Article

PP.

Bernard Saladin d’Anglure

Erotic Dreams, Mystical Kinship and Shamanism

5-12

Ulla Odgaard

Palaeo-Eskimoic Shamanism

25-30

Birgette Sonne

Sources of Greenlandic Shamanism

31-8

Rane Willerslev

Hunting and Shamanism among the Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs

44-50

Adrie:nne Heijnen

Dream-Sharing in Contemporary Iceland

54-6

Annette Ho/st

Exploring Seidr

73-9

p. 7b

In Peru`, "a Shipibo shaman told ... how ... his paternal grandmother had dreamt that she had sexual intercourse with a human-like cha`iconibo spirit. She became pregnant ... and, at birth, it was predicted that the child would become a shaman."

p. 8a

The generic term for such creatures is iziraq. One particular type is called nuliayuq. This is a woman {goddess} in the iziraq category who marries a normal {mortal} human husband. The term also refers to iziraq who copulate with men while remaining invisible to them. Often this takes place while the man is sleeping; he thinks he is having a dream and he awakes only when he reaches a climax. ... (p. 154)." {Could the author (ESB) simply mean that the dreaming man is dreaming of having sexual intercourse with a goddess who is very visible to him in the dream, but who would be not visible to anyone who, in the waking world, would look at his sleeping body? Or, could the author mean that the dreaming man is having sexual intercourse with a goddess in a dreaming wherein she is invisible to him [houri-s are transparent-bodied goddesses who have sexual intercourse with men in Paradise, according to orthodox >islam]? Or, could the author intend a dream of false-awakening with a similar continuation?}

"The same belief prevails among the Inuit of Canada’s Arctic, among whom we have noted cases of several men and women who not only had a reputation of having entered into love relations with invisible spirits but also had an invisible progeny." {Instances of this (having progeny in the dream-world through sexual intercourse in dreams) are also described in the literature of the Qabbalah in Poland.}

In Eastern Greenland, they are given the name Uizerq (cf. cf. R. Gessain 1975 ...), a kind of androgynous spirit ... possessing them sexually." {I have come across a gendre-shifting deity, one willing for sexual activity with a mortal, in a dream of mine.}

An erotic relationship exists between men and animals. this contact is made through dreams, nightmares {could an erotic dream be a "nightmare?"}, and visions {! perhaps a waking view of a female animal by a man?}, or simply through flights of the imagination. {imaginative ritual prayers about sexual intercourse between man and female-animal-bodied goddess?} In such cases, the animal { female-animal-bodied goddess} becomes a sexual object {object of devout attention}, a willing succubus {succuba} who, having been impregnated by the man, multiplies in tern the animal species. {The female-animal-bodied goddess, having been impregnated by a man in his dream, is thereby incited to induce female animals in the waking-world to become impraegnated?} ... When a hunting expedition is prolonged ... the animals appear in the men’s dreams and, in the form of young teasing girls, they seduce them ... once back in their maloca the men fall ill and die". {So, in the Desana system, whereas the female-animal-bodied goddesses are beneficial in dreams by men, the woman-bodied goddesses are fatal in dreams by men; just the reverse of the Eskimo system, where although the woman-bodied goddesses are benign in dreams by men, yet nevertheless, appearing in "giant" size, "the animal helping spirits were considered to be ... dangerous, often aggressive." (supra, p. 8a)}

"R. Hayamon (1990) cites examples of dream experiences by Siberian hunters (with the spirit of their game animal) and by male shamans (with the daughter of the animal spirit master)."

"Before becoming pregnant, my mother dreamt that she would marry the Smallpox Spirit. On waking up, she told her family that her child would be a shaman thanks to this spirit".

"The Shipibo shamans use certain plants to bring themselves into a dream state and enter into communication with spirits." [p. 11, n. 15 : "G. Arevalo (1985:5) has listed nearly twenty of these plants."]

"With regard to Siberia, ... its is as if everyone can "love" in the supernatural world but only some can "marry."

