The restoration and reconstruction of Daur shamanism is classical and representative of the revival of shamanism in contemporary China. The case study of the Daur shamanic oboo ritual in this paper ...discusses the connotation and classification of oboo. Through a brief description of the main process of the ceremony, the shaman spirits, and the main contents of the divine songs, this paper analyzes the characteristics and functions of the contemporary Daur shaman sacrificing oboo ceremony. The contemporary Daur shamanic oboo ritual also puts forward the concept of “mokun kurə” (mokun circle), which restores the function of the traditional clan organization of mokun, enhances the cohesion of the mokun family, and inspires a sense of responsibility and motivation in the mokun members.
Buryat shamanic poetry is a difficult genre to understand and to translate. Its lyrics can be challenging to understand even for native speakers, for it is believed that shamans' spirits speak and ...prefer to be spoken to in a language characterized by riddles and roundabout phrases. Attendees of shamanic rituals barely understand this highly elevated language. Therefore, an assistant, i.e. a person familiar with the spirits' language acts as an interpreter during the ritual. No wonder that when Buryat shamanic poetry is translated to another language for scholarly purposes, the result contains a considerable amount of guesswork, and lines that do not seem to fit well in the entire corpus. In the present paper based on the explanations given by a shaman's assistant, I am going to shed more light on two lines that frequently recur in shamanic incantations and are crucial to our understanding of Buryat shamanic practice.
El artículo examina concepciones y prácticas en torno a la dimension del sueño de los nahuas de México, tanto prehispánicos como actuales. Para los mexicas, se toman en consideración los testimonios ...históricos de cronistas y evangelizadores, así como los repertorios lingüísticos y textos en náhuatl escritos en el primer periodo colonial. Respecto al presente, nos basamos en la documentación etnográfica recopilada por el autor entre los nahuas del municipio de Cuetzalan del Progreso, Puebla, destacando la relación entre los diferentes componentes espirituales y la actividad onírica, el rol de los sueños en la "llamada" a profesión de los especialistas rituales, su capacidad de ejercer un control activo sobre sus sueños, así como los peligros que los viajes oníricos implican para la integridad de la persona. La esfera onírica presenta para los nahuas un área en la que la frontera entre el mundo humano y extrahumano se vuelve porosa y que permite el acceso a formas de conocimiento y agentividad que no son posibles en el estado de vigilia. Finalmente, el sueño resulta ser una experiencia altamente socializada, en la que los modelos tradicionales brindan herramientas cognitivas y operativas con las que dar sentido a episodios críticos de la existencia e identificar respuestas para ellos que no carecen de eficacia.
O presente artigo traz uma olhada global sobre os repertórios musicais empregados em cerimônias de xamanismo universal em Brasil. O xamanismo universal configura-se como um movimento de resgate de ...saberes indígenas tradicionais, sobretudo em relação ao uso de plantas de poder como veículos para a cura física e espiritual. As músicas produzidas dentro deste contexto apresentam-se como um laboratório vivo em que se encontram tradições musicais latino-americanas em constante diálogo com a modernidade e as ferramentas tecnológicas: a musicalidade indígena amazônica, diversas musicalidades populares tradicionais, ritmos folclóricos, jazz, rock, música indiana, entre outros. A partir da escuta de fonogramas, da observação participante de cerimônias e da experiência como intérprete traça-se um mapa das musicalidades que participam deste universo, destacando suas características estilísticas derivadas de seus respectivos meios culturais.
A previously unreported Depression-era excavation at the Walling II site on the Tennessee River, Alabama, revealed a context that may provide insight into Mississippian shamanic ritual. Mound A, a ...low earthen mound, was erected over the remains of a small circular structure, followed by the burial of a single person accompanied by a human effigy smoking pipe, human calvaria, and other unusual objects. We describe the sequence of events that produced Mound A and review the evidence that links this context to a Middle Mississippian fire-sun ceremonialism concerned with healing and death rites. We conclude that Mound A was erected to commemorate the location of a ceremonial facility and entomb the associated ritual practitioner who served the community.
Since the 1960s, shamanism has become one of the landmarks for a new way of life and a more respectful relationship of humans with nature in the Western world. Both researchers and practitioners ...regard the foundation of shamanism as being animism – an understanding of the connection of all living beings. The role of the community is highlighted in shamanism as the shaman is expected to work for his community. Shamanistic techniques vary according to the society or place where it is practised. In the study of neo-shamanism in the post-modern world, autoethnographic research has been seen as necessary, especially in order to explore the experience of the shaman. In this article we ask what has changed in the perceptions of the community in the study of shamanism and how this change has influenced the position of the researcher. Our article reflects on the resolution of the diversity and sameness through autoethnography, where the researcher is located not only in the experience, but also in its interpretation – which highlights great challenges in contextualizing the study, in writing on the concepts concerned, and indeed in the entire research process.
Empirical cross-cultural research provides a typology of magico-religious practitioners and identifies their relations to social complexity, their selection-function relationships, and reveals their ...biosocial bases. Different practitioner types and configurations are associated with specific ecological and political dynamics that indicate a cultural evolutionary development. Relations between practitioners' selection processes and professional activities reveal three fundamental structures of religions: (1) selection and training involving alterations of consciousness used for healing, manifested in Shamans and other shamanistic healers; (2) social inheritance of leadership roles providing a hierarchical political organization of agricultural societies, manifested in Priests; and (3) attribution of a role involving inherently evil activities, and manifested in the Sorcerer/Witch. Shamans were transformed with foraging loss, agricultural intensification, warfare, and political integration into Healers and Mediums. Priests are predicted by agriculture and political integration beyond the local community, representing the emergence of a new stratum of magico-religious practice. Priests are also responsible for political and social conditions that significantly predict the presence of the Sorcerer/Witch. These findings suggest three distinctive biosocial structures of magico-religious activity related to alterations of consciousness and endogenous healing processes; hierarchically integrated social organization; and social persecution and incorporation.
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