Shamanism

Soviet Studies of Traditional Religion in Siberia and Central Asia

Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315487236
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Public Finance
• Index: Economics

Addresses the most important theoretical and practical problems underlying public budgeting. This anthology is organized topically rather than historically, with an effort to delineate the issues needed to understand some of the controversies in the field. It describes what public budgeting is, where it comes from, and what it is for.

Shamanism among the Turkic Peoples of Siberia

Shamans and Their Religious Practices

N. A. ALEKSEEV

The Shamanic Seance

Shamans of the Turkic peoples of Siberia performed rituals associated with many aspects of human life and activity. Analysis of the materials shows that the most important rituals were conducted in the form of seances [kamlanie], which usually followed a general pattern. Not too long ago, it was virtually impossible to transcribe the mysteries of the shamans. A. V. Anokhin, well-known for his studies of Altaic shamanism, once noted that “the texts of the seance can be recorded in their entirety only by means of a grammophone: not even a person in full command of the language can transcribe the dictation of the shaman, who utters only disconnected fragments of his invocations” [1924, p. 65]. Therefore, the author regarded his published materials on shamanism as detached, often incomplete, and hence incomprehensible portions of the shamanic invocations. As far as recording the shamanic mysteries with special equipment is concerned, this also involves great difficulties. First of all, when the ritual is performed in full garb, using the drum, the voice of the celebrant is muffled by the rattling and din. Frequently, in “conversing” with the spirits, the shaman changes to a whisper and talks in the shamanic “language,” incomprehensible to the audience. If the ritual is recorded without the costume and drum, the ambience in which the “cure” or a different operation was performed is lost. This has an effect on the celebrant, and the texts of the incantations (always more or less improvised) are changed. Therefore, here the process of the shamanic seance is reconstructed by generalizing and contrasting the data recorded by different investigators.

The Yakuts

Among the Yakuts, an invitation to a shaman involved a series of rules and taboos. When a family member fell ill, a special runner was sent for the shaman. The shaman was met as an honored guest at the hitching post, his reins were taken, he was helped to dismount, and so forth. Preparations for the seance began even before his arrival. The hosts prepared various morsels as refreshment for the spirits, depending on the “whims” of the supernatural helpers of the particular shaman, as declared in advance. An experienced person, usually called kuturuksut, or guide, carefully dried the drum. His task was to assist the shaman during the seance. Among the Yakuts, there were people permanently employed in this function—for example, our informant I. Tlimanov (a pensioner, Leninsk region of the Yakut ASSR, 1962) had often been a kuturuksut. Prior to the seance, the housewife swept the yurt so that evil spirits could not hide in the dirt [Vitashevskii, 1918, p. 177; AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 21, 11. 1-3].^a

Shamanic mysteries were usually held in the evening, after sunset. Any who desired could attend the seance. The spectators had to arrive early, since the door of the yurt was locked at the beginning of the ceremony and no one was admitted or allowed to leave [Vitashevskii, 1918, p. 165; AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 15; d. 21, 1.3; etc.].

Sometimes the shaman performed the d′albyiyy ritual at the start of the seance. A branch [d′albyyr] to the end of which were attached three, seven, or nine strands of horsehair was waved over the sick person. A weak shaman was entitled to attach three strands, a medium shaman seven, and a strong shaman nine. The shaman pronounced an incantation while waving the d’albyyr. According to Yakut beliefs, shamans at this time either discovered the cause of illness or delivered the patient from the persecution of a lesser spirit [AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 15; Vitashevskii, 1918, p. 172; Ergis, 1945, p. 51],

Before the seance, the fire in the hearth was reduced until just smoldering; a horse-hide rug was spread on the floor before the fireplace [Seroshevskii, 1896, p. 640]. The shaman sat on it, asking for his ritual attire. A bystander helped him to dress. Among the northern Yakuts, the shaman feigned reluctance at this point. Contrary to the southern shamans, he would leave the yurt before the seance in order to embody the main spirit in himself [Ksenofontov, 1929, p. 127].

In ritual attire, the shaman would pick up the drum, sit down, yawn loudly three times, and beat the drum vigorously three times. After this, nodding his head to the rhythm and singing, he addressed the inhabitants of the upper and lower world and the local spirits [iuer] that were “present” in the yurt, exhorting them to leave. An example of such exhortation is the following:

Eight-legged tribe of evil spirits,
Take your kinsmen unto yourselves.
Eight-legged tribe of evil spirits, let the exorcism
Proper to you be accomplished.
Let the song devoted to you be complete.
Be not angry with us.
Thirty-nine tribes of evil spirits
Of the upper world, suddenly awakening,
Let the song devoted to you be complete.
Let the exorcism proper to you be complete!

[AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 21, 1. 7 ob.]

Once the yurt had been purified of uninvited “guests,” the shaman addressed the protector-spirits of the family (the spirit-owner of the hearth, the home, the territory, and so on). He explained the time had come to leave the native land and set out for the evil beings, and begged them to protect him [Ksenofontov, 1929, p. 130].

Next, the helping-spirits were invoked. The shaman eloquently described the strength of his spirits:

If I should fall face down,
They have promised to support me.
If I should fall backwards,
They have promised to sustain me.
Stammering,
They have given me speech.
Blind, they have given me sight.
Deaf, they have given me hearing.
Me that have no shaman-ancestors,
They have made a shaman.

[AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 21, 11. 9-10]

The shaman then asked them:

Reveal unto me
All easy pathways,
Give me strength to sing
The far-piercing song.
Go before and be vigilant!
Remove the obstacles from the path,
Smooth the roughness of the road!
And I beseech you, do no harm
To the people of the middle earth.
Create no obstacles (mistakes)
For the cattle of my shining gods.

[AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 21, 1. 10]

Among the northern Yakuts, the shaman pretended that the helper-spirits, “responding” to a call, would “ask” (at times indignantly) the reason they were being disturbed. Those attending the seance would respond in chorus:

For sake of the husband, the human!
It is said—the day has come when the eight-legged evil power
Is preparing to mount (us)—like a horse,
For this reason it may be,
It is expected (from you) helping power!
The day is coming,
When the entrance door in the hot house
Faces from the western side,
We pray that (you), by changing this,
Would save and defend us!
The time is coming when
The entrance door in the spacious house
Faces from the backward side,
That is why we beg and pray!

In response to this, some spirits “sang,” through the mouth of the shaman, that only they could protect [Ksenofontov, 1929, p. 129].

The above examples are taken from descriptions of shamanic seances for the spirits of the lower world. The supernatural beings were addressed in a similar manner in the offering to the spirits [abaasy] of the upper world [Sakha fol′klora, 1947, pp. 58-61].

Thus, the summoning of the shaman’s helpers was a compulsory feature of each seance. An incantation delivered at the “appearance” of the spirits, like other forms of ritual poetry, could be long and eloquent or brief, depending on the shaman’s talent.

After summoning helpers, the shaman pretended he could not pry himself from the rug. One of those present—his guide [kuturuksut]—then struck sparks three times over him with a flint, i.e., performed the traditional magical “purification” by fire. After this, the shaman arose [ATV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 9, 1. 15 ob.; d. 7, 1. 10 ob.].

In northern Yakutia, to get the shaman up from the rug, a helper broke three twigs on his knees. After this, the shaman “holding the drum, approaches the burning hearth and makes an incantation to his drum, calling it his mount”:

Oh, my faithful riding-reindeer
(He sometimes calls it: my young colt)!
Having gorged on the food from the sacred hearth,
Prance with a rushing, rapid pace,
And do not tire.
Let your tiny delicate hoofs
Not change
Their wonted trot!

[Ksenofontov, 1929, p. 132]

This ritual was not performed in central Yakutia.

After getting to his feet, the shaman “purified” the place he sat. The Yakuts believed that, as a result of his summoning helpers, hostile entities could “arrive.” Under their weight, the floor beneath the shaman’s rug (made from the hide of wild animals, a horse, or an ox) dzheleriuien khaalar (sinks), and the shaman is embedded in the ground (the floor of the Yakut yurt was usually dirt), according to his “power”: as far as the upper hips (a weak shaman), the armpits (a middling one), or the neck (a strong one). The shaman pronounced an incantation and “drove” all “impurity” collected at his seat into the lower world. He then asked the opening to close and grow over with green grass, i.e., be cleansed of the influence of the evil spirits. This ritual was accompanied by rattling the drum, while the celebrant turned three times against the path of the sun. Each time when his back was to the fire, he imitated the neighing of a horse and kicked backwards. In this way, the shaman seemed to be destroying various evil spirits in the form of earthworms and reptiles [AIVAN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 21, 11. 11 ob.-12; d. 7, 11. 15 ob.-16].