"P. Erikson (1987:113) has pointed out the problematic nature of marriage with a female spirit in the Amazonian area. There is not true reciprocity ... in the mystical marriage, the spirit in-laws providing both the wife and the game animal".

p. 9b

"A generic term designates among the Inuit the human-like invisible spirits ... . It is the term Ijiraq (plural : Ijirait or Ijiqqat), known from northern Alaska to the Quebec-Labrador Peninsula and whose name refers to invisibility."

"Among the Shipibo ..., the cha`iconibo spirits can make themselves invisible, by using herbs with magic powers. ... Among the Inuit they can cause a thick fog to form or inflict blindness on these who pursue them. Or they may erase all remembrance of a relationship with them. The Inuit shaman Amarualik ... has two invisible wifes [sic! "wives who were"] spirits. They had approached him ... and appeared to him whenever he went inland to go caribou hunting. When he came back to the coast, he forgot all about his invisible family. The relationship continued after he remarried with [a mortal woman]. ... He fell ill and only on the point of death did he remember everything and confess it".

"Another shaman also entered into a marriage with an ijiraq female spirit, who provided him from then on with much success when hunting caribou. He then married an Inuit woman ... . Nonetheless, his invisible in-laws kept on supplying him with caribou. On his deathbed, he told the rest of his family about the relationship. He told them that he was going to live among the ijirait".

"In a village on Baffin Island, at Clyde River, an old man ... had been married in his youth to an invisible spirit, a tarriaksuk, and had a daughter by her. His shaman grandfather had introduced him to these invisible beings."

"On the Belcher Islands, in Hudson Bay, a female shaman, Quqsulaat, disappeared on day from the camp where she lived. News of her came long after, when an Inuk ... was met by a stranger who invited him to his abode, in a home carved out of the rock. It was a tuurngaq, an invisible spirit (the same term is also used for a shaman’s helping spirit). With him lived Quqsulaat, whom he had married. They had two grown children. He regularly rejuvenated his wife by eating her. ...

p. 10a

[The Inuk] lived for a while with the tuurngaq and had sexual relations with his daughter, who wished to keep him as a husband."

"We have, however, found in the manuscript archives of S. Frederiksen a reference to a shaman from Hudson Bay, Ijikki, who had married his helping spirit, named Akkaqut."

"a Shipibo shaman had attained a high degree of power after his marriage with a Cha`iconi female spirit. She assisted him in his healing treatments, ... an provided him with an abundance of game animals and fish ... . ... They had two children together, a son and a daughter who, after the departure of their mother, continued to provide their father with assistance, by becoming his helping spirits."

each of these tributaries belongs to the shamans of different clans (Vasilivich 1963:56).

This great clan world ... stood isolated from all others, being sealed within its clan boundaries. {Are these "clan boundaries" aequivalent to the mountain-ranges of Loka-aloka, separating triple world-systems (as described in the Abhidharma)?} ... (Anisimov 1963a:112)."

p. 31a

"William Thalbitzer (1910 ...), in 1905-06 did fieldwork in the Ammassalik area".

p. 31b

"about 1910, Knud Rasmussen undertook ... the Thule District".

northwest Greenland "the Upernavik district" : "in the 1950s to take down a good number of stories ... was done by ... Hans Lynge , who in addition to stories about the effects of amulets, formulas, healing rites, and sorcery, was also told events in the lives of historical shamans, and two biographies of shamans, both females".

p. 32b

"the internal light that would attract the spirits ... is the famous internal light, qaamaneq, which is well-documented for East-Greenlandic (see Thalbitzer 1930 in particular) Igloolik ... and , if to a lesser degree, also for West Greenlandic shamans (Rink 1866-71,II:201). This internal light could be seen only by other shamans and by those living in the other world ... : the world of spirits. The shamans, who had already acquired that light, could see the light inside apprentice shamans ... . Similarly the helping spirits could "read" the thoughts of their shaman, and he merely had to think of them in order to make them appear."

p. 33a

A certain East-Greenland shamaness "did acquire the internal light by throwing stones : innocently playing ‘ducks and drakes’ [skipping flat stones along a water’s surface] at a lake, she called forth the giant polar bear with the same appetite and revolting stomach" ["being eaten ... vomited"]".

