Observations placeholder
Sieroszewski - Siberian shaman Initiation
Identifier
003068
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The initiation and calling of shamans in earlier days was not one that was voluntary as it seems to be now amongst the so called shamans. Many shamans then had the vocation almost ‘forced’ on them….
A description of the experience
Sieroszewski, 12 Lat w Kraju Yakutów,
Here is an account by a Yakut-Tungus shaman, Tiuspiut ('fallen-from-the-sky'), of how he became a shaman:
'When I was twenty years old, I became very ill and began "to see with my eyes, to hear with my ears" that which others did not see or hear; nine years I struggled with myself, and I did not tell any one what was happening to me, as I was afraid that people would not believe me and would make fun of me. At last I became so seriously ill that I was on the verge of death; but when I started to shamanize I grew better; and even now when I do not shamanize for a long time I am liable to be ill.'
Bogoras
The vocation of the shaman is attended with considerable danger: 'The slightest lack of harmony between the acts of the shamans and the mysterious call of their "spirits" brings their life to an end. This is expressed by the Chukchee, when they say that "spirits" are very bad-tempered, and punish with immediate death the slightest disobedience of the shaman, and that this is particularly so when the shaman is slow to carry out those orders which are intended to single him out from other people.'
Siberian News, 1822
The Altaians believe that no one becomes a shaman of his own free will; rather it comes to him volens volens, like a hereditary disease. They say that sometimes when a young man feels premonitory symptoms of the call, he avoids shamans and shamanistic ceremonies, and by an effort of will occasionally cures himself. The period when the shamanistic call comes to the descendant of a shamanistic family is known as tes bazin-yat, 'the ancestor (spirit) leaps upon, strangles him'.