The earliest known burial interpreted by some researchers 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. A more recent discovery in November 2008 revealed a 12,000-year-old site in Israel, where an elderly woman was buried with fifty complete tortoise shells, a human foot, and parts of a cow tail, eagle wings, a boar, a leopard, and two martens. Researchers concluded that this woman was perceived as being in a close relationship with these animal spirits, marking one of the earliest known shaman burials. These archaeological findings suggest that the roots of shamanic practice extend far back into human history, predating organized religions and serving as a foundational element of early human spirituality. The shaman was not merely a priest but a vital intermediary who could navigate the unseen forces that governed life and death, hunting, and the natural world.
Echoes of the Tungus
The modern English word shamanism derives from the Russian word, which itself comes from a Tungusic language, possibly from the southwestern dialect of the Evenki spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples, or from the Manchu language. The etymology of the word is sometimes connected to the Tungus root meaning to know, though Finnish ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen questions this connection on linguistic grounds, noting that the assumed derivational relationship is phonologically irregular. The term was adopted by Russians interacting with the indigenous peoples in Siberia and is found in the memoirs of the exiled Russian churchman Avvakum, written before 1676 and first printed in 1861. It was brought to Western Europe twenty years later by the Dutch statesman Nicolaes Witsen, who reported his stay and journeys among the Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking Indigenous peoples of Siberia in his book Noord en Oost Tataryen in 1692. Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published in 1698 his account of a Russian embassy to China, and a translation of his book, published the same year, introduced the word shaman to English speakers. Anthropologist and archeologist Silvia Tomášková argued that by the mid-1600s, many Europeans applied the Arabic term shaitan, meaning devil, to the non-Christian practices and beliefs of Indigenous peoples beyond the Ural Mountains, suggesting that shaman may have entered the various Tungus dialects as a corruption of this term.
The Trance and The Drum
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. Shaman drums are generally constructed of an animal-skin stretched over a bent wooden hoop, with a handle across the hoop. In the Peruvian Amazon Basin, shamans and curanderos use medicine songs called icaros to evoke spirits, and before a spirit can be summoned it must teach the shaman its song. The use of totemic items such as rocks with special powers and an animating spirit is common, and the shaman may employ varying materials in spiritual practice in different cultures. The methods employed are diverse and are often used together, including music and songs that are intended to imitate natural sounds via onomatopoeia. Sound mimesis in various cultures may serve other functions not necessarily related to shamanism, such as practical goals like luring game in the hunt, or entertainment, as seen in Inuit throat singing.
Shamans often say that they have been called through dreams or signs, but some say their powers are inherited. In traditional societies shamanic training varies in length, but generally takes years. 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 significant role of initiatory illnesses in the calling of a shaman can be found in the case history of Chuonnasuan, who was one of the last shamans among the Tungus peoples in Northeast China. The wounded healer is an archetype for a shamanic trial and journey, where the process is important to young shamans. They undergo a type of sickness that pushes them to the brink of death for two reasons: the shaman crosses over to the underworld to venture to its depths to bring back vital information for the sick and the tribe, or the shaman must become sick to understand sickness. When the shaman overcomes their own sickness, they believe that they will hold the cure to heal all that suffer. This initiatory crisis is a critical component of the shamanic tradition, distinguishing the true shaman from those who merely claim the title.
Spirits and The Soul
Spirits are invisible entities that only shamans can see, and they are seen as persons that can assume a human or animal body. Some animals in their physical forms are also seen as spirits, such as the eagle, snake, jaguar, and rat. Beliefs related to spirits can explain many different phenomena, including the importance of storytelling, or acting as a singer, which can be understood better if the whole belief system is examined. A person who can memorize long texts or songs, and play an instrument, may be regarded as the beneficiary of contact with the spirits, as seen among the Khanty people. The shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers, and the shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers. The shaman can perform other varied forms of divination, scry, throw bones, and sometimes foretell of future events. Spirits exist and they play important roles both in individual lives and in human society, and the shaman can communicate with the spirit world to treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits. The shaman can employ trances inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstasy and go on vision quests, and the shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers.
The Economic and Social Role
The way shamans get sustenance and take part in everyday life varies across cultures. In many Inuit groups, they provide services for the community and get a due payment, and believe the payment is given to the helping spirits. An account states that the gifts and payments that a shaman receives are given by his partner spirit. Since it obliges the shaman to use his gift and to work regularly in this capacity, the spirit rewards him with the goods that it receives. These goods, however, are only welcome addenda, and they are not enough to enable a full-time shaman. Shamans live like any other member of the group, as a hunter or housewife. Since the early 2000s, the growth of ayahuasca tourism in South America has created an economic niche for practitioners, particularly in Iquitos, Peru, where retreat centers cater to foreign visitors. Media attention in international outlets further contributed to this trend, and many shamans and facilitators now sustain themselves by leading ceremonies for paying participants. Furthermore, due to the predominant number of female shamans over males, shamanism was and continues to be an integral part of women's economic liberation. Shamanism often serves as an economic resource due to the requirement of payment for service, and this economic revenue was vital for female shamans, especially those living during the Chosun Dynasty in Korea from 1392 to 1910.
The Decline and Revival
Traditional, Indigenous shamanism is believed to be declining around the world. Whalers who frequently interacted with Inuit groups are one source of this decline in that region. In many areas, former shamans ceased to fulfill the functions in the community they used to, as they felt mocked by their own community, or regarded their own past as deprecated and were unwilling to talk about it to ethnographers. Vine DeLoria noted that in the Americas, the Whites wouldn't call shaman either shaman or medicine-men, they would call them, instead, the derogatory jugglers, asserting that they were just fakers, even when they couldn't fathom how any of their work that they had just seen, could possibly have been faked. In most affected areas, shamanic practices ceased to exist, with authentic shamans dying and their personal experiences dying with them. The loss of memories is not always lessened by the fact the shaman is not always the only person in a community who knows the beliefs and motives related to the local shamanhood. Variants of shamanism among Inuit were once a widespread and very diverse phenomenon, but today is rarely practiced, as well as already having been in decline among many groups, even while the first major ethnological research was being done, for example among Inuit, at the end of the 19th century, Sagloq, the last angakkuq who was believed to be able to travel to the sky and under the sea died. 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 notable Nganasan shaman's ceremonies were recorded on film in the 1970s.
The Academic Debate
There is no single agreed-upon definition for the word shamanism among anthropologists. Anthropologist Manvir Singh argues that the most justifiable definition includes three basic features: entering non-ordinary states, engaging with unseen realities, and providing services like healing and divination. The English historian Ronald Hutton noted that by the dawn of the 21st century, there were four separate definitions of the term which appeared to be in use. 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. This includes criticism of New Age and modern Western forms of shamanism, which, according to Kehoe, misrepresent or dilute Indigenous practices. Kehoe is highly critical of Mircea Eliade's work on shamanism as an invention synthesized from various sources unsupported by more direct research. The term has been criticized for its perceived colonial roots, and as a tool to perpetuate perceived contemporary linguistic colonialism. By Western scholars, the term shamanism is used to refer to a variety of different cultures and practices around the world, which can vary dramatically and may not be accurately represented by a single concept. Billy-Ray Belcourt, an author and award-winning scholar from the Driftpile Cree Nation in Canada, argues that using language with the intention of simplifying culture that is diverse, such as Shamanism, as it is prevalent in communities around the world and is made up of many complex components, works to conceal the complexities of the social and political violence that Indigenous communities have experienced at the hands of settlers.