (Eliade 1968:23). !rough several ethnographic examples in his book Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l’extase (1968), Eliade makes the argument that “shamanism” as a phenomenon may exist in “primitive cultures in every part of the world.” Consequently, shamans figure in Australia, North and South America, Southeast Asia, India, Tibet, China, and elsewhere (Eliade 1961:151; 1968:22–24). Hultkrantz agrees with Eliade that shamanism is not only limited to Siberia and Central and Northern Asia. He maintains, however, that shamanism never existed in Africa or Australia, but has only occurred in places where traces of an old Paleolithic culture have best survived: North and South America (particularly the Arctic North and southern South America), circumpolar Eurasia, Siberia and Mongolia, China, Korea, and Japan (Hultkrantz 1978:27–30; 1989:47). Other theorists of shamanism operate with di"erent geographic definitions. Luc de Heusch writes: “In their purest forms shamanistic cults seem to be peculiar to Mongolian and Amerindian peoples, while authentic cults of possession are mostly typical of the black world in both Africa and America” (de Heusch 1981:152). On the other hand, Vajda claims that shamans are religious specialists restricted to Siberia and North America (Vajda 1964:290). Siikala finds phenomenological similarities between shamans all over the world, but she strictly distinguishes between the “authentic” classical shamanism of Central Asia, Northern Siberia, and other Arctic regions, and “shamanic” features, elements, and ideas in cultures outside this region. !is is because “the broader the application of the term shamanism and the more varied the systems of rites

26 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

concerned, the more blurred the conceptual content becomes” (Siikala 1978:14). Scholars cannot, according to Siikala, use the concept “sha-man” to classify religious specialists outside of this region (Siikala 1978:14–15).

Without realizing that she is violating a regional (geographic) defini-tion of shamanism, Siikala admits that there are important economic and cultural di"erences between the many tribes in Siberia and North-east Asia (Voigt 1977:387–388).29 Siberia and Northeast Asia have been under considerable cultural and religious influence from the south, par-ticularly from Buddhism and Lamaism. !ere are thus linguistic, cul-tural, economic, and religious di"erences between the ethnic groups in the area that has been called the locus classicus of shamanism. Conse-quently, myths, symbols, ritual practices, religious institutions, and religious specialists vary considerably across Siberia and Northeast Asia. It therefore appears rather strange that Siikala can advocate a regional definition of “shamanism.” To classify the many religious systems of this culturally heterogeneous area as “shamanistic” can only be done at the cost of reductionism. A presupposed “shamanistic religion” for this enormous region with so many di"erent cultures inevitably leads to disregard for other important elements of the religions of the diverse linguistic groups. In every culture there are religious specialists and reli-gious phenomena that do not fit a particular “shamanistic” definition. But Siikala does not specify the common features of this religious spe-cialist (i.e., the shaman), as she should have done given that there are so many di"erent cultural and religious traditions in the locus classicus of shamanism.

Alice Beck Kehoe suggests that shamanism only exists in Siberia and in northern North America (Kehoe 2000:4; 8; 52–70), but she does not identify the characteristics that distinguish this particular type of religious specialist, other than describing “a basic divining ritual” which, she admits, has many cultural variations.

29) “!e way of life of the Arctic sea-mammal hunters and reindeer breeders di"ers greatly from that of the steppe or the hunters and fishermen of the taiga. It follows that despite certain basic similarities, the shamanic complexes are not uniform either. !ere are variations in the shaman’s role in the community, as there are di"erences, for exam-ple, in his ritual accessories or the tradition of beliefs he represents. Tracing the history of shamanism is thus a complicated matter” (Siikala 1978:1).

L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70 27

Because there are many variations in the basic divining ritual, from region to region and also from practitioner to practitioner, the di"erences between Siberi-ans, generalized, and Inuit and American Indians, generalized, may be not much greater than between any two particular performances on one continent or the other. (Kehoe 2000:67–68)

It appears that Kehoe does not want to employ the Tungus term “sha-man” universally because “it is confusing and misleading to use a simple blanket word, lifted from an unfamiliar Asian language, for a variety of culturally recognized distinct practices and practitioners” (Kehoe 2000:53).30 But Kehoe does not take into account that “European vocabulary” (Kehoe 2000:52), as is generally the case for any language, incorporates numerous adapted loan words from other linguistic fami-lies. As advocated in this article, “shaman” should be employed as a tech-nical term (ideal type) that comprises distinctive characteristic features.

A Regional Psychological !eory: Mental Disturbances and Arctic Hysteria

Owing to the fact that the label “shaman” has been associated with an ecstatic ritual specialist, several scholars have argued that a shaman is a mentally disturbed person.31 M.A. Czaplicka was one of the anthro-pologists at the beginning of the twentieth century who introduced the notion of “Arctic hysteria.”32 Arctic hysteria designates a psychological condition that resembles ecstasy. !is mental state is, according to Czaplicka, the result of heritage. !e shaman is accordingly in her view genetically conditioned.

Relying upon the theory of Arctic hysteria, Ohlmarks asserts that genuine shamanism can only exist in the high Arctic region (Ohlmarks 1939:58). In his book Studien zum Problem des Schamanismus (1939)

30) In my view, it is inexplicable that Kehoe and fellow anthropologists employ the term ”priest” in order to designate religious specialists of non-Christian religions. I do not believe that the Classic Maya had a concept of “ritual priests,” as Kehoe suggests (Kehoe 2000:79). A better translation would be “ritual specialist” or “religious special-ist,” terms which do not carry Christian connotations. 31) Cf. Bogoras 1904–1909, Devereux 1956, Shirokogoro" 1935, and Silverman 1967, all cited in Hultkrantz 1978:25, among other examples. See also Eliade 1968:37, n. 1, and Siikala 1978:21.32) Czaplicka 1914, cited in Hultkrantz 1978:26.

28 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

Ohlmarks gives an account of this regional psychological definition of shamanism. He claims that shamanism is not a religion, but eine Art Ekstatismus (Ohlmarks 1939:1), which can operate only in the high Arctic area (Ohlmarks 1939:38). Ohlmarks designates the hocharktische region, i.e., Siberia and North America, as the Urheimat des Schamanis-mus (Ohlmarks 1939:58). Allegedly, the climate and nature in this area influence the mind and create the natural conditions for the Arctic hysteria of the shaman (Ohlmarks 1939:83). !e symptoms of Arctic hysteria comprise nervousness, psychosis, and abnormal psychic reac-tions. !is condition is epidemic in the Arctic region due to the climate. Both the polar night, with its cold, deserted darkness, and the lack of food and vitamins contribute to the psychic state of the “shaman” (Ohlmarks 1939:5).

Ohlmarks emphasizes that this analysis does not imply that mental patients or people with chronic neurological disorders and shamans belong within one and the same category. !e di"erence between a sha-man and an epileptic, for example, is that a shaman can enter into a trance voluntarily (Ohlmarks 1939:11). !e boundary between Arctic and sub-Arctic shamanism is determined by the climate, temperature, population density, light, vegetation, and diet. As a result, there are dif-ferent conditions of ecstasy in the north and in the south. In the north-ern Arctic area mental illness is more widespread (Ohlmarks 1939:15). !e extreme climate in the north constitutes the necessary precondi-tion for Arctic hysteria, the ecstasy that the shaman needs for his ritual. In the northern region the ritual of the shaman contains wild ecstasy and a soul journey to the supernatural world. Natural, organic, sponta-neous shamanism can thus exist only here. !e high Arctic region is the realm of the religious specialist whom Ohlmarks calls der grosse Scha-man. !is “great shaman” conducts séances with catalepsy, wherein he experiences a condition of unconsciousness. During this state he embarks on a soul journey to “the other world.” !e sub-Arctic region does not have this extreme climate. Hence, spontaneous “shamanism” is not found there. Instead, der kleine Schaman, the “little shaman,” lives there. !is little shaman is an inspired half-ecstatic who lacks the ability to experience a natural, genuine ecstasy. In the south der kleine Schaman experiences only an imitative, minor sort of ecstasy (Ohlmarks 1939:84–85, 109). !e “little shaman” can only enter into a half-trance,

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either with artificial substances such as narcotics or alcohol, or by imi-tating the soul journey (Ohlmarks 1939:100–101, 122).

Classifying religious specialists in this way according to their psycho-logical or neurological states is quite ill-advised. It is simply not possible to verify the existence of a so-called genuine ecstasy that exists only in the north Arctic area. Observations of mental diseases and trance-like symptoms have been made all over the world, and it has been demon-strated that ecstasy is not unique to the Arctic region (Eliade 1968:39). As noted above, Ohlmarks (1939:24, 35) himself admits that the shaman did not always have to be an emotionally “unbalanced” indi-vidual (Eliade 1968:39, note 1).

A religious specialist may follow a family tradition, which might sig-nify that his or her abilities are inherited, but it is not necessary that he or she do so. An individual with a “normal” or “stable” psychological condition can use shamanistic techniques in order to gain ecstasy. !us, Czaplicka’s hypothesis that the shaman’s extraordinary powers can only be transmitted genetically between family members is not tenable (Siikala 1978:46, 313). Nevertheless, religious specialists may have an extraordinary psychological constitution in the sense that they have a predisposition to be overly sensitive or nervous. Many scholars have observed that numerous religious specialists are mentally predisposed to fulfilling their functions. But one must also bear in mind that the religious specialist controls the ecstasy, the sign of his or her mentally unstable state, by means of a ritual. !is is in stark contrast to more ordinary psychiatric patients (Hultkrantz 1978:26). According to Eli-ade, a mental patient has no religious experience. He or she is only un mystique simiesque. Such patients cannot be religious specialists because they have no direct contact with the supernatural world or any ability to manipulate it. !ey can give the impression of having a reli-gious experience, but in reality this is a neurosis (Eliade 1968:39, 41). Eliade refers to Nadel’s 1946 investigation of tribes in the Sudan, where neither epilepsy, which occurs quite frequently in this region, nor any other mental illness is considered to be a sign of a religious specialist being possessed by a spirit (Eliade 1968:39).

