Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite?:
Gespeichert in:
| 1. Verfasser: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Buch |
| Sprache: | Bulgarian |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Sofija
Akad. Izdat. "Prof. Marin Drinov"
2006
|
| Ausgabe: | 1. izd. |
| Schriftenreihe: | Studia Thracica
9 |
| Schlagworte: | |
| Online-Zugang: | Inhaltsverzeichnis Abstract |
| Beschreibung: | PST: Shamans - did they exist on the Balkans? - In kyrill. Schr., bulg. - Zsfassung in engl. Sprache |
| Beschreibung: | 241 S. Ill., Kt., Notenbeisp. |
| ISBN: | 954322076X 9789543220762 |
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Datensatz im Suchindex
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| adam_text | СЪДЪРЖАНИЕ
ТРЕВОЖНО ЧЕТИВО ЗА КАБИНЕТНИ ШЛМАНОЛЮБИТЕЛИ
Проф. д.и,н.
Александър
Фол
/
S
УВОДЪТ, КОЙТО СЕ ПИШЕ ПОСЛЕДЕН
/ 7
ШАМАНСТВО/ШАМАНнзгш
/ 1
1
„Класически територии и вярвания/
II
Обредност и представи
/ 32
Уптугуп и „музиката на шамана
/ 51
ВЪВ ВРЕМЕТО И ПО ПЪТЯ НАЗАД
/ 88
Перки
j
88
Заук и обредност по пътя на българите
/119
ТургјТеиријТангра
—
Ducs
in actu
/147
За вещерстаото и шаманството
—
разлики и допустими паралели
/ 176
СЪКРАЩЕНИЯ
/ 192
ЛИТЕРАТУРА
/ 193
ВЕЩЕН И ИМЕНЕН ПОКАЗАЛЕЦ
/
2Ü7
РЕЗЮМЕ НА АНГЛИЙСКИ ЕЗИК
/ 211
240
CONTENTS
Λ
DISTURBING READING FOR ARMCHAIR
SHAMKWHlhS.
Aleksandar
Fol,
Prof.
Dr.
Sc.fLitt.
degree)
/ 5
ТНК
PREFACE THAT IS WRITTEN IN THE ILND
/ 7
SHAMANHOOD/SHAMANwm
/ 1 ]
Classical Territories and Beliefs
/ 11
Rites and Concepts
/ 32
Untugun and the Music of the Shaman
/ 5
1
BACK THROUGH THE TIME
/ 88
Pèrkc
/ 88
Sound and Rituals on the Route of the Bulgarians
/119
Tum/Tèiri/Tàngra
—
Dues in actu
/ 147
Witchcraft and Shamanhood
—
Differences and possible Parallels
/ 176
ABBREVIATION
/ 192
BIBLIOGRAPHY
/ 193
INDEX
/ 207
SUMMARY IN ENGLISH
/211
241·
SHAMANS
-
DIO
THEY EXIST ON THE BALKANS?
(Summary)
This book is a result of participation in a number of projects realised in collabo¬
ration of the Institute of Folklore at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
(BAS)
with the
Department of Music Anthropology at the University of Tampere, Finland. Here, I
would like to thank Finnish colleagues for their help, to colleagues from the institute
of Folklore
—
BAS
(Sofia) and from the Institute of Thracology
-
BAS
(Sofia).
The theme about shamanhood with its regional specifics and debatable problems
is quite alien to the Bulgarian scientific circles. Limited number of publications has
been written until now mainly by historians, as well as by art historians. Those works
treat and use some aspects of shamanhood with a particular aim
—
to prove its exist¬
ence among the ancient Thracians and among the proto-Bulgarians. Due to the poorly
studied and, respectively, poorly presented nature of the phenomenon in Bulgarian
scientific and popular writings, readers cannot evaluate the reliability of the state¬
ments and hypotheses in them. So, to a great extent, this book is addressed to introduce
lhe
Bulgarian reader in the milieu and specifics of the shamanhood. Regionally and
thematically, the text is focused on the rites and musical characteristics of the so
called classical shamanhood , which has been so far investigated in a number of
works with different volume and aims. The peculiarities of the phenomenon (repre¬
sented mostly in the first three chapters) are extracted precisely in the way they are
mentioned in the fieldwork studies. Thus, my viewpoint relies on their reading , as
well as on the knowledge about the Bulgarian ritual system. From scientific point of
view, a contribution to the investigations on the shamanhood is the second part of the
book, discussing on the possibility to speak about that phenomena on the Balkans.
