The Shaman

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A shaman is said to use healing energies either to heal or to harm. These powers are used to maintain the order of the community. 'Voodoo' or 'hexing' has long been associated in many cultures with healing. The term 'shaman' is derived from the Tunguso-Manchurian term saman, which means 'he who knows'.

In taking their professional vows, healers vow to harm as well as heal in their society in order to maintain order. Shamans of Siberian, Eskimo and American Indian tribes were initiated into their tribes not by their mastery of an arcane body of knowledge but by personally imposed ordeals. These ordeals would involve fasting and experiencing visions induced by trances. After this initiation the shaman would be credited with many abilities, such as healing and access to divine revelation.

The Indian shaman is said to be able to cure snakebites by methods akin to those employed by the Africans. Many Indian snakebites are not poisonous, but the shock of the bite can be so severe that it can be lethal to a suggestible person ignorant of this. Nobody really knows whether the shaman cures only the state of shock, or rather increases the bodily resistance to the poison.

In Patagonian tribes the shaman, or witch doctor, held an important position. The usual treatment of the patient involved creating as much hullabaloo and clatter as possible to drive away the aggressive demon.

The shaman would also suck a part of the sufferer's body and then brandish a stone, a stick or an insect that the shaman would claim had been drawn from the body of the afflicted person. Often the patient would be strapped to the back of a horse and sent out into the day amid a great tumult and uproar.

As well as disquiet, cold was thought to be a great curative next to noise. If needs be, a mare would be sacrificed in the house of the sufferer. The shaman would deliver the fatal stab to the heart. The animal would writhe in convulsions as its heart was extracted.

The assembled company would then feed on the horse. What was left of the unfortunate animal would be taken to a local hill top and erected on a pole. If this failed to bring about a cure, the case was considered beyond help.