Feature review by Timothy White. Reprinted from Shaman's Drum, Number 75.
It is rare that a book’s reputation precedes the opportunity to review it, but such was the case with Ronald Hutton’s Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination, which was published in England six years ago but is not yet well known in the United States. My decision to review the book was prompted by the fact that Hutton is being cited in British books as a new authority on Siberian shamanisms. Due to some of the viewpoints attributed to him, I began to question the exactitude of his book. However, having obtained a copy, I am pleased to report that Shamans offers an informative overview of the history of Siberian shamanology—the scholarly study of shamanic practices.
As the book’s subtitle, “Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination,” hints, Shamans is focused on documenting the many imaginative ways European scholars have analyzed, categorized, and revisioned the ethnography of Siberian shamanism. Hutton does a particularly good job of diplomatically introducing the theories and viewpoints of many leading Western shamanologists. In this respect, Shamans may serve well as a collegiate text for studying Western responses to the phenomena
of Siberian shamanisms. However, readers should be cautioned that Hutton sometimes seems more interested in challenging “what we think we know” about Siberian shamanisms than in using the extant ethnographic records to better understand the nature of shamanism. Comparing Shamans and Shamanism
Hutton’s Shamans displays certain obvious parallels to Mircea Eliade’s classic text Shamanism. The two books rely heavily on much the same resource material—brief but biased travel reports collected during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and more detailed but eviscerated ethnographic studies conducted in the twentieth century, after Russian imperial policies and Soviet political persecution almost eradicated Siberian shamanisms. The major difference between the books is that Eliade’s Shamanism concentrates on identifying cross-cultural commonalties in shamanic motifs, themes, and practices, whereas Hutton’s Shamans emphasizes the diversity of Siberian shamanic practices and beliefs. Both Eliade and Hutton do well at documenting their theories with multicultural examples. Unfortunately, neither ever underwent experiential training in shamanic traditions, limiting their ability to understand and illuminate shamanic phenomena.
Unlike some scholars who have attacked Eliade for his philosophical bent, Hutton remains cautiously appreciative of his contribution to shamanology. For example, he acknowledges that Eliade “deployed tremendous diligence and industry, and an equally remarkable talent for languages, locating the first-hand accounts of shamanism left by travellers and scholars and mining them for data” (page 69). Yet, elsewhere, he says Eliade “highlighted material which supported his arguments, and disposed of the rest” (page 122).
As an example of Eliade’s biased scholarship, Hutton states, “Eliade simply declared that not all of the performances recorded in [Waldemar] Jochelson’s work were ‘interesting’, and so consigned to the rubbish heap some of the labour, and a large part of the argument, of this most scrupulous of early Russian ethnographers” (page 122). Considering that Jochelson based his study of Yukaghir and Koryak shamanisms primarily on interviews with nonshamans, supplemented by observations of a few staged shamanic performances, Hutton’s defense of Jochelson’s research as “scrupulous” is misleading. Jochelson was scrupulous about identifying the sources of his material—to the point of acknowledging his limited contact with shamans—but that doesn’t compensate for the brevity of his field research.
For the most part, Hutton represents his sources accurately, and he ably supports his conclusions with relevant evidence. For example, after endorsing the viewpoint of Russian shamanologist Vladimir Basilov that the initiatory “shamanic illness” was probably a psychosomatic product of cultural expectations, he gives several illustrative examples: “Among the Soyots, the symptoms consisted of headaches and nausea, in the Altai they took the form of cramps, and among the Koryaks of fits; all of which could be hysterically produced” (page 71). Unfortunately, Hutton’s habit of presenting a series of observations and then providing a single endnote with multiple citations makes it hard to track his sources.
Since there has been remarkably little direct field research on shamanism in Siberia during the last fifty years, Hutton’s approach has been to critically review the extant ethnographic data in order to form new conclusions. As Hutton himself acknowledges, “[Shamans] depends almost wholly upon published sources, although these include a large quantity of primary material and much of that represents the classic data upon which former general conclusions concerning Siberian shamanism have been based” (page ix). Ironically, Hutton is, like Eliade, not above quoting statements sympathetic to his own views and consigning conflicting data to the rubbish heap, as I shall show later.
Hutton excels at identifying weaknesses inherent in the Siberian ethnographic records. For example, he appropriately affirms the insightful research of historian Gloria Flaherty, who documented how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Christian explorers and missionaries tended to describe Siberian shamans in pejorative terms, accusing them of worshipping devils and promoting superstitions. Hutton also observes that many later Soviet ethnographers maligned shamans as frauds and misfits—although for philosophical or political reasons, rather than due to religious biases. Indeed, much Siberian ethnography is tainted by one bias or another. For this reason, any attempt to reconstruct the ethnography of Siberian shamanisms needs to use judicious discrimination in order to separate direct observations from prejudicial projections.
Modern anthropology has taught us that the quality of ethnographic research depends upon multiple factors—including language skills, the expertise of consultants, the time spent in direct observation, and the mindsets of observers. Regrettably, most studies of Siberian shamanism have been handicapped by weaknesses in one or more of these areas. For example, Jochelson’s classic ethnographic study of Yukaghir shamans was based largely on limited field observations and on interviews with nonshamans.
Thankfully, a few conscientious ethnographers went the extra mile to understand Siberian shamanisms from the viewpoint of traditional practitioners. For example, the White Russian Sergei Shirokogoroff lived and worked among the Evenks for almost a decade. His fluency in several Tungustic languages (including Manchu and Evenk) allowed him to interview and observe more than a dozen shamans and to participate in unstaged ceremonies (Shirokogoroff 1935:386). His limitation is that he often describes ceremonies in generic, analytical terms—as opposed to providing narrative accounts of specific performances. Nonetheless, his classic volume The Psychomental Complex of the Tungus remains one of the most detailed, sympathetic, and insightful studies ever made of any Siberian shamanic tradition. To his credit, Hutton relies frequently on Shirokogoroff’s insights, including his views on the diversity of ecstatic states and the ways shamans communicate with spirits during ceremonies.