While there are many scholarly theories which maintain that the shaman represents a psychologically unstable person, they were devel-oped by anthropologists who witnessed ecstatic rituals, not psychopathic

30 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

behaviour. Because religious specialists practiced secret ecstatic rituals that dealt with dangerous powers, they were conceived of as being out of balance mentally (Gilberg 1984:26–27). !ese extraordinary rituals comprise di"erent techniques by which the religious specialist can attain a state of trance or ecstasy. Since ecstatic and trance-like condi-tions are easily misunderstood, the shamans were accordingly consid-ered to be mentally unbalanced. Mental instability can, however, be one of several signs that the neophyte is in the process of being chosen by the spirits before his or her initiation as a shaman (Eliade 1968:9, 43). Siikala asserts that abnormal, nervous behaviour can signal that the spirits have chosen a member of the group to become a shaman. !is is a natural part of his or her initiation (Siikala 1978:313; 1992:5–6). !e initiation is regularly marked by symptoms of disease or hysteria. It is part of a “role-taking” tradition and is only apparently hysterical (Siikala 1978:32–33). According to Lewis (1989:47–48), Arctic hysteria can be an indication of either the first voluntary posses-sion of the shaman by spirits or of an involuntary possession. Except for the ecstatic experience, the initiation of the neophyte prior to becoming a shaman consists of learning the secret tradition of shamanic knowledge. A mentally disordered person can hardly benefit from reli-gious instruction. Moreover, the fundamental function of religious specialists within a community is to help fellow human beings by communicating with supernatural beings in non-human space. In this manner, the religious specialist acts as a mediator between the dei-ties and spirits on the one hand and human beings on the other. A psy chologically unstable individual is hardly suited for this kind of task (Eliade 1968:43). Compulsive neurotics would indeed not play constructive roles in helping others (Eliade 1968:39–40; Gilberg 1984:26–27; Hoppál 1985:122–123).

Hallucinogenic Substances and Altered States of Consciousness

Several scholars emphasize that the shaman performs ecstatic rituals, and that in the process of doing so the consciousness of the shaman is altered. He or she attains an altered state of consciousness.33 According

33) !e concepts “trance” and “ecstasy” will be used as synonyms. Cf. the argument made by Hultkrantz 1978:19.

L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70 31

to some researchers, the ecstatic trance constitutes “a key component of shamanism” (Ortiz de Montellano 1990:68).

Numerous anthropologists have focused on a culture’s having access to hallucinogenic substances, and they classify such a culture as “shamanistic.”34 !e cultivation and use of various types of hallucino-genic substances by religious specialists has been and continues to be an exaggerated concern among Western scholars. For instance, Mercedes de la Garza has made an index of psychoactive hallucinogenic sub-stances in order to validate the supposed existence of shamanism in Mesoamerica (Garza 1990).35

Not only shamans, however, but many types of religious specialists perform ecstatic rituals. !ey can manipulate the ecstasy or trance by means of religious techniques. Hallucinogenic substances are a com-mon, although not a necessary, means by which the religious specialist attempts to attain ecstasy (Siikala 1978:11). A variety of culturally determined ritual techniques can also produce an ecstatic state: fasting, isolation, exhaustion, music, dance, narcotics, tobacco, alcohol, and so forth. What various levels of loss of consciousness and “abnormal” behaviour ensue depend upon the specific cultural tradition (Siikala 1978:26–27). In various cultures religious specialists consume halluci-nogenic substances during rituals. But ecstasy is only an indication of shamanism; by itself it is not su#cient evidence for it (Eliade 1968:22–23).36 !e problem with a definition based on the presence of a state of ecstasy or an altered state of consciousness is that it allows an alcoholic, a drug addict, a psychopath, or for that matter any type of human being or religious specialist to be categorized as a shaman. Rich-ard Noll criticizes an anthropological psychopathological model of shamanism in which shamans are considered to be schizophrenic indi-viduals (Noll 1983).37 Noll maintains that schizophrenics do not master

34) Cf. for instance Furst 1972a, 1972b, 1976, and Reichel-Domato" 1975.35) I thank Mrs. Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez of Leiden University, who made me aware of the exaggerated significance of hallucinogenic substances, which various authors and researchers have attributed to the religious specialists “nagual” and “sha-man” (Pérez Jiménez, personal communication, 1997).36) An example of a “shamanic” journey to the beyond without the loss of conscious-ness has been observed in the “shamanism” of the Samoyed (Siikala 1978:215).37) Many scholars have argued against a psychopathological analysis of “shamanism;” cf. Noll 1983:444.

32 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

their altered states of consciousness, whereas the shaman can enter and leave this state, a supposed “shamanic state of consciousness” which constitutes “a separate altered state of consciousness” (Noll 1983:443), at will (Noll 1983:450–451). Ordinary people, i.e., those who are not initiated religious specialists, who are under the influence of intoxica-tion or who have what Winkelman calls “biologically based altered-state-of-consciousness potentials” (Winkelman 1990:308, 313–325; 1992:47–53) do not necessarily have the indispensable knowledge or experience to perform religious duties and functions. Training in an esoteric religious tradition, correct performance of the mystic ritual, and a belief in the extraordinary powers of the religious specialists by their co-believers in the community are required and in fact are much more important to shamanism than the use of hallucinogenic remedies or a natural talent for attaining an altered state of consciousness.

!e state of ecstasy or trance is not what is important to shamanism, even if that state is created by a genuine ecstasy caused by the climate (Ohlmarks 1939) or by the use of hallucinogenics like alcohol and var-ious narcotic substances (cf. Furst 1972a, 1972b, 1976). !e ritual technique or the mental health of an individual is not what is really important, either. In reality, the shaman or the religious specialist is generally one of the healthiest individuals in the community (Hoppál 1985:122–123).38 !e trance of the shaman is typically achieved by the control he or she exercises. It is not spontaneous but, in contrast to hysteria, it is ritually organized, with rules for proper conduct (de Heusch 1981:152). As a religious specialist who has social obligations, the shaman cannot be a psychopath or a passive drug addict:

Firstly, a hysteric, unlike a shaman, cannot control his attacks or act as need demands. Secondly, even though we were to assume, as Arbman does, that the hysteric can if he wishes suggest himself into a trance, he would not be able to satisfy the expectations and social obligations attached to the shaman’s position. (Siikala 1978:47)

Humphrey puts forward a convincing argument against the employ-ment by anthropologists of the terms “ecstasy” and “trance” in order to

38) Among the Tungus, “the shaman may begin his life career with a psychosis but can-not carry on his functions if he cannot master himself ” (Shirokogoro" 1935:366).

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define “shaman” as a particular category. To do so is meaningless, because too many people — singers, diviners, midwives, hunters, and many oth-ers — can enter this state. “Ecstasy” and “trance” are not needed in order to get in contact with the supernatural. For example, the yadagan sha-man of the Daur Mongols does not need to enter this kind of mental state, for which there is no indigenous word in North Asia, when travel-ling outside the human world (Humphrey and Onon 1996:30–31).

We can therefore safely conclude that hallucinogens, ecstasy, trance, or altered states of consciousness are not distinctive traits indicative of “shamanism,” unless they lead to a voyage, manipulated at will by cer-tain religious specialists, to a supernatural world, such as among the Siona of the Putumayo region of Colombia and the Jívaro and Quijos of the Río Napo of eastern Ecuador (Harner 1972:153; 1973:159–160).

A Sociological/Anthropological Perspective: !e Role (Function) and Status (Position) of the “Shaman”

Barbara Tedlock has carried out remarkable field research among the K’ichee’-Maya in the Highlands of Guatemala (Tedlock 1992). !ere are two religious specialists among the K’ichee’ called ajk’ij and chuch-kajawib. Ajk’ij is a “day-keeper,” i.e., a calendar diviner, an interpreter of dreams and a healer. Above the ajk’ij in the hierarchy of religious specialists is the chuchkajawib. Chuchkajawib is both a “mother-father”39 and a “day-keeper” (Tedlock 1992:47). But according to Tedlock, no cultural anthropological definition will be able to distinguish between these two religious specialists:

If one adopted the analytical method cultural anthropologists use for separating shamans from priests, in which the priest serves as an intermediary between man and the gods while the shaman directly possesses (or is possessed by) supernatural powers in the realm of divination and curing, one would have to refer to all Momostecan day-keepers and mother-fathers as both priests and shamans. (Ted-lock 1992:47)

A theoretical dichotomy between the priest and the shaman presup-poses that the latter is a diviner and a medicine man, whereas the

39) Among the K’ichee’-Maya a “mother-father” is a ritual-symbolic androgynous par-ent of the members of a lineage (Tedlock 1992).

34 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

“priest” functions as a mediator between the supernatural world and humans beings. Among the K’ichee’ it is not possible to make this demarcation between shaman and priest, because both ajk’ ij and chuch-kajawib are, according to this definition, simultaneously priest and sha-man. !is applies also to other religious specialists in Mesoamerica (Tedlock 1992:47).

Tedlock also notes another strategy for making “an anthropological distinction” between the shaman and the priest. !e priest serves the entire community, whereas the shaman is only concerned with the indi-vidual (Tedlock 1992:51). !ere is accordingly a dichotomy between private and public rituals. !e priest undertakes public rituals whereas the shaman conducts private ones. Because his or her public actions are directed towards the community (or the lineage), the priest represents religion. Conversely, the private ritual practices of the shaman are con-cerned with the individual and are therefore exclusively personal and magical. Tedlock points out that this distinction, too, does not permit a classification of ajk’ ij and chuchkajawib as priest and shaman respec-tively (Tedlock 1992:52):

Any attempt to separate priests from shamans in these communities according to a public/private, or religion/magic dichotomy fails, since the same practitioner could be called, in di"erent contexts, either “priest” or “shaman.”