í
would like to say in advance that as an ethnologist and cthnomusicologist I do
not share the concept that shaman hood/sham an ism has existed in the ethnocultural
tradition of the Balkans, including the assumption that it is inherited from the old
Bulgarians. One of my basic arguments comes from the sphere of traditional ritual
sound and melody. The traditional folk music is an aspect of the rites and makes a
substantial part of their hidden text. Melody, object and speech are equal in impor¬
tance within ritual space. There, they present simultaneously the same content on
different languages . As far as sound code is concerned, it carries out substantial
information and is able to provide missing parts of the research puzzle. Ii is a well
known fact, that the traditional culture of the Bulgarians (successors of old agricul¬
tural ethnic formations) is not a pure , but rather a multilayer and syncretic one. It is
a spiritual and factual heritage of the ritual system of the ancient Bulgarians and the
Balkan peoples rather than of the Slavs, as it was stubbornly imposed during the
communistic regime. At the same time, differing in name and origin ethnic compo¬
nents on the Balkans have nevertheless similar ethnocultural heritage with a lot of
common in their conceptual contents and ritual systems. They possess many of the
universal
—
archetypal (psychological) myth-generating structural elements, charac-
2Л
leristic for the different spheres of immaterial culture. My experience as an ethnolo¬
gist and ethnomusicologist dedicated to the study of the complicated ethnographical
milieu of the Balkan taught me to be on the alert about fundamental problems of rites
as multifacetious phenomena, re-created and innovated gradually in the course of
millennia. Whenever comparing
—
in search of common (or kindred) element
—
a
Balkan case with another one belonging to different cthnocultural rite circles, one
had to think over: on the content and survivals of the antiquity , which spans on
these lands back to the third millennium
ВС
(and even, relying on the dating of the
Varna necropolis, to the second half of the fourth millennium
ВС);
on the historical
fate, stratification of self-consciousness and social structure, as well as on the
ethnocultural rituals content and beliefs of the regions, once inhabited by the ancient
Bulgarians and the Thracians. If one is nevertheless determined to search for signs of
belonging (e.g., to the shamanhood), he has to rely on the content of the rites as
Faith and Behaviour, rather than on their being an official religion.
CLASSICAL TERRITORIES AND BELIEFS. It is well agreed that
shamanhood
—
in its pure, classical form is typical for the non-stratified communi¬
ties, relying on hunting commodity economy for their living and existence. Theories in
which the ethnologists see the so called classical form of shamanhood refer to areas
where there still could be seen moving communities such as the regions of Siberia and
parts of Central Asia. Siberia, belonging administratively to Russia since the sixteenth
century, is a particular area remarkable for its abundance in separate small nationali¬
ties. Ethnodemographic data about these territories refer to the different theories about
origins of shamanhood, as well as to the chart of its specific nationality profile. Im¬
portant is also the following fact: together with the big territorial span, multiple lin¬
guistic differences and separate ethnic traditions, shamanhood shows universally re¬
peated concepts and other characteristic. This has brought forth to the search of its
supposedly common centre of origin, as well as to the presumption that there have
once existed relations between nationalities living today far from each other. Siberian
shamanhood remains here a classical pillar case for comparisons in many publica¬
tions. Several aspects of the Siberian case have been compared with the Asiatic one in
order to conceptualise peculiarities of shamanhood in the geographical centre of
Asia, as
weil
as westwards and eastwards. There are also many studies founded on the
assumption that Siberia is a cultural continuation of Central Asia and they view
Siberian shamanhood as related to Central Asian one. At the same time, many inves¬
tigations of these territories consider the complicated and important question about
the religious impute of high cultures on shamanhood (the ones from India, Tibet and
China), about the implication of mythological, doctrinal and theological elements.
