Ritual specialists" in the traditional worldview of the peoples of Siberia (terminological analysis)

The paper summarizes and analyzes materials on Siberia related to various categories of shamans that correspond to each other and make up an integrated field. This view of shamanism diachronic analysis reveals the logic behind the development of one institute or another. From the diachronic analysis perspective, an idea by A. Hultkrantz seems to be very promising: he proposed to consider shamanism as a religious configuration that is a semi-independent segment of an ethnic religion within which all the beliefs, rites and other ritual figures functionally similar to them through the terminology used (or that used to be used) by bearers of the shamanic worldview. The terminology may not fully reflect the real picture of the relationship of various 'ritual actors' as the language is far less flexible than the living reality. However, it can be useful for it helps explain the coexistence of shamanic and non-shamanic beliefs as well as the variability of manifestations of shamanism in different cultural traditions. The fundamental difference between different ritual specialists is that their activity represented cultural options of communication and various ways of establishing and realizing dialogical relations with the 'spiritual' reality. Guides to the world of spirits could be singers (story-tellers), clairvoyants (capable of seeing souls, spirits and other worlds), foretellers of different sorts (dreamers, diviners, persons suffering from seizures or consuming amanita, etc.), sorcerers (using different magic tricks to influence events and phenomena) and actual shamans capable of accompanying the souls of the dead and of the living and to this end travelling in various spheres of the universe. The origin of all these persons could be independent and rely on different ways of interacting with the world of spirits. Here, communicating with this world presupposes openness, absence of rigid boundaries and the possibility of combining and crossing various kinds of such an experience. Shamanism as a special kind of communicative experience can be present as a segment in different worldview systems but within the region of Siberia it is a dominant worldview. This is confirmed by shaman classifications, well-developed and expressed in various forms. At the same time, along with shamans becoming more influential, other specialists of no less ancient origin also continue to act. Some of them moved to the periphery of the ritual space (diviners of different sorts, foretellers), whereas some, according to the degree of their prestige and of the demand on the part of other tribesmen, went on competing with shamans and were considered even more powerful in their field of activity. Currently, with the classical forms of shamanism becoming blurred in the region of Siberia, there is a growing number of different specialists who are engaged in therapeutic and ritual practices, among them are healers, sorcerers, foretellers, clairvoyants, etc. All this indicates the paramount importance of the very possibility of communicating with the world of nature whereas its manifestation forms appear to be of secondary importance.

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