The experiences, worldviews, and practices of shamans and other spiritual practitioners in Turkic Siberia unfold as narratives in this study based on ethnographic fieldwork. In her first meeting with a Siberian healer, Kira Van Deusen was cured of the symptoms of sunstroke. This initial excursion led to many years of research among shamans in the former Soviet states of Tuva and Khakassia, where shamanism is now reviving. These two states have similar indigenous cultures, but historic circumstances have led to many differences in contemporary social and cultural structures. While Tuva remains inhabited mainly by indigenous peoples and Asian immigrants, Khakassia has been massively settled by Russian Europeans and only ten percent of its population claim indigenous origins. The local religions are animistic in nature, with shamans as mediators between people and spirits of nature, places, epic heroes, and ancestors. Shamans, both male and female, use singing and storytelling to the beat of drums as the main vehicles for their ritual practice.
The first chapter is dedicated to a review of the main historical features of the region. Mongolian, Chinese, and Russian colonialism brought Christian and Buddhist religious influences. When independent states were founded in the 1990s, Siberian shamanism, which had suffered many years of persecution, persisted mainly as stories of bygone days. The second chapter tells favorite narratives including stories about shamanic help in retrieving stolen horses, mysterious visions that led shamans to find ritual objects, and power contests between shamans. The third chapter unfolds characteristics of shamanic cosmologies in Turkic Siberia: many worlds are arranged vertically and horizontally and are inhabited by different entities; artists are viewed as people with a spiritual gift; caves, lakes and mountain peaks are considered sacred places to encounter supernatural entities; bad spirits try to lure people and destroy them; and sacred animals are not sacrificed but kept alive as lucky charms.
The fourth chapter tells of storytellers whose initiation and arts are viewed in terms of spiritual invocation. Both shamans and storytellers serve the spirits and are considered to be directly connected to the sacred. Words are perceived as means to create worlds of spiritual geography, and storytelling can be used for healing. The fifth chapter adds the dimension of music to processes of healing, entering inner worlds, and connecting people with nature and with the spiritual. Much of the music is produced by shamans’ drums and costumes that include bells and other noise-producing materials. Music had not been generally viewed as a public performance until modern influences increased. Thus, many throat singers and musicians used to play alone in the wilderness as part of their personal communications with other worlds. Musical instruments have often been considered sacred and there is an abundance of stories about mystical events related to the instruments and materials used for their preparation. The sixth chapter tells of the powers words and language carry, their potential danger, and the ways they can be harnessed for healing purposes. Poetry is an important dimension of shamanic practice in Turkic Siberia. Van Dausen includes several full versions of translated shamanic poems called Algysh. Algysh for a New Drum asks for the drum’s cooperation, and appeases the spirit of the goat that had been slaughtered to produce the drum skin; the Shaman’s Prayer to the Mountain tells of rituals and practices related to the spirit of the mountain; Itpekov’s song relates how the spirit of mother earth is aging and dying because her children, the Siberian people, are loosing their unique cultures.
The seventh and last chapter tells how contemporary shamanic practice is adapting to urban conditions, post-Soviet social hierarchies, international exposure, global flow of knowledge, and modern secular education systems. Van Dausen views Tuvan and Khakassian arts of healing, divination, and communicating with spiritual entities as vital and living traditions in which most practitioners earnestly adhere to the powers they feel within themselves and nature.
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[Review length: 643 words • Review posted on February 9, 2006]