The Elements of Shamanism

The chapter opens with a simple but powerful observation: myths, culture heroes and gods differ everywhere, yet once cultural variation is set aside, shamanic societies share a remarkably similar picture of how the universe is structured. Drury draws here on Mircea Eliade's «Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy», first published in Paris in 1951: the shaman's universe has three levels — an upper world, the middle world where humans live, and an underworld. They are linked by an «Axis Mundi» — the world axis, world tree or tree of life — along which the shaman travels from one level to another.

The most interesting part of the chapter shows how different peoples express the same idea through different images. Turkic-Tatar peoples see the sky as a tent with holes through which starlight shines; the Yakuts call the stars «windows of the world». The Pole Star is the «Nail of the Sky» for the Samoyeds, the «Golden Pillar» for Mongols and Buryats, the «Iron Pillar» for the Kyrgyz. Where there is no axis, its place is taken by cosmic mountains, ziggurats, bridges, ladders, rainbows or, as among the Evenks, a mighty river joining the three worlds. For readers from Turkic-speaking cultures this short list casts familiar motifs — the «world tree», the «sky tent» — in a new light.

The section on the world tree ranges widely: the Yakuts' eight-branched tree rising from «the golden core of the earth» to the sky; the Goldi and Dolgans, who believe the souls of unborn children sit like birds in its branches; Yggdrasil in Norse mythology, with its roots in Hel and trunk in Midgard; the Ottoman Turks' tree of a million leaves, each bearing a person's fate; the Dayaks' seven-branched tree carrying the dead to the sky. Drury also brings in the Kabbalistic «Tree of Life» of Jewish mysticism — intriguing, but its link to shamanic cosmology feels somewhat forced.

At the heart of the chapter is «Evenk Cosmology — A Special Case». For the Evenks the upper world is «ugu buga», the middle world «dulugu buga» and the lower world «khergu-ergu buga», all three joined by the mythical «Clan River». In the upper world live the creator god Amaka, Eksheri, master of animals, the thunder god Agdy, and old Dylacha, who stores heat in a leather bag and spreads it over the earth in spring. The lower world is the world turned upside down: the dead live there, along with disease spirits and the «Clan Mistress» who watches over taboos. The myth of the celestial elk Kheglen stealing the sun and the hero shaman Main shooting it with an arrow to bring the sun back is the chapter's most memorable page.

The section «Guiding Spirits» then divides the shaman's helpers into two groups: «familiar» spirits under the shaman's control and more independent guardian spirits. It describes Siberian shamans' bonds with animals such as bears, wolves and eagles, the Yakuts regarding bulls, eagles and bears as the strongest helpers, and the belief that Eskimo shamans turn into wolves and Lapps into bears or reindeer. The story of the Netsilik Eskimos' helping spirits, «tunraq», and of Iksivalitaq — whom anthropologist Asen Balikci called «the last great Netsilik shaman» — with his seven tunraqs ends the chapter on a vivid ethnographic note.

The chapter's strength lies in its clear structure and concrete examples from dozens of peoples; it makes Eliade's heavy theory accessible. The weak point is the Turkish edition: the author's name appears once as «Nevili Drury», «Western magic» is printed as «Bau büyüsü» and «souls» as «Çan'ları», and the translation is heavy in places. Even so, the chapter is a good guide to grasping shamanism's worldview — a three-layered universe and a shaman who travels between its layers — in a short space.

• Ethnographic examples from specific peoples (Evenk, Yakut, Eskimo, etc.)
• References to Eliade and other anthropologists, notes and a select bibliography
• Excerpts from interviews with shamans
• Black-and-white illustrations