Dedication of shamans

Those young people on whom the lot fell to become a shaman, found out about it suddenly manifested by them,"shamanic sickness". Suffering chosen, apparently perceived as a neuro-psychiatric illness.

But the man at the same time and had incredible physical pain. The disease can last for several years, accompanied by terrifying hallucinations. Get rid of such mental illness (or long-term mental health crisis) could only be the adoption of the vocation of shaman and the beginning of shamanic activity.

ancient shaman story about how he became a shaman:

"Twenty- years old, I strongly fell ill, and saw with their eyes, ears to hear something not seen or heard of others. For nine years I peremogalsya and nobody talked about what's going on with me, because I was afraid that people will not believe and will laugh at me. Finally, I ache so strongly that I was threatened imminent death. When I became a shaman, I felt better. And now, if not to the shaman for a long time with me is wrong, I was ill!"

Sometimes the crisis begins very early - at age 10 and even 7 years. Affected by him not feeling well among people experiencing suicidal impulse, he sees strange dreams, sometimes losing consciousness. He often falls into an ecstasy, a vision begins to go to all shamanic ritual, and finally decided to declare that he had been in the country of the dead and ordered him to become a shaman.

Then he goes into the forest, mountains or steppe, and there alone makes his first call spirits.

times, he still loses consciousness, can commit suicide or to die, but the more intense is his shamanistic"self", the faster are the symptoms of the disease.

solitary life shaman continues three years, he then has a couple of years learning to beat the drum. Further, there are differences. In some cases, entirely shaman himself knows his science, in others - learn from the old shaman. Sometimes it can become a shaman only after his master died.

Then comes the rite of initiation into shamans. A few days before this the future shaman is removed in a forest hut, or any desert place, and there betrayed himself to severe post for 3, 5 or even 9 days.

He does not take into the mouth is absolutely nothing. During this period, he can not be one, as in need of care. It lies with the foam on his lips. His joints swell and become a solid bruises on the body sprawl corpse spots. He is alive, is experiencing his own death: sees ghosts dissect his body into pieces and boil them in the pot before to lay down again, as he poked out his eyes and put in new ones, pierce their ears, so he could hear the voices of spirits. Then the body of the shaman spirits gather again.

At the end of this period the soul of the neophyte under the leadership of an old shaman travels to the underworld, underground and above ground, experiencing something similar to what Dante experienced when traveling under the guidance of Virgil.

"Death is alive"- an exercise which opens in the shaman ability to independently immersed in trance and independently, without someone's house to stay in contact with others, to manage this condition themselves and their. Once crossed the border between the living and the dead, the shaman in the future can make it arbitrarily and at any time, although it requires considerable effort.

dedication ceremony of the new shaman is a celebration for his relatives. It consists mostly of dances and speeches of the old shamans, specially invited for this, as well as from a variety of unusual actions. So, the Indians Wine-bug (North America) the conditional mark all older are starting to make movements as if they choke, then finally spit out a little test. They argue that this test, called the doctor's stone, is constantly in their stomach, and only when this solemn occasion is born. At the end of the ceremony of the new shaman gets a voodoo bag, ie, sewn skins, filled with various curiosities, and in his mouth put medical stone. After that, he is a real shaman.

In voodoo bag contains articles that are used in magical operations. These include various roots, which are used as a healing agent, especially for healing wounds, and then various body parts of animals and some minerals.

For example, an old shaman of the tribe of Wine-bug the most effective medical means were small stone, which, as it turned out, consisted of a piece of native copper and a piece of bone that belonged to, he claimed, certain medical large animal. This animal is shown only occasionally shamans (and in a dream), but on the ground it does not appear