During the repressive Soviet era, ethnographers began to have difficulty finding practicing shamans, and most were happy to locate a few former shamans or relatives of shamans to interview. Consider the work of Hungarian linguist and shamanologist Vilmos Diószegi, one of the few foreign scholars permitted to conduct field research in Siberia during the 1950s, whom Hutton often cites. Although Diószegi managed to compile some informative data on Tofa (Karagas) and Soyot shamanisms, he was only able to observe a few re-creations of shamanic activities, and his data came primarily from interviews of former shamans. In addition, he had to tailor his commentaries to the expectations of Soviet censors (Siikala 1992:23; Diószegi and Hoppál 1996a:x; Hoppál 1998).
Because the bulk of the Russian ethnographic records haven’t been available to foreign researchers, Western studies of Siberian shamanisms have been handicapped. Until Akadémiai Kiadó began to publish English versions of its Bibliotheca Shamanistica anthologies during the 1990s, most of what Westerners knew about Siberian shamanism had been passed through the conceptual filters of a handful of Western scholars, such Eliade, Diószegi, Finnish shamanologist Anna-Leena Siikala, and Hungarian ethnologist Mihály Hoppál. The problem is that it is easy for secondhand and thirdhand studies to distort the records through the paraphrasing of material or—as Hutton notes—the selective exclusion of conflicting evidence.
A related problem is that shamanologists may overlook essential data simply because it doesn’t register on their radar screens. For example, the majority of armchair shamanologists—including Hutton—severely underestimate the role of dreams in shamanic traditions. Although Hoppál (1992:129) once noted that previous researchers had failed to appreciate the significance of dreaming as a shamanic method, he neglected the subject himself. Likewise, Hutton mentions only briefly that initiatory dreams of dismemberment and resurrection were common among the Sagays, Evenks, Sakhas, and Nganasans of central Siberia, and he includes a single sentence acknowledging the role of dreams in contacting spirits.
In fact, Siberian ethnography is rich with references to the role of dreams in both shamanic initiations and daily practices. For example, Waldemar Bogoras (1908:463-464) indicates that “dreams are considered by the Chukchee one of the best means of communicating with spirits,” and he relates how some Chukchi shamans were called to their work in dreams. Diószegi (1998:30) tells how the Sagay shaman Kyzlasov had dreams in which he was beaten up and taken to strange places by his spirit allies. Based on an abundance of dream references in Siberian and other ethnographic reports, I contend that dreaming should be considered a vital shamanic trance methodology—quite possibly the oldest and most universal of all trance methods.
Because the ethnographic data on Siberian shamanisms is often sketchy, it is easy for scholars who lack experiential training or field experience to misinterpret firsthand commentaries. Moreover, when scholars advance speculative theories without providing supporting evidence, there is a danger that other writers will repeat those speculations as if they were proven fact. For example, building on Shirokogoroff’s field observation that mastery of the spirits could be expressed in three ways—spirit incorporation, dialoguing with spirits, and narrating the journeys of spirits—Siikala once proposed that shamanic performances could be best explained as dramatic enactments, or “role taking,” a position adopted by Hutton. In contrast, Shirokogoroff (1935:348) mentions that the Evenk distinguished between real shamanic ecstasies and enacted performances. He also makes this observation: “Anybody who is familiar with the shamanistic texts (prayers) as well as tunes and ‘dancing’ can reproduce them, but it will not be shamanizing, but rather a vulgar farce” (1935:333). Without denying the cathartic impact of dramatic actions, I believe it is misleading to reduce shamanizing to enacting dramatic performances.
Tracing the History of Shamanisms
In part 1, “Why We Think We Know About Shamans,” Hutton devotes four chapters to reviewing Western projections onto Siberian shamanisms. For example, in chapters 1 and 2, “The Creation of Siberia” and “The Creation of Shamans,” he reports that the terms Siberia (a name borrowed from the Khanate of Sibir) and shaman or schaman (a term derived from the Evenk saman) were adopted as generic labels by Russian and German explorers. In time, ethnographers began to impose the term shaman indiscriminately on a diverse variety of practitioners, coming from a wide range of environments, language groups, and ethnic backgrounds. Hutton questions the wisdom of using an ethnic term such as shaman as a cross-cultural construct, and he contrasts various theoretical, cross-cultural concepts against the reality of the ethnographic evidence.
In chapter 3, “The Transformation of Siberians,” Hutton posits that what we know today about aboriginal Siberian cultures has been obscured by centuries of disruptive colonial influences, and he provides data to support his observation. For example, he points out, “By 1700 there were already about as many Europeans settled in Siberia as there were natives. By 1900 the latter were reduced to about 10 per cent of its inhabitants, and during the twentieth century that figure halved again.” Hutton states that Siberian natives who lived in the vicinity of Russian settlers or colonial authorities were subjected to intense cultural and religious influences. He explains that, although some indigenous groups may have managed to preserve their shamanic traditions by moving ever deeper into the taiga and tundra, most Siberian natives considered themselves Christians by the 1900s.
Even if many pre-Christian shamanic beliefs and practices survived for a time in acculturated or underground forms, Soviet authorities ruthlessly eradicated most remnants of shamanic practice during the 1950s. Hutton relates that Soviet agents designated shamans as targets for repression. He states, “One KGB officer under Stalin is said to have adopted the tactic of visiting small settlements pretending to be ill and asking for the local shaman. When the latter appeared, the Russian would take him aside, shoot him, and take his drum as a trophy” (page 25).
In chapter 4, “The Records of Shamanism,” Hutton reviews the quality of early historic reports describing shamanic ceremonies in Siberia. As he explains, most eighteenth-century accounts were written by skeptical Westerners, such as Scottish surgeon John Bell, who concluded that shamans were “a parcel of jugglers”; Russian botanist Stepan Krasheninnikov, who assumed the natives were “blinded by superstition”; and German explorer Johann Gmelin, who viewed shamanic practices as total “humbug.” As a result, what we know—or “think we know,” as Hutton likes to say—about Siberian shamans is often based on fragmentary observations reported by mostly untrained, prejudiced outsiders.
