Saami People of Norway, Finland and Sweden and Joiking

[sentient]

Originally Posted by Altair

I don't know if you meant that literally, but canines have been carriers of rabies throughout history, as are bats. It's where we got the werewolf and vampire stories from. An infected canine is indeed a 'rabid hound from hell'..

Well, back in my mind I was kind of thinking about the old (yin & yang like) totemic moiety balance system, where for example in Mongolia, the wolf marries the deer.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-mongolians-love-wolves

This is the old Khanty/Mansi image which I had posted before:


How at times you can “see” the person’s totem animal superimposed on them (their etheric double, I suppose) or sense how their ‘energy-fields vibrate’ with a special kind of detectable totemic ‘key’.

But what happens when that moiety balance gets lost …

To actually shapeshift into a bear or a wolf, folklore tells how you need to go to the forest, find a special kind of tree with a specific kind of root to crawl under – whatnot ….

*

I am somewhat aware of the Eastern – Viena Karelian and Saami mixed heritage, familiar with that cultural blur, but finding that many of the Norwegian Kautokeino Saami families are distant relatives also is a new discovery and I am somewhat amazed.

Where “our” researches went to the East, to Siberia, to seek old deep ancestry connections to the old ways, looks like the Norwegian cousins went to the West.

Michael Harner – Oh my …

And this inspiration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJBA..._channel=hape3

I am stunned. Stunned and amazed.

[sentient]

Sami Neo-Shamanism in Norway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPBF...ithH%C3%A4rger

Had to watch that video twice, since at first it sounded like gobbledygook.
What New Age?!
What Neo?!
What reconstruction?!
Blimey! Didn’t know or realize or appreciate just how much had been lost culturally.

Did come across the book “The Way of the Shaman” by Harner. Bought the book, read it and then did something I have never done before nor since – burned it!

Radien - from the website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radien-attje

The superior deity is the ruler of the Cosmos. In his honour, the Sami erect a sacrificial pole every autumn, symbolizing the world-pillar, which is considered as a connection the World to the firmament. The pillar reached from the centre of the Earth to the fix point on the firmament - the Pole star. The superior deity is also the “giver of life” and is considered the god of fertility.

This, I dare say is “Core Shamanism”.
We have always had it, so no need to reconstruct it, but perhaps it takes an Elder to properly help one understand the meaning and show how to reconnect to it.

Which brings me to these old rock paintings from Finland ….

Noaidi drums from Sápmi, rock paintings in Finland and Sámi cultural heritage – an investigation
A new, extensive examination of figures with horns and triangular shaped heads in prehistoric rock paintings in Finland reveals remarkable parallels with similar attributes on the Radien and Akka groups of spirits, pictured as male and female powers of the sky, earth and underworld, painted on the heads of indigenous Sámi noaidi drums from Swedish and Norwegian Sápmi during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The example:
http://www.ismoluukkonen.net/kalliot...omi/sn/sn.html

Why the triangular shaped heads? Does anybody know?
Are those 2 lavvus (or kotas) underneath the figure?
I think I have read a few references about Saami having lived there prior to moving up North.

[sentient]

Ailo Gaup, Michael Harner and Neoshamanism
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10...781137461407_1

Harner: “The Way of the Shaman”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N2z...nkingAllowedTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGb...hamanicstudies

I can fully relate to Gaup’s (then) need to revive the old ways and had I also at that time come across those speeches of Harner’s – I too would perhaps have been sold to his idea.

And sure, many people can learn “shamanic journeying” if one can relax enough, enter into a theta-brainwave state (perhaps through drumming) & get over the CCF barrier (Conscious Critical Faculty). But learning to journey or even learning to facilitate such events during a weekend workshops, does not make one a “Shaman”.

When the workshop: “Many people, now you too can become a Shaman” (what I now assume were Harner educated facilitators) from FennoScandian/Saami lineage - channelling Siberian “Medicine People Shaman” called the “True Path” came to town - out of curiosity, I did attend:

https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/s...3&postcount=40

Yeah - no.
That was both good, but not really heh.

[sentient]

P.S.
Even though I am not a fan of Harner’s – that doesn’t mean Gaup’s journeying did not provide valuable and valid information for him.

So now I am really curious and interested in his journeys!
Will try to get the book:

[WhiteWarrior]

Originally Posted by sentient

And sure, many people can learn “shamanic journeying” if one can relax enough, enter into a theta-brainwave state (perhaps through drumming) & get over the CCF barrier (Conscious Critical Faculty). But learning to journey or even learning to facilitate such events during a weekend workshops, does not make one a “Shaman”.

That would be me. However, I do not call myself a shaman, I say I am on a shamanic path, and others I have talked with say the same. I have yet to hear a credible spiritual person actually call himself a shaman.

[sentient]

Originally Posted by WhiteWarrior

That would be me. However, I do not call myself a shaman, I say I am on a shamanic path, and others I have talked with say the same. I have yet to hear a credible spiritual person actually call himself a shaman.

Good on you WhiteWarrior.
Care to share a memorable journey or two or three?

[WhiteWarrior]

Originally Posted by sentient

Good on you WhiteWarrior.
Care to share a memorable journey or two or three?

I mainly attempt to communicate with the spirit world on behalf of others. To do this I use a drum to heighten my mental state at least one notch. It seems to be working, judging by the feedback I get. Journeying to the aether I have done a few times, again to speak with spirit but this time earth bound ones. Also there was the one time I tried mind traveling to the cabin, first saw the building as it was a long time and several rebuildings ago, then saw myself being buried in the fog wearing armor and with a smile on my face. I'm not really much of an experimental journeyer, I'd rather have a purpose to the voyage.

My idea of what a shaman is, really comes from the tribal nomadic cultures. Where the shaman was the local doctor, apothecarist, dream interpreter, story teller, priest, dentist, burial agent, general wise man and just about anything except chieftain. His main function being to offer a service to his community. I cannot be most of those things but I recognize his craft as a honorable one and will take what inspiration I can from what I know of them.

[sentient]

Oh, did find the Gaup website sjamansonen story: “Om å finne veien”:
https://sjamansonen.net/index.php?op...17&It emid=51

That I understood with my little Dansk og Svensk, but to get it all, I did need Google English translation.
So, it was Harner who had approached him …

If I remember correctly, Harner had also approached Anna-Leena Siikala, who wrote “The Rite technique of the Siberian Shaman”, but she was more into travelling around Russia doing academic research, than into “journeying”.

[sentient]

WhiteWarrior

May I ask – where did you first learn about this? What prompted you?

[WhiteWarrior]

Originally Posted by sentient

WhiteWarrior

May I ask – where did you first learn about this? What prompted you?

Hm. Good question. I have been on a conscious spiritual path for a little more than a decade. During that time I have met several spiritual people of various branches of faith, including on this forum, who kindly let me ask very many questions and helped me understand concepts and try things. I consider them my teachers. Before that there were little moments and experiences that I didn't see as significant at the time. I recall some time when I was a child, maybe 6 or 7, when I would lie awake in my bed in the darkness constructing houses and ships piece by piece from energy and turning them around to study them. A decade later I could lie in bed and travel in my mind along well known roads stretch by stretch to some destination. I didn't think this was unusual at the time.

I never read much spiritual stuff. Oh, I have a number of books, but back when I read them I didn't think I was ever going to do anything like that myself. There was however one line that has stuck with me. I don't recollect from where. That shamans often found their calling after a drastic, lifechanging event. I certainly had that, just a few years before I started my conscious path, when I lost my health and much else that mattered to me then.