20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Shamanism in North Asia as a religious phenomenon. A brief note... 525Tartar village. 13 Wilhelm Radloff’s work – Aus Sibirien: lose Blätter ausdem Tagebuche eines reisenden Linguisten. II Band: Das Schamanenthumund sein Kultus, edited at Leipzig in 1884 – will became a classical andreferential book for Turcology and Siberian ethnography studies. But Eliade'smain sources are in Russian, mostly from Russian ethnographers suchas: Agapitov, Khangalov, Anisimov, Anokhin, Anuchin,Bogoraz, Ivanov, Popov, Potanin, Potapov, Pozdeneyev,Priklonski, Prizupov. In fact, Eliade learned Russian whilebeing in Paris, “pour pouvoir lire les travaux des ethnologues russes surle chamanisme sibérien” 14 , detail specified in his Les moissons du solstice.Most importantly, the work of Sergei M. Shirokoroff (1887-1939), was evaluated by Eliade. His studies on the shamanism ofTunguses, mostly as an assistant of the shaman were indeed unique at thattime. Shirokoroff's works were available in Russian, in German and inEnglish via translations made by Vilmos Diószegi. Eliade reconfirmedShirokoroff’s thesis concerning the shaman ecstasy quoting from thelatter's work, and specifying that Tungus shamanism, strongly influenced byLamaism, ‟is not the embodiment of ‘spirits’ by the shaman, but the ecstasyinduced by his ascent to the sky or decent to the underworld; incarnatingspirits and being ‘possessed’ by spirits are disseminated phenomena butthey do not necessarily belong to shamanism strictu sensu”. Eliadeconsidered that Tungus shamanism was as a ‘hybridization’ phenomenonof ancient North Asia. Despite this, myths are eloquent because the Tartarsof Central Asia and the peoples of extreme northeastern Siberia conservedthe prehistoric and authentic semantics of shamanism phenomena.Uno Holmberg-Harva (1882-1949) was a Finish scholar whobecame a professor at the Turku University. His work, which was based onethnographic research in Siberia, mostly around the Volga river with theKet and Evenki people, fascinated Mircea Eliade. Two years ago, VeikkoAnttonen, published an article where he discusses methodologicalsimilarities and differences between Uno hARVA and Mircea Eliade,with the objective of reassessing the value of their comparatist approachesfor the study of religion in general and of 'religious' cognition in particular. 15Uno Holmberg-Harva, originally a protestant theologian andlutheran minister, resigned from his ecclesiastical position to become ahistorian of religion, field ethnographer, ethno-sociologist and folklorist13G. Casadio 2010: 4.14Eliade 1988: 103.15V. Anttonen 2007.