Tedlock maintains that it is the role, i.e., the function, of the religious specialist and not his or her status that makes it possible to separate the two categories of religious specialists. !us, one has to distinguish between the role and the status of the religious specialist:

If a practitioner performs both shamanic and priestly roles, even though he does not have an institutionalised status with respect to a lineage, clan, or community, then it is misleading to simply designate him or her as a ‘shaman’. In other words, among the Maya the technical terms ‘shaman’ and ‘priests’ are useful, when sepa-rated, only as role and not as status designations. (Tedlock 1992:52)

When the religious specialist practices as a diviner or as a healer, he or she can be categorized as a “shaman,” but when the religious specialist operates as a mediator between the supernatural and the natural world he or she is classified as a “priest.” By contrast, a definition based upon

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the religious specialists’ status is impossible. Tedlock chooses therefore to denote the status of religious specialists by means of the compound concepts “priest-shaman” and “shaman-priest,” depending on their par-ticipation in public or private rituals (Tedlock 1992:52–53).

Robert Lowie had previously suggested a similar theoretical but arti-ficial distinction between shaman and priest (Lowie 1963:179–180). !is is actually not a very useful distinction, because the religious cat-egory “priest” exclusively pertains to the Christian religion. Scholars should therefore completely discard this notion in studies of non-Christian religious systems. Moreover, the compromise of creating a dichotomy of “priest-shaman” versus “shaman-priest,” as proposed by Tedlock, is not theoretically satisfactory. A categorization of religious specialists should be unambiguous. Do not the diviner and the healer, or the priest, for that matter, act as mediums between the supernatural and the human world? How can the diviner and the healer or priest undertake their religious duties and functions if they do not have any contact with deities or (ancestor) spirits? In addition, religious special-ists in, for example, Northeast Asia partake in both public and private ceremonies. Ethnography from this region demonstrates that the sha-man participates in both public and private rituals, within the context of the clan, in larger ceremonies, and in connection with the family (Siikala 1978:2–4). In fact, the status and function of religious special-ists vary according to the culture and the socio-economic system (Honko 1969:26; Siikala 1978:2; 303).

Well into the twentieth century, American anthropologists thought of the “shaman” and the “medicine man” as identical (Eliade 1968:22; Hultkrantz 1989:45; Lowie 1963:161). Today, scholars reject this theo-retical conception of the shaman. Siikala asserts that the shaman has di"erent functions in various cultures (Siikala 1978:15). Ohlmarks argues that the shaman is a medicine man, a “primitive priest” and a sorcerer (Ohlmarks 1939:59). Hence, the shaman can have di"erent religious functions simultaneously. For instance, he or she can be a psy-chopomp, a healer, a medicine man, a diviner, and a protector of the hunt or of fertility (Eliade 1968:25). Shirokogoro" maintains that within a particular community the shaman may have di"erentiated functions. Among the Tungus the shaman constitutes the diviner, healer, and psychopomp; he sacrifices to the spirits, and so forth

36 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

(Shirokogoro" 1935:304). A functional or a role-based definition of the shaman is therefore not tenable.

A religious specialist does not have to be able to execute all types of functions. Other types of religious specialists can perform some of the tasks mentioned above (Eliade 1968:21, 25, 156, 233). Instead, Eliade argues that the shaman does not have a definite function, but that there exists a particular religious technique that separates him or her from other categories of religious specialists (Eliade 1968:22):

De ce fait, bien que le chaman soit, entre autre qualités, un magicien, n’importe quel magicien ne peut pas être qualifié de chaman. La même précision s’impose à propos des guérisons chamaniques: tout medicine-man est guérisseur, mais le cha-man utilise une méthode qui n’appartient qu’à lui. (Eliade 1968:22)

Certainly, the shaman does have important functions and a special status in the community. If the shaman does not make himself or her-self useful, the fellow members of the community will not derive any benefit from the shaman’s activities (Eliade 1968:25). But it is not pos-sible to establish a “shaman concept” on the basis of a specific function that a religious specialist performs. Hultkrantz writes:

What, then, are the services that the professional shaman can provide for his cli-ents? !ey are of di"erent nature, and their only common denominator is the circumstance that they presuppose supernatural action. Furthermore, it is only occasionally that one and the same shaman masters all the shamanistic activities. If we have to pinpoint one central activity it should be that of the healer. How-ever, not all shamans are healers. It is therefore di#cult to define shamanism with reference to its professional functions. (Hultkrantz 1978:15)

A sociological or anthropological analysis of the role or status of religious specialists in a society/community is therefore of no avail in identifying shamanism. Instead, what isolates the shaman as an analytic category denoting a particular category of religious specialist is direct communi-cation between the human and the supernatural. !is point has been emphasized by various scholars (Hoppál 1985:127; Hultkrantz 1978:34; Schröder 1955:879; Siikala 1978:28; 1992:8, 26, 319–320). But, the question remains, what kind of direct communication is exclusively shamanistic?

L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70 37

A large majority of religious specialists mediate ceremonially between deities and human beings. It is, accordingly, the ritual of the religious specialists that provides a fundamental criterion for constructing the concept of the shaman. !e status and function of the shaman is man-ifested in his or her ritual performance. Moreover, by identifying and analyzing the religious ritual practice of the shaman, we can locate the ideology of shamanism.

A History of Religions Analysis of the Ritual

In what precedes, I have demonstrated that it is not methodologically viable to construct an ideal type of a religious specialist through an etymological, geographical, psychological, anthropological, or socio-logical strategy. My contention in what follows is that in studying reli-gious specialists and religious phenomena, researchers should employ the method of the history of religions, which in this case means study-ing the religious ritual.

!e Initiation Ritual: A Direct Meeting with the Ancestors, Spirits, or Deities

Religious specialists of various types have to undergo an initiation ritual or rite de passage before they can master their profession and be recog-nized by other members of their community (Van Gennep 1981 [1909]; Turner 1967). A rite de passage comprises not only a transition between social states; persons who are initiated also achieve a new status that can be considered as resulting from an ontological transformation. As Vic-tor Turner writes, “It [the rite de passage] is not a mere acquisition of knowledge, but a change in being” (Turner 1967:102).

Every member of the community undergoes one or more rites de pas-sage during their lifetime, but the rite de passage needed in order to become a religious specialist is an esoteric initiation reserved for the select few. !is type of ritual process results in an attainment of “gnosis” or secret knowledge.

Numerous scholars argue that it is in fact the special initiation ritual that distinguishes the shaman from other categories of religious special-ists. It is meeting directly with spirits during the initiation ritual that makes the shaman extraordinary and di"erent from, for instance, the

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priest. Ethnographic data from Siberia show that shamans are initiated after directly meeting with gods or spirits (Sternberg 1925:472–473). !e anthropologists William Madsen, William A. Lessa, and Evon Z. Vogt assert that the shaman experiences a direct revelation of the divine. In contrast to the shaman, the priest has only been educated and is accordingly only initiated into a tradition (Lessa and Vogt 1979:301; Madsen 1955:48). !e shaman becomes initiated through dreams, wherein the neophyte for the first time comes into direct contact with the supernatural. For instance, Vogt employs this definition in order to classify the religious specialist of the Zinacanteco Maya, the h’ilol (“seer”), as a “shaman” (Vogt 1969:416). Van Gennep also claims that the “magician” and the “shaman” are di"erent from other religious spe-cialists, such as the “priest” and the “brahmin,” because of the particular initiation ritual. In contrast to the priest and the brahmin, the shaman and the magician are initiated into a sacred world (Van Gennep 1981 [1909]:152).

It is, however, just as important that the religious specialist, chosen by supernatural beings and/or having had a personal experience of the supernatural world, is trained within a cultural and religious tradition (Gilberg 1984:25). Eliade asserts that the initiation of the shaman con-sists both of his or her meeting directly with supernatural beings and of instruction:

1. “d’ordre extatique.” A call in a dream, during disease or trance/ecstasy by gods, spirits and ancestors.

2. “d’ordre traditionnel.” A teaching of the techniques of the “sha-man,” the name and function of the spirits, learning the myths, the genealogy of the clan, and the secret language of the spirits (Eliade 1968:28–29, 34, 44–45).

!e shaman’s initiation coincides with a period of education. !e apprentice must learn the arcane topography of non-human space. He or she can also meet with the spirits directly. !e individual to be initi-ated as a shaman can be instructed by the spirits and/or by older sha-mans. Occasionally, shamans who have passed away will elect the apprentice (Eliade 1968:82). By perceiving the spirits, the novice gains a condition spirituelle, abandons his or her former profane existence,

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and enters a “sacred condition” (Eliade 1968:83, 89). During initiation the neophytes acquire what will later be their auxiliary spirits. !ey must moreover prove their “power” in a public ritual in order to be accepted as shamans by the community (Siikala 1978:5, 6–7). Accord-ing to Siikala, in Siberia and Central Asia a person must meet three requirements in order to become a shaman. He or she must

1. . . . possess the ability to achieve ecstasy;2. have met directly with supernatural beings, possess intimate

knowledge of the supernatural world, and be able to communi-cate with spirits or deities on his or her own initiative; and

3. be dependent upon a following within the community that believes that he or she possesses the necessary abilities and knowl-edge. “It is only this last factor that distinguishes the shaman from individual ecstatics and seers” (Siikala 1978:311).40

A privileged education within an obscure tradition and directly meet-ing with (ancestor) spirits or deities are, however, fundamental elements in the initiations of various religious specialists. Religious specialists of many di"erent categories, such as the “prophet” and the “visionary,” are initiated after experiencing a direct encounter with representatives (dei-ties and spirits) of the supernatural realm. !is is in fact a quite com-mon feature in most religious systems. It is thus incongruous to classify a religious specialist as a shaman only on the basis of communication with deities and spirits. Accordingly, shaman is not a useful designation for a religious specialist who meets and communicates with representa-tives of non-human space.

40) “Although the basic elements of the shamanic initiation are the same, other fea-tures, such as a) the length of the period as novice, b) the nature and amount of tradi-tion to be internalized, c) the passing on of tradition or guiding the novice, d) the nature and amount of ritual activity and e) the control of the skill of the initiate, are in accordance with the form of shamanism in question” (Siikala 1978:311).