p. 35b

story about the historical shaman of the settlement Karrat in the Godta.b fjord : "every time people considered him dead, his breath returned to his body with a tremendous roar. Eventually the family succeeded in keeping his breath ... by covering his face with the dog skin he used to sit on in his kayak. ... (... Rink 1866-71,I, No. 112)."

p. 36a

"the East-G[r]eenlandic shaman, in preparation for a spirit-flight, would press down his breath, right down and out through the anus, to some place beneath the floor. Room was thus made for his helping spirits to enter his body in turns and entertain the audience {spirit-possession in spirit-mediumship}, while his so-called free-soul, the tarneq, was free to undertake the spirit flight {This is an instance of where (P 418, p. 804) "the consciousness (or the self) of the sensitive travels projected in the psychosoma in a lucid projection, while simultaneously ...– the human body of the sensitive-projector can temporarily be occupied by a benefactor extraphysical consciousness ..., in the case of common psychophony (benign possession)". (Is this related to projection of the mental-body?)} in company with some of his helping spirits. Upon return the tarneq would enter the body first, next his breath would rise from below, up through the anus, and make itself heard with a shriek ... (... Sandgreen 1967,I:119f; 1987:160f).

The only deviance from this East-Greenlandic tradition in the story of the shaman from Karrat seems to be the act of his preventing his breath from returning by covering his face with a skin. Had they not better cover his anus? On the other hand, this particular skin was ... one he used to sit on in his kayak. Consequently, ... the skin, associated with the anus, ... the release of the roar, the sound of coming back to life."

{"covered with cotton to sit on in order to close the anus and ... the alchemical agent will and enter and rise up in the channel of control ... . ... Then he should gently and slowly roll his eyes once acting like a goat slowly drawing a cart uphill" (TY, p. 142). The god who rideth the chariot pulled by goats is Pus.an, who removeth (R.c Veda 1:42:1-3) the wolf from the path, and who overcame (according to the Veda) a 2-headed mythic wolf = the "dog" on p. 35b supra. Pus.an also navigateth his (R.c Veda 6:63:3) "golden ships" = the "kayak" on p. 35b supra.}

p. 36a

This story refers ... to the East-Greenlandic initiation rite of becoming a shaman with pooq, that is a bag ... . During this ritual, once performed by the historical shaman Aggu (... O. Rosing 1957-61,I:112-116; J. Rosing 1963:245-247), the shaman was, in a kind of relay race, thrown across the sea to the horizon by a polar bear and a walrus, at which point he lost every bit of his flesh, piece

p. 36b

Anyway, the hunting bladder was a bag, a kind of pooq, and according to one explanation offered by the East Greenlanders, a shaman with a pooq was capable of wrapping himself up and traveling unharmed by spirits with evil intent (O. Rosing 1[9]57-61,I:84; J. Rosing 1963:190). ... . ... in ... Northwest Greenland ... the pooq, specified as the membrane {caul} of the foetus, was only an amulet. But ..., ... it made its owner invisible to attacking polar bears ... (H. Lynge 1955:62,64; 1967:42).

p. 46b

after the killing of a prey-animal by hunters : "The spirit of the animal, or its disembodied aspect, is thought to remain near its slain body, with the prospect of taking revenge for its forced disembodiment, and a hunter runs the risk of being cursed with a sickness or misfortune by the animal’s spirit (... Kwon 1998:119)."

p. 47b

"If, in a dream, a hunter encounters a particular animal and it expressed affection for him by, for instance, giving some of its hair, it means that he is a privileged individual, favoured by that particular species. "He has the luck" ("pe`jul"), the Yukaghirs say, and must therefore go to the Taiga to hunt."

p. 49b, n. 7

Similar practices are also to be found in relation to moose and reindeer hunting. ... Above the butchered meat, a small wooden figure is placed on a string. The figure is painted with the blood of the killed animal, and is said to be a miniature model of the hunter. It serves the ... purpose of ... leaving the "murder" behind."