Luckily, there were some relatively perceptive reports, and Hutton quotes at length several firsthand accounts of shamanic performances. The first, a sixteenth-century account written by an English traveler, Richard Johnson, describes some “devilish rites” conducted by a Samoyedic man (probably a Nenets). The second is a perceptive and sympathetic nineteenth-century account by Polish ethnographer Waclaw Sieroszewski of a Sakhan practitioner conducting a healing rite. The third is a lengthy account of an Evenk ceremony witnessed in 1931 by Russian ethnographer Arkadiy F. Anisimov, who lived with an Evenk group for “long periods,” learning their language and recording their surviving customs. Although it is unclear whether the rituals they described were typical, shamanologists have had to rely on such accounts because there aren’t many in-depth ethnographic studies on Siberian cultures.
The dismal state of Siberian ethnography is illustrated by the fact that Hutton describes Jochelson and Bogoras as two of the “most respected early anthropologists” to live among Siberian peoples and study their cultures. While these self-trained Russian ethnographers collected large quantities of items for American museums and produced detailed reports in English on the material cultures of Siberians, their direct exposure to shamanic practices was limited—at least by modern standards. As Hutton notes, “Jochelson’s famous study of the Koryaks was the product of a single winter spent among them, in which he did not have time to learn their language” (page 37). Bogoras spent several years traveling among the Chukchi, and he claimed to have observed five or six shamanic seances—and most of those were staged for his benefit.
Moreover, from a contemporary perspective, both Jochelson and Bogoras were steeped in Eurocentric biases. As Hutton points out, Bogoras believed in the Russian stereotype that shamanizing involved a form of mental hysteria—a concept that may have shaped his perception that the shamans he met among the Chukchi were hysterical or crazy. In a 1932 article published in the magazine Soviet North, Bogoras was so critical of shamans that his text sparked a new round of Soviet repression against native spiritual practitioners (Znamenski 2003:307). Jochelson was slightly more sympathetic toward shamans, but he complained about the “squalor” of Koryak dwellings, the intolerable “odor of blubber and of refuse,” the inescapable infestations of lice, and the behavior of people intoxicated with fly agaric (Freed et al. 1988:102).
Hutton rightly cautions that any attempt to draw conclusions or form opinions as to the nature of Siberian shamanisms has to “reckon with three curses.” The first is that there is not a single ethnographic study of Siberian shamanism written by a working indigenous shaman. The second is that virtually no data—beyond a handful of accounts of ceremonies—survives from times before native cultures were impacted by Russian rule. “Thirdly,” Hutton states, “almost all of the material which we do possess was recorded by people who were at best indifferent to shamanism and often bitterly opposed to it, and that is as true of the twentieth century as of the eighteenth.” For example, as Hutton points out, many of the post-1930 Soviet ethnographers (such as Anisimov) tended to be “Communist Party zealots, who were studying native culture in detail so that it could be dismantled most effectively” (page 43).
The above factors help explain why shamanologists have had a difficult time agreeing on the essential nature of Siberian shamanisms. The confusion has been compounded by the speculations of academics, who typically lack the sort of experiential training in shamanic practices needed to understand the extant records. As Hutton repeatedly points out, for almost every observation and conclusion proposed by one ethnographer, there is a conflicting viewpoint raised by another.
Hutton rarely takes sides, preferring to juxtapose conflicting viewpoints and theories. Indeed, I grew tired of his habit of contrasting conflicting assumptions and then posing rhetorical questions, such as “Who is right?” Hutton invites readers to draw their own conclusions, but occasionally his treatment of opposing views could lead readers toward questionable conclusions. For example, as we shall see later, his presentation leaves the impression that the shamanic use of psychoactives in Siberia was insignificant.
Varieties of Shamanic Expression
In part 2, “What We Think We Know about Shamans,” Hutton endeavors to identify the practical ethnographic realities behind the assumptions made by ethnographers. In the process, he challenges cross-cultural uses of the term shaman. In addition to pointing out that many tribes had their own names for those who engaged in shamanic activities, and that other tribes had more than one type of shamanistic practitioner, Hutton calls attention to the fact that in northern and central Asia, other individuals—including singers, diviners, midwives, hunters, and Buddhist monks—also employed altered states of consciousness for spiritual or practical ends. Hutton contends that the very concept of “shamanism” is a Eurocentric construct. He states, “Western scholars concerned with shamanism are therefore not merely making an intellectual construct but doing so by arbitrarily selecting, from a complex and intermeshed world of native magical practices, those practitioners and activities which seem most exciting and unusual to them” (page 49).
Although Hutton may be justified in suggesting that ethnographers have applied the term shaman too broadly to people engaged in activities that don’t fit within the Siberian model, anthropologists have documented indigenous practices in North and South America that exhibit fundamental similarities to Siberian shamanic practices. These practices may be couched in culturally unique motifs, but there does seem to be a complex of spiritual divination and healing methods that are used around the world. I suggest that these common functions warrant use of a generic construct—if not shaman, then what?
Hutton may be correct in observing that our use of the term shamanism is a matter of convenience because, in his words, “no apparent alternative exists to act as an umbrella term for the complexes of tribal beliefs concerned” (page viii). However, considering that Siberian shamanic practices have always come in diverse forms and flavors, I think it is entirely appropriate to apply the terms shaman and shamanism to similar practices in other parts of the world. Using these terms instead of introducing new constructs has certain advantages: they are already in broad use around the world, and their meanings have already been refined through a well-documented history of scholastic debate.
Hutton rightly asserts that Siberian shamanism was never “a single functional phenomenon to the peoples who employed it, neither was it a single social institution” (page 51). As he points out, there were many varieties of Siberian shamanism—perhaps almost as many varieties as there were individual shamans.