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!ree Religious Ritual Techniques: Possession, Vision, and the Voyage of the Soul

Religious specialists generally establish a connection with supernatural beings, such as spirits and gods, as well as with supranormal space, through ritual practice. But in what way does this contact take place? !ere are three fundamental ritual techniques:

1. A vision of supernatural beings in the human world,2. Physical possession by supernatural beings in the human world,

and3. Direct communication with supernatural beings after making a

journey into the non-human world, i.e., into an extraordinary spatial dimension.

Lowie asserts that the shaman is a religious specialist who communi-cates directly with supernatural beings either through dreams or visions or by being possessed by spirits (quoted in Madsen 1955:48). !e problem with this assertion is that the same type of communication is quite common among very many types of religious specialists. Conse-quently, there is no reason to ascribe this meaning to the concept “shaman.”

Within the specialized literature on shamanism there is a general consensus that shamans master culturally determined religious ritual ecstatic techniques which put them into a trance or ecstatic state and thereby enable them to experience a direct meeting with supernatural beings (cf. Eliade 1968; Hultkrantz 1978; Lewis 1996; Ohlmarks 1939; Schröder 1955; Siikala 1978; Vajda 1959, 1964; etc.). !ere is, how-ever, no agreement among scholars as to the manner in which this direct meeting takes place. Siikala writes that:

Features typical of such research are the division of the shamanic complex into its components, examination of the ecstatic behaviour of the shaman, the spirit-helper system, initiatory visions, the journey of the soul to the Beyond or the characteristics of the shamanic cosmology, followed by an attempt to indicate the cultural-historical or geographical ties between these components. !e chief problem has often concerned the question as to which of the features of shaman-ism is most fundamental or vital to the entire phenomenon. (Siikala 1978:25)

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It is possible to identify three theoretical positions about the character of the ceremonial direct meeting of the “shaman” with the spirits and the deities:

1. Findeisen argues (1957) that by means of their ecstatic technique shamans are possessed by spirits. But Shirokogoro" (1935) and Lewis (1996) call attention to the fact that shamans are not pas-sive mediums for these spirits but rather master them. According to them, the shaman is “!e Master of the Spirits.”

2. Ohlmarks (1939), Eliade (1968), Gilberg (1984), and Penti-käinen (1998a) maintain that the voyage of the soul to the super-natural world is characteristic of the shamanic religious technique.

3. !e shaman masters the voyage of the soul to the other world and has at the same time the power to be possessed by spirits. In addi-tion, the shaman constitutes a religious specialist who can have visions of gods, spirits, and ancestors. !e hypothesis that sha-mans command various religious techniques, so that they can communicate with the supernatural world, is the most common position in the theoretical literature on shamanism. Various scholars — Vajda (1964), Schröder (1955), Hultkrantz (1978), and Siikala (1978) — represent this school of thought.

I shall now examine these three positions in order to identify the dis-tinctive qualities that distinguish the shaman from other constructed categories of religious specialists.

Possession: “!e Master of the Spirits”

Findeisen claims that the shaman is characterized by being able to be possessed by spirits. He or she is not an ordinary priest but rather a Besessenheitspriester, a spiritual medium who has a spiritual experience (Findeisen 1957:7, 14, 108, 201, 237). !e shaman can be classified as a priest because he or she conducts, e.g., via the sacrifice of a horse, the soul together with the sacrificed animal to God in heaven (Findeisen 1957:201, note 4). Contrary to the priest, however, the shaman can put himself or herself into a state of trance and become possessed by the

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spirits (Findeisen 1957:162, 201, note 4). Accordingly, the shaman’s soul is able to journey to the other world. !is happens because posses-sion by the spirits liberates the soul from the body and makes the soul voyage possible. Consequently, for Findeisen it is the condition of being possessed by spirits that is the distinctive feature of the shaman and shamanism (Findeisen 1957:237, note 1).

Lewis agrees with Findeisen that the special characteristic of the sha-man is his ability to be possessed by the spirits (Lewis 1989, 1996). !e shaman incarnates the spirits, so that his or her body becomes their temple (Lewis 1996:113). For him, however, the incorporation of spir-its within the body of the shaman, i.e., possession by spirits, is a more important than the journey of the soul to the supernatural world. !us, being possessed by spirits constitutes the essential quality of shamanism (Lewis 1996:113). But Lewis emphasizes that the shaman is not simply a medium for the spirits. !is religious specialist is characterized by his or her control and mastery of the possessed spirits. !e shaman is, therefore, according to Lewis, “!e Master of the Spirits” (Lewis 1996). He writes:

A shaman is an inspired prophet and healer, a charismatic religious figure, with power to control the spirits, usually by incarnating them. If spirits speak through him, he is also likely to have the capacity to engage in mystical flight and other “out-of-body experiences.” (Lewis 1996:116)

As we see in the above quote, Lewis does not rule out a voyage of the shaman’s soul to the supernatural world, but this technique is of sec-ondary importance. What is essential is the ritual practice that the sha-man performs in this world, which creates contact with the upper world or the world below (Lewis 1996:114).

!e essence of the shamans’ role, Shirokogoro" insists, lies in their ability to incorporate potentially dangerous spirits into their bodies, thus neutralizing or “mastering” them (Lewis 1996:114). For the Tun-gus, being possessed by spirits was equal to being ill. Persons who intro-duced the spirits into their bodies of their own free will, however, were considered to be shamans. As a consequence, the term “shaman” denotes a person whom the members of a community believe to have the ability to control the spirits. At the same time, a man or woman who is only a passive instrument for the spirits is not regarded as a shaman (Lewis

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1996:8, 113).41 According to this theory, then, a shaman is a woman or a man who controls the spirits. He or she can incorporate the spirits into his or her own body and can also incarnate the spirits when he or she is in a condition of trance or ecstasy (Lewis 1996:113–114; Shi-rokogoro" 1935:274). !e shaman can both induce the spirits to enter the body and expel them at will. He or she is indeed “!e Master of the Spirits.”

Spirit possession constitutes a religious phenomenon that has been the object of heated debate among scholars. Arbman asserts that the shaman is more of an impersonator than a person possessed by spirits. !us, according to him, the belief in possession states does not exist in North America or in Siberia (Hultkrantz 1978:23–24). Carlo Ginz-burg has pointed out that a dichotomy between the journey of the soul and a state of possession is di#cult to maintain since the shaman is often in a “dramatic trance,” in which on many occasions he or she impersonates animals and as a consequence loses his or her identity (Ginzburg 1991:285, note 150). Hultkrantz asserts that many cases that have been reported as “possession” are exaggerated, but that “. . . we find now and then possession states in Siberian shamanism, as we do in the closely connected shamanism of the American Northwest Coast” (Hultkrantz 1978:25). Eliade maintains that shamanism, i.e., the jour-ney of the soul, and possession do not automatically belong together in all cultures:

!ere is a certain “facility” and a certain “automatism” in the phenomenon of possession that are in contrast with the discipline, the self-control, and the con-centration of the real shaman; finally there are broad cultural zones (Melanesia, Polynesia), where possession is a spontaneous and rather frequently encountered phenomenon at the fringes of the sphere of the “specialist of the sacred” with hardly any relation to shamanism as such. (Eliade 1961:155)

Manabu Waida distinguishes between two forms of possession state, voluntary incorporation and involuntary intrusion of spirits. In the first case, individuals keep their personalities and are not simply passive

41) “!e shaman is not a person possessed by the spirits but the spirits are possessed by him” (Lewis 1984:8; 1996:113).

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mediums. !ey are then masters of their own conditions of possession,42 what Lewis and Shirokogoro" call “!e Master of the Spirits.” !e involuntary state is the diametrical opposite. In this case the shaman loses control over the intrusive hostile spirits (Waida 1983:233).

Hultkrantz suggests an interesting etymological hypothesis about the two understandings of the possession phenomenon. He points out that there is a semantic ambivalence inherent in the English words “possess” and “possessed,” which may have led to a fundamental misunderstand-ing. “Possess” means to own something. In this sense of the word one controls an object or a spirit. To be “possessed,” however, marks a pas-sive condition. !e individual is possessed by something, an object or a spirit, such as the devil in Christian theology: “As always in Anglo-Saxon studies the two meanings of possession — as possessing some-thing, and as being possessed — play havoc . . .” (Hultkrantz 1978:22).

!e anthropologist Raymond Firth distinguishes three di"erent con-ditions, contrasting possession with control over the spirits:

1) “Spirit possession,”“phenomena of abnormal behavior, which are interpreted by other members of the society as evidence that a spirit is controlling the person’s actions and probably inhabiting his body.”

2) “Spirit mediumship,” “the use of such behaviour by members of the society as a means of communication with what they understand to be entities in the spirit world.”

3) “Shamanism,” “applied to those phenomena where a person, either a spirit medium or not, is regarded as controlling spirits, exercising his mastery over them in socially recognized ways.” (Firth 1967:296)

!is is a rigid and thus not particularly useful theory, since the religious specialist can move freely among these three conditions. Crapanzano writes: “Often the human victim of the spirit moves — if not in one séance, then throughout the course of his relationship with the spirit — in and out of all three states” (Crapanzano 1977:10). Lewis here refers to Shirokogoro", who states that among the Tungus shamans could lose their command over the spirits (Lewis 1996:118). In fact, they

42) He is “Maître de sa possession.” He provokes the state of possession ritually through dance, monotonous music, and hallucinogens. He is not a medium without a will, but knows the being that is incorporated within his body and he manipulates it con-sciously (Hubert and Mauss 1902–1903:35).

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move in and out of various roles (functions) and conditions during the course of their careers: “!is is why individually the terms possessed person, spirit medium, and shaman are not very helpful typologically at the cultic or cultural level” (Lewis 1996:119).43 It is thus surprising that Lewis chooses to call the shaman “!e Master of the Spirits.” Siikala rejects the hypothesis that the shaman is always “!e Master of the Spirits,” because the extent of the shaman’s control over spirits varies from one shamanistic context to the next (Siikala 1978:8, 16).

