Shamans are traditional spiritual leaders, healers, and practitioners of sacred rituals, mostly originating within indigenous groups throughout the world. There is no one overarching spiritual belief that could be defined as a Native American religion, since many individual tribes have very specific and unique spiritual beliefs. There is also no one specific practice that has remained unchanged since shamanism’s origination; it has changed over time and throughout regions. The shaman in Native American cultures could more authentically be called a medicine man/woman, healer, or most simply, holy person, and most likely would have a title specific to the region or tribe he or she served. Shamans lead sick, mentally troubled, or spirit-possessed people through an often complex ritual healing ceremony (or multiple ceremonies) involving different elements—from chemical-induced trance to dancing—to help them find the roots of those problems and then heal the illness (Eliade 1972). Shamanism is not a religion, and it can coexist with multiple contemporary religious practices, including but not limited to tribal beliefs, Buddhism, and Lamaism (“Shamanism” 2014). As the Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange (CSEE) website asserts, the point is to heal the patient.
Photograph of Fool Bull, Brule Sioux medicine man, ca. 1900. The medicine man, often termed shaman, provides spiritual leadership for Native American communities, which includes guiding the sick through healing ceremonies and supervising religious rituals. (Corbis)
The origin of the name “shaman” most likely comes from a Siberian word for that Siberian indigenous group’s spiritual advisors (Milstein 2008). The word was used to describe these healers by anthropologists who observed them in the late 1800s. These and other scholars observed people from various cultures performing similar rituals, and consequently they applied the same name (shaman) to them. Over time, many of the specific individual names (especially within Native American groups) have gradually been lost (Kehoe 2000; “Shamanism” 2014). Interestingly, according to anthropologist Barbara Tedlock, various surviving names for shamans often refer to the methods with which they practice their healing and are words for things like dancing, sitting, or seeing in the dark, among many others. These include (but are not limited to) the Yurok kegey (one who meditates), the Sakhá oyuun (to jump, leap or play), Huichol mara’akama (singer), Innuit wabinu (seeing person), and K’iche’ Maya ajq’ij (day keeper) (Tedlock 2005).
A notable folkloric story from indigenous Native American peoples explaining the origin-story of Mesoamerica’s first shamans comes from an Aztec/Maya Codex. Scholars Ephraim George Squier and Frank E. Comparato argue that in stories of the first man and woman (the equivalents of Adam and Eve in Christian mythos), Oxomoco and Cipactonal were also the first shamans (1990). Oxomoco and Cipactonal are depicted in the pre-Columbian Codex Borbonicus wearing the regalia of the shaman (Smith and Boone 2005). They were in charge of the calendar, were considered either gods and goddesses come to Earth or sorcerers and magicians, and were sometimes depicted planting maize (corn) and wearing a butterfly mask, and making divinations using knotted cords (Nowotny, Everett, and Sisson 2005). What this story illustrates is how long shamanism and the practices associated with the shaman have been associated with humanity in our oldest mythologies.
Defining Shamanic Practices
Enough similarity of practices in numerous groups can be found and applied as general guidelines to define what makes up a shamanic figure. Realizing that the label does not apply across all tribes within the United States, and realizing that practices will be potentially quite different from region to region, practitioner to practitioner, we can find some common traits.
Shamans are perhaps humanity’s earliest spiritual and community leaders (Clottes 2014). Scholars believe that the earliest shamans began serving as spiritual leaders during the Upper Paleolithic period (which began between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago). In fact, the earliest generally accepted remains of a shaman (who was, in fact, a woman) were found in what is now the Czech Republic, buried in a shaman-status gravesite 30,000 years ago (Tedlock 2005). Tedlock points out that this shaman woman was found buried near tools of her shamanic trade that suggested her religious practice was very sophisticated, ritualized, and planned (Tedlock 2005). Shaman rituals are similar worldwide: scholars believe they have found another of the earliest-surviving remains of a shaman at a 12,000-year-old Paleolithic grave site called the Hilazon Tachtit site. The site was found in modern-day Israel and it consists of a woman surrounded by possible totem-animal figures (including dozens of tortoises) and buried in a way that suggests shamanic status (Milstein 2008). Shamanic practice therefore predates any contemporary organized religious practices by a significant number of centuries.
