Shamans

By,

Sheldon Lee Wen

001019684

Anthropology 3550

David Baldwin

Shamanism is one of the most interesting aspects of religion and ritual. It is also, however, an area open to many possible theoretical interpretations as each ethnographer devises a model based on his or her own ethnographic work. Such models don't always fit with another's cultural practises or views; therein lies the difficulty. To illustrate this we shall look at four articles on the topic of Shamanism. In each one we will look at the authors main argument, and whether or not the evidence for such an argument is compelling. Finally I shall render my opinion on questions dealing with the study of Shamanism and it's usefulness.

The first article is by Knud Rasmussen and is titled "A Shaman's Journey to the Sea Spirit." Rasmussen's article deals with the problem of hunting failure among the Inuit people. Their failure in hunting is a result of the breaking of taboos by the Inuit people, which gather in dirt and impurity over the body of the sea goddess. It is the shaman's job to journey to the bottom of the sea through many dangerous ordeals in order to appease her (by stroking her hair) and report the difficulties of the people. The shaman then returns and obtains a mass confession from all those who have broken taboo. This ritual can be individual, but it is also a community event. In the confession "everyone learns his neighbour's secrets."¹ and this mechanism serves to reinforce their world view. Being an egalitarian society this would be akin to a "self policing" of their laws. Rasmussen doesn't make this argument himself in the article but the event's he lays out would affirm this idea. Given the structure of their society and the instances in which this ritual is enacted it is at least moderately compelling given the information at hand.

The second article is "The Effectiveness of Symbols," by Levi-Strauss. Levi-Strauss examines the Cuna nele's (shaman's) song who's purpose it is to facilitate difficult childbirth. The etiology is that Muu, the power responsible for the formation of the fetus has exceeded her function and captured the soul of the mother (to be). The shaman fights against this abuse of power, aided by his spirit helpers, to get Muu to release the soul of the mother. Levi-Strauss' main argument in this article is that the song evokes a psychological response which allows his patient to relax. Once relaxed the childbirth goes easier. Specifically the myth works on the imagination to produce a psychological and physiological response; "the song constitutes a psychological manipulation of the sick organ and it is precisely from this manipulation that a cure is expected."² The incoherent and arbitrary pains of the patients situation are put into a comprehensible and meaningful framework that the patient can deal with. Thus myth is a concrete interpretation or representation for a more abstract concept. "Once the sick woman understands, however, she does more than resign herself; she gets well."³ Levi-Strauss' evidence is firstly in the metaphor of the shaman's journey to the delivery and the symbolic relation in the symbols sensory attributes. This sets the stage for a psychological framework. "It is a relationship between symbol and thing symbolised, or, [...] between sign and meaning."⁴ He then applies this to psychoanalysis as a final substantiation of his claim, using abreaction as the specific mechanism. Is this compelling given the "evidence"? From a purely scientific point it has merit but only in the parallels that are drawn between the shaman's journey and the situation of the patient. The rest must rely upon current psychoanalytic theory.

The third article is "The Effectiveness of Shamans in an Indonesian Ritual," by Jane Atkinson. Atkinson uses her own ethnographic experience to critique Levi-Strauss's theories of ritual and catharsis. Atkinson's contention with Levi-Strauss, is that she feels he has overlooked important specifics and made some erroneous assumptions. Atkinson's main argument consists of two points. The first is that of an emphasis on performance versus Levi-Strauss's emphasis on text. "By moving too hastily from the ritual text to its presumed goal, however, Levi-Strauss failed to ask how therapeutic efficacy might be conditional on ritual performance."⁵ The second is the social aspect and social dynamics, "[...] Levi-Strauss focused on [...] a single individual in distress. [...] one must deal with the effect of a public performance on a collected audience."⁶ With respect to the performance aspect of the ritual, it is of utmost importance because of two main reasons: first, in contrast to the Cuna shaman, the Wana shaman's chant's do not parallel a shaman's journey and the patient's involvement with a sick organ. Second, Wana patients have no active participation or role in the ritual and/ or the shaman's words may not be intelligible or be heard above the drums. Thus, Atkinson argues that an abreaction cannot always be established. Hence, the focus is on the performance not the text if a cure is to be evoked. Returning to the social aspect of the ritual Atkinson looks at how the ritual affects not only the esteem of the shaman, but the community as a whole. In the ritual she argues that the shaman represents the whole community and their vulnerabilities and problems. The transfers those vulnerabilities and problems to himself as a focus for dealing with those problems. Their pain is eased through this focus on the shaman and the audience helping him thorough the danger of his vulnerability to a resolution. In doing so the help solve their own problems, or at least come to terms with them. This is similar to, but the dynamics are different than, the psychoanalysis technique of transference. There are also more general social themes that are addressed by the Wana shaman, these mostly illustrate the message that "without a powerful counter force, things fly apart,"⁷ unity is favourable to dissolution. This can be seen in the loss of souls, and the fear of social dispersion. It seems that the degree to which this argument is compelling is a direct reflection of the description of the actual ritual cited.

Our last article is entitled "Presence," by Robert Desjarlais, looks at the shamans of the Yolmo and their ritual struggle against 'listlessness,' which to them is a sign of spirit loss, but which Desjarlais equates with depression. Desjarlais's main argument is that the intellectualist and symbolist positions do not account for the ritual or the effectiveness of the ritual. This does not explain why Yolmo shamans work to the extent that they do. Dejarlais argues that "how a Yolmo shaman searches for a spirit is as important as actually finding it."⁸ Therefore, he argues that any model of how the healing works must also take into account the ways in which a patient knows himself to be healed. Desjarlais accounts for the healing by noting that the event forces people to make sense of what is happening. To do so they must concentrate on every image, and in doing so they complete the construction of it's reality. He posits that the engagement itself is curative through the impact of it's visceral symbols and words. To explain these words evoke a cure Desjarlais plays off of literary theory with a comparison or wild versus bound images and how they excite the imagination in a particular way. The evidence for this is rather compelling given the length, colour, and intricacy of the shaman's journey. The attention to detail seems to validate Desjarlais observations.

One reoccurring observation that I've made throughout each of these articles is that their arguments are only as compelling as the quality of their ethnographic research which undoubtedly belies the outlook of the ethnographer in question. However, this does not mean that the study of shamanism in anthropology should stop. In each case some aspect of another cultural practise is brought to light and can help us understand in our own framework (in my mind anthropology is primarily an attempt to translate the world views other cultures into our own world view), the practises and benefits of other cultural practises. I do believe that there are things about basic human nature that can be learned and incorporated into our own culture, for our betterment. However, we should be aware of the underdeterminedness of attempts in translate another's cultural practises into our own framework for out understanding. If you can image a shaman's "ethnographic" analysis of western sociocultural practises you can get an idea of how skewed our translations may be.