Possession, Vision, and Voyage of the Soul

!e majority of researchers specializing in shamanism, like Schröder (1955:862), Vajda (1959:459), Hoppál (1985:134), Johansen (1987:7), and Siikala (1978:1), maintain that both the ability to be possessed by the spirits and the voyage of the soul to the beyond are religio-magical techniques that distinguish the shaman as a particular type of religious specialist. Siikala states that:

!e journey of the shaman and possession, the entering of the spirit into the sha-man’s body, which Eliade rejects and Hans Findeisen emphasizes as one of the basic characteristics of shamanism, are simply functional alternatives describing the communication between the shaman and the other world. (Siikala 1978:13)

Hultkrantz argues that the shaman is a professional medium linking this world and the supernatural one because he or she both masters the voyage of the soul and at the same time has the power to be possessed by the spirits. But Hultkrantz is of the opinion that the shaman’s ability to become possessed by the spirits is not as important as the journey of the soul and the visions of auxiliary spirits (Hultkrantz 1978:20).44 Agreeing with Arbman, Hultkrantz claims that the shaman can create direct contact with supernatural beings through visions or dreams in a

43) Cf. the model and figure of “the shamanistic career” as formulated by Lewis (1996:118–121).44) Hultkrantz distinguishes between two types of “medicine men” in North America: the visionary, whose trance is light and who is a clairvoyant, and the ecstatic, who can meet the spirits or make a soul journey and sometimes is possessed by the spirits (Hult-krantz 1988:87).

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state of ecstasy (Arbman 1926:57–58; 1927:606–608; Hultkrantz 1978:25). Consequently, the shaman represents a religious specialist who can achieve contact with the supernatural through an ecstatic rit-ual experience (Hultkrantz 1978:11). In Siberia and North America there are examples of the shaman falling into ecstasy and receiving the spirits in the mundane world instead of the shaman’s soul going on a journey to the supernatural world (Hultkrantz 1973:29). Hultkrantz therefore defines the shaman as “a social functionary who, with the help of guardian spirits, attains ecstasy in order to create a rapport with the supernatural world on behalf of his group members” (Hultkrantz 1973:34). As I shall later elaborate, such an extensive definition is unsatisfactory, because it does not specify the specific feature character-istic of this particular category of religious specialists.

!e Voyage of the Soul to the Supernatural World

Gilberg (1984), Paulson,45 Ohlmarks (1939), and Eliade (1968) stress the voyage of the soul as the decisive element in defining a religious specialist as a shaman. According to Gilberg the voyage of the soul of the shaman constitutes the most important feature of shamanism. !e shaman controls the journey of the soul and is not under the influence of other “forces” (Gilberg 1984:22–23).

Eliade is perhaps the most well-known advocate of the view that the shaman exclusively has the capability to go on a voyage of the soul (Eliade 1964, 1968). As we shall see, Eliade agrees with Hultkrantz and other scholars like Siikala, Schröder, and Vajda about “shamanistic ele-ments” such as auxiliary spirits, a specific cosmology, ecstatic rituals, and so forth. He insists, however, that it is the journey of the soul to the supernatural world that di"erentiates the shaman from other religious specialists, such as the priest, the magician, the prophet, and the medi-cine man. !e shaman is a religious specialist who, by di"erent tech-niques of ecstasy, is able to liberate his or her soul or souls from the body and send it — or them — to the supernatural world. It is this ecstatic technique that enables the shaman to communicate directly with supernatural beings in supernatural space. !e shaman is the only person in the community who has the power to undertake a journey

45) In a review of Findeisen 1957, quoted in Hultkrantz 1978:21.

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between “ontological zones” after performing a ritual. No other human being besides the shaman can move without risk, freely, and under full control between these “ontological spheres” (Eliade 1968:211).

!e journey of the soul to the supernatural world represents the ele-ment that separates the shaman from other religious specialists who practice ecstatic rituals. It is only the “shaman” who masters the unique religio-magical technique that makes him or her capable of encounter-ing the gods or spirits in their “world.” “La communication réelle entre les trois zones cosmiques . . .” is only accessible to the shaman, not to the other members of the community (Eliade 1968:22–23, 215). !e sha-man is one of the elect, a member of an arcane elite that through a crise religieuse has a particular call that opens up access to what Eliade calls the “sacred” (i.e., preternatural space). Shamans comprise a privileged social group because of their ability to communicate directly with supernatural beings in the supernatural world, an access denied to other members of the community. !us, shamans gain distinction by means of their particular and powerful technique and, according to Eliade, as a result of the intensity of their religious experience (Eliade 1968:24).

!e ritual of the shaman is not possible without the aid of auxiliary spirits (les esprits auxiliaires). According to Eliade, they prepare the sha-man for the journey of the soul, initiate the shaman into the mysteries of the supernatural, and carry the soul of the shaman to the beyond (Eliade 1968:88, 90). By taking the form of the auxiliary spirit, which is often theriomorphic, the shaman leaves the human, profane con-dition and enters into what Eliade labels a “sacred condition” (Eliade 1968:83). Specialists, whether religious or not, may be able transform themselves into an animal or natural form, but this does not mean that they are shamans, since they do not leave the human world in order to go to the realm of the deities and spirits. !is well-known phe-nomenon is called “nagualism” in Mesoamerica (cf. Pharo 2001; Pharo, forthcoming).46

46) !e “shaman” has been erroneously compared with the Mesoamerican “nagual” (from the Nahuatl word nahualli). A “nagual” constitutes the ideal type of a religious specialist who can (like the deities) transform himself or herself, after a religious ritual, into another being, i.e., a natural phenomenon or an animal. Of course, the “shaman” can do this also, but the “nagual” does not undertake the transcendental voyage of the “shaman” (Pharo 2001, forthcoming).

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!e shaman controls the spirits and in rare cases is possessed by them. !e auxiliary spirits aid the shaman in communication with the gods, spirits, or ancestors. !ey are often manifested by an imitation carried out by the shaman, for instance, when he or she performs as an animal. But, Eliade maintains, the shaman is never possessed by auxil-iary spirits, even during the initiation period. It is the shaman who is in control. He or she is never a helpless medium for the spirits (Eliade 1968:89).

Although there are examples in which the spirits can possess the sha-man, this is not, according to Eliade, an essential trait of “shamanism stricto sensu” (Eliade 1968:89). He emphasizes that the shaman is in opposition to a possédé; he or she controls the spirits by taking them voluntarily into his or her own body (Eliade 1968:23, 388).

Possession versus Voyage of the Soul

Paulson criticized Findeisen for his contention that spirits may possess the shaman. Findeisen claimed that the journey of the soul could only be undertaken when spirits had invaded the shaman’s body and subse-quently liberated the soul (Findeisen 1957:237, quoted in Hultkrantz 1978:21–22). Paulson asserted, however, that this conception had more to do with “spiritual mediumism” than with shamanism. For him sha-mans are “Masters of the Spirits,” since they retain their own personali-ties and are not slaves of the spirits, i.e., mere instruments in their hands (Paulson 1958:225, quoted in Hultkrantz 1978:21).

We must ask, then: is it incompatible for a religious specialist to be both possessed by the spirits and at the same time to have the ability to go on a journey of the soul to the supernatural world? In other words, is there a contradiction between a voyage of the soul and a state of pos-session?

Like Paulson, Ohlmarks makes a rigid distinction between, on the one hand, ecstasy and the journey of the soul with the assistance of auxiliary spirits (Hilfsgeistern) and, on the other, being possessed by spirits (Ohlmarks 1939:61, 71). He maintains that during the séance the shaman is totally dependent upon the auxiliary spirits. Sometimes these spirits assist the shaman in the voyage of the soul. Such spirits may possess the shaman but, Ohlmarks insists, it is the voyage of

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the soul that is typical of the “genuine shaman” (Ohlmarks 1939:71). Eliade argues, however, that the various techniques employed by the shaman are not contradictory but rather have evolved over time (Eliade 1961). According to him, there have been three stages in the history of the shaman:

1. Ascension (to the sky or upper world).2. Ascension and descent (to the upper and lower worlds).3. Possession (by the spirits).

Eliade maintains that the journey of the shaman to the sky (upper world) is older than the descent to the underworld. It is also more uni-versal and more common in myths, dreams and visions than the descen-sus ad inferos. Death and resurrection encompass an archaic phenomenon, while a journey to heaven is a primordial one. Travel to heaven is easier to understand, Eliade claims; unlike the voyage to the lower world, it does not need a supporting theory or ideology (Eliade 1961:154–155). A state of possession also constitutes an archaic and universal phenom-enon, but it appears later in history than ecstatic experience and the voyage of the soul. Possession developed from the same ecstasy that led to the journey of the soul. When the souls of shamans leave their bod-ies, spirits possess them. !e result is religious experience: “Shamanism is inextricably related to the phenomenon of ‘possession’ ” (Eliade 1961:155). Consequently, it is, as Eliade puts it, “psychologically logical” to assume that a possession by spirits is not possible before the soul has left the body of the shaman (Eliade 1968:394, note 1).

It is, however, not possible to verify empirically the “psychological logic” of Eliade’s three-stage theory of the history of the shaman. Here we encounter one of the main methodological problems of the estab-lished theories of shamanism, namely, that many scholars have taken for granted that the shaman is a historical character and not a con-structed concept (ideal type).

