Shamannism
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To truly understand the meaning of shamanism one must uncover the original definition. The word shaman comes from the language of the Evenk, a small Tungus-speaking group of hunters and reindeer herders from Siberia. It was first used only to designate a religious specialist from this region. By the beginning of the 20th century it was already being applied to a variety of North America and South American practices from the present and the past. Today people have gone as far as defining the word shaman as any human that acknowledges that he/she has had contact with spiritual entities. Well at least the term still refers to human beings.
The Siberian shamans soul is said to be able to leave the body and travel to other parts of the cosmos, particularly to an upper world in the sky and a lower world underground. How can anyone know what the people of Mesoamerica were seeing if they in fact were even in these states of trance. A broader definition is that shamans would include any kind of person who is in control of his or her state of trance, even if this does not involve a soul journey. This broader definition stills does not include a culture that no one was around to document. Does anyone really know if these Ðshamans controlled their state of trance? Not to mention, there is no evidence of a written language of either the Olmec or West Mexican regions to date. These definitions of shamanism are very brief and really can not be upheld as a specific precise and accurate definition, however shamanism within these parameters has been widely accepted both in the early and late twentieth century, and into today.
Shamanism due to its many definitions could be just about any being that can be observed practicing. Shamanism is not a single, unified religion but a cross-cultural form of religious sensibility and practice. It is a complex set of practices, beliefs, values and behaviors that enable the practitioner to elect a shift from ordinary consciousness into a trance state with a specific goal in mind. Such as healing, obtaining information, power, vision, divination, contacting the spirit of the deceased, soul retrieval or guidance for right action.
Shamanism is scattered and fragmented and should perhaps not be called an -ism at all. There is no doctrine, no world shamanic church, no holy book as a point of reference, no priests with the authority to tell us what is and what is not correct. Shamanism is not a religion but could justifiable be a part of a religion. The fact is that well philosophers can speculate, even by the vaguest definition of shamanism they can not prove that these individuals were taking part in these trance-like states without written or physical proof.
Due to the theory of shamanism being introduced into the Mesoamerican culture because of the writings of Eliade and Furst, it seems only fair to look carefully at the relevance to their interpretations. Eliade had originally acknowledged the oddity concerning the concept of shamanism and, in turn, took it into his own hands to create a version this concept himself. (Klein, pg. 388) I can not reasonable enter into the idea of this model that he has created. He clearly explains the existence of shamanism in Siberia and inner Asia, in which there has been, documented proof. The idea that because this is happening there does not prove that it was happening over 2000 years ago across the world. He fails to connect the two areas, in time and place, feasible. It is extremely interesting that only Eliades point of view is found in the Encyclopedia of Religion. (Eliade 201-208)
Despite Fursts attempt to redefine shamanism in terms of specific American religious beliefs and practices, the new criteria he provided have proved to be as unreliable as Eliades. It repeatedly insists that the concepts of the universe divided horizontally into an upper world, a terrestrial middle world, and an underworld in the sense that shamanism would include most American belief systems. In fact in Fursts definition of shamanism he explains that the Ðshaman does not have to even take a hallucinogenic to reach a state of trance. Basically, Furst redefined shamanism in terms that scholars, even Eliade, would consider to be vaguely described. Even so, many take Fursts explanations as reality. For example, his descriptions of a variety of sculptures and paintings from Mesoamerica, he referred to them as being part of or relating-to shamanism. In ÐDog with Mask 100-400 AD Furst contributes the mask to the transformation that shamans go through, which is happens to be a theory backed no hard evidence. (See Figure 1. Some of the most popular figurines from Colima are the numerous representations of dogs, depicted in all sorts of activities: fighting, grooming themselves, standing or merely sleeping. Invariably, these dogs are short-legged and appear to be excessively fat. This may be due to the fact that Mesoamericans were no strangers to using dogs as food and they even fattened them just for that purpose.) Or in another sculpture found at Colima, ÐSeated Figurine Wearing Conch Shell sculpted between 200 AD and 300 BC, Furst decided that the Ðhorn on the figures head was the horn that shamans of Siberia wore, therefore this was a shaman. Furst has proposed that the origin of the single horn may lie in observations of the native male turkey, which has a hornlike wattle above its beak that becomes especially prominent during mating season. Other possibilities include the horned serpent or the rhinoceros beetle, which some
indigenous beliefs connect to the underworld. Furst suggests that the smaller, knob-like appearance denote a novice, while the larger horn indicates a shaman in full possession of his powers. (See Figure 2) ( {S, T, and O} Furst, 69-82) When, in fact, the Siberians wore horns, but not conch shells as is being presented. Furst has also been quoted saying that shamans were a kind of leader within the Mesoamerican civilization. Where is there any proof of this being the case? Furst discusses many times throughout his article about the Aztec civilization and references them when referring