The local term translated ‘shaman’ / ‘shamaness’ is usually defined (in the local dialect) as (1) a public religious practitioner who would become sick if he / she were temporarily to cease from such public practice; and moreover (2) who initially became a shaman / shamaness in order to recover from such a sickness. Such sickness is usually described as entailing dreams of one’s being instructed by a deity that the sickness hath been produced in order to compell the dreamer to continue (or commence) public religious practice.

Upon complying with such deity’s admonitions, the practicing shaman / shamaness findeth himself / herself undergoing every-night experience of dreams involving the same deity and / or emissaries of that deity (which may include various members of that deity’s extended family); winning over to one’s service other minor divinities at the initiating deity’s requaest; and traveling (in the dream) to other worlds on related missions.

All these sorts of feats are likewise duplicated in the visionary attainments of ‘saints’ / ‘saintesses’ (Latin /sanct-us, -a/, Hellenic /hagi-os, -a/, <arabi^ /wali, -yat-/) venerated in the major world-religions.