Archaeological findings certify that ancient mythical concepts and beliefs of
shamanizing Siberian people have been pres ent in their cultures for a couple of mil¬
lennia. This immaterial treasure has been created by illiterate communities, predomi¬
nantly ones without ethnos organisation (such as chiefdom or state), but with family/
lineal ones. They are void of systematically developed calendar rituals and have only
seasonal ones. Siberian moving societies have contemplated and meditated the nature,
the Cosmos, the Heavenly Sky and themselves as a whole and from different angles of
the settlements. Unity with the environment is a way of life in which one is not obvi¬
ated apart to observe and to describe systematically the view and understanding for
the surrounding world in a mythology. Therefore, the mytho-narratives and ritual data
of Siberian people are collected by nineteenth and twentieth century foreign fieldworkers
and observers. In a number of recent scientific and popular writings, this set, called a
body or collection of myths (gathered from the viewpoint of the others ), is usually
called mythology . The popular use of the term is ignoring its second component,
212
;
coming from the Ancient Greek
λόγος.
Actually, this component is still respected on
¡[he Balkans and in the land of Greeks from where the word
μυθολογία
has origi¬
nated. Its authentic meaning is literary interpretation of folk motifs, i.e. literary leg¬
end . This is important to be mentioned because mythologies have been written as a
:
rule by observers belonging to ethnically stratified communities. The distance between
evergreen , always recreated mytho-narratives and their writing, e.g. freezing as a
[mythology, could take ages of linear time. Everybody who knows the latter would in
■vain search the native mythographers
(μυθογράφος)
of the Siberian mythologies. So,
Mi s more correct to denote that Siberian tradition as mytho-narratives.
I Essential in Siberian and Asiatic spiritual life (i.e. of the demonological, mythic,
;
mythological, doctrinal and religious spheres) are beliefs in spirits of animate and
Inanimate nature. One of the terms characterising such beliefs is animism
—
etymologically and historically coming from
anima
mundi.
In Asia, in the centuries
following Buddha and Confucius births potentials of animism have been brought to
¡the highest doctrinal level. Referring to animism is a safe ground for the interpreta¬
tion of shamanhood concept. Nevertheless, it has to be keep in mind that this is only
a ground: as far as beliefs in the vitality of substances is not Asia s patent . Classical
Ishamanhood, which according to its prominent researchers is based on animism, has
traditional and territorial context and motivation. Shaman and the other local people
act in it. Shamanhood is folklore, i.e. rituality. Thus, it has to be investigated as part of
[he traditional conceptual and ritual system of a particular ethnocultura! milieu.
¡This is the right way to its specifics and a steady fundament for its comparative re¬
search.
■.
Demonological and mythical spheres of the majority of the shamanizing Sibe¬
rian and Central Asian peoples exhibit similar concepts about high and low deities
;(or spirits ) and similar features in their ritual activities. Most of the researchers
speak about the existence of common features in animistic and mythic motivation of
shamanhood. One common concept is the belief in Supreme Celestial being, whom
the inhabitants of Siberia and Central Asia, generally speaking, accept as omnipre¬
sent, beneficent, Creator and Lord of the Universe. Arctic and North Asian native
concepts about Supreme Celestial Deity (rendered concrete in its identification with
lhe
sky and the celestial phenomena ) are accepted in science to be of a native
origin. Yet it has to be taken into consideration that shamanizing societies do not
always differentiate the concepts of the sky as a deity and the sky as inhabited by a
deity. Beliefs and appeals to the Sky itself... so far as it goes , i.e. as abstract and non-
personified, are not coherent with other efficient concepts about Deities, as for exam¬
ple in the case of the agricultural societies in the area, of South Asia and beyond it.
