North Asia
Siberian Traditions
saman (Evenki) · böö (Buryat) · oyuun (Sakha) · kam (Turkic)
Evenki, Buryat, Sakha (Yakut), Nenets, Chukchi, Khanty, Tuvan and others
EthnographyHistory
The Tungusic word šaman entered European languages through 17th-century Russian and Dutch accounts of the Evenki, and later became the umbrella term applied worldwide. The traditions it was drawn from are not one system: dozens of languages, cosmologies and ritual grammars sit under the label.
Ritual specialists
- Ritual specialists selected through illness, dream, lineage or spirit election
- Regional distinctions between 'white' and 'black' specialists in some Turkic and Mongolic groups
- Costume, drum and mirror as instruments and as spirit dwellings
Cosmology
- Layered worlds connected by a river, tree or pillar in many but not all groups
- Master-spirits of animals, rivers, mountains and hunting territories
- Soul plurality: several soul-components with different fates at death
Ritual practice
- Drum-accompanied night séances with sung invocation and dialogue
- Retrieval of lost soul-components; negotiation with offended spirit-owners
- Divination for hunting, illness, weather and travel
History and pressure
- Imperial Russian missionary pressure from the 17th century onward
- Soviet-era repression, confiscation of drums, execution and imprisonment of practitioners
- Post-1991 revival, urban practice, and state-recognised organisations in Tuva and Sakha
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