We recently received an interesting inquiry from one of our colleagues—one that we believe has meaning for a wide audience so we bring it forward here. Her appeal was as follows:
I would appreciate your knowledge and insight on an aspect of shamanism that I have been grappling with. As I read about shamanism it appears that many Indigenous people are offended by the term and the fact that non-indigenous people practice it. Their perspective is that people are taking their cultural traditions and misappropriating them. Is there another term you use other than shamanism?
Good question. Allow Hank the anthropologist to put in a few words here.
SHAMANS AND MEDICINE PEOPLE
In the western world, there is confusion about the kind of work done by medicine people and the work done by shamans. This confusion exists because every shaman is a medicine person, but not all medicine people are shamans. In fact most medicine people are not shamans and tend to fall into cultural roles more like our priests—as ceremonial leaders and ritual specialists who hold the spiritual balance of their communities in their capable hands … and many have great knowledge of the healing arts. But medicine people do their main work here in the physical world, whereas shamans tend to do their main work in the spiritual worlds—the dreamtime of the Aboriginals, the Other Worlds of the mystics.
The writer and mystic Alan Watts observed that the difference between a shaman and a priest is that the shaman is their own teacher, the wilderness is their spiritual guide, solitude in nature is their church. It’s all individualized. It can be a long dark and often treacherous journey through the shadows of the ego, through illness, through the human animal as well as the self. It’s different for everyone, but the light at the end shines just the same.
Years ago, I asked the anthropologist Michael Harner: “How do you know when someone is an authentic shaman?” He got right to the point. “Do they travel to other worlds in visionary states? Do they have relationships with spirits? And do they perform miracles—like healing for example?”
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION
And cultural appropriation? I would ask those who declare this to be more specific — like what are your spiritual practices and what do you consider to be misappropriated? Most Amerindian people are concerned about the misappropriation of their ways. They all have the right to react on their feelings, but in general, visionary spirituality is a possibility and a right for everyone. If you are not disrespecting any tradition or have learned with indigenous people or even are doing things in your own way, I see no hurt being done to any tradition. I would tend to agree in a general way that we all need a framework or a starting point in regards of belief. We cannot practice something we don’t believe in or for what we have no knowledge about. Culture gives sense and traction to spiritual work and the great gift of indigenous wisdom is that sometimes, it provides that catalyst, that starting point for visionary seekers.
Well … nothing is done in a cultural vacuum and even if you don’t use indigenous practices or practice Christianity, you still live within a culture, and we all carry that culture within us. For some it is a mixed culture but it is always informed by where we grew up, by our parents, teachers and friends, and by the experiences we have had growing up … and by our ancestors. And we all had indigenous tribal ancestors if we go back far enough.
I would say that spiritual practices that sit within an indigenous tradition are much deeper, more powerful, and more fully formed. But most folks who don’t have access to a spiritual tradition in their own culture have to make their way without the benefit of a road map – and it is better to have a road map.
Finally in my experience, modern mystics do not ‘tell’ others what to do or see. They walk with you (and others), and pray with you (and others), and perform ceremony with you (and others), as you (and others) learn and share the wisdom gathered from everyones’ experience for shamanism is the path of direct revelation.
WORDS FROM A MODERN MYSTIC
That said, here are some words from the Welsh shamanist Nicholas Breeze Wood.
“All things have a soul which can be communicated with.. a vibration that is – at best – a physical property.This is the foundation for animism.
“All beings – physical or non physical – have souls. So there is the soul of a crystal, a wooden spoon, FaceBook, war, peace, famine, the internet. This is basic Animism 101. You don’t have to accept it, but if you say you practice animism or shamanism and you don’t except that basic tenet, then you are seriously out of whack with what animism and shamanism are about.
“I don’t want to be pedantic, but the word shaman (samaan) is not a Mongolian word, it is Evenk (who were formerly called Tungus) and also is found in Manchu culture. The Mongolian word for shaman is ‘kam’, and sometimes ‘bö’ (mostly by shamans in Inner Mongolia, Northern China). And all those words are male words… women ‘shamans’ in all those regions are called ‘udigan.’
“Shamanism is not patriarchal. It is intensely democratic and most shamanologists think it first arose in Mongolia around 12-15,000 years ago and spread through contact and migration to other places, but it is mostly an Asian and Central Asian and a Siberian thing, with a few tribes right at the top of North America who also practice it and tribes in SE Asia who migrated there. Amazonian shamanism arose separately.
“So yes – Native American shamanism is mostly non existent – the peoples of the Pacific NW coast like the Tlingit and Haida and Salish have it, but they were the last people to come to North America and they brought it with them.. the first people in the Americas came before shamanism had been developed, so they practice animistic traditions which have some close shamanic parallel because they grew from the pre-shamanic seeds the people carried with them their homeland in Central Asia.”
Nicholas adds: “I ‘dare’ to say these things because I have studied and edited the world leading magazine on shamanism and animism full time as my day job for around 35 years. I try to be very accurate about the way I use the word shamanism, because there are a lot of misconceptions out there and a lot of ignorance. The ‘S’ word is very popular in the new age industry, they use it all over the place to ‘sex up’ things, and most of those things have nothing what so ever to do with shamanism.”
http://www.sacredhoop.org/sample.html
For a very Low Cost, Special Offer Subscription (8 magazines for £14 (approx $18) go to:
http://www.sacredhoop.org/offer.html