The use of god, deity and spirit as synonyms in a considerable number of investiga¬
tions and fieldwork studies is a hint for their merging and
undi
f
ferenti
ating
in the
native consciousness and tradition. Some of the researchers use spirit and deity to
mark different degree of worship and height in the hierarchy of the spirits, as well as
varying degrees of sophistication in their cults. The oblique verge between god, deity
and spirit probably is due to the vague personification of the supreme proto-image .
In scientific circles, it is known as
Deus otiotis .
The Siberian and some of the Asiatic
people commonly call him Majestic, Bright, Good, Great Old Man, White Old Man,
Golden Old Man, Father-Sky, Eternal Sky, etc. Even today under discussion remains
also another question: if the God of the sky has gradually become anthropomorphous
(and the celestial phenomena have been conceptualised as its kin ) or if he has
primordially been such and his late personification is a turn back to the older proto-
ìmage.
Both possible understandings refer to the fact that divine sky is multiplied
and particularised in other divine figures, generated from him and from the concept
213
of vital spirit as present in every thing. In the
demonologiem
and in the mythical
concepts Sky is always supreme and unapproachable. At the same time rile practices
of shamanizing communities (Paleo-Siberian, Turkic and Mongol ones) function mostly
as worships of other, lower status gods or simply of spirits.
In many regions of Siberia and Central Asia, there are common myihic concepts
about construction and stratification of the worlds. Some researchers state that the
Mongol people and the Altaic Turkic population have probably accepted some of
them under the influence of Buddhist cosmology. Both Upper, Lower and Here on
Earth worlds have sun (or suns), moon, forests, humanoid inhabitants and even sha¬
mans. Concepts about directions, as well as about horizontal and vertical layering of
the world (which usually comprises of seven layers, here on earth
—
one, three upper
ones and three underworlds) are concepts about the celestial and earth s perimeters
falling under the power of diverse spirits and deities. In analogy with the celestial
spirits, all over Asia there are worshipped the spirits of the yurts/huts (called house-
beings ), as well as the ones of the winter settlement constructions. Separate group are
the so called clan/kin deities
—
spirits of dead predecessors (the drowned ones, the
ones burnt in Ore or torn by bears) which are regularly offered kin sacrifices.
Many Siberian peoples have seasonal (autumn, winter, spring or winter) village
sacrifice ceremonies . They suppose thanksgiving after the end of the hunting and
fishing seasons. The offerings arc dedicated mainly to the good spirits supplying suc¬
cessful hunting and fishing. Most important are said to be the autumn and the early
winter ceremonies, such as whale , bear , wolf and the deer ones. Deification of
Father Sky and of Mother Earth as supreme generative beings is conceptual
universais
in Siberia and in Central Asia. Mother Earth (or the spirit of Mother
Earth) in analogy with the Sky is also void of an anthropomorphous image. It is what
it is
—
the earth itself: the mountains, the streams, the forest, the rocks anothe trees are
her identification. They are also dwelling place of the so called nature spirits , per¬
sonified by means of the earth s structure. Concepts that every mountain (hill, rock),
even every point of the earth has its own spirit able to protect the one passing by are
common in that region, too. Every clan (and somewhere every village) has its sacred
mountain and its spirit protector. Ho is offered sacrifices during the village rites, as
well as during some rites performed in a course of several years or in a time of an
equinox. Each littoral nationality has its sea deities and offers them sacrifices to ob-
lain good draught. Some of those people believe thai the sea master, which is the sea
itself, is a woman. Mother earth s and Father Sky s daughter (called Umay in
Middle Asia; she is also called
Tenger
Ninannian, derived from the
Tunguz
language
Tor earth and soil) occupies the highest place in the pantheon of the earth deities and
is believed to protect birth giving and children. Another deity, whose worship is show¬
ing common features within the Siberian people, also, is Mother/spirit of fire , Well
spread is the belief that the fire is a living, omnipresent and wise substance, which
bans on its desecration (e.g. poking and stirring it with an iron bar). Fire is also fed
and it gets paths of everything that is cooked on it.
The Paleo-Siberian peoples confess neither of the major religions (Christianity,
Buddhism, Islam, etc.). Following R. Gillberg, one could say that they are not theo¬
logical. Such a conditional definition is quite