shaman Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Tribal witch doctor or medicine man believed to be in contact with spirits or the supernatural world, and thought to have magical powers. Shamanism is found among the Eskimos and Native Americans and in Siberia, where the term originated. African equivalents also exist. See also ...
shaman Quick reference
Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (3 ed.)
...shaman [L17th] This term, originally used of the priest-doctors of northern peoples of Asia, comes via German Schamane and Russian shaman from šaman , the word in the Tungusian languages of northern Siberia and Manchuria. This word may in turn go back to Chinese sha men , ‘ordained Buddhist’, from Prakrit samaya - from Sanskrit sramana ‘Buddhist...
shaman ([De]) Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (3 ed.)
... [De] An individual believed to have special magical powers; a sorcerer or witch doctor. A medicine man in ‘primitive’ societies, often with supernatural powers, who was capable of healing or...
shaman Quick reference
A Dictionary of Public Health (2 ed.)
...shaman A tribal medicine man in traditional cultures who derives healing powers from inducing trance-like states, sometimes augmented by traditional herbal remedies. Transplanted to literate industrial societies, the word has come to mean anyone wise in the nontechnical ways of healing and helping to solve difficult problems in or related to the health sector. ...
shaman Quick reference
A Dictionary of Cultural Anthropology
...shaman An individual who enters into trance states to mediate between human and spirit worlds in healing and divination ceremonies. Their name derived from an Evenki (Siberian) word referring to knowledge gained from ecstatic experience, figures like shamans are generally considered to have special social and spiritual qualities that set them apart, and they exist in many other societies. Evolutionists considered shamanic practice to be a primitive form of religion ; later anthropologists focused on the arduous pathways to status as a shaman; shamanic...
Shaman drum Reference library
Mireille Helffer
The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (2 ed.)
...Shaman drum . Single-headed frame drum of the shamans of Central and East Asia, Indonesia, India, the Americas, the Arctic region, and elsewhere. The term ‘shaman’, borrowed from the Tungu language, designates someone who acts as an intermediary between humans and spirits of the upper and lower worlds; in the 20th century scholars universally adopted the term in ethnographical literature for various religious specialists who carry out therapeutic or divinatory practices. The shamans use a drum to call up spirits and to accompany their rituals. The name of...
Magic, Animism, and the Shaman's Craft Reference library
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature
...community of beings. The shaman's primary allegiance, then, is not to the human community, but to the earthly web of relations in which that community is embedded – it is from this that his or her power to alleviate human illness derives – and this sets the local shaman apart from most other persons. The term “shamanism” is regularly used, today, to denote the belief system, or worldview, of such cultures wherein the shaman's craft is practiced. Yet this term is something of a misnomer, for it implies that the person of the shaman stands at the very center of...
shaman Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
... priest among N. Asiatic tribes. XVII. — G. schamane , Russ. shamán...
shaman noun Reference library
The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English
... noun L17 German ( Schamane , Russian shaman from Tungusian šaman ). A priest among certain peoples of northern Asia, regarded as one with healing and magical powers and influence over the spirits who bring about good and evil; a healer among North American Indians, regarded as possessing magical powers. Now also, a person regarded as having powers of spiritual guidance and healing through direct access to and influence in the spirit...
shaman Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (2 ed.)
... a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, especially among some peoples of northern Asia and North America. Typically such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practise divination and...
shaman Quick reference
New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary (2 ed.)
... • Alabaman , Amman, Ammon, Drammen, gammon, Mammon, salmon • Bradman , Caedmon, madman, madmen • flagman , flagmen • trackman , trackmen • hangman , hangmen • chapman , chapmen • cragsman , cragsmen • cracksman , cracksmen, Flaxman • batsman , batsmen • batman , batmen • Tasman • clansman , clansmen, Klansman, Klansmen, landsman, landsmen • backgammon • barman , barmen, Brahman, Carman, Carmen, shaman, Sharman, Tutankhamen • craftsman , craftsmen, draftsman, draftsmen, draughtsman, draughtsmen, raftsman, raftsmen • marksman ,...
shaman
Shamanism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Asian Mythology
... Shamanism is a religious phenomenon involving the disciplines and the practices of shamans . Although existing in various forms in various parts of the world, shamanism in its purest form is native to Siberia and Central Asia ( See Central Asian Mythology , Siberian Shamanism ) and to the indigenous peoples of North and South America who seem likely to have Central Asian origins. Shamans have also existed in the context of Shinto ( See Shinto entries) in Japan ( See Japanese Shamanism ), their duties relating primarily to village rituals. In...
shamanism
Dictionary of the Social Sciences
... A socioreligious system in which certain individuals (shamans) are credited with powers over the physical and spiritual world, often in a context of ecstatic and temporary embodiment of the divinity. Shamans play an interstitial role, mediating between different dimensions of reality. Shamanism had a prominent place in nineteenth-century social theory as an evolutionary stage between magic and religion. Because versions of shamanism are common to a wide range of cultures, it remains a subject of widespread...