Shamans are considered wise men and women who assist people in their personal quests to find the root cause of illness, whether physiological or mental. Shamans train for many years under an already established shaman, often (although not necessarily) a family member, to qualify to practice the skill and/or hold the position of tribal shaman (Tedlock 2005). Sometimes, shamans are “called” to the practice by an illness of their own, from which they recover into a cured state with a greater understanding of illness and every stage of human life from birth to death and beyond. Shamans are seen as go-betweens bridging the mortal and supernatural worlds, people who can communicate with spiritual realms to balance ailments (Eliade 1972).
Shamans use a variety of methods to achieve an altered mental state wherein a quest to understand the cause of the illness may be found. These methods include: (1) drugs or herbal substances (including uncured tobacco, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, cannabis, ayahuasca, Salvia divinorum, Tabernanthe iboga, Ipomoea tricolor, and Amanita muscaria); (2) music (especially rhythmic drumming); (3) dancing until reaching an ecstatic state; (4) fasting; (5) sweat lodges; (6) vision quests; (7) lucid dreaming; and (8) divination, including Tarot, astrology, or palm reading. There are often specialized tools or accessories used in these rituals to create the altered state of the seeker. In Native American rituals, these may include feathers, specially carved rattles (often crafted into a specific animal shape), and smoking-pipes.
Essentially, shamans will adapt a method and tool of healing and/or the community’s needs to the specific situation, using their ritual knowledge of how to fix it.
Shamanism and Neoshamanism: Some Controversies
Many Native American activists resist using the term shaman because of controversial “neoshamans” or “plastic shamans” who apply a mishmash of New Age religious practices from an assortment of widespread cultures and appropriate so-called Native American beliefs as part of that made-up spiritual system (Aldred 2000). These critics point to contemporary consumerist society and its tendency to commercialize everything, including religion, as existing in New Age or neoshamanic practices. They consider many of those who call themselves modern shamans to be participating in a form of harmful cultural appropriation of indigenous groups for commercial gain and suggest that anyone who claims to practice “Native American spirituality” without mentioning specific tribes or practices must be considered with skepticism (Aldred 2000). Some go as far as to assert that “anyone claiming to be a Cherokee ‘shaman, spiritual healer, or pipe-carrier,’ is equivalent to a modern day medicine show and snake-oil vendor” (Allen 2001). They directly warn against attempting to “buy” some kind of religious comfort from people who claim to be shamans, pointing out that true shamanic healing is usually given for free (Aldred 2000).
There also appear, however, to be many who are genuinely attempting real, formal academic study and appreciation of shamanic practices as a way of honoring and preserving the oldest form of human spirituality on the planet. These scholarly shamans point to the fact that shamanism is about “interconnectedness” and journeys between two realms. One of these is professional anthropologist and initiated shaman Barbara Tedlock, who describes her lengthy initiation and study in her work The Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine (2005). Another organization is the nonprofit Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange, which sponsors educational scholarships, especially for indigenous people, encourages the exchange of information between Western groups and real indigenous practice, and seeks to preserve indigenous wisdom and spirituality (“Shamanism” 2014).
Kimberly Ann Wells
See also Folk Medicine; Vision Quest; Witch Doctors
Further Reading
Aldred, Lisa. 2000. “Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality.” American Indian Quarterly 24 (3): 329–352.
Allen, Richard. 2001. “Pseudo Shamans Cherokee Statement.” People’s Path website. http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/Articles2001/RLAllen-CherokeeStatement-Shamans.htm. Accessed November 10, 2014.
Clottes, Jean. “Shamanism in Prehistory.” Bradshaw Foundation. http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/. Accessed October 10, 2014.
Eliade, Mircea. 1972. Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kehoe, Alice Beck. 2000. Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Milstein, Mati. 2008. “Oldest Shaman Grave Found; Includes Foot, Animal Parts.” National Geographic News. November 4. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081104-israel-shaman-missions.html. Accessed October 5, 2015.
Nowotny, Karl Anton, George A. Everett, and Edward B. Sisson. 2005. Tlacuilolli: Style and Contents of the Mexican Pictorial Manuscripts with a Catalog of the Borgia Group. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
“Shamanism.” CSEE, the Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange website. http://shamaniceducation.org/. Accessed November 10, 2014.
Smith, M. E., and E. H. Boone, eds. 2005. Painted Books and Indigenous Knowledge in Mesoamerica: Manuscript Studies in Honor of Mary Elizabeth Smith. New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute.
Squier, Ephraim George, and Frank E. Comparato. 1990. Observations on the Archaeology and Ethnology of Nicaragua. Culver City, CA: Labyrinthos.
Tedlock, Barbara. 2005. The Woman in the Shaman’s Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine. New York: Bantam.