Download or read book Shamans in Asia written by Clark Chilson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-08 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shamans throughout much of Asia are regarded as having the power to control and coerce spirits. Many Asians today still turn to shamans to communicate with the world of the dead, heal the sick, and explain enigmatic events. To understand Asian religions, therefore, a knowledge of shamanism is essential. Shamans in Asia provides an introduction to the study of shamans and six ethnographic studies, each of which describes and analyses the lives and activities of shamans in five different regions: Siberia, China, Korea, and the Ryukyu islands of southern Japan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The essays show what type of people become shamans, what social roles they play, and how shamans actively draw from the worldviews of the communities in which they operate. As the first book in English to provide in-depth accounts of shamans from different regions of Asia, it allows students and scholars to view the diversity and similarities of shamans and their religions. Those interested in spiritual specialists, the anthropological study of religion, and local religions in Asia will be intrigued, if not entranced, by Shamans in Asia.
Download or read book Shamans in Asia written by Clark Chilson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-08 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shamans throughout much of Asia are regarded as having the power to control and coerce spirits. Many Asians today still turn to shamans to communicate with the world of the dead, heal the sick, and explain enigmatic events. To understand Asian religions, therefore, a knowledge of shamanism is essential. Shamans in Asia provides an introduction to the study of shamans and six ethnographic studies, each of which describes and analyses the lives and activities of shamans in five different regions: Siberia, China, Korea, and the Ryukyu islands of southern Japan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The essays show what type of people become shamans, what social roles they play, and how shamans actively draw from the worldviews of the communities in which they operate. As the first book in English to provide in-depth accounts of shamans from different regions of Asia, it allows students and scholars to view the diversity and similarities of shamans and their religions. Those interested in spiritual specialists, the anthropological study of religion, and local religions in Asia will be intrigued, if not entranced, by Shamans in Asia.
Download or read book Spirit Voices written by David J. Shi and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 2023-05-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a clear and accessible guide to the many different North Asian shamanic traditions, past and present. What is shamanism? Where is it from? How does one become a shaman? What are the requirements to become one? Anthropologists tell us that the word shaman derives from the Tungus language and traditions, but few people understand the full scope of what that means. In his groundbreaking book, Spirit Voices, David Shi answers all these questions and more. Drawing upon his own ancestral traditions, Shi explores the history and practice of shamanism. He guides readers through what may be the unfamiliar landscapes of North Asia—the place where shamanism was born—as well as the largely hidden and unfamiliar traditions of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungus shamanism, exploring the subtle and unique aspects of each tradition. Shi provides a clear and accessible guide that explores the many different North Asian shamanic traditions. So, what exactly is shamanism? David Shi suggests that the most accurate definition derives from shamanologist Nicholas Breeze Wood, who writes, “A shaman is someone chosen by the spirits [typically at or before birth] and who can go into a controlled and repeatable deliberate trance state, during which they A) experience ‘spirit flight,’ where they go to the spirit worlds and meet spirits, who they either fight with, negotiate with, or trick, in order to create change in this physical world, or B) are often taken over/possessed by the spirits (normally ancestral shaman spirits, or local land spirits) while in this physical world—the spirits using the shaman’s voice and body to heal, or give advice to members of the shaman’s community. Without the spirits and their blessing, a shaman cannot exist or function. Without the trance state, it is not shamanism.” Featuring history, firsthand experiential reports, mythology, and folklore, Spirit Voices explores the spirits, spirituality, tools, and practices of true shamanism, past and present. Shi also provides practical information for those readers seeking to implement shamanic practices, including those that are appropriate to noninitiates and outsiders to the culture. As the author points out, “the purpose of shamanism can be summed up in two words: coexistence and balance—coexistence with our spirits and our communities, and the balance that must be preserved between all of us and within ourselves.”
Download or read book Sultans Shamans and Saints written by Howard M. Federspiel and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2007-01-31 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the fourteenth century the Islamic faith had spread via maritime trade routes to Southeast Asia where, over the next seven hundred years, it would have a continuing influence on political life, social customs, and the development of the arts. Sultans, Shamans, and Saints looks at Islam in Southeast Asia during four major eras: its arrival (to 1300), the first flowering of Islamic identity (1300–1800), the era of imperialism (1800–1945), and the era of independent nation-states (1945–2000). Ranging across the humanities and social sciences, this balanced and accessible work emphasizes the historical development of Southeast Asia’s accommodation of Islam and the creation of its distinctive regional character. Each chapter opens with a general background summary that places events in the greater Asian/Southeast Asian context, followed by an overview of prominent ethnic groups, political events, customs and cultures, religious factors, and art forms. Sultans, Shamans, and Saints will be of great value to students and researchers specializing in the study of Islam and the comparative study of Muslim societies and culture. It will also be useful to those with a world-systems approach to the study of history and globalization.
