shaman

A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a medium between the visible world and an invisible spirit world and who practices magic or sorcery for purposes of healing, divination, and control over natural events.

[Russian, from Tungus šaman, Buddhist monk, shaman, from Tocharian B ṣamāne, monk, from Prakrit ṣamana, from Sanskrit śramaṇaḥ, from śrámaḥ, religious exercise.]

In the morning of June 30, 1908, the most powerful explosion in recorded human history took place in the sky over the Tunguska region of central Siberia. According to eyewitnesses, its cause was the wrath of a shaman.

A shaman is a person with exceptional powers over nature. The Tungus people, as they are known to outsiders, or Evenki, as they call themselves, use shaman as both a noun and a verb, and their practice of shamanism has given this word to anthropologists and comparative religionists the world over.

Magankan, the Tunguska shaman, had already demonstrated his powers by catching a bullet shot at him and by stabbing his own chest without leaving a scratch. But his greatest feat was summoning a huge flock of agdi, the birds that produce the thunder, for the explosion over the land of a rival Evenki clan. It flattened nearly a thousand square miles of forest and started a fire that burned for weeks, sending ash so high that it circled the Northern Hemisphere, making sunsets bright. Needless to say, it scared away his rivals for good.

This is the story they told some twenty years later to the first scientist to reach the remote, swampy, mosquito-ridden site. Since then, the scientists have given other explanations. The forty-megaton explosion, two thousand times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, is now generally thought to have been caused by a meteorite or comet that exploded in the Earth's dense atmosphere. But there are still Evenki who think differently.

Long before that big bang, English speakers had taken note of shamans. A book published in 1698 explains, "If five or six of the Tonguese families happen to live near one another ... they maintain betwixt them a Shaman, which signifies as much as Sorcerer or Priest."

The Tungus or Evenki are found over a wide area of both Siberia and northern China, though they are not particularly numerous. There are about 30,000 in Siberia, about one-third of them speaking Evenki as a native language, and another 10,000 in China who speak Evenki. It is an Altaic language. One other Evenki word in English is pika (1827), the name of a little round-eared rabbit with a squeaky voice.

For more information on shaman, visit Britannica.com.

The magician or "medicine man" of primitive tribes, with powers of healing, prophecy, or paranormal phenomena. The term is thought to derive from Tungus shaman and Sanskrit sramana (ascetic). As distinct from priests, shamans have no ritualistic knowledge, but operate rather as occult adepts. Their primary ability, at least in their Siberian setting, was the power of astral travel. The gift of shamanism is often a hereditary function, and its nature is communicated orally from one shaman to another.

Shamanism has been studied among the Eskimos and in Scandinavia, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, Siberia, Manchuria, Mexico, Yutacan, Guatemala, and the North Pacific coast. A shamanistic performance often includes dancing, a mediumistic trance, and spirit possession. The role of the shaman (and shamaness) became the subject of a new movement in the West that began in the 1980s primarily through the work of Michael Harder and a number of popular teachers (many with Matove American backgrounds) who have developed a neo-Shamanism that draws on many themes emphasized in the New Age movement. Neo-Shamanist leaders have varied: some, such as Sun-Bear, have attempted to translate traditional Native American themes into useful practice for those outside of the Native American community. Other have developed new systems claiming Native American esoteric traditions as a base (Lynn Andrews) and still others have simply taken traditional occult teachings upon which they have placed a Native American overlay.

Sources:

Andrews, Lynn V. Star Woman. New York: Warner Books, 1986.

Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Harder, Michael. Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing. New York: Bantam Books, 1982.

Sun Bear. Path of Power. Spokane, Wash.: Bear Tribe Publishing, 1983.

Common misspelling(s) of shamans

• shamen

Dansk (Danish)
n. - shaman

Nederlands (Dutch)
sjamaan

Français (French)
n. - chaman

Deutsch (German)
n. - Schamane

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - σαμάν, μάγος-ιερέας

Italiano (Italian)
sciamano

Português (Portuguese)
n. - xamã (m)

Русский (Russian)
шаман

Español (Spanish)
n. - chamán, shamán

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - schaman

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
萨满教的道士, 僧人或巫师

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 薩滿教的道士, 僧人或巫師

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 샤먼, 주술사, 마술사

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - シャーマン

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ألشامان " كاهن يستخدم ألسحر لمعالجه ألمرضى ولكشف ألمخبأ وللسيطرة على ألأحداث‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮שאמאן (כוהן), רופא אליל‬

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