Shamanism?

[ShadowCatSoul]

Celeblin Galadeneryn

demisara

So there's no term that we can use to refer to a cross-cultural occurrence of similar spiritual practices by similar people in their respective cultures that may or may not be related practices?

Maybe a better question would be, are the practices of the Shamans, the Seidr, etc etc related? Can we speak about them as one group of people? When they journey do they go to similar places or are the otherworlds culturally contained?

Does anyone know if these traditions developed independently of each other? That one's probably lost to history, but is there any traceable cultural diffusion at work in the details?

Do I know if North Asian religions containing Shaman and Norse Seidhr developed independently of each other? Not definitively, but I'm going to give a yes simply because of distance and difference of ethno-linguo group. Which is to say I'm pretty sure, but I couldn't prove it without a doubt. Is there any traceable diffusion? Not particularly.

They aren't provably related. They're similar, but that doesn't mean anything. I can name quite a few similarities between European and Aztec religion, but it doesn't make them related.

The only real way we can group them together is to say they have an otherworld tradition. Why we have to call all people of otherworld traditions Shaman is beyond me. Why aren't we using the world Volva instead?

Volva?  

[TeaDidikai]

Celeblin Galadeneryn

Why we have to call all people of otherworld traditions Shaman is beyond me. Why aren't we using the world Volva instead?

Because "backwards superstitions" belong to "the noble savages", not to the traditions of the enlightened Western Europeans- or at least, that was the thought when a bunch of the foundational anthropology was being done.  

[TeaDidikai]

Celeblin Galadeneryn

Besides, the "barbarian horde" isn't enlightened. That's saved for British Monks.

Not sure this comments much upon Victorian Historical Revisionism. wink  

[TeaDidikai]

Celeblin Galadeneryn

TeaDidikai

Celeblin Galadeneryn

Besides, the "barbarian horde" isn't enlightened. That's saved for British Monks.

Not sure this comments much upon Victorian Historical Revisionism. wink

Is getting me started on 19th Germans really the way we want to go about this?

I know I would be amused.  

[whiporwill-o]

Celeblin Galadeneryn

Hey, according to Ben Franklin, some Norse cultures aren't white as it is. (More base Germanic ones, but still. I'm not going to trust Franklin to know the different between a Dane and a German. They all speak funny non-Latinate languages anyways. Kind of like Ben Franklin, come to think of it.)

my english instructor's name is ben franklin. ninja