shaman

I found a paragraph in a Wiki article on "shaman" quite enjoyable.

There, we are told that Alice Kehoe in "Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking" is highly critical of the term 'shamanism', and particularly peeved with Mircea Eliade's work of the troublesome name. That particular description was mediocre. But what follows, as a description of Kehoe's possible reasons, is quite masterful:

>>Eliade, being a philosopher and historian of religions rather than an anthropologist, had never done any field work or made any direct contact with 'shamans' or cultures practicing 'shamanism', though he did spend four years studying at the University of Calcutta in India where he received his doctorate based on his Yoga thesis and was acquainted with Mahatma Gandhi.
<<

I have taken the liberty of trimming some some flab, though I left the scare quotes in the original--a sign of its not being my own. It is the last parting shot I think indicative of skilled marksmanship.

Here is the online etymological dictionary:

shaman: 1698, "priest of the Ural-Altaic peoples," probably via Ger. Schamane, from Rus. shaman, from Tungus shaman, which is perhaps from Chinese sha men "Buddhist monk," from Prakrit samaya-, from Skt. sramana-s "Buddhist ascetic."

Of course much more to be said on that front, material which Eliade includes, to his credit, with footnotes: one must appreciate the good, for there is good in all of us, even those who write on Shamanism, while hanging out in Calcutta, having torrid affairs (perhaps because of having torrid affairs), and then meeting only one decidedly peculiar sramana while you are at it.

Here is the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, taking less chances:

沙門
[Pronunciations]
[py] shāmén
[wg] sha-men
[hg] 사문
[mc] samun
[mr] samun
[kk] シャモン
[hb] shamon
[qn] sa môn

Meanings
[Basic Meaning:] śramaṇa

Senses:
# Transliteration of the Sanskrit, meaning 'a Buddhist monk' (or nun). A wanderer (Pali samaṇa; Tib. dge sbyong). A world-renunciant religious practitioner striving for liberation. Originally in India, śramaṇa was a general term for a person who had shaved his head, renounced his worldly status and possessions and who trained his mind and body in the attempt to stop evil activities and strive for the good. It originally referred to non-Buddhist practitioners such as the Jains who based their beliefs on the Vedas and Upanishads. Translated into Chinese with such terms as 息, 息心, 靜志, 淨志, 乏道, 貧道, 動息, 功勞, 勤息, 淨志, 貧道 etc. Also transliterated as 桑門; 娑門; 喪門; 沙門那; 舍羅磨拏; 沙迦懣曩; 室摩那拏, 舍囉摩拏. 〔長阿含經、 T 1.107a〕 [cmuller ; source(s): Soothill,YBh-Ind]
# (1) Ascetics of all kinds; "the Sarmanai, or Samanaioi, or Germanai of the Greeks, perhaps identical also with the Tungusian Saman or Shaman." (Eitel) (2) Buddhist monks "who 'have left their families and quitted the afflictions,' the Semnoi of the Greeks." (Eitel) "He must keep well the Truth, guard well every uprising (of desire), be uncontaminated by outward attractions, be merciful to all and impure to none, be not elated to joy nor harrowed by distress, and able to bear whatever may come." The Sanskrit root is śram, to make effort; exert oneself, do austerities. [cmuller ; source(s): Soothill]

[Dictionary References]

Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.)477a

Iwanami Bukkyō jiten387

A Glossary of Zen Terms (Inagaki)330

Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha)271a/298

Japanese-English Zen Buddhist Dictionary (Yokoi)625

Bukkyōgo daijiten (Nakamura)601a

Fo Guang Dictionary2972

Ding Fubao

Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit Dictionary (Hirakawa)0711

Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki)(v.1-6)2180c,3019a,4280a

Bukkyō daijiten (Oda)811-1*1480-2-10

Sanskrit-Tibetan Index for the Yogâcārabhūmi-śāstra (Yokoyama and Hirosawa)

And here is an item clutched from cyberspace, in the midst of a discussion on meso-american studies. This one is worth the read:

>>

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 09:02:24 EST
Reply-To: Harri J Kettunen <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Pre-Columbian History <[log in to unmask]>
From: Harri J Kettunen <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Ma: Xamanism
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1

----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ------------------ A comment on the discussion of the term 'shamanism' (Robert Carlsen =26 al.): The word 'shaman' has its roots in the Evenki (formerly Tungus) language spoken presently by some 10 000 native speakers (out of the total of 30 000 Evenkis) living in the area extending from the northern tip of the lake Baikal to the area around the fork of the rivers Lena and Aldan in the Eastern end of the Middle Siberian highlands (Sibirskoye ploskogorye) and all the way to the Indigirska plains (Indigirskaya nizmennost) further to the north-east. From the Evenki 'sama:n'/ 'shama:n'/ 'hama:n' the word was introduced first to Russian in the second half of the 17th century by an Old-Believer highpriest Avvakum, who was living in exile among the Evenkis, and made the first written account of the Evenki s(h)amans (the unvoiced alveolar fricative /s/ has an unvoiced postalveolar fricative (=22sh=22) as a variant in the Southern Evenki, from where the word was supposedly borrowed to Russian). It is noteworthy that Avvakum spoke only of Evenki shamans, and not of shamanISM. From the Evenki source the word was introduced to Russian in the form 'shaman', and the fenomenon as 'shamanstvo' (later also 'shamanism', but this form was probably re-borrowed from English). >From Russian the word(s) found its way to German (Schamane, Schamanismus), and consequently to all the other languages using a 'derivative' of this term. In English the first written source is Adam Brand's =22Journal of the Embassy From Muscovy to China Over Land=22 (1698), and the two words have undergone the following changes in the English language through time: schamane-schaman-schuman-shaman, and: schamanism-shahmanism-shamanism (the original meaning of the Russian word 'shamanstvo' is closer to the idea of =22shamanhood=22 =5Bsee below for a comment on this matter=5D). Furthermore,= the Evenki/Tungus (Tungusic) source of the word is under investigation at the moment, and there might be substantial evidence to grant the origin to Nivkhi (Nivhi/Gilgit) language of the Sahalin Island - especially because in Evenki there seems to be no real etymology for the word, but in the Nivkhi the word for shaman (c'am=5Bng=5D) also stands for 'eagle' (Prof. Janhunen =5Bsee below=5D will be talking about these matters in the = Conference of Shamanism in Tampere next January, if interested). The concept 'shamanism' has, however, undergone a terminological inflation both in popular writings, and in scholarly texts. In quite a few writings the concept 'shamanism' encompasses phenomena and personae such as African soul-possession cults or Mr. Jim Morrison. According to the Swedish academician and a researcher of religions (and e.g. shamanism), =8Fke Hultkranz =22There has, for a long period of time, prevailed a considerable confusion with the term 'shamanism'. Its content and meaning have been obscured. This is even more so regrettable because it is one of the most utilized terms in the religion(s) studies, folkloristics, and ethnology, and because we can hardly abandon the term.=22 The word/term/concept 'shamanism' has a twofold load on its back: in the first place, it contains a troublesome Greek-originated suffix '-ism', which implies (in many cases) institutionalized and dogmatic concepts and ideologies (such as communism, despotism, buddhism, Darwinism, Thompsonism?, etc.)=3B in the second place, it carries a burden of being a term used by the European (colonialist) anthropologists since the very beginning of ethnology and anthropology. Many native peoples (academic included) around the world shun the term for this reason, and some, like professor (of Religion Studies/ Univ. of California at Santa Barbara) In=82s M. Talamantez call it 'white shamanism', referring to the anthropologists who write about the ritual practices of the Native Americans as if they were all the way shamanistic: =22First they took our language and raped our land, and now they tell us HOW we believe=3B and that our Medicinemen are shamans.