Hutton quotes an interesting statement made by a Sakha (Yakuts) chief in the eighteenth century: “Shamanism is not the faith or religion of the Yakuts, but an independent set of actions which take place in certain definite cases” (page 49). If we accept the view of this Sakha chief, Shirokogoroff, and others—that shamanizing involves a complex or set of specific actions—the next challenge is to identify the key components of shamanizing. The problem is that, as Hutton acknowledges, nearly every shamanologist who has attempted to define Siberian shamanism has ended up identifying a slightly different set of functions and techniques.
Based on his interpretation of the ethnographic evidence, Hutton indirectly champions some basic functions as cornerstone shamanic practices. For example, he writes, “Treatment of the sick is indeed a major function of traditional magic worldwide; the distinguishing feature of shamanism in this pattern is the emphasis on communicating with spirits to achieve a cure” (page 52). A little later, he states, “A function of shamanism which was as widespread as healing and almost as prominent in the records was divination, either in the form of clairvoyance, to trace lost or stolen goods or animals, or of prophecy, to advise people on how best to prepare for hunting, fishing, journeying, or seasonal migrations” (page 54).
Calling attention to the early accounts of shamanic divination rites observed by Franciscan Friar William of Rubruck, who visited Mongolia in the thirteenth century, and Richard Johnson, who witnessed a Samoyed ceremony in the sixteenth century, as well as the variety of divination methods used in Siberian cultures, Hutton argues persuasively that divination was a key component of many shamanisms and that “the function of divination could easily shade into the working of magic” (page 56). For example, he explains that Evenk, Yukaghir, and Selkup shamans sometimes made spirit journeys to secure the help of spirit guardians before hunts. Nonetheless, based on the evidence that shamans were specifically banned from engaging in hunting magic in some Siberian societies and were prominently involved in only a small minority of other cultures, Hutton challenges a theory championed by French anthropologist Roberte Hamayon, who has suggested that the main function of the shaman in archaic Siberian societies was to obtain good luck for hunters (page 57). Hutton also takes issue with a parallel assumption, popular in American anthropology, that shamanism is connected intrinsically to hunting-gathering cultures.
In chapter 6, “Shamanic Cosmologies,” Hutton suggests that a key component of shamanism—at least according to shamanologists—is that shamans work with the spirit forces for the benefit of their communities. He indicates that it was Shirokogoroff who first proposed that “the hallmark of a shaman among the southern Evenks was the ability to summon and expel spirits at will” (page 65). While Hutton criticizes Eliade for extending this definition too broadly to spiritual practitioners across the globe, he also contends, “Shirokogoroff’s formula certainly has some general relevance [in Siberia], in that throughout Siberia shamans were expected to be conscious and active agents in their dealings with what westerners would call the call of the supernatural” (page 65).
Without denying the independence of transpersonal spirits, Hutton calls attention to Shirokogoroff’s declaration that “a shaman’s spirits were in reality altered states of mind, which made him or her able to perform, while their evil equivalents, against whom performances were aimed, were conditions of psychic dysfunction” (page 67). Hutton proposes that the “psychologizing of Siberian spirits is itself a statement of faith” (page 67). In any case, he argues there are many types of spirit communication: “A survey of Siberia as a whole reveals a spectrum of relationships between shamans and their otherworld helpers” (page 66).
The viewpoint that shamanic practices cannot be reduced to narrow definitions or to rigid criteria is a recurrent theme throughout Hutton’s Shamans. Even when he affirms Shirokogoroff’s assertion that “there is not shamanism without paraphernalia,” he immediately clarifies that this “legitimate generalization covers an enormous range of practice” (page 78). For example, after Hutton endorses the prevailing perception that drums were the most common tools used by shamans, he points out that Altaic shamans used stringed instruments instead of drums, the Chulym Turks used metal-ringed rattles, and some Buryat shamans relied foremost on heavily decorated staves. He also explains that shamanic costumes varied considerably across Siberia, ranging from the elaborately decorated costumes and headdresses used by Evenk shamans to the simple white kerchiefs and iron-shod boots used by the Chulym Turks. To accentuate his point, Hutton challenges Eliade’s assumption that the iron ornaments on costumes necessarily represented human or animal skeletons. Hutton indicates that this particular belief was only found in a restricted geographical range, and that similar ornaments were viewed variously in other areas as “armour against the attacks of hostile spirits, or feathers which could give powers of spirit-flight, or a map of cosmic geography” (page 82). In short, he proposes: “All this powerfully suggests that what Shirokogoroff found among the southern Evenks holds good for all native Siberia: that special dress or equipment was essential to shamans, but that its form was subject to both local custom and individual taste” (page 83).
Varieties of Trance Methodologies
In chapter 8, “Shamanic Performance,” Hutton examines at length the popular notion that “the defining characteristic of a shaman was the apparent ability to make a spiritual journey into alternative worlds and realities.” As he notes, this thesis—which was first championed by Shirokogoroff, then popularized by Eliade, and subsequently affirmed by other shamanologists—has developed into a fundamental precept of neoshamanism. However, as Hutton astutely points out, Shirokogoroff and other ethnographers have shown that Siberian seances could take different forms: visionary soul journeys; spirit incorporations, or possessions; and dialogues or interactions with spirits.
Hutton confirms that the spirit journey appears to be the most widely distributed method: “It is recorded among the Chukchi, Yukaghirs, Evenks, Sakhas, Buryats, Nanais, Enets, Nenets, Nganasans, Kets, Khants, Altains, Soyots and some of the Turkic speaking peoples of the steppes; in other words, across almost the whole of Siberia” (page 88). However, he later adds that “the technique whereby shamans absorbed spirits into their own bodies was also clearly widespread” and that the technique of “summoning the spirits and then interrogating them or carrying on a dialogue with them was found almost as widely as the soul-journey” (page 89). As Hutton indicates, some Siberian shamans used all three methods for communicating with transpersonal powers. Because all three types of spirit communication are also found in other parts of the world—Asia, Africa, and the Americas—I agree with Hutton that spirit journeys should not be viewed as the sole defining element of shamanizing.
