Shanar: Dedication Ritual of a Buryat Shaman in Siberia - Hardcover

Tkacz, Virlana; Zhambalov, Sayan; Phipps, Wanda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0930407571 ISBN 13: 9780930407575

Publisher: Parabola Books, 2002

Synopsis

This rare firsthand account, accompanied by 175 photographs of the setting, sacred tools, and costumes, follows each step of the shanar-a Siberian shaman dedication ritual. The Buryats are indigenous people of eastern Siberia, an area which gave rise to the languages from which the term "shaman" is derived. Shamanism is dependent upon intimate connections to specific places and cultures, and this account of a ceremony celebrates that relationship, while using the ritual as an entry point to explore the living culture of a people obscure to most Western readers. This accessible and authentic guide to true shaman practice reveals the personalities involved and respects the complexities of the Buryat community, thereby achieving greater depth than conventional anthropological studies.

About this title

About the Author

Virlana Tkacz, Sayan Zhambalov, and Wanda Phipps have published their translations of traditional and contemporary Buryat poetry in Agni Review, Terra Nova, Two Lines, and Shaman's Drum. They all live in New York City.

Reviews

The Buryat are a people indigenous to eastern Siberia, living mainly in the area near Lake Baikal called Buryatia. In 2000, a Shaman named Bayir Rinchinov invited Tkacz, Zhambalov and Phipps, translators of Buryat poetry, to the Siberian town of Ust-Orda to document a Shanar, the dedication ritual for a new shaman. This lucid, day-by-day account of the Shanar begins with the cleansing of the participants and the preparation of ritual objects (such as the initiate's goatskin drum and headdress) and continues through to the climax of the ceremony, a ritual called Bring Up the Dust, in which ancestral spirits enter the initiate (in this case, a man named Volodya) as he runs around a grove of birches. This particular Shanar turns out to be a difficult one: the spirits refuse to enter Volodya. The older shamans officiating the ceremony have to do a great deal of spiritual detective work to figure out what's gone wrong. After some back and forth with the spirits (their conversations are transcribed), it turns out that Volodya had slighted one of them with his inept performance of an earlier ritual, and appeasements are in order. As she describes these lively proceedings, Tkacz explains the beliefs of the Buryat and the role of shamans in the village (Rinchinov does healing, for instance, but only for those who can't be helped by Western medicine-he tells a villager with a toothache to "stop wasting his time and go to a dentist"). The authors have also translated the ceremony's ritual chants. This glimpse of Buryat culture does not aim to be comprehensive, but it will be fascinating to those interested in Eastern religions and anthropology. Of particular note are the hundreds of full-color photographs that grace the handsomely produced volume; there's also a useful glossary.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Parabola Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0930407571
• ISBN 13: 9780930407575
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182