On some sources of shaman worldview

The base of shaman worldview is mythological perception of the world. That is why applying to deepsources of shaman ideology inevitably leads the researchers to the early stage of mythological consciousness. In ancient myth the figureof a cultural hero attracts special attention. He has much in common with shaman, as well as personal mythological meaning. Appearingof consciousness is connected with the first dividing of the subject and the object, opposition of the human society and the nature. Thisprocess was hard for the humankind; anxiety appeared, which was a signal of a threat to existential safety. Myth became the onlypossible answer to this threat and started the cultural development of the humanity. The figure of a mediator appears in myth as the firstspecific expression of the developing consciousness of culture. Getting fire, getting soil from the ocean, forming landscape, the culturalhero can have anthropomorphic and zoomorphic nature and be a totem. It was the collective that compared itself with the body of atotem. The figure of the cultural hero, or the forefather, was necessary to be a real symbol of unity of the human society and Nature. Wecan see another variant of the cultural hero or space creator - a kind of an epical strong man, who wins the evil spirits that createproblems in people's peaceful life. The figure of the cultural hero has many common features with the person of shaman. The culturalhero as shaman performs the function of a mediator between the worlds and struggles with evil spirits and monsters. In Shamanism theuniversal mythological concept of sacrificial offering of the foreman is the core of a person's experience. It gives the feeling of unlimitedextension of consciousness. When shamans become social actors, the functions of a mythological character are given to a real person,the archetypal mythologem realised in the sacral sphere becomes a socially significant phenomenon. Factually shaman takes thefunction of the cultural hero. The practical significance of this figure refers to myth times, when the human made first steps in the worldof culture. Shaman contradicts to nature and society. As a cult figure, shaman is a bearer of social memory, because he is able to relocatein the "mythological field" of his cultural tradition. Tradition of narration is connected with Shamanism. We can see specialization oftranslators of social experience. Shamans, as well as a singer, take the place between the sacral and the profane levels of the being. Theyare the heirs of heroes and epical strong men, who existed in myth times and guarded the world from the non-human powers intrusioninto the world of human culture.

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