World Religions › Prehistoric › Animism: a world alive with spirits
Shamanism: healers who journey to the spirit world
Prehistoric roots (debated); still practiced· Belief or practice· Ancient, indigenous & folk
Debated by scholarsHistorians and scholars disagree.
Practices in which a specialist, the shaman, enters a trance to contact spirits for healing, hunting luck or guidance.
See it on the World Religions map →What it is
The word comes from the Evenki people of Siberia (šaman), via Russian reports from the 1600s. A shaman uses drumming, chanting, dance, fasting or sometimes plants to enter an altered state, believed to send the soul into spirit realms or let spirits speak through the shaman. Similar roles exist in Mongolia, the Arctic, the Americas and Korea, where mudang (mostly women) still perform gut rituals. Mircea Eliade's 1951 book made 'shamanism' a worldwide category.
Why it matters
It may be one of the oldest religious roles, and it survives in Korean musok, Siberian and Mongolian revivals and Amazonian healing.
Sources and history
Ethnographic accounts since the 1600s and fieldwork today; possible prehistoric shaman graves such as Hilazon Tachtit in Israel (about 12,000 years old) and Bad Dürrenberg in Germany (about 9,000).
Questions and debates
Is 'shamanism' one ancient, universal practice or a Siberian word stretched over unrelated traditions? Prehistoric shamans are inferred, not proven.
Inside this (1)
Connections (4)
▸Shamanism: healers who journey to the spirit world grew out of Animism: a world alive with spiritsDebated by scholars
The connection
Shamanism rests on the animist premise: if animals, plants and places have spirits, someone must deal with them. The shaman is the specialist who travels in trance to bargain with spirits for game, healing or good weather. Many scholars see shamanism as animism's practical, professional side.
When and where
Recorded among Siberian peoples like the Evenki and Sakha by Russian and European travelers from the 1600s, and in similar forms in Mongolia, Korea, the Arctic and the Americas.
How do we know?
Ethnography: wherever shamans are documented, their work presumes a spirit-filled world. Prehistoric roots rest only on indirect clues like the 12,000-year-old Hilazon Tachtit burial.
Questions and debates
Whether shamanism grew out of animism or arose alongside it is unknown, and some scholars doubt 'shamanism' is a single phenomenon at all.
▸Shamanism: healers who journey to the spirit world survives in Korean shamanism (Mu) and the mudangMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Korean Mu is one of the world's most active living shamanic traditions. Like Siberian and Manchurian shamans, the mudang enters an altered state, lets spirits speak through her and heals or guides the dead, using drums, bells and costumes. Unlike the classic Siberian shaman, who 'journeys' to the spirit world, she mainly receives the spirits into herself.
When and where
The Korean peninsula from prehistory; Chinese histories describe Korean spirit rites by the AD 200s. Today mudang practice across South Korea, often in urban shrines.
How do we know?
Shared features with Siberian shamanism, Bronze Age bells and mirrors resembling shamans' tools, and steady fieldwork since the early 1900s; links before written records are inferred.
Questions and debates
Whether Korean shamanism descends directly from northern Asian shamanism or developed largely on its own is debated; 'shamanism' itself is an outsiders' umbrella term.
▸Shamanism: healers who journey to the spirit world influenced early Daoism (Taoism)Debated by scholars
The connection
Early Daoist religion probably drew on practices of the wu, the spirit mediums of ancient China: trance, spirit journeys, exorcism and healing. The Zhuangzi's flying sages and the Daoist priest's ritual ascent to the heavens echo the shaman's journey, though Daoists recast these as cultivating the Dao.
When and where
The southern state of Chu, about 400–200 BC, where shamanic songs like the 'Nine Songs' circulated; later the Celestial Masters movement from AD 142.
How do we know?
Indirect: the Chu Ci poems describe wu summoning gods, and Daoist ritual texts share their imagery. No early text says Daoism came from shamanism.
Questions and debates
Some scholars see Daoism as refined shamanism; others stress that Daoist priests defined themselves against local mediums and condemned their blood sacrifices.
▸Shamanism: healers who journey to the spirit world may explain the art of Painted caves of Chauvet and LascauxDebated by scholars
The connection
Archaeologist David Lewis-Williams argued that some cave images, like grids, dots and part-human, part-animal figures, match what people see in trance states. If so, the painters may have been shamans, and the cave walls a thin membrane between this world and a spirit world beyond the rock.
When and where
Proposed in the 1980s–90s by David Lewis-Williams of South Africa and French prehistorian Jean Clottes, notably in The Shamans of Prehistory (1996).
How do we know?
Comparisons with San rock art in southern Africa, made by known shamans, and brain research on trance visions; there is no direct evidence from the Ice Age painters.
Questions and debates
Critics call trance imagery too generic and the theory untestable; rival readings include hunting magic, totems, storytelling and art for its own sake.