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Controversies

Colonialism, suppression and survival

The history of shamanism is inseparable from the history of the states that tried to end it.

History

Suppression

Sámi drum burnings; Russian and Soviet campaigns; Canadian and US ceremonial bans; the Tohunga Suppression Act 1907; colonial witchcraft ordinances across Africa; mission control of ceremony in Australia and the Pacific.

Adaptation

Traditions went underground, syncretised with dominant religions, relocated into private homes, and encoded practice in permitted forms. Survival was strategic.

Revival and its questions

Post-Soviet and post-colonial revivals raise real questions about continuity, authority and reconstruction. Naming those questions is not an attack on revival.

Linked entries

One of 28 entries in the knowledge map. Evidence grades above describe the kind of claim being made, not its certainty on a single scale.