by Hayley Addis

Created on: May 24, 2007

The term 'Shaman' is heavily loaded and has been adopted by 'Western culture' for a very broad set of practices. It was originally taken from a specific culture, but, as it has come to mean something different from its original meaning we can use it in the 'Western' sense.

A Shaman is someone who works for the good of their community. A true shaman has no choice, they have been chosen for this job and if they refuse to perform it they become ill. Others use the techniques, but have a choice in the matter, which is far preferable and much more common.

They interact with the beings in the world around the community and mediate between them. These beings include animals, plants and spirits. (Yes, spirits. To call spirits evil is to miss the point, in Christianity there are the souls of the dead... why then insist that communicating with these souls is evil? So I'll use the word soul instead of spirit, it is the essence of the being in question, by whatever name you like).

Shamans talk to the souls of plants and animals, ancestral souls, the soul of the land and the souls of the weather to help their community, in the past they gained knowledge about which plants will help sick people, where there are animals good to be hunted, and whether the weather will hold for the harvest or if the community should get it in now. They also tracked down bits of people's souls that had been damaged, working to fix them. This is obviously a very simplistic view, but the point is, they worked to help their community, and to defend it from outsiders, presumably.

But what can they do today? A shaman today has still been called to help their community, or one who has chosen to use the techniques still wants to help, what can they do? There are still damaged souls(think of depressed people, of people who lost their drive or spark, what do you think happened? In this world view, their soul got broken). There are still disembodied souls that want to help and can gather information, we still eat plants and animals and the souls can tell us which will help us most. We still have understandings that our ancestors had, that we have forgotten. And there are still communities that need support, guidance, and protection. A shaman will work to help these people. That is a shaman's purpose.

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