Religion and Culture - Shamanism

Religion and Culture ANTH 2301 Shamanism Shamanism, a divination and healing technique that connects the natural and supernatural realms in nonlinear time through soul travel, also known as shamanic travelling, is one of the earliest forms of religion. Shamanic rituals, often thought to be exclusive to small-scale communities, are now recognised to be ingrained in several global faiths. Shamans are parttime experts in various cultures; they are often called to the profession and receive apprenticeship training to acquire the requisite knowledge and abilities. In some cultures, everyone has the potential to go on shamanic journeys provided they get the right training. Through travelling, which is often triggered by drumming, song, dance, trance, or hallucinogenic drugs, the shaman can communicate with a spiritual realm that is home to ghostly beings and departed ancestors. The phrase "one who knows," šamán, is an Evenki term that originated with the Evenk people of northern Siberia. Although shamanism is practiced worldwide, anthropologists initially investigated it in Siberia. Even though shamanism is a healing art, it fits the anthropological definition of religion, which is defined as a community of shared natural and supernatural beliefs and practices. Shamanic cultures and civilizations are defined as those that openly acknowledge shamanism as a common and widely accepted practice. However, shamanism and shamanic practices are present in the majority of world faiths. A form of shamanic practice is found in both of the world's two most popular mainstream religions: the Christian practice of laying on of hands, which involves transferring a mystical healing and blessing from one person to another, and the mysterious Islamic practice of Sufism, which involves the practitioner—referred to as a dervish—dancing by spinning faster and faster until they enter a trance state in which they commune with the divine. Beyond shamanism, there are many more common religious practices and ideas throughout other religions. Because of the way our species has evolved physically and socially, it is likely that we all share some basic religious orientation and that religious innovations are added to, rather than taken the place of, older practices like shamanism. Indigenous shamanism is the predominate religious modality in small-scale, subsistencebased cultures, including bands of gatherers and hunters, and it remains a powerful force for healing and prophesy to this day. Hunters regard shamanism as a valuable method of using intuition to find wild animals, which is typically described as "entering the animal's mind." Shamanism is also respected as a therapeutic modality since it enables people to identify and treat the underlying causes of social and physical illnesses that may be influencing their wellbeing. The shamanic healing techniques of the Kung San people of Central Africa are among the most well researched. People in that community perform n/um tchai, a medicine dance, to summon spiritual energies inside them for shamanic self-healing when they experience physical or socioemotional discomfort (Marshall [1969] 2009). The contemporary Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic still heavily incorporate shamanic customs into their culture, especially those related to whale hunting. The Inuit people were allowed to lawfully restart their customary hunts in 1994, despite the fact that they had previously been outlawed. Cultural anthropologists Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich Oosten (2013) conducted a study on Inuit whaling communities in the Canadian territory of Nunavut and discovered that while hunting technology has changed (whaling spears now include a grenade that, when aimed properly, allows for a quick and more humane death), many social practices and shamanistic beliefs related to the hunt still exist. The custom of communally sharing whale meat fosters family bonds, the relationship between hunter and hunted mystically sustains the populations of both, and the sharing of maktak or muktuk (whale skin and blubber) with elders is thought to uplift their spirits and extend their lives by reviving memories of their youth. According to Inuit hunters, the whale "gives itself" to the hunter in order to build this bond, and when the hunter and the community eat the catch with gratitude and humility, it binds the whales to the humans and protects them both. Even though Laugrand and Oosten discovered that the majority of Inuit communities follow contemporary Christianity, their view of the whale hunt and contemporary Inuit identity is still heavily influenced by the shamanistic beliefs of their ancestors. Both the church and their ancestors' ideas are incorporated into their religious practices and knowledge. Primarily, shamanism embodies the concepts and methods of mutuality and balance, the conviction that all organisms are interconnected and capable of influencing one another. This is a principle that practically all other religions share as well. Shamanism values ideas like justice (respecting and caring for people and their rights), charity (fulfilling the needs of others), and stewardship (looking after and maintaining resources).