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Volume 8 Number 1 (Spring 2000)
Articles
WOLFGANG G. JILEK and LOUISE JILEK-AALL (Vancouver,
B.C.): Shamanic Symbolism in the Revived Ceremonials
of the Salish Indian Nation of the Pacific Northwest
Coast
This article is based on original information received
by the authors who worked for many years as anthropologically
trained psychiatrists in the Pacific Northwest among
the Coast Salish Indian people and their neighbours,
and on relevant ethnographic reports going back to the
time of early contacts in the 19th century. The authors
attempt an analysis of Coast Salish shamanic ceremonials
practised in the past in the context of the North American
Indian guardian spirit complex, and revived in modified
form in the 1960s as psycho- and sociotherapeutically
effective winter spirit dance ceremonial. The analysis
is conducted on the level of symbolic content and on
the level of formal structure; it encompasses the symbolic
process of the spirit dance initiation, of the Coast
Salish mask myths and dance ritual, of shamanic "Indian
Doctoring", and of the "Power Board and Pole"
ceremonial which derives from the now obsolete shamanic
spirit canoe rite.
JAMES ALEXANDER OVERTON (San Diego, Cal.): Neurocognitive
Foundations of the Shamanic Perspective: A Brief Exploration
into the Role of Imagination in Cognition and in the
Creation of Experience
The fundamental premise of this paper is that there
exists a single, highly complex, common neurocognitive
capacity responsible for the development of many uniquely
human cognitive and cultural phenomena, including shamanism,
the shamanistic worldview, art, and language. This essay
is representative of a work in progress aimed at initiating
the scientific exploration into this primary human neurocognitive
faculty, identified and referred to herein as ‘imagination’.
The task however, is monumental. Not only is the study
of imagination lacking in the Western intellectual and
philosophical tradition, but this very tradition is
founded "upon a widely shared set of presuppositions
that deny imagination a central role in the constitution
of rationality" (Johnson 1987). The viewpoint adopted
in this inquiry departs quite radically from this convention.
Herein imagination is considered to be a fundamental
and essential human mind-brain function, and shamanism
is one of the most dramatic and first recorded manifestations
of this cognitive faculty. The purpose of this paper
is twofold. First of all, as its title suggests, its
aim is to be a preparatory neurocognitive investigation
into shamanism and related phenomena, a field of study
all but ignored by the neural sciences at large. In
this regard, it is intended to introduce a theoretical
structure upon which two traditionally disparate fields
of inquiry - namely the study of shamanism (and related
phenomena) and the field of cognitive neuroscience -
can lend to and share with each others’ respective spheres
of knowledge. Also, by introducing shamanism within
the same context as language and suggesting that both
share a common neurocognitive foundation (imagination)
it seeks to further legitimize the neurocognitive exploration
of these types of phenomena. Secondly, this essay identifies
imagination as the essential neurocognitive faculty
that is both manifested by shamanism and gives rise
to it. Thus, it intends to lay the foundation upon which
a neurocognitive approach to the study of shamanism,
as well as trance and other related phenomena at large,
can be built by defining a new field in cognitive neuroscience:
the study of imagination.
Volume 8 Number 2 (Autumn 2000)
Articles
JOHN A. DOOLEY (Manciet, France): Common Motifs and
Effects in Shamanic Passage Rites and No Theatre
This paper demonstrates that the universal "pattern"
of passage rites manifests itself in oriental shamanic
rites of calling back the dead. These rites would appear
to fall under the Buddhist rubric of moshu, or "wrongful
clinging". The same notion appears to have its
analogues in the dramatic action of No, which, however,
depicts characters anxious to give up this "clinging".
It is these whom the audience can identify with. The
comparative approach adopted involves the action, forms
of dialogue and the strangely shifting nature of character
which is common to both the shamanic ritual and the
drama. Both these forms of activity appear, broadly
speaking, to exorcise bad spirits by making them into
good ones. No in effecting its cure emphatically engages
in tacitly upholding the most transcendental Buddhist
precepts; the ritual appears to exist happily where
it is needed, and where alternative forms of drama are
not yet powerful or appealing enough to supplant it.
GÁBOR KÓSA (Budapest): "In Search of the Spirits":
Shamanism in China Before the Tang Dynasty. Part One
Scholarly investigations in the last decades have produced
a great variety of suggestions and hypotheses concerning"
the shamanic substratum" of Chinese culture. These
studies have most often applied a diachronic, i. e.
historical, archeological or philological method to
investigate the presence of shamanism in the Chinese
religious landscape. However, beyond the filed of Sinology,
the conclusions of these recent studies are not widely
known. On the other hand, not even Sinology has made
an attempt comprehensively to treat the origin and the
development of this presumed substratum. In the next
few pages, I will summarise the main hypotheses and
evidence of shamanic influence on the Chinese religions
complex, contending that a more detailed analysis and
a through reassessment of classical sources will later
be needed further to clarify some of the unknown aspects
of shamanism in ancient China.
JOJO M. FUNG (Sabah, Malaysia): Glimpses of Murut Shamanism
in Sabah
The study is done in a little known ethnographic area,
Sabah, at least in the field of indigenous shamanism.
What is perhaps fascinating is that the three shamans
studied in relation to Murut shamanism do not merely
exercise traditional roles but also engaged themselves
in public subversive activities. This study proposed
to see shamans as the existential and human symbols
of the local practice of shamanism. In addition, this
study established the "perspectival difference"
(even among Muruts themselves) between the perceptions
of Muruts who have "heard of" the shamanic
practice and those who are actually practicing Murut
shamanism. The juxtaposition of both perspectives in
this study is seen as complementary. The practice of
shamanism and the shamanic "route" undertaken
by the shamans of each culture, and even the manifestation
of "subversive memory" by the shamans, have
to be seen as context-specific. Indeed, there are differences
amidst the similarities in the diversity of shamanistic
practices.
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