Download or read book Shamanism and the Origin of States written by Sarah Milledge Nelson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarah Milledge Nelson’s bold thesis is that the development of states in East Asia—China, Japan, Korea—was an outgrowth of the leadership in smaller communities guided by shamans. Using a mixture of historical documents, mythology, archaeological data, and ethnographic studies of contemporary shamans, she builds a case for shamans being the driving force behind the blossoming of complex societies. More interesting, shamans in East Asia are generally women, who used their access to the spirit world to take leadership roles. This work challenges traditional interpretations growth of Asian states, which is overlaid with later Confucian notions of gender roles. Written at a level accessible for undergraduates, this concise work will be fascinating reading for those interested in East Asian archaeology, politics, and society; in gender roles, and in shamanism.
Download or read book Animal and Shaman written by Julian Baldick and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012-10-22 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Animal and Shaman, a comparative study of the indigenous pre-Christian and pre-Muslim religions of Central Asia, describes a common inheritance among the beliefs of the various peoples who have lived in Central Asia or have migrated from there: Scythians, Huns, Mongols, Manchus, Finns and Hungarians." "Shamans - holy men and healers among the pagan faiths - relied heavily on animal sacrifices to create spiritual purity and to nourish the soul and, as a result, animals and spirituality were locked in a mutually dependent embrace. Julian Baldick demonstrates that in pagan times there were remarkable common features in the forms of worship and spiritual expression and that these similarities were largely based on the roles of animals in the different cultures of Central Asia. He shows that these have not only survived in the myths and legends of the region but have also found their way into the mythologies of the West." "This analysis will be of importance to historians as well as to cultural and social anthropologists."--Jacket.
Download or read book Shamanic Worlds written by Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient heartland of shamanism is no longer forbidden territory - to travelers or to the spirits. But the spirits never left the vastnesses of Siberia and Central Asia, as these writings reveal. Russian and native experts, and an American cultural anthropologist who has done fieldwork in the region, introduce us to shamans as the poets, therapists, healers, and even leaders of their communities. Among the special features of this collection are remarkable transcriptions of shamanic exhortations and a pathbreaking study of shamanic tales and rituals.
Download or read book The Shamaness in Asia written by Davide Torri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book concentrates on female shamanisms in Asia and their relationship with the state and other religions, offering a perspective on gender and shamanism that has often been neglected in previous accounts. An international range of contributors cover a broad geographical scope, ranging from Siberia to South Asia, and Iran to Japan. Several key themes are considered, including the role of bureaucratic established religions in integrating, challenging and fighting shamanic practices, the position of women within shamanic complexes, and perceptions of the body. Beginning with a chapter that places the shamaness at the centre of the discussion, chapters then approach these issues in a variety of ways, from historically informed accounts, to presenting the findings of extensive ethnographic research by the authors themselves. Offering an important counterbalance to male dominated accounts of shamanism, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Indigenous Peoples across Religious Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, and Gender Studies.
Download or read book Shamans Nostalgias and the IMF written by Laurel Kendall and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years ago, anthropologist Laurel Kendall did intensive fieldwork among South Korea’s (mostly female) shamans and their clients as a reflection of village women’s lives. In the intervening decades, South Korea experienced an unprecedented economic, social, political, and material transformation and Korean villages all but disappeared. And the shamans? Kendall attests that they not only persist but are very much a part of South Korean modernity. This enlightening and entertaining study of contemporary Korean shamanism makes the case for the dynamism of popular religious practice, the creativity of those we call shamans, and the necessity of writing about them in the present tense. Shamans thrive in South Korea’s high-rise cities, working with clients who are largely middle class and technologically sophisticated. Emphasizing the shaman’s work as open and mutable, Kendall describes how gods and ancestors articulate the changing concerns of clients and how the ritual fame of these transactions has itself been transformed by urban sprawl, private cars, and zealous Christian proselytizing. For most of the last century Korean shamans were reviled as practitioners of antimodern superstition; today they are nostalgically celebrated icons of a vanished rural world. Such superstition and tradition occupy flip sides of modernity’s coin—the one by confuting, the other by obscuring, the beating heart of shamanic practice. Kendall offers a lively account of shamans, who once ministered to the domestic crises of farmers, as they address the anxieties of entrepreneurs whose dreams of wealth are matched by their omnipresent fears of ruin. Money and access to foreign goods provoke moral dilemmas about getting and spending; shamanic rituals express these through the longings of the dead and the playful antics of greedy gods, some of whom have acquired a taste for imported whiskey. No other book-length study captures the tension between contemporary South Korean life and the contemporary South Korean shamans’ work. Kendall’s familiarity with the country and long association with her subjects permit nuanced comparisons between a 1970s "then" and recent encounters—some with the same shamans and clients—as South Korea moved through the 1990s, endured the Asian Financial Crisis, and entered the new millennium. She approaches her subject through multiple anthropological lenses such that readers interested in religion, ritual performance, healing, gender, landscape, material culture, modernity, and consumption will find much of interest here.
