Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest known burial interpreted as that of a shaman dates back to the early Upper Paleolithic era, approximately 30,000 years ago, in what is now the Czech Republic. This grave contained a skeleton arranged in a specific posture, surrounded by animal bones and tools, suggesting a figure who bridged the gap between the living and the spirit world.
Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published an account of a Russian embassy to China in 1698, and a translation of his book published the same year introduced the word shaman to English speakers. The term derives from a Tungusic language, possibly from the southwestern dialect of the Evenki spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples, or from the Manchu language.
Shamans traverse the axis mundi and enter the spirit world by effecting a transition of consciousness, entering into an ecstatic trance, either autohypnotically or through the use of entheogens or ritual performances. The drum is used by shamans of several peoples in Siberia, where the beating of the drum allows the shaman to achieve an altered state of consciousness or to travel on a journey between the physical and spiritual worlds.
Turner and colleagues mention a phenomenon called shamanistic initiatory crisis, a rite of passage for shamans-to-be, commonly involving physical illness or psychological crisis. The wounded healer is an archetype for a shamanic trial and journey, where the process is important to young shamans who undergo a type of sickness that pushes them to the brink of death.
The last notable Nganasan shaman's ceremonies were recorded on film in the 1970s. The isolated location of Nganasan people allowed shamanism to be a living phenomenon among them even at the beginning of the 20th century, and the last angakkuq who was believed to be able to travel to the sky and under the sea died at the end of the 19th century.
The anthropologist Alice Kehoe criticizes the term shaman in her book Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking, and part of this criticism involves the notion of cultural appropriation. The term has been criticized for its perceived colonial roots, and as a tool to perpetuate perceived contemporary linguistic colonialism.