!e Belgian anthropologist Luc de Heusch has adopted Eliade’s the-ory of the evolution of the shaman’s religious techniques and built upon it a quite complex structural model which emphasizes a contrast between the state of being possessed by spirits and the shaman’s voyage of the soul (de Heusch 1981). De Heusch argues that shamanism is

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“de-possession” as opposed to “possession,” which constitutes an incor-poration of spirits into the body. As a consequence, the latter phenom-enon is not compatible with shamanism. According to de Heusch, shamanism is marked by the “ascension” (to heaven) of the shaman in a stratified cosmology. It is the axis mundi that makes this voyage to heaven (but also to the underworld) possible for the shaman, with the aid of auxiliary spirits (de Heusch 1981:153). In the initiation ritual the shaman neophyte does not become possessed by “protector spirits” but calls upon them instead (de Heusch 1981:153). De Heusch main-tains that the shaman is also a seer, but he is primarily a medicine man who locates and brings back the soul of the patient from the supernatu-ral world. !is is a form of healing that de Heusch calls “shamanism A,” which consists of what he calls “adorcism.” Another mode of shamanic curing or healing corresponds to what de Heusch designates as “sha-manism B,” in which “. . . the evil is an addition, not a subtraction” (de Heusch 1981:153). !ese techniques of healing are symmetrical. In “shamanism B” an alien, enemy spirit takes possession of the body of the patient. !e “shaman” exorcizes this spirit by a “de-possession” of the alien and hostile element from the body of the patient. De Heusch compares this treatment with “shamanism A,” where “shamanism” refers to an ascent to the gods of heaven conducted by human beings (religious specialists). By contrast, the state of possession is the descent of deities or spirits to the mundane world and therefore represents an incarnation (de Heusch 1981:154). “Possession B” and “shamanism B” have in common that they are both symptoms of a disease. An alien, hostile substance invades the body of an individual and is later exor-cized by the “shaman.” !e di"erence is that in “possession B,” the pos-sessed person is totally overpowered and, accordingly, mentally ill. !e possessed individual is a patient in a condition of trance. Conversely, in “shamanism B” the patient is only partially overpowered, and the “shaman” acts as a doctor in a state of trance (de Heusch 1981:154–155). !e illness and trance are separated in shamanism, but not in “possession B,” where trance is a token of a particular kind of disease and at the same time a remedy to cure it (de Heusch 1981:155–156). “Shamanism A” is structurally di"erent from another type of posses-sion, which de Heusch calls “possession A,” which represents an authen-tic or voluntary possession. “Possession B” comprises, as stated above, an inauthentic or involuntary possession.

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In “shamanism A” the alien being is incorporated within the body and is therefore not considered to be a condition of illness but an epiphany. !e alien being is not evil or hostile but is considered a bless-ing (de Heusch 1981:156). De Heusch claims that there is a regional di"erence between these two forms of possession:

In authentic possession (A), the African devotee does not ascend towards the gods as the Siberian shaman does; instead, the gods descend to him and — in the strongest sense of the term — take possession of his body, completely taking the place of his normal personality. (de Heusch 1981:156)

Whereas the “shaman” restores the equilibrium of the original personal-ity, authentic possession introduces a wholly new personality. !e sha-man operates alone. By using magical tricks he intentionally seeks to achieve trance. Patients (i.e., human beings who lack the supernatural gifts of the shaman) receive the trance passively, as part of a collective (de Heusch 1981:156). !e basis for authentic and inauthentic posses-sion is identical; the di"erence is the outcome and the type of signifi-cance with which the specific culture invests it (de Heusch 1981:159). Consequently, de Heusch (1981:158) distinguishes four types of sha-manism and possession:47

Adorcism ExorcismShamanism A

(return of the soul)Shamanism B

(extraction of a presence that is alien to the subject)

Possession A(injection of a new soul)

Possession B48

(extraction of a soul that is alien to the subject)

Like Eliade’s historical theory, however, this theoretical model su"ers from insurmountable empirical di#culties. De Heusch and Eliade are both unable to validate their theories by observed examples. In a later

47) !ere is also, as he calls it, a “geometry of the soul” in the model, which has “a dou-ble inverse symmetry both horizontal and vertical” (de Heusch 1981:174). 48) In “possession A” the religious specialist is “!e Master of the Spirits” because there is a voluntary incorporation of the spirits. In “possession B,” on the other hand, the condition of possession (by intrusion) of the spirits is involuntary and therefore hostile.

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article (“!e Madness of the Gods and the Reason of Men,” 1981), de Heusch admits that ethnographic data from the Inuit and the Tungus weaken and perhaps even disprove his structural model (de Heusch 1981:174).

Ethnographic studies of religions in Siberia and from the Inuit cul-tures of North America demonstrate that a particular religious specialist can be possessed by spirits, have visions of supernatural beings, and may even embark on a journey of the soul to the supernatural sphere. !ere is, therefore, no contradiction between being possessed by spirits and making a journey to the transcendental world(s) of deities and spirits. Consequently, an antithesis between the journey of the soul and being possessed by spirits cannot be established empirically. A religious specialist can master various religious techniques. !e question remains: which of these can or cannot be controlled by the so-called “shaman”?

!e Spatial Dimension of “Shamanism:” !e Journey to Non-Human Space

I have argued that an analysis of various ritual religio-magical tech-niques constitutes the only e"ective methodological strategy for creat-ing a typology of the “shaman.” As stated above, Hultkrantz, Siikala, Schröder, and Vajda agree with Eliade that the shaman can go on an expedition to the supernatural world, but they add that the shaman can also master other ritual religio-magical techniques that make contact with supernatural beings possible. For instance, the shaman can be pos-sessed, be enlightened or, as Hultkrantz asserts, have visions of the spir-its. Moreover, as already mentioned, there is a consensus among scholars that the shaman, with the help of various ritual-magical techniques, can attain a condition of ecstasy or trance. In this kind of state:

1. !e shaman can travel to the beyond, i.e., to the transcendental world of gods and spirits.

2. Supernatural beings can travel to the human world by possessing the body of the shaman. !ere are two forms of possession; the religious specialist is either voluntarily (as “Master of the Spirits”) or involuntarily possessed by an “intrusion” of the spirits.

3. !e shaman can experience visions of supernatural beings.

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We see that the first assertion di"ers from the other two in terms of where the meeting with representatives of the supernatural world takes place. In assertions two and three the encounter between the human being and the deities or spirits takes place in the human world. In asser-tion one, however, communication between humans and supernatural beings occurs in the supernatural world.

Scholars construct concepts by defining or isolating certain phenom-ena theoretically. Fundamentally, there exist two principal possibilities or rather strategies for creating a concept. One is what Hultkrantz denotes a “constitution” (Hultkrantz 1978), and the other is what Eli-ade has named a “distinction” (Eliade 1968) or, as we have seen, what Hubert and Mauss called caracteristiques di"érentielles. Hultkrantz chose several elements that he considered relevant in his definition of the sha-man in order to classify shamans as belonging to a specific category of religious specialists. He put forth what he called “the four constituents of shamanism,” which together set the shaman apart from other reli-gious specialists (Hultkrantz 1978:11–12). We may briefly summarize these four constituents as follows:

1. !e “shamanistic cosmology” contains a three-layered universe with an upper world, the human world, and a lower world. !e shamanistic ideology is conditioned by a supernatural world with which the shaman can establish contact. An axis mundi, which can be symbolized by a world tree, a pillar, a world river, or by other means, connects these ontologically di"erent spheres. !e shaman can operate in all three spheres after conducting an ecstatic ritual in which he goes on a soul voyage.

2. Shamans can have many functions in the community. !ey can act as mediums between this world and the beyond. !ey can be medicine men or women or healers, diviners, interpreters of dreams, soothsayers, psychopomps, leaders of religious practice, magicians aiding in hunting and fishing, sacrificial priests, and so forth.

3. !e auxiliary spirits are indispensable to shamans. !ey can enlighten them or assist them as their souls journey to the super-natural world (Hultkrantz 1978:20). !e auxiliary spirits arrive at the initial stages of the ritual. Shamans can either imitate

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(“imitative shamanism”) or portray the auxiliary spirits dramati-cally (“demonstrative shamanism”). !ey can also transform themselves into one of the auxiliary spirits. !ese auxiliary spirits can be theriomorphic. Either they bring information from the supernatural world, or their presence is a pre-condition for the voyage of the shaman’s soul.

4. Ritual ecstasy and trance constitute the method that the shaman employs in order to create contact with the sacred supernatural world (Hultkrantz 1978:11–12).49

By applying the “strategy of distinction” Eliade prefers instead to emphasize a certain essential aspect which distinguishes the shaman from other religious specialists, such as the priest, prophet, diviner, or medicine man (Eliade 1968:22–23). Precisely this approach is the only tenable one when a scholar wants to construct a definition of a certain type of religious specialist, because, as we have seen, a particular reli-gious specialist does not master just one religious technique but several. Unfortunately, Eliade does not follow his own strict procedure in his classic book (1968). We must, then, consider which of the three ritual techniques referred to above, possession, vision, or the journey of the soul, di"erentiate the shaman from other categories of religious specialists.

Having visions of supernatural beings and being possessed by spirits, whether as passive possession (mediumism) or controlled possession (such as the Master of the Spirits), constitute communication tech-niques which bring about a meeting with deities and spirits in the mun-dane (human) world. !ese communication techniques are, however, quite ordinary, and they are used to contact supernatural beings in cul-tures all over the world. !e vision quest of the indigenous people of the North American Plains was not even undertaken by religious specialists but by ordinary people (Benedict 1922, 1923; Lowie 1963:170–175). Furthermore, countless instances of spirit possession have

49) Cf. also Sidky’s recent extensive definition of the Nepalese jhãkri as a “shaman” (Sidky 2008: 205–212). I agree with Sidky that the jhãkri is a “shaman,” but only because he sends his “spirit,” in a healing ceremony, into the non-human space of Yama lok, the place of Yamar$ja, the Lord of Death (Sidky 2008:179).

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been documented globally.50 For instance, being possessed by spirits is quite common in Africa, whereas the voyage of the soul is not (de Heusch 1981:156; Ginzburg 1991:249). !ese religious techniques are therefore not particularly well suited for constructing the ideal types of shaman and shamanism.