Seemingly hesitant to endorse indigenous views on the independence of spirits, Hutton adopts and elaborates on Siikala’s theory that shamanic performances involve elements of hypnotic “role taking.” He examines various scholarly attitudes regarding the content and function of shamanic performances, and concludes that performances were a key component of shamanizing. For example, he notes that Diószegi credited shamans with exceptional skills as performers—“one was a great singer, another an expressive dancer, another had exceptional dramatic skills, another was an evocative raconteur, and so forth” (page 85). He also points out that many ethnographers, including Shirokogoroff and Diószegi, called attention to the improvisational nature of shamanic performances, and he cites a Soviet ethnographer who contended that shamanism was not a tradition of the people, but a creation of individual artists. Based on such observations, Hutton draws the conclusion that Siberian shamanism may have involved psychospiritual therapies, but “it was also a form of entertainment” (page 93).
Without discounting the therapeutic value of dramatic exteriorizations—giving voice and action to emotional and psychic energies—I contend that the vitality of shamanic performances has more to do with inspired actions than with mundane performance skills. In my experience, when shamans enter deep trance states, they connect with transpersonal energies that infuse them with extraordinary powers—powers that may manifest in inspired singing, dancing, and drumming, and in the ability to handle fire, tolerate cold or pain, and facilitate physical healings.
Incidentally, Hutton mentions that Basilov once suggested that trances might enhance one’s sensitivity to others, allowing the shaman to intuitively identify the nature of an ailment and find an effective cure. I appreciate Hutton’s willingness to contemplate the possibility that “the achievements of Siberian shamans might indeed have exceeded those which can be explained in terms of conventional mental and physical training, and the tricks of the stage conjurer and illusionist” (page 98). Still, I look forward to the time when shamanologists begin to seriously contemplate the testimony of shamans, who consistently attribute their skills and powers to spirits and other transpersonal beings.
Considering Controversial Loose Ends
In a catch-all chapter titled “Knots and Loose Ends,” Hutton briefly addresses several contentious topics—including a popular assumption about the role of shape-shifting in spirit journeys, a fanciful British theory that spirits always travel in straight lines, and the debate over whether Siberian shamans relied on “drugs” to achieve trance states. Perhaps because the first two theories have been promoted widely within British neopagan circles, Hutton cites ethnographic data challenging the importance of shape-shifting in Siberian shamanisms and showing that Siberians believed that spirits traveled in meandering patterns, not just straight lines. However, in dealing with the issue of whether entheogens were used in Siberia, he downplays evidence of their use and uncritically adopts the drug-phobic views of Eliade and Siikala.
After acknowledging a thesis raised in 1939 by Swedish academic Ake Ohlmarks, who claimed that Amanita muscaria, or fly agaric, mushrooms were used extensively in northern Siberian shamanisms, Hutton questions a claim made by Hungarian scholar János Balázs that the mushrooms were used to induce trance states. Hutton reports that Eliade found the idea “repugnant” and that Siikala concluded that intoxicants were not “essential to or even a vital factor in the shaman’s trance technique.” Then Hutton asks, “Who is correct?” I admit that the ethnographic and linguistic evidence provided by Ohlmarks and Balázs, mentioned by Hutton, may be largely circumstantial, but it is suggestive, and it has never been successfully challenged. In contrast, a careful review of Eliade’s and Siikala’s comments on the role of psychoactives in shamanism reveal that they were based on personal opinions and flimsy assumptions.
Eliade’s thesis—that the use of psycho-actives in Siberian shamanism was a late and degenerate development—was based almost exclusively on his assumption that tobacco and alcohol were introduced to Siberia at a relatively late date. A major flaw in Eliade’s argument is that Siberian ethnographic evidence suggests that the shamanic use of fly agaric was more—not less—prevalent in earlier times. For example, Jochelson (1926) reported that the Yukaghir—who were heavily acculturated—seem to have stopped eating fly agaric by 1900, although their traditional legends indicated they had done so previously. Archaic usage of A. muscaria among the Koryak and Kamchadal is also suggested by the prevalence of fly-agaric themes in traditional tales collected by Jochelson (cited in Wasson 1971).
It is unfortunate that Hutton ignores the persuasive evidence amassed by R. Gordon Wasson showing that fly agarics were used by shamans among the Koryak, Chukchi, Kamchadal, Yukaghir, Khanty, Selkup (Ostyak), Nentsky (Yurak), and Inari Sami. He also discounts linguistic research by Bernat Munkácsi and Balázs pointing to the archaic use of fly agarics in many parts of Siberia.
Balázs provides strong linguistic evidence showing how geographically isolated Finno-Ugric languages have preserved a series of etymologically related words (panx, pango, ponk, etc.) for fly agarics and shows that those words are also etymologically related to words meaning “ecstasy, intoxication, drunkenness” and “to fall into a trance” (Balázs 1996:27). Instead of assessing that intriguing linguistic evidence, Hutton challenges a secondary comment by Balázs that Siberian shamans may have relied on several mind-altering substances to induce trances. Hutton may be correct in asserting that Balázs exaggerated the mind-altering impact of burning aromatic herbs, smoking tobacco, and drinking alcohol, and that, at one point, Balázs even questioned whether eating fly agarics alone could induce shamanic trances. However, Hutton fails to mention that Balázs, in the same essay, indicated that “alcohol cannot compare with the fly-agaric as an effective narcotic” (Balázs 1996: 29). Instead, echoing an assumption promoted by Siikala, Hutton claims: “At best, all these substances seem only to have enhanced an effect created far more obviously by the dynamics of the performance itself” (page 101).