"In addition to curing the sick, foretelling the future and making offerings, the traditional Yukaghir shaman ("a>lma", meaning "to do") also represented his clan ... . ... when a shaman died, he became the subject of a particular cult : his flesh was removed from his bones and dried, to be worn under the clothes of the clan members as amulets ... . The skull of the shaman was made into an idol, which was "fed" daily and "asked" for advice by the living clan when some important undertaking was to be carried out (e.g., ... hunting expeditions)."

"His master was the Owner of the animals ("lebien pogila") who taught him how to transform into different animals, speak and understand their languages, and take on their view of the world."

p. 51a

"the legend about the seal woman ... written down in the Faroese language ... registered two variants : the Mikladalur variant from Kalsoy and the Ska`lavi`k variant from Sandoy. ... Many variants of the legend of the seal woman are found in Ireland, Scotland, on Orkney and Shetland, and in Iceland".

"the seal swim to the beach ...; they take off their seal skins, and become extremely beautiful people. The transformation takes place ... before sunrise. It often happens on ... the night between the fifth and sixth of January, ‘Twelfth Night’, ... the last day of Christmas. A man ... discovers the seal people, takes the skin of the most beautiful woman, and she follows him. Back home, he hides the skin. In all the variants the woman finds her skin. She ... takes the skin, becomes a seal again and plunges into the sea. The Mikladalur variant is the only one ... which contains this second part : many years later, the seal woman appears to the man in a dream, warns him and says that if he

p. 51b

goes hunting ..., he must ... not kill the male seal or the two pups that will be lying at the very back of the cave. The male seal is her mate ... . The farmer pays no heed to this dream ... . ... During dinner are ... the appearance of the seal woman ... . She shouts ... : "... avenged it will be on the men of Mikladalur! ... And this will go on until so many have died that they can hold hands and reach all the way around Kalsoy!" ... Seals were actually people who of their own free will plunged themselves into the ocean and drowned." {In [the 2^nd subgroup of] a Lappish myth ("FM"), "the old man visited his middle daughter, who had married a seal", and there [in the 17^th story] he used a "seal skin" blanket; while the suitors’ carving [in the 9^th and 14^th stories] ladles ("piggins") may indicate their being possessing-spirits, inasmuch as ladles (dippers) are utilized in Omoto (of Japan) spirit-mediumship.} {Perhaps the drowned seal-people holding hands may have been intended to protect Kalsoy from being inundated from the ocean, judging from the myth why "Menehunes came running from all over the island and formed a line by holding hands." ("HM")}

p. 54a

"The traditional Icelandic idea is that by dreaming it is possible to contact another, supernatural world, and to gain knowledge of events which will happen in the future, or are happening far away at the same time as the dream occurs. A person who has experienced these kinds of dreams more than once is called berdreyminn. Ber means naked or clear, so berdreyminn refers to the ability to dream clearly, to see things that are hidden".

p. 54b

"Besides saga literature, many folk stories ... can tell us about the role dreams played ... . They contain examples ... where dreams were used to find answers as to where lost sheep could be found, and what the coming winter would be like."

p. 55a

A name-giving goddess "who appeared in the dream was an a`lfkona."

p. 56b, n. 3

"An a`lfkona is a woman of the a`lfar {elves} ... . Sometimes, as in this case, they are seen as similar to huldufo`lk (hidden people), who have their houses ... in rocks ..., but are invisible most of the time, except if they want to show themselves. It is possible to meet them whilst awake, but contact between a`lfar/huldufo`lk and humans quite often takes place in dreams. E.g., ... a marriage can take place between humans and a`lfar".

p. 55b

"In the traditional Icelandic model, dreams are a means of interaction between human beings and beings living in the supernatural world. Both worlds can take the initiative to contact one another. The supernatural world exists independently ..., and ... the two worlds are conceived as real. ...

p. 56a

Nevertheless, even the most fervent defenders of science in modern Iceland have grown up in a culture where it is seen as possible to contact the supernatural world by way of dreams. ... Most dreams which are seen as a potential source of information about the future, the present, or the past are characterised by certain symbols and structure. The ... meeting with a dead friend or relative in a dream, or a "scientifically" inexplicable situation, can be a sign that the supernatural world is trying to make contact".

This ritual procedure closely follows the pattern ... described in most detail in Erik the red’s saga."