=22 (Sakim: this calls for a comment..) According to some researchers of Siberian shamanism (e.g. Anna-Leena Siikala) we should restrict the use of the term shamanism to the cradle of shamanism, Siberia, only. The shamanism encountered in the areas, where Tungusic languages (e.g. Evenki) are spoken, resembles the shamanic/ shamanistic practices carried out by other Siberian tribes, even though they have another term for the shaman (it is noteworthy that none of these languages have a concept for 'shamanism'). A cognate of Evenki 'sama:n'/ 'shama:n'/ 'hama:n' can be found in the following (Mandchu-)Tungusic languages: Negidal (sama:n), Lamut (hama:n), Udege and Oroch (sama=5Bn-=5D), Nanay (saman), Ulcha (sama=5Bn=5D), Orok (sama=5Bn-=5D), and Mandchu (sama/saman).In other areas the word for 'shaman' is different but the practices of shamans have a lot in common. In Mongol (belonging to the same family of languages =5BAltaic=5D as Tungusic and Turkic subfamilies = =5Bwith Korean as a probable =22external member=22=5D) the word for shaman is = 'b=94ge' (((the 'hen scratches' you probably get with my Scandinavian Keys are =94 = =5Bo with dots=5D, and =5Bin the following example=5D =81 =5Bu with dots=5D))), = which in Turkish becomes b=81g=81 (a wise person, magician). According to professor (of Eastern Asian Languages and Cultures/ Univ. of Helsinki) Juha Janhunen there is substantial evidence also for the noticeable age of shamaness' (female shaman's) appearance in Siberia, since in all of the Mongol languages there is a term which is exclusive for shamaness's (in Mongol 'idu7an' and in Buryat 'udagang' =5B/7/ stands here and in the following examples for velar fricative, and /ng/ cluster for velar nasal (I don't have my IPA on Pine yet)=5D). This term has, furthermore, been loaned to Yakut ('uda7an'), Evenki (udugan), Nedigal (odogan), and Lamut (udugan). Also in the Uralic languages there is no common term for a shaman: e.g. in Lapp it is 'noaiddi', and in Finnish 'tiet=84j=84' (tietaja - /a/ with = dots). It is interesting to notice that the Lapp 'noaiddi' (shaman) becomes 'noita' (witch) in Finnish with the original '=2Atietaja' meaning =22the one who knows=22 or =22the knower=22 (roots: 'tie' =5Broad, way, passage, = means=5D, and 'tieto' =5Bknowledge, intelligence, information=5D). Also many Far-Eastern Siberian tribes have an original term for a shaman and for shamanic practices and equipment. The Ainus of Sakhalin and Hokkaido Islands (in Russia and Japan, respectively) have 'tusu-kur' and 'tusu-menoko' for shamans and shamaness's (respectively). The Yukagir words for a shaman ('alma=5B-=5D'/'olma=5Bng=5D'/'wolme=5Bng=5D') are also autochtonous. The = terminology connected to shamanism of the Koryaks living in the upper course of Kolyma and Buyunda rivers probably (according to Janhunen) belongs to the same terminology as the one of the Inuits (around the Arcticum): in Koryak the shaman is 'angang=2Al7on' (/=2A/ for central open =5Bmid=5D vowel), in Nauka= Yupik 'angalkuq', in the Bering area Inuit 'angatqoq', and in the Greenland =22Eskimo=22 'an-gakkoq'. Even though we can't be sure who gave and who received the terminology, the appearance of common terminology from the Bering Strait all the way to Greenland speaks for the old age of the word. According to Janhunen the oldest protolanguages in Siberia with original vocabulary/terminology for shamanic practices and personae are the following: Proto-Tungus, Proto-Yenisei, Proto-Samoyed, and probably also Proto-Ob-Ugrian. The comparative analysis of the lexicon also gives evidence of early connections between e.g. Turkish and Mongolian=3B Yenisei and Samoyed=3B Evenki, Nivkh, and Ainu, and Mongolian. To conclude, although shamanic terminology varies from area to area in Siberia, shamanism and shamans are to be found all around in the area.<<