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Originally Posted by norseman
It ought to be remembered that shamanic practices were common right across Eurasia south of the glacier line in the last Ice Age. American shamanism came from that line. There are some paths using shamanic practices, the commonest one being the Cunning Folk to commune with the ancestors in UK and Northern Europe. It is a mistake to attach a cultural implication since it was wide-spread to many cultures.
One pointer to shamanic practices in the UK come from excavations of Star Carr in North. Yorks. This was a settlement dated at around 10000 BC BEFORE Britain became an island. It was built on marshy land at the confluence of several rivers. The nature of the land preserved the remains of the settlement. One major find there consisted of 12 deer skull headresses [ below ] In the 19 century, Victorian explorers found the same headresses being used by shaman in Siberia.
Star Carr excavation
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...psidupfdij.png |
Hi
norseman,
As you already mentioned - the earliest form of ‘Shamanism’ was practiced by the hunter-gathers of the Mammoth Steppe:
https://img00.deviantart.net/92f8/i/...28-dao9kr9.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe
The remains of the 7,000-year-old caveman from the mountains of north-west Spain shows that:
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He also shared a common ancestor with people who inhabited the Upper Palaeolithic site of Mal'ta, near Lake Baikal, Siberia, more than 20,000 years ago.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...an-traits.html
During the Mesolithic era (prior to the European hunter-gatherers being slowly replaced by new migrant farmers from the Near East and prior to the Indo-European invasions), this early hunter-gatherer population had extended to Doggerland and further inland UK. Hence the similarity of the headdress with Siberians, I assume.
https://naturalishistoria.files.word...ature-2008.jpg
Out of those European Natives – only Saami (and other Finno-Ugric) populations practiced Shamanism till relatively recently, until the witch-hunts, when Shamen were persecuted. I am sure every Saami has a known Shaman on their family tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_shamanism
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The word "shaman" probably originates from the Tungusic Evenki language of North Asia. According to ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen, "the word is attested in all of the Tungusic idioms" such as Negidal, Lamut, Udehe/Orochi, Nanai, Ilcha, Orok, Manchu and Ulcha, and "nothing seems to contradict the assumption that the meaning 'shaman' also derives from Proto-Tungusic" and may have roots that extend back in time at least two millennia.
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Saami (& other Finno-Ugric) Shamanic heritage can be related to Siberian influences (shared similarities) –since we are a Native Euro – Native Siberian (to a certain extent) mix populations.
I am writing this history, because I don’t see our deep Ancestral and Cultural Heritage stemming from “New Age”, but it seems nowadays any mention of 'Shamanic cultures' gets automatically regarded by anti-newage-script-warriors as fake, fraudulent, plastic, shame-on native wannabeeism.
Cannot speak for other Shamanic cultures or practices, so the Shamanic calling in my books comes from Awakening to ‘Non-Duality’, which is similar to near-death-experiences.
After all the Axis Mundi – the World Pole as a symbol of the ‘Centre of Centrelessness’ is thus a way to orient the mind-space awareness within the Non-Dual “Oneness” Reality.
Empowerment that follows is a bit culture specific imo.
And not every Shaman was a healer either, but had other tasks to perform also.
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