Among the northern Yakuts, the shaman appealed to the spirit-owner of his seat to protect him and not harbor evil spirits. After pronouncing the incantation, he kicked at the rug, missing it twice, the third time turning it over [Ksenofontov, 1929, p. 133; AIVAN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 2, d. 7, 1. 16]. In this part of the seance, possible survivals of that time when Yakut shamans “turned into” horses during the course of their mysteries are preserved with particular clarity.

In the seances of southern Yakutia, after purifying his sitting place, the shaman “caught” the evil spirit(s) causing illness [bokhsuruiuu]. This ritual existed among northern Yakuts as well. In certain cases, the above-described magical elucidation of the cause of the illness [dzhalbyiyy] was performed before the bokhsuruiuu. N. A. Vitashevskii attests a case when these two rites were combined [1918, p. 177].

In order to catch the evil spirit, the shaman delivered a loud incantation, asking it to appear:

Arise now, show yourself
Even to your slender waist!
Because I with the shaggy head
The stallion-shaman
Sing and perform the ritual,
Do not dare to pluck away and carry in
From the hallowed earth
A piece the size
Of a goodly island.¹
Relax, then, the burning bouts of pain,
Turn away your jagged fangs.

[Ksenofontov, 1929, p. 135]

After the incantation, the shaman threw himself on the patient, pretending to catch the evil spirit [iuer] hiding in or near him [Vitashevskii, 1918, p. 178].

Among the northern Yakuts, after cleansing his seat the shaman would ask to be fed before “setting out” on his voyage. He was given a pipe and a cup with reindeer blood. After this, the shaman “animated” his “material helpers—a fish, a bull, and a piece of bear skin” [Ksenofontov, 1929, p. 134]. To accomplish this, he asked these objects to become living and capable of action, sprinkling them with blood. They would be ‘transformed” into the shaman’s helper-spirits in the form of a fish, a bull, and a bear. The shaman sent them to the lower world, shrieking like a loon three times and prostrating himself on the floor, on a dark cloth, his head turned to the north. After “reaching” one olokh,² he left them and “ascended” to the middle world. Then followed the ritual of catching the evil spirit responsible for the illness—bokhsuruiuu [pp. 134-35]. During this ritual, the shaman enacted a conversation with the evil spirit. Speaking for the latter, he claimed that nothing would make him leave:

Oh, people,
I would not like to be caught,
And you, shaman-fellow,
Don’t you know me,
How can you not be destroyed!
Go away, do not interfere!
Behold: Why should I, a fine person, not eat?
Am I not descended from a noble person?
Am I not the child of an honored person?
Behold my wonderful appearance,
My beauty.
Behold: I am she who is called the daughter of Lord Ilbis.
I am here and I intend to stay.
How can you not retreat?
Go away, human!

As soon as the shaman is finished singing on behalf of the evil spirit, the shaman’s helper exhorts the spirit to have pity:

Oh for shame!
Talk like a person,
Speak like a Yakut,
Sing like a person,
My dear lady!
Give token that you will leave,
That you will give your word of honor!

[AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 22, 1. 11]

The above incantations were uttered while “catching” a spirit from the upper world. The dialogue with an inhabitant of the lower world, having sent an illness, was substantially the same:

Oh, oh, how painful!
Oh, my flabby body,
Oh, my aching body,
Was I not here, not wanting to be caught.
Why did you remove me, fellow,
Shaman-fellow,
You will surely be destroyed!

The shaman’s helper responds:

Oh for shame,
Talk like a person,
Speak like a Yakut!
Why do you say such things?!

[AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 21, 11. 16-16 ob.]

The spirit causing the illness at first cursed and would not leave, but then agreed to withdraw if a special offering was made. It tells about this through the mouth of the shaman:

The day after tomorrow,
On the second evening,
To the bright northern headland
Of this wide field,
At the instant of sunset I will come.
At that time, have ready
A four-year-old
Light-colored piebald horse.
Assisted by three young people,
Present the still living heart and liver
Stabbed with lances alone!

After long wrangling and bargaining, the spirits of the lower world also agreed to depart, but they asked for a cow as sacrifice [AIV AN SSSR (LO), f. 22, op. 1, d. 22, 11. 13-14; d. 21, 1. 18].

Sometimes the kuturuksut, instructed in advance by the shaman, refused to pay the cow, and then the evil spirit would be “driven” or “led away” to its abode with a trifling gift. In...