Hutton does not seem to notice that Siikala adopted Eliade’s biased position on psychoactives largely on faith, bolstered by selective reporting. She supports her view that psychoactives didn’t play a significant role in Siberian shamanizing, by referring to a literary survey conducted by Estonian mycologist Maret Saar (1991). Paraphrasing Saar, Siikala states, “The most common Siberian hallucinogen, for example—amanita—is not used everywhere” (Siikala 1992:29). In contrast to Siikala’s interpretation, Saar’s survey shows that A. muscaria was used in western Siberia by the Khanty, Mansi, Forest Nenets, Selkup, Nganasan, and Ket, and in eastern Siberia by the Chukchi, Koryak, Itelmen, Eskimo, Chuvanian, and Yukaghir peoples. That may not be “everywhere,” but the survey reveals that fly agarics were used in a significant number of Siberian tribes. Paraphrasing Saar, Siikala also states, “In some areas it [amanita] is among the normal, revered tools of the shaman, in others it marks out the user as belonging to a class of poorer or less skilled shamans” (Siikala 1992:29). Saar’s survey, which was based on ethnography collected before and during the Soviet era, indicates that A. muscaria was sometimes used for nonshamanic purposes—for the recital of epics, to enhance work effort, and even for secular “narcotic” effects. However, Saar (1991) explicitly states that A. muscaria was used first and foremost for activities performed by shamans—communicating with the souls of the dead, communicating with spirits, treating disease, naming newborns, overcoming dangers, interpreting dreams, fortune-telling, foreseeing the future, seeing the past, and visiting different worlds. In short, Saar’s report confirms that A. muscaria was used extensively by Siberian shamans for shamanic purposes.
In my opinion, Siikala grossly underestimates the role of psychoactives based on her biased reading of Saar’s survey. In order to understand why Siikala downplays the role of fly agarics in Siberian shamanisms, it is useful to consult her original text, as opposed to Hutton’s summary. There, we find that Siikala assumes that the shaman’s ecstasy was a type of hypnotic trance, enhanced by “the mechanical stimulation of the nervous system by rhythmical music, singing, dancing and drugs” (Siikala 1992:32). In short, Siikala assumes that intoxicants merely fortify drumming. She does not support her conclusion that “the use of hallucinogens and other such intoxicants is not, however, a vital element of trance technique in any part of Siberia” (Siikala 1992:34).
Hutton adds to the fiction promoted by Siikala and Eliade. For example, Hutton wrongly asserts that Finnish ethnographer K. F. Karljalainen assumed that the shamanic use of fly agarics was recently adopted. What Karljalainen actually states is that the shaman’s technique of “questioning the panx” may have been an adaptation that came into use in later times (cited in Wasson 1971:284, 315). Moreover, Karljalainen explicitly states: “Drum, zither, and panx are the ‘great’ material means by which the Ugrian magician attempts to communicate with the spirits and obtain the information he needs” (cited in Wasson 1971:282). In short, it seems that Hutton may have misrepresented ethnographic reports to support his claim that “Eliade and Siikala were right; drugs were not the central features of North Asian shamanism that they have been in South American ritual practices” (page 102).
It is worth remembering that, even in the entheogenic-rich Americas, the shamanistic use of psychedelics went largely unnoticed until the early 1900s, and remained undervalued until the 1950s. It was primarily due to the participatory research of twentieth-century ethnographers and ethnobotanists that we now recognize that peyote, San Pedro cactus, psilocybin mushrooms, and ayahuasca have been used by shamans in the Americas as shamanic transogens. Significantly, the rediscoveries of those plants were often made possible by explorers paying attention to obscure historical references.
If Soviet ethnographers had been inclined to pursue the miscellaneous statements about A. muscaria in historical reports written prior to the Soviet era, I suspect that they might have discovered that use of psychoactives in Siberia was commonplace. In fact, I contend that many shamanologists, lacking experiential familiarity with A. muscaria, may have overlooked indirect evidence of its usage. For example, in an essay discussing linguistic connections between shamanic trance states and A. muscaria, Balázs (1996) relates a statement by a Mansi shaman that the shaman feels a strong sensation of heat in his head and body as he falls into trance. Lacking experiential knowledge of fly agaric effects, Balázs questions whether the consumption of the mushroom produces the heat. However, I can testify—based on my studies of A. muscaria—that it can produce an intense and dramatic feeling of heat in the head and body.
It is easy for shamanologists who lack experiential familiarity with A. muscaria to overlook or misinterpret vital information. For example, after calling attention to a comment by Bogoras that Chukchi shamanic performances “required considerable concentration, skill and energy” and a “special diet,” Hutton suggests that those conditions were incompatible with the effects of fly agaric consumption. Once again, experiential knowledge leads to different conclusions. Admittedly, some ethnographic reports indicate that heavy doses of the mushrooms can induce sleep and interfere with physical movement. However, experiential studies indicate that light doses can enhance the user’s energy—an observation that fits well with the reports that shamans rarely ate more than a few fly agarics before shamanizing in public. Because experiential accounts also confirm that fasting enhances the entheogenic, but not the soporific, effects of A. muscaria, I propose that the Chukchi habit of fasting before shamanizing may have been connected to their use of A. muscaria—rather than conflicting with its use.
Hutton’s main argument for marginalizing the shamanic use of A. muscaria in Siberia centers on a “comprehensive study” by Soviet researcher Z. P. Sokolova, who reported that the Khants and Mansi shamans did make use of the mushrooms, but, according to Hutton, “only as one option among a range of techniques for trance induction which also included drumming, dancing, smoking, smoke inhalation, and staring at a candle, the sun or a fire” (page 102). Hutton argues that, if shamans used other methods in addition to using psychoactives, then “drugs” couldn’t have been “central features” of Siberian shamanisms. Using Hutton’s creative logic, it could be argued that drumming was never a central feature of Siberian shamanisms, because some cultures didn’t use drums and most cultures also used other techniques to achieve ecstatic states.
Based on my experiential knowledge of several North American entheogenic traditions—Zapotec mushroom veladas, Huichol peyote ceremonies, and the North American peyote religion—I suggest that, even in those entheogenic-reliant traditions, shamanic states of consciousness are rarely achieved solely by the consumption of psychoactives but through a synergistic combination of techniques, which may include meditating, chanting, dancing, drumming, rattling, tobacco smoking, and performing ritual actions. Instead of assuming that shamanizing can be reduced to any single technique, we need to explore how multiple techniques can work in synergistic ways to produce the most efficient, powerful shamanic states.
