What is a shaman's job?

Answer 1

The word "shaman" is from the Evenki language and people who live in what is now Russia, Mongolia and China. There are many cultures worldwide who have people whose role might be discribed as a "shaman".

There are four different definitions of the word and no agreement as to which is correct.

1) Those who contact the spirit world in a state of altered conscoisness.

2)Those who do that for the benefit for others.

3)People who do that but are somehow different from mediums, prophets or spritual healers

4)Only those who practice the tradional religions of Siberia.

The many cultures who have a roles that might fit into 4 definitions of this word are vastly different in nature and the place and meaning they asign to these roles. In general Shamans act as mediators in their culture but those cultures (except for the more limited definition of the related Siberian Tugunistic peoples) have very different cultures to navigate. Some are healers, some storytellers, some lead souls to thhe next world, some are fortune tellers

M. Eliade felt they all had the following beliefs:

Spirits exist and they play important roles both in individual lives and in human society.

The shaman can communicate with the spirit world.

Spirits can be benevolent or malevolent.

The shaman can treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits.

The shaman can employ trance inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstasy and go on vision quests.

The shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers.

The shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers.

The shaman can perform other varied forms of divination, scry, throw bones/runes, and sometimes foretell of future events.