!e same objection does not, however, apply to the journey to the supernatural world after a ritual. !is practice, which is extraordinarily uncommon but is not confined to religious specialists of a definite geo-graphic region (the locus classicus), is reserved for a minority of indi-viduals. It is specifically the passage of the soul to the world of the deities and spirits, i.e., to non-human spatial zones, that di"erentiates the shaman from other religious specialists. Without drawing the con-sequences of her reasoning, Siikala admits this: “!e shaman’s journey is, however, still a special feature of shamanism and is not connected with other kinds of mediumistic traditions” (Siikala 1978:21). Hence, only religious specialists who can journey to non-human spheres should be categorised by the terminus technicus “shaman.”

!e details of the so-called shamanistic cosmology — a tripartite division of heaven, human world, and underworld — vary greatly depending on the particular religious system. !ere is, however, a fun-damental distinction between what has been called the “natural world” or “human space” and the “supernatural world” or “non-human space.” For instance, Jean-Pierre Chaumeil (1982) outlines the complex cos-mology of the Yagua of northeastern Peru, as it was explained to him in detail and illustrated with a drawing by the religious specialist (i.e., sha-man) Alberto, who possessed the ability to travel to supernatural space. !e geography of the land of the dead (ancestor spirits) and deities is not known to non-religious specialists and is accordingly categorized as “supernatural.” As indicated on the map, the Yagua language gives dis-tinct names to the di"erent supernatural worlds and to the natural world (earth), i.e., the space where human beings live (Chaumeil 1982:50). We see that a change of place, in a context in which there is a radical dichotomy between mundane (human) and supernatural space, constitutes the fundamental aspect of shamanism.

50) Cf. for instance research by Erika Bourguignon, referred to in Crapanzano and Garrison (1977:7).

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Various religious specialists may in one way or another establish con-tact with the world beyond and its supernatural inhabitants. Gods, spirits, or ancestors can manifest themselves in the mundane world after a ritual manipulation by the religious specialist. It is, however, something quite di"erent when a mortal human being is capable of setting out on an expedition to the world of the deities and spirits and then of returning to the mundane world.

Like other types of religious specialists, the shaman can command various religio-magical techniques,51 but it is the spatial journey which di"erentiates the shaman from other religious specialists. Furthermore, it is important to emphasise that the shaman may undertake this voy-age not only once but many times during his or her lifetime.

Of course, other human beings, too, may visit the worlds of spirits and deities, most commonly through dreams and various states of unconsciousness. Literature and orally transmitted stories in many cul-tures tell of mortal human beings who have visited the beyond and come back alive. Among examples of this motif we may cite Orpheus’ descent to the underworld, Vergil’s experiences in the otherworld, the story of the ascent by Muhammad to heaven, and Dante’s descent to hell and ascent to heaven. Nevertheless, the protagonists of these adventures cannot be classified as shamans, because they have all been passively taken or lured to the supernatural world by a deity or spirit. Moreover, they all made this journey on only a single occasion. Only the shaman, through his or her secret knowledge and ability, can embark on numerous voyages between the mundane world and non-human space.

Supernatural space is not normally accessible to the common woman or man. Mundane beings, i.e., ordinary people without the religious specialist’s arcane knowledge inherited and acquired through tradition, are prevented from moving freely to the supernatural world. !e same is also true of religious specialists other than the shaman. According to some religious systems, ordinary human beings travel to non-human

51) He or she may be a clairvoyant, conjurer, diviner, exorcist, fortune teller, healer, holy man, magician, medicine man, medium, necromancer, oracle, prophet, rain-maker, sage, seer, soothsayer, sorcerer, visionary, warlock, wise man, witch doctor, wiz-ard, priest, prophet, or medicine man (Gilberg 1984:21, 24).

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space when they die. !is region then serves as their permanent resi-dence. Hence, when life, i.e., existence on earth, is terminated, ordi-nary people can travel, depending on the cosmology and conceptions of the religious system, to the worlds of either deities or ancestor spirits. Common people do not, however, return to earth again post mortem other than as ancestor spirits. Shamans are exceptional in that only they, as mortal human beings, can make this journey several times dur-ing their lifetimes and on their own initiative, i.e., after a ritual.

!e shaman’s power and charisma originate from direct, personal contact with supernatural beings in the beyond. It is very important to emphasize that this contact with supernatural beings takes place in the extranatural sphere, and that it arises freely at the initiative of the sha-man; it is not forced upon him or her by the spirits and deities. Other types of religious specialists communicate with supernatural beings dif-ferently. !e di"erence lies in the category of space in which the com-munication with supernatural beings takes place. !e shaman is unique by virtue of his or her communication with supernatural beings in the supernatural world.

Various religious systems encompass a conception of separate worlds or spheres, a cosmology that contains a belief in upper world(s) or lower world(s) or both. Rudolf Otto (quoted in Eliade 1965:15–16) distin-guishes between a sacred world, i.e., the world of the spirits and deities, and a profane world, i.e., the world of the human beings. !is dichot-omy of concepts has rightly been criticized for representing a dualist ideology characteristic of Judaism and Christianity. It can, however, still be useful if we content ourselves with defining the profane world as the visible (mundane) world and the sacred world (supernatural world) as the invisible world, where only a particular class of religious special-ists, namely, shamans, can travel.

Passage from a mundane to an extranormal condition demands a ritual (Van Gennep 1981 [1909]:2). It is the esoteric ritual that makes it possible for the religious specialist to travel to the supernatural world. !e ritual journey of the shaman, and not only his initiation, constitute a rite de passage in which a change of place is fundamental:

1. separation phase, the ritual preparation for ecstasy or trance in the mundane world;

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2. liminal phase, the travel to and residence in supernatural space; and

3. aggregation phase, return to the mundane world.52

!e residence of the shaman in the supernatural world is, accordingly, synonymous with the liminal phase of the rite de passage. When the shaman arrives in the beyond, he or she is “betwixt and between” (Turner 1967:97). !is exceptional religious spatial experience repre-sents the fundamental feature of the shaman as a particular category of religious specialist.

Jan Bremmer has criticized the hypothesis that the journey of the soul to the beyond is the distinctive feature of shamanism. He writes, “Ecstasy and the journey of the soul occur in too many places to be distinguishing traits” (Bremmer 1983:48). It is correct that ordinary human beings can possess a free-soul which may leave the body in order to go on a journey in a dream or in another unconscious state. In some cultures the free-souls of ordinary people can travel to the worlds of deities and (ancestor) spirits in an unconscious condition, such as a trance or a coma or during sleep and in dreams. Unlike the shaman, however, those who are not religious specialists cannot decide when they shall go on such a journey. Furthermore, ordinary human beings cannot orient themselves in the geography of preternatural world(s). !ey risk either getting lost or being forced by (evil) spirits to reside in supernatural space. In addition, they have only vague memories about what they experience in non-human space.

Another essential quality that distinguishes the shaman from ordi-nary people is that ordinary people do not have specific functions or duties which compel them to undertake journeys to the beyond. !e “shaman,” however, does not simply go on an expedition for his or her

52) Van Gennep has also observed this fact, but he does not consider the journey to the beyond as typical of the “shaman’s” activity: “Enfin, fait important, mais non pas dis-tinctif du shamanisme, la ‘shamanisation,’ ou ensemble des actes du shamane lors d’une cérémonie, comprend la même séquence: transes, mort, voyages de l’âme dans l’autre monde, retour, application au cas spécial (maladie etc.), des connaissances acquises dans le monde sacré” (Van Gennep 1981 [1909]:153–154). As can be seen from this quotation, Van Gennep confirms the procedure of the ritual but without deducing the “logical” conclusion.

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own amusement. !e voyage of the soul to the supernatural world is made in accordance with the functions and duties associated with the profession of being a shaman. !e journey to the supernatural world presupposes that the shaman has certain responsibilities, which other religious specialists cannot fulfill because of the special nature of the journey. In this way, a functional dimension (role) becomes incorpo-rated into the definition of shaman.

!e shaman operates as a mediator between human beings and gods, ancestors and other spirits. By communicating with the deities and spirits in the supernatural world, he or she becomes a diviner. !e sha-man can also be a psychopomp who guides the soul of the dead to preternatural space. Knud Rasmussen’s ethnographic fieldwork outlines how an Eskimo (Inuit) religious specialist makes a journey to the bot-tom of the sea in order to propitiate the Spirit of the Sea (also known as Sedna or “Sea Goddess”) with the intention not only of avoiding mis-fortunes but also of obtaining certain services and favors, such as secur-ing the supply of game, the return of lost souls, healing of illnesses, and so forth (Rasmussen 1979). !e angakoq, i.e., the shaman, of the Inuit can also predict bad weather by traveling to the supernatural world (Benedict 1923:18–19). !e Tungus shaman travels to the upper world in order to bring animal sacrifices to the spirits. He or she does this in order to create direct contact with the spirits and to cure disease (Shi-rokogoro" 1935:310–311). When there is a sickness caused by the abduction of a patient’s soul by evil spirits, the shaman acts as a medi-cine man. He or she locates the lost soul in the underworld and brings it back to its owner.

!ere are innumerable examples from various cultures and religious systems of medicine men and women acting as so-called “soul doctors.” It is crucial, however, that these specialists not be designated as “sha-mans.” A key distinction needs to be made here. !ese medicine men or “healers” do find and bring back the lost soul to the patient’s body, but in these cases the free-soul has disappeared into the mundane, not the supernatural, world. If the free-soul had been abducted or lost its way in preternatural space, the “soul doctor” would still be able to call it back, but only by using various ritual techniques, not by travel-ling to the supernatural world. Only the shaman, by means of a special religio-magical technique, can locate the lost soul in the beyond and

60 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

transport it back to earth in order to re-incorporate it into the body of the patient.

