A Study on the Shamanism Oral Literature of the North-Eastern Asia
-A New Definition of Siberian Shamanism with a Focus on the Mythologies-
The orientation of this paper is to show the origin and historical changes of the seemingly cha ...
A Study on the Shamanism Oral Literature of the North-Eastern Asia
-A New Definition of Siberian Shamanism with a Focus on the Mythologies-
The orientation of this paper is to show the origin and historical changes of the seemingly chaotic phenomena of the Siberian Shamanism with the study of the common-mythologies throughout the Siberian territory, Central Asia, and Asian Far East.
First in the II chapter, the author tries to illustrate the nature of the overall history of the studies on the theme. Unlike other researchers, the author represents the division of the study history with the appearance of 'Le Shamanism'(1951) of M. Eliade. This can be an original way of approach on the matter suggested by the author. In this paper, the author tries to understand the nature and characteristics of the former studies with the format of 'pre-Eliadeism' and 'post-Eliadeism' periods.
In the II and III chapters, the author demonstrates the distinctive orientations of the former studies in the Western and in the Russian and Soviet scholastic worlds. Eliade's theory on the shamanism has encouraged many a specialists in the other fields of arts and humanities to find the evidences to justify Eliade's theory in the every corner of the surface of the Earth. However, the booming of the study on the shamanism especially in the western countries in the post-Eliade period has resulted in the ambiguity of the term shamanism itself. But according to the author this is not the minus factor of the Eliade but only the welcoming positive sign. Even though Eliade's theory itself could hardly be found as solid, logical, objective and unpartial, it certainly opened the positive new trends in the modern shamanism studies and created considerable number of shamanism manias in the world. That can be called the orientation of neo-shamanism.
The author points out that neo-shamanism is not merely the reversal way of study showed in the Russian Siberia after the collapse of the Soviet Union as described by the Hutton, Ronald in Shamans-Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination but can be explained as the new orientation of shamanism studies in the art history, art performances, literary criticism, music and any kinds of new understandings on the theme. Neo-shamanism is a new world of study on the shamanism with the future contexts.
In the IV chapter, the author shows there exists a certain common cultural and mythological stream through out the vast Central Asia, Siberia, and Far East. In the paper, the Geser mythology is represented as a tool to show the common culture in this region. Because we can find Geser-like-myths in the Tibet, Mongolia, Jungaria, Altai, and Korea-Manchuria. Surely the names of the myths vary one from another, however they can be served as the origin of the cultural system called shamanisms in the Siberia.
Finally, the authors points out that the new acting theory suggested in this paper on the origin of shamanism should be debated in the further works. And as a final word, the author shows the inconsistency of Eliade's theory, but the author suggests not to throw away Eliade but to modify him, because Eliade can be a valuable keyword to draw attention both of specialists and common people on the shamanism.