Reviving Siberian Shamanisms
The most provocative discussions in Shamans are found in part 3, “Siberia in the Shamanic World.” In chapter 10, “The Discovery of a Shamanic World,” Hutton examines various conflicting viewpoints regarding the prehistory of shamanisms. For example, he introduces a theory, first suggested in the 1770s by Johann Georgi, that shamanism was an ancient spiritual practice that may have contributed to the development of Hinduism and Buddhism. Almost immediately, he offers an opposing theory, raised by Shirokogoroff, who suggested that Siberian shamanism developed in medieval times as a blending of Native animisms with Buddhism. Then, in his rhetorical style, Hutton asks another of his leading questions, “How ancient was it?”
As a conservative historian, Hutton suggests that we need to restrain our imaginations, stick to studying the historical records, and avoid speculating wildly about the prehistoric roots of shamanisms. He suggests that the first reasonably clear historic reference to Siberian shamans may be a ninth-century Chinese report that indicated certain sorcerers, called kam, were found among the Turkic-speaking Kirgiz people. Moreover, as he notes, it wasn’t until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that the Chinese recorded descriptive reports of Mongol and Chinese magicians conducting shamanistic performances. In the 1550s, Richard Johnson wrote the first report in English of a Siberian performance, which mentions features typical of shamanistic performances described by later ethnographers (page 118). Hutton argues that, because there are almost no records of Siberian shamanic practices before the sixteenth century, that is where the history of shamanism should start. However, he ignores circumstantial evidence—such as oral histories and folk legends—that indicates that shamanistic practices have existed in Eurasia for millennia.
Shamanologists have long asserted that the word shaman derived from the Evenk word saman, but Hutton shows that, even here, there are conflicting theories, which rely on two different lines of linguistic reconstruction. Shirokogoroff assumed that saman derived from the Chinese word shamen, which was used in the twelfth century to refer to a wonder worker or Buddhist monk, and which was a transliteration of the Pali terms for a monk, samana and shamana. However, as Hutton points out, some scholars believe the earliest—and most widespread—Siberian word for a shaman is the Turkic word kam, and “the word kam may therefore be an ancient Siberian term for a shaman, and the word shaman itself may have derived from it” (page 115). After noting that phonetic resemblances between these words—kam, shamen, saman, and samana—could be coincidental, Hutton offers an intriguing alternative theory, suggesting that saman might have derived from “a convergence of the native word with the Buddhist one” (page 115).
One may ask why Hutton chose to tackle the history of Siberian shamanisms, when his primary field of interest is British paganism. One likely reason is his expressed concern about the indiscriminate use of the term shaman among British neopagans. Another is that he is clearly critical of any scholars who go beyond the hard data and make unsupported speculations. For example, Hutton accuses Eliade of promoting a romanticized image of shamans as spiritual leaders. He suggests that Eliade’s religious and philosophical interests prompted his view that shamans were “exemplars of an ancient form of spirituality which had been of crucial importance to the development of religion worldwide” (page 120). In contrast, Hutton claims that the ethnographic records clearly reveal that Siberians mostly sought out shamans for practical purposes: seeking physical cures, finding lost objects, predicting the weather, removing negative energies, and fixing bad luck.
Hutton acknowledges that phenomena similar to Siberian shamanism have been recorded in other parts of Asia, and other continents, but he takes issue with Eliade’s theory of shamanic diffusion from an archaic central Asian homeland. Eliade assumed that Siberian shamanisms had evolved from a single form of shamanism—originating in the Ural Mountains—that could have been spread by people migrating around the world. To account for the sporadic absence of shamanistic traditions in some places, he proposed that shamanic practices must have dispersed around the world in Paleolithic times, and then died out in some areas due to unsupportive local conditions.
Hutton indicates that other scholars explain the similarities in shamanic practices between geographically and linguistically diverse cultures by suggesting that they may have evolved independently, due more to our common human biology than to cultural diffusion. In a rare case of taking sides on an issue, Hutton endorses the theory that humans evolved the same sorts of techniques independently to cope with similar needs (page 127).
Does Europe Have a Shamanic Past?
In chapter 11, “The Discovery of a Shamanic Past,” Hutton confronts speculations about the existence of shamanic practices in western Europe. For the most part, he seems intent on challenging any suggestion that the ancient inhabitants of western Europe engaged in shamanic activities. For example, he rejects the efforts of Eliade and others to identify traces of ancient shamanic practices within early Greek and Roman cultures.
Hutton also challenges popular claims that Paleolithic rock art in Europe can be interpreted as evidence of shamanic practices. Taking a conservative position, he declares that, when it comes to the archaeological investigation of prehistoric cultures, it is “impossible to demonstrate conclusively that the art concerned is specifically the relic of practices which scholars call shamanism” (page 133). As an example, Hutton argues that, while it is conceivable that the prehistoric designs carved on rocks at Neolithic graves may be evidence of entoptic trance states, such speculations are not susceptible to proof.
I agree that the mere presence of entoptic patterns in rock art is no guarantee that the artists were in trance. However, if archaic evidence (depictions or caches) of psychoactive plants can be found in connection with entoptic-rich rock art, archaeologists may be justified in suggesting that the art could have been inspired by psychoactive-induced trances. Of course, even if the prehistoric art was produced by entranced “artists,” we can’t automatically assume that the artists were shamans.
Hutton discounts shamanistic motifs preserved in Christian-inscribed versions of pagan stories and sagas, but he considers some cases where writers have suggested that archaic Irish legends depict persons utilizing shamanistic paraphernalia or skills. In one instance, he suggests that the feathered cloaks worn by druids and filids in Irish tales may have had shamanic functions similar to those of the feathered costumes and headpieces worn by some Siberian shamans. However, he quickly qualifies that the apparent similarities may be entirely coincidental.
