Siberian Shamanism

[Oresai]

An old news article, but still interesting I think. :)


Siberian shamans: ancient magic in the modern world
It’s been three hundred years since people in the remote land of Khakassia in Siberia adopted Christianity, but they still cling to many pagan traditions. Their ancient culture still believes in the mysterious healing powers of shamans.

Anna says a pole with ribbons represents the nearby mountain's spirit. She offers some vodka and bread in sacrifice to the gods every day and performs it with total dedication.

She says something bad may occur if she fails to win the spirit's favour – for instance, a road accident or sickness.

“Once the spirit kept my mother's grandfather in a pond where he went to swim till dusk,” says Anna.

According to the shaman community, all of them have their own protectors. It could be birds or animals or even humans. Alisa Kyzlasova, who is a shaman and an actress, refuses to say where her supernatural powers come from.

“There is fierce competition among us. I'll never reveal what or who my protectors are. Shamans who are stronger than me may win them over, and then all my power may vanish!” Alisa says.

The looks of some of the Khakas shamans fully correspond to the typical image of a shaman, with special clothes and ritual dances. But not all of them look like sorcerers.

Svetlana Ugdyzhekova dreamed of a career as an archaeologist. Her ambition was to find the grave of Genghis Khan. Instead, being a hereditary shaman, she became a doctor and psychotherapist.

“I believe my exceptional abilities were given to me to help people. For instance, I am able to prevent some events if they are a threat to me or to my friends and relatives,” Svetlana says.


http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/26573

[Treffie]

Anything related to Siberian shamanism intrigues me. The Yukaghir in eastern Siberia in particular.

Some tales of eastern Siberia.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/tes/tes36.htm

[Odin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4zdIQqxzIU

[sean]

Siberia is one of the places where shamanism has survived intact from ancient times and recent research into the Denisovan Cave region is yielding results suggesting that it might have been the birth place of shamanism and the cultural influence which would later sweep West to Gobekli Tepe and Giza.

Shamanism is a term used to describe a range of similar practises which are found across the whole world. There are variants of Shamanism in Africa, the Americas, New Guinea, etc. and they all do the same things but have their different pantheons and specific techniques.

Interestingly enough, some of the Native American descriptions of thunderbirds actually cast them as a sort of "tribe" that live in the mountains and can shapeshift between a humanoid and bird form. This has led to speculation that these are very, very ancient myths that trace back to Siberian bird shamanism (shamans being famous for their ability to shapeshift into animals, at the least in representation through donning skins or, in this case, feathered cloaks).

With a shaman, they will generally have a pantheistic view, that god is the universe and the things in it are all part of god. They'll use psychedelics, starvation, or a mix of both to go on spirit quests/have visions/commune with spirits/tell the future.

The Amanita mushroom plays a huge role in many of their rites. The mushrooms are too toxic for humans to eat straight so they fed them to reindeer first and then drank the piss. The reindeers are apparently immune to the fatal effects of the Amanita.

In high enough quantities, the mushrooms could make the berserkers do unnatural and inhuman things. Vikings used Amanita and were known to fight in wild frenzies with superhuman strength.

Juniper and thyme were used in shamanistic practices and as analgesics. Fly agaric mushrooms were powerful hallucinogens commonly used in Northern Siberia. Cannabis was common in the region and is often found in burials.

Shamans will serve as the spiritual and often medical leader of a village. They usually have some ecologically important animal designated as being a frequent avatar of the pantheistic god/as being especially holy. This is usually bears, crows, reindeers, or wolves.

In the 1960's, Soviet archaeologists were excavating a Siberian burial site known as Ekven on the edge of the Arctic Circle when they uncovered a magnificent wooden mask, complete with staring eyes carved from bone.

It was one of the most remarkable shaman graves of the Old Bering culture, which thrived in the area some 2,000 years ago. The grave was packed full of objects precious to the Old Bering people.

In 2019, when they unearthed an ancient shaman's grave in Siberia's Novosibirsk region, they found him buried 5000 years ago with a headdress of bird beaks and skulls, and an unusual bronze mask.

Yup’ik shamans wore incredible painted masks out of wood, even the tribes that didn’t even wear clothes still used costumes in ceremonies, imbued with functions and meanings that, today, are barely understood.

In pre-Christian Slavic lands, zduhać was a man who used supernatural powers to protect his village and attack other villages. Scholars are unsure about the origin of the zduhać tradition, but it seems to be a corrupted form of the Eurasian shamans. The shaman tradition most likely travelled west with Trans-Siberian Finno-Ugric and Uralic ethnic groups.

In Siberian shamanism there are at least two kinds of souls. One that controls the body and one that reincarnates. The soul resides in the bones.

In 1390, the Inquisition in Milan questioned two witches on trial, who confessed to being part of a cult with connections to ancient Siberian shamanism, which met regularly in the houses of wealthy Milanese merchants. They were known for resurrecting dead animals using just the bones.

However, this is disputed. The Inquisition itself apparently decided the testimony was unreliable and released the two women. But they were rearrested a few years later and executed for witchcraft.