!ere is also a militaristic form of shamanism, in which combat takes place in the supernatural world between the shaman and witches and spirits. In this case the shaman travels to the supernatural world with the intention of fighting the evil spirits. For example, the free-soul of the Friuli benandanti sometimes left the body transformed as a mouse or a butterfly sitting on another animal, such as a cat or a rabbit. It then fought against witches in fertility battles in the underworld. In addi-tion, the Friuli benandanti could meet with the dead in the underworld (Ginzburg 1991:155).53

!us, the journey to non-human space in order to conduct impor-tant functions for the community is the fundamental characteristic of the shaman. It is this characteristic which distinguishes shamans from other categories of religious specialists.

“Shamanism:” A Configuration within a Religious System

!e term “shamanism” is employed by many scholars, in particular by those who confine the shaman geographically to a supposed locus clas-sicus, as a concept to designate the religious system of so-called “indig-enous cultures” with no ties to major traditions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.54 Shamanism does not, however, comprise a religion but only a system of beliefs and practices that may exist within a religious system. Within any community or

53) Other examples of ecstasy, accompanied by a journey to the world of the dead riding an animal or through a transformation into animals in order to fight the dead spirits in fertility battles, are represented by the Ossetic burkudzäutä, Baltic werewolves, kresniki from the Balkan, and Hungarian táltos (Ginzburg 1991:164, 165–166, 171).54) Pentikäinen writes that, as an –ism, shamanism is too closely associated with defi-nitions suggested by Christian scholars, and that “shamanhood” constitutes the “mythology, way of life and philosophy” of shamanic cultures (Pentikäinen 1998a:36). I do not see how the term “shamanhood” as a synonym of the Russian word samanstvo would constitute a better notion than “shamanism,” as Pentikäinen and Simoncscis (2005:7) suggest. It remains to be explained how indigenous people outside Northern Asia and Europe would feel more comfortable identifying with this concept.

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culture only quite a small minority of individuals hold the position of shaman. Shamanism is associated with these few religious specialists, who carry out esoteric ritual practices and who do not dominate the religious conceptions and practices of the community as a whole.55 Many religious specialists who operate within what has been called “shamanistic cultures” are not necessarily shamans. Moreover, there are numerous cases in which shamanism coexists with other concepts and ritual practices, such as Christianity or Buddhism (Shirokogoro" 1935:276). It is an over-simplification to assert, for instance, that the religion of the Siberian tribes is shamanism. !e term “shamanism” simply implies that one or several religious specialists within a culture know the arcane ritual methods needed to travel to supernatural space in order to perform necessary duties and functions for the benefit of the community and its individual members. !e shaman is only a part of a larger religious system, the kind of part that Hultkrantz calls a “reli-gious configuration” (Hultkrantz 1978:11).56 Shamanism does not constitute an independent religion, since to a great extent the mythol-ogy, rituals, and institutions of a particular group have little or nothing to do with the shaman.57

Scholars have raised questions not only about the concept “religion” (cf. for instance Fitzgerald 2000) but also about designations such as “Buddhism,” “Christianity,” “Hinduism,” “Islam,” and “Judaism.” !ey fail, however, to realize that these, too, are concepts that should be

55) Avvakum, the man who introduced the word saman into the Russian language, only described the Tungus “shaman,” but not “shamanism” (Kettunen 1998:1).56) “Shamanism” does have its own religious or ideological system of belief and practices comprising institutions, myths, symbols, rituals, and so forth that are semi-independent of the general religious complex. It can in some cultures be the dominat-ing ideology within the religious system because powerful “shamans” quite often tend to be influential figures. But this is conditioned by the cultural tradition (Siikala 1978:12–13; 1992:19). 57) Consider, e.g., the following statements: “Shamanism itself is not, however, a reli-gion, but rather a complex of di"erent rites and beliefs surrounding the shaman con-nected with very di"erent religious systems” (Siikala 1978:1); “shamanism which is primarily found in Siberia and Inner Asia is not a religion but the religious activity connected to the shaman which is present in di"erent religious complexes” (Siikala 1978:1); “généralement, le chamanisme coexiste avec d’autres formes de magie et de religion” (Eliade 1968:22).

62 L. K. Pharo / Numen 58 (2011) 6–70

perceived as ideal types within an analytic terminology. Partly quoting and partly rephrasing what I have previously written about a definition of the concept “religion” (Pharo 2007), let me suggest here that rather than employing a dichotomy such as that between the “holy” or “sacred” and the “profane,” which are terms strongly associated with Jewish and Christian paradigms, scholars should instead accentuate the non-human/non-natural domain in defining religious phenomena and the concept “religion.” As an ideal type, “religion” provides an analytical perspective that is useful in examining human experiences and prac-tices, ways of life, and worldviews. A linguistic polarization between the human and the non-human or non-natural is a reasonable point of departure in defining the term “religion.” According to my definition, non-human or non-natural elements belong to the religious domain. !is domain influences the lives of people and determines their world-view and experiences — in stories or myths, in actions or ritual prac-tices, in the organization of society or the community by socio-political institutions, in the economy, judicial system, structures, space, and concepts of time (Pharo 2007, 2009).

“Shaman” and “Shamanism” as Constructed Transcultural Concepts in Religious Studies

After an examination of central theories concerning the definition of the concepts “shaman” and “shamanism,” I have argued that only a methodical, historical-religious analysis of religious rituals can establish a typology of this religious specialist. !e shaman is a religious specialist who masters various culturally determined religious techniques that make it possible for him or her to communicate with supernatural beings like deities, ancestors, and spirits in the non-human world. In this way he or she is a direct mediator between the gods, spirits, and ancestors and human beings. Furthermore, the cultural and religious concept of space is fundamental. !e ritual techniques concerned make it possible for this particular religious specialist not only to come into contact with representatives of supernatural space but also to obtain favors from them.

I have demonstrated that this category of religious specialist is to be identified by the technique(s) that he or she commands. It is important

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to emphasize that this religious specialist, which by historical coinci-dence has come to be designated as a “shaman,” is not modeled on any concrete historical individuals but constitutes an abstract concept or an ideal type, i.e., a typological construction made after a comparative analysis of religious specialists found in various cultures around the world.

!e shaman varies from one culture to another in terms of psychic health, functions, social status, institutions, myths, symbols, rituals, costumes and masks (paraphernalia), and so on. Even if the shaman in any given cultural and religious context has special ritual attributes and symbols which distinguish him or her from other religious specialists, there are no universal “shamanic” symbols.58 As a consequence, “sha-manic” symbols, myths, rituals, and institutions di"er from one reli-gious system to the other, both culturally and historically.59

Constructing cross-cultural religious concepts requires us to consider fundamental issues concerning language and the translation of catego-ries. Within di"erent, and sometimes even within the same, religious systems religious specialists designated by various terms from their own language undertake a journey to supernatural space on behalf of either the community or of individuals. It is my contention that such indi-viduals perform a “shamanistic” religious technique and thereby consti-tute the analytical category “shaman.” Accordingly, religious specialists, designated by di"erent words in their own languages, are to be catego-rized by the term “shaman.”

Shamans exist in a variety of cultural and historical contexts, but a fundamental morphological similarity, specifically, special esoteric religious techniques, set them apart. !is legitimates the use of the transcultural designation “shaman.” It follows that, according to my

58) For example, even within the tribe of the Tungus the meaning, origin, function and symbolic significance vary among the religious specialists (Shirokogoro" 1935:303). Siikala maintain that “the legends of journey to the other world and meetings with various spirit beings were molded in content and shape according to the shamanic tradition peculiar to each ethnic group” (Siikala 1978:23). 59) !ere is no “pure shamanism” (Eliade 1968:27). “Shamanism” undergoes, as is the case with other cultural-religious phenomena, a process of transformation. !is may happen due to the external influence of other religions and cultures and via social, political and historical changes.

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theoretical classification, shamans and shamanism can be present not only within nomadic small-scale cultures (the locus classicus) but in principle within any type of civilization. Ginzburg asserts that hunting rituals in nomadic cultures can be transformed into fertility rituals in agricultural societies (Ginzburg 1991:164, 165–166). In communities of nomadic shepherds shamans fall into ecstasy in order to procure reindeer. !eir counterparts in agricultural communities execute the same procedure in order to procure rye, wheat, or grapes, depending on the climate and geographical location (Ginzburg 1991:171).

!e public or private character of the ritual is of minor significance.

Ginzburg maintains that the shaman in Eurasia conducts ceremonies in public while other rituals are conducted in private (Ginzburg 1991:171–172). !e shaman does not only practice on a religious level but also performs among the people of the community. It is therefore important that the scholar be able to identify a belief among the other members of the community according to which a religious specialist can travel to supernatural space after conducting a ritual (Siikala 1978:311). In the absence of this belief the notion of the shaman lacks any religious or social meaning.

As we have seen, in addition to having the ability to travel to the supernatural world, the shaman can master several other religious tech-niques. He or she is exceptional, however, in practicing a very powerful religious technique that enables him or her to achieve direct personal contact with the deities and (ancestor) spirits. !e repeated journey between the ontologically di"erentiated world(s) sets the shaman apart. His or her religious experience is di"erent from that of other human beings, including other religious specialists, and it is this di"erent expe-rience which gives the shaman a prestige and charisma that may make him or her a powerful member of the community. !e shaman’s excep-tional ability, however, can be ambivalent, because it risks provoking distrust of the shaman among the other members of the community, who may fear that he or she can misuse ritual power in order to carry out harmful actions. Nevertheless, shamans are characterized by their constructive roles and by their activity on behalf of the individual and the community. !ey do not conduct dramatic journeys for the sake of their own personal satisfaction.

!e rituals, symbols, myths, and institutions connected to the activ-ity of the shaman represent the ideology and ritual practices of shaman-

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ism. Following Hultkrantz (1978:11), I accordingly define “shamanism” as a “configuration” within the religious system of a culture. I caution, however, against classifying the religion of a certain people or culture as “shamanistic.” !is constitutes a form of reductionism that will auto-matically obscure other kinds of religious beliefs and practices within the culture in question.

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my thanks to Senior Scientist Søren Wichmann, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and Leiden University; Professor Jens Braarvig, University of Oslo; Research Fellow Amund Bjørsnøs, University of Oslo, and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments and suggestions.

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