Download or read book Shamanism and Christianity written by Olivier Lardinois and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Shamans Housewives and Other Restless Spirits written by Laurel Kendall and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1987-07-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This exceptionally well-written book is good reading, not only for specialists but also for beginning students interested in women, Korean culture, and shamanism.” —Journal of Asian Studies “Kendall maintains a closeness with and respect for her subject that keeps away the chill of academic distance and yet avoids sentimentality.” —Korean Quarterly, Spring 2001
Download or read book Sultans Shamans and Saints written by Howard M. Federspiel and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2007-01-31 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the fourteenth century the Islamic faith had spread via maritime trade routes to Southeast Asia where, over the next seven hundred years, it would have a continuing influence on political life, social customs, and the development of the arts. Sultans, Shamans, and Saints looks at Islam in Southeast Asia during four major eras: its arrival (to 1300), the first flowering of Islamic identity (1300–1800), the era of imperialism (1800–1945), and the era of independent nation-states (1945–2000). Ranging across the humanities and social sciences, this balanced and accessible work emphasizes the historical development of Southeast Asia’s accommodation of Islam and the creation of its distinctive regional character. Each chapter opens with a general background summary that places events in the greater Asian/Southeast Asian context, followed by an overview of prominent ethnic groups, political events, customs and cultures, religious factors, and art forms. Sultans, Shamans, and Saints will be of great value to students and researchers specializing in the study of Islam and the comparative study of Muslim societies and culture. It will also be useful to those with a world-systems approach to the study of history and globalization.
Download or read book The Shamaness in Asia written by Davide Torri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book concentrates on female shamanisms in Asia and their relationship with the state and other religions, offering a perspective on gender and shamanism that has often been neglected in previous accounts. An international range of contributors cover a broad geographical scope, ranging from Siberia to South Asia, and Iran to Japan. Several key themes are considered, including the role of bureaucratic established religions in integrating, challenging and fighting shamanic practices, the position of women within shamaniccomplexes, and perceptions of the body,. Beginning with a chapter that places the shamaness at the centre of the discussion, chapters then approach these issues in a variety of ways, from historically informed accounts, to presenting the findings of extensive ethnographic research by the authors themselves. Offering an important counterbalance to male dominated accounts of shamanism, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Indigenous Peoples across Religious Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, and Gender Studies"
Download or read book Shamans of the 20th Century written by Ruth-Inge Heinze and published by Ardent Media. This book was released on 1991 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Shamans of the 20th Century, anthropologist Ruth-Inge Heinze takes a critical look at the global re-emergence of the shaman in the late twentieth century, redefiing the role of the shama at a time when we in the West are questioning both our ways of knowing and medical practice. A pioneering work, hers is a much needed synthesis between third-world and primal people's holistic understanding of healing as embracing the total human condition-social, emotional, psychological as well as physical, and the radically innovative stance of Western New Age healers. Elinor W. Gadon" -- Back cover.
Download or read book Shamanism written by Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-22 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addresses the most important theoretical and practical problems underlying public budgeting. This anthology is organized topically rather than historically, with an effort to delineate the issues needed to understand some of the controversies in the field. It describes what public budgeting is, where it comes from, and what it is for.
Download or read book Shamanism and Epic Poetry in Northern Asia written by Arthur Thomas Hatto and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ancient Traditions written by Gary Seaman and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shamanism is the world's oldest religion. The rituals and beliefs of this ancient tradition were carried from Asia and Siberia into the New World by nomadic hunting bands beginning 12,000 years ago. This unique collection of essays on shamanism in Central Asia and the Indian Americas provides sound and engaging scholarship that reflects the great diversity in this fascinating field. Over the centuries, shamanism has endured as an abiding topic of interest not only because of a human concern with the past, but also because of a common yearning to acknowledge life lived in closer symbolic relationship to earth cycles. For the reader interested in indigenous cultures and religions, this collection of essays clarifies much of the New Age speculation on universals in shamanism by bringing studies of different ethnic and historical expressions to bear on the subject. Ancient Traditions is the result of a major conference held in 1989 at the Denver Museum of Natural History that brought together scholars and others interested in shamanism from the United States and the former Soviet Union.