Eventually, Hutton concludes that the activities of European sorcerers and witches were quite different from Siberian shamanic practices primarily because they weren’t community oriented. For example, he suggests that “shape-shifting is conceived of [in European folklore] as a technique used in the normal, physical world without any association with spirit-helpers, trance-states or performances before audiences, and is intended for the private benefit of the magician or of people who have secretly hired the latter” (page 141). I think that it is misleading to assert that shamanism is always community oriented and can’t serve individuals. In some parts of Siberia, clan shamanizing was performed in large public gatherings, but Shirokogoroff also describes Tungus healing ceremonies held at night in small wigwams for the benefit of individuals and small groups (1935:311-312), and he mentions that some shamans engaged in psychic warfare (1935:371).
Hutton challenges the speculative theories of Hoppál and Siikala, who claim to have uncovered evidence of shamanistic traditions within western Europe. He acknowledges evidence that Finnish tietajas engaged in activities similar to those of Siberian shamans—they went into trance, recited invocations to spirits during performances, and sent out special spectral helpers to do battle with evil entities (page 138). However, he points out that the tietajas also bore certain similarities to European cunning folk—conducting heal-ings, divinations, and protective magic.
In addition, Hutton challenges a provocative thesis raised by Diószegi that Magyar stories of taltos suggest that they performed functions comparable to those of Siberian shamans. While acknowledging some parallels, Hutton ultimately dismisses that shamanic connection, claiming the taltos described in Hungarian myths didn’t engage in “dramatic public performances” (page 145). Once again, his argument hinges on the questionable assumption that dramatic public performances should be considered a defining trait of shamanisms.
Hutton also briefly addresses the studies of Italian historian Carlo Ginsburg on the spirit-inspired benandanti of Friuli, in northern Italy, who claimed, during sixteenth-century witchcraft trials, that they engaged in nocturnal spirit flights in order to protect their communities against spectral attacks. While acknowledging some parallels between these night flights and Siberian shamanic journeys, Hutton discounts their shamanic status because the benandanti didn’t work with spirits during public performances.
Interestingly, while he regularly questions the theories of other shamanologists, Hutton seems hesitant to spell out his own definitions of shaman and shamanism. However, one can find comments interjected throughout his book that bear testimony to his personal definitions. For example, in a section comparing North American and Siberian cultures, he writes, “Most of the characteristics of Siberian shamanism suggested above are also found in North America: the existence of specialists working with spirits to heal, divine, blight or defend; the use of entranced states and special equipment by the people; and the provision of performances by them before audiences” (page 157).
Ironically, Hutton ultimately ignores these parallels and argues that North American medicine men aren’t comparable to Siberian shamans—allegedly because “these specialists rarely made spirit-flight or were in contact with dead ancestors who advised and empowered them” (page 157). A major flaw in his reasoning is that, by his own admission, spirit flights are only one method of communicating with spirits. Another flaw in his argument is that American ethnographers have reported that some Native American medicine men engage in spirit flights. There is not space enough in this review to document the evidence of shamanistic practices in the Americas, but I think the case can be made that Native doctoring practices in North America display more than superficial parallels to shamanic practices in Siberia. The shaking tent rituals of the Ojibwa, the yuwipi ceremonies of the Lakota, the chantways of the Diné, and the doctorings of Pomo shamans are but a few examples of North American ceremonies that involve shamanistic spirit flights and spirit possessions.
In chapter 12, “The Discovery of a Shamanic Future,” Hutton returns to Siberia and considers the comments of various ethnographers who have suggested that shamanic practices are fading out throughout the area. He mentions that Siberian shamanic practices are being revived in Tuva and elsewhere, but he raises concerns that Western New Age ideas are corrupting indigenous traditions. Hutton is also critical of the appropriation of indigenous shamanic techniques and motifs within American and British neopagan communities. At one point, he accuses Michael Harner of adopting Eliade’s “concept of shamanism as a worldwide and ancient phenomenon because it helped justify the idea that shamanism was ultimately part of everybody’s inheritance instead of being part of the culture of certain peoples” (page 158). My response is that, if vital shamanic abilities—such as dreaming and autohypnotic trance states—are innate in humans, we should not be surprised to find shamanic practices cropping up almost anywhere.
After reading Shamans, I pondered, “What are the pros and cons of this book?” Hutton certainly provides readers with an extremely well-informed and well-documented introduction to the history of Siberian shamanology. In the process of examining European efforts to understand and define Siberian shamanisms, he introduces readers to an impressive sampling of viewpoints, representing a broad spectrum of scholarly resource materials. Nonetheless, I fear that his academic style of presenting opposing theories, without always resolving the inherent contradictions, could leave many readers wondering what, if anything, shamanologists have learned about Siberian shamanisms. In the end, Hutton’s primary contribution may be that he calls attention to the diversity of Siberian shamanic practices and to the unfortunate tendency of outsiders to interpret Siberian spirituality through various reductive, cognicentric frameworks.
Reference List
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Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, editor. 1997. Shamanic Worlds: Rituals and Lore of Siberia and Central Asia. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Bogoras, Waldemar. 1908. The Chukchee. Leiden: Brill.
Diószegi, Vilmos. 1998. “How to Become a Shaman among the Sagais,” in Shamanism: Selected Writings of Vilmos Diószegi, edited by Mihály Hoppál. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
Diószegi, Vilmos, and Mihály Hoppál, editors. 1996a. Folk Beliefs and Shamanistic Traditions in Siberia. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó.
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———. 1926. The Yukagir and Yukaghirized Tungus. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History. New York.
———. 1933. The Yakut. Anthropological Reports of the American Museum of Natural History. New York.
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Shirokogoroff, Sergei. 1935. Psychomental Complex of the Tungus, Vol. 1 & 2. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
Siikala, Anna-Leena. 1992. “The Siberian Shaman’s Technique of Ecstasy,” in Studies on Shamanism, edited by A. Siikala and M. Hoppál. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, pp. 26-40.
Wasson, R. Gordon. 1971. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Znamenski, Andrei A., editor. 2003. Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Indigenous Spirituality. Dordrecht/Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Timothy White is founding editor of Shaman’s Drum and a practicing entheogenic shamanist.
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