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Mircea Eliade - Abakan Tatars Tree of Life
Identifier
001746
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Mircea Eliade – Shamanism Archaic techniques of ecstasy
The Cosmic Tree is essential to the shaman. From its wood he makes his drum; climbing the ritual birch, he effectively reaches the summit of the Cosmic Tree; in front of his yurt and inside it are replicas of the Tree, and he depicts it on his drum. Cosmologically, the World Tree rises at the centre of the earth, the place of earth’s umbilicus, and its upper branches touch the palace of Bai Ulgan.
In the legends of the Abakan Tatars a white birch with seven branches grows on the summit of the Iron Mountain.
The Mongols imagine the Cosmic Mountain as a four sided pyramid with a Tree in the centre; the gods use it as a hitching post for their horses, as they do the pillar of the world.