p. 11

The next night, ... the shaman ...

p. 12

The shaman collapses and falls to the ground, helplessly stretched out."

tribes

animal-species

Koryak, Yukaghir, Itelmen

hound

Ob Ugrian

reindeer

Finno-Ugrian of Volga area

cow & sheep

H^anti & Nanai of Amur region

cockerel & swine

Ainu

bear

Mongolic & Turkic

horse

Manc^u & Korea

swine

type

function

s^iurinka

"healer"

nemati

officiating at memorial celebration for the dead

kas^atai

"capable of guiding the soul of the dead to the other world."

p. 15

"he lay unconscious ... for three days ... . During this time he heard the voice ... which said to him, ‘The Lord of the Waters is goping to give you the gift of shamanship. Your shamanic name will be Huttari (Swimmer)!’ ... He came out and ascended a mountain. There he met a naked woman and started sucking at hear breast. the woman, who was ... Water-Mother, said to him, ‘You are my child, this is why I allow you to suck ... .

p. 16

The mouse and ermine, the two helpers then lead him up to a tall and round mountain. He noticed a cleft in front of him and entered a very bright cave covered by ice, and in the middle there ... saw two women who were naked but covered with fur, just like reindeer. Then he noticed that ... the light was coming from above, through a hole. One of the women informed him that she was pregnant, and was going to give birth to two reindeer. One is to be the sacrificial animal of the Dolgan and the Evenki, the other of the Tavgi. ... The other woman was also going to bear two reindeer, animals which will help man in all his labours ... . The cave had two

p. 17

Then the initiate arrived in a great desert place and in the distance he noticed a large mountain. After three days’ {the three days during which he lay unconscious} walking he came quite close to it. He entered through a cleft and found a naked man who was working with bellows. Above the fire he saw a cauldron as large as half the earth. The man saw him and picked him up with his enormous tongs. ... Then the man cut his head off, chopped his body into little bits and threw the whole lot in the cauldron. Thus he cooked the body for three years. The naked man had three anvils and he hammered the initiate’s head on the third – this was the one for forging the best shamans. Then he threw the head in one of the three pots standing there, the one in which the water was the coldest. ... After this the blacksmith fished out his bones which were swimming in a river. {fishlike ? cf. Kic^e` (in Popol Vuh) twins resuscitated in river as fishes} He assembled them and covered them in flesh. He counted them and informed the initiate that there are three extra bones which means that he needs to acquire three shamanic costumes for himself. He ... showed him how he could read letters even when he cannot see what is in them. {an ability of jnun (according to A Search in Secret India)} He gave him new eyes, ... his ‘soul’s’ eyes. He pierced his ears {cf. piercing of ears of voluntary slaves in Torah} and thus made him able to hear the talk of plants."

p. 25

"All shamans ... begin their career with fabricating idols for themselves with whom they are talking and to whom they are giving orders. These idols have the shapes of quadruped animals or, sometimes, of a serpent. Shaman candidates traditionally kill animals, tear out their heart and eat it in hope of getting a better understanding of the language of these animals and the idols representing them. ... The candidates while chewing juniper berries and buds jump over the fire several times. ... In addition to juniper berries the candidates frequently eat fly agaric ... to make themselves more open to contacts with spirits. ... Those who were in the shaman business all had long hair.

p. 26

... there were many great shamans ... who were able to take whatever shape they wanted. They could fly in the air, they could swim under the water or fly over the clouds with the speed of thought if it was necessary ... . ... The greatest shamans were even able to see and hear to a great distance as far as a day’s journey."

p.

shamanism

27

He was holding a four sided stick – symbol of the pole of the world – with seven X-shaped carvings on the upper end of it in his hand".

The performance of the second "singing over" lasts a day in summertime and two days in winter. The first day is ... about the various phases of his journey to the domain of the dead, while he is telling his way back from there in a song on the second day. {Is 2^nd day, the telling of the return-journey, omitted in summertime because there is danger then that evil spirits (encountered during the return-journey) might, if mentioned, follow the shaman back into the world of the living in order to wreak havoc there?} On his way to the land of the dead the shaman has to cross three rivers while carrying the soul of the dead until he reaches a waterway with the help of the yorra-bird. On the other side of this waterway there is a land where the dead are "living" as if in this world while becoming younger and younger. {[likewise in Eskimo belief,] the dead become increasingly younger in their world} ... Before the boat carrying the dead relatives would reach the shore, the shaman leaves the dead and departs in a hurry in order not to be caught by them. Then he is returning to this world by another route. On his way back he follows a river upstream and having

28

got to its source he reaches this world where he throws the shadow of the dead into the fire".

[Tundra Nenets in Yamal paeninsula] "burying the dead in a prone position"

[Nenets] "After death good shamans move to the moon together with their wifes [wives] ... where there is a permanent warm climate and illness is unknown".

29

"only those may become shamans (tadyibye) whom the spirits (tadyebco) have previously selected. ... being a shaman is a heavy burden which is forced upon the candidate by his helping spirits ... . ... the young shaman who does not have a drum yet uses his belt for a drum when invoking his helping spirits. A shaman ... only after seven years is allowed to make his own drum under the tutelage of his master. ... A candidate is considered a rightful well-trained member of the profession only after ten years’ training and then he can have pendants [on his drum]".

(3^rd) "sambana shamans who performed burial rites. Members of this group were able to invite the soul of the dead for

30

a "talk" when the soul would tell the cause of death (especially in the case of a sudden death) and would send a message to the relatives through the shaman. The rites performed by this category of shaman were always held at night without drumming when the shaman would contact the spirits through singing." "it was the task of a sambana shaman to accompany syidyangk ‘soul of the dead’ in Nenets to the land of the dead ... . The rite should be performed two years after the person had died. The introductory phase of the rite is a purifying ceremony ... enumerating ... the inhabitants of the land of nga, the Underworld, insects and beetles, ... whose shape the God of the Underworld can put on in order to make it possible for himself to enter the body of a sleeping person through the mouth".

[personal deity :] "Every Nenets has his own nga {‘otherworld’ : one’s own personal dream-world?} as he has his own num {‘deity’ : one’s own guardian-spirit?}, too. ... Some succeeded to blow up nga a cosmic monster".

31

"the axis of heaven does ... run ... from southeast to northwest, i.e. converging to the axis of sunrise [in winter]-sunset [in summer] and parallel with the imaginary bridge between num to ‘Heavenly lake’ and the Isle of Vaygach."

32

his boots ... ngilad nyangi ‘belonging to the Underworld’".

p.

shamanism

41

There were two-, three-, five- and seven- or even nine-headed staffs. Underneath the heads, on a curved metal rod, three, seven, or nine conic metal pieces were hung." (TShS, pp. 238-9)

44

At the conclusion of a se’ance, "the shamaness fainted ... and then she became completely rigid. She ... was lying rigidly".

47

"whistling or throat singing" : "While preparing for a shamanic ritual, the shaman has to throat-sing a sygyt peice (sygyt means ‘whistling’) The ... essence of sygyt lies in the possibility for a shaman, with the sole helf of a sygyt, to urgently call his Spirit-helpers. When the Spirit-helpers do not come immediately, the shaman imitates the sounds of domestic and wild animals and did so with great skill. If they still do not appear, a shaman imitates an oriole’s singing."

p.

shamanhood

72

"The shamanic capability is caaled utha, and tu:ndu:khte is the name of the power that enables you to ... see into the future and to heal and to exhort evil".

74

"(The toli is a round bronze mirror. ...) ... I get my energy from the toli."

75

[shamanic costume :] "Usually all shamans have their own colour – the colour is chosen for them from up above".

76

[3^rd eye :] "I often say that I see the illnesses in people, that I see their future. This is the sort of thing that is called "having a third eye."

77

... a shaman is a seer – they see a person’s past and present, how that person feels in relation to their work and colleagues, how they feel at home in their family, how their family lives, and they can see people’s future."

[black energy :] "When a shaman heals someone that means that he or she purges the person or the family or the dynasty – they eliminate ... black energy. They eliminate something that ordinary people cannot even see. Shamans can see it and feel it and clear it up. ... Either from the person or from their family and sometimes you have to purify even the whole home."

78

[initiation into shamanhood of shamaness-initiate:] "I turned to my master, I went to his house and he instantly asked me which dynasty I was from and why I was not helping people. ... Then ... – I instantly had to prepare for the rites and ceremonies even if I had not wanted to."

p.

shamanhood

82

"When you address the gods with a request at one of these rituals, you take out the lightning stone. This is a kind of greenish grey blue stone which we take out each year and then ... we put it into the cauldron which holds the ... sacred drink ... . This is ... made sacred by the heavenly stone – it is only drunk by men. ... It [heavenly stone] looks like the point of a lance, with a pointed end and a rhomboid shape."

83

"When my soul flew over to the other world I became chewed all over. All shamans go through his phase in their own way. ... I fell into a trance but I could feel everything. As I lay there, a part of my soul, a kind of block, became detached from me. My body was lying down, I could even see it. I could see my arm and the suddenly I felt that the ceiling vanished, I began to grow until I was a giant. My body was just growing and growing until I could reach the sky. {cf. TASTE 75 (sec. 14)} ... And still I carried on growing and then I heard some sort of sound just like a bubble when it flies up through the water {this is a metaphor for emergent thought, in Transcendental Meditation} and pops. ... I was inside a bubble like that and going up and up inside it. Then I saw another bubble come [and conversed with its human personality]. ... So we carried on flying upwards. It seems that up there in the upper world there are ... only sounds and a wonderful lulling rocking state – a state of grace.

84

When all that was over, it spat me out and I started flying back. And when I flew back, ... my soul returned to my body on top of my head! A single piece of hair on my head was as huge as this city of Ulan-Ude ... . ... It was very hard to get back into my body. It hurt very much. My soul got out very easily but its return caused great pain. ...

Later on my soul left my body two or three more times but those times were much easier. ... I used my mirror to shine ... the rays of the sun that shone on my clothes. [I encountered] evil spirits who have neither eyes nor nose nor mouth {cf. [Daoist deity] Hun-Dun} but are just grey and black. But in the meantime the sun had set, the spirits gained strength and they began to pursue me. I fled, ... and then I got on a horse and on the horse I flew straight up there to the sun." {cf. approach to the sun in Radha-Soami / Ruh.ani-Satsangh / Eckankar dreams}

p.

shamanhood

85

There are 77 blacksmiths."

on the __ night of the moon,

the __ __it

1^st

river-fish nalim see

2^nd

hounds see

3^rd

the Abze (shaman dynasty) pray to

5^th

the darhat pray [to]

"I see dreams and I hear voices (yasnolishanie – Russian for the ability to hear the voice of heavenly beings) I know that the gods are talking about."

88

"The shamans have said that they don’t mind being photographed by strangers. But not from the front." {cf. Eastern orthodox priests’ keeping their back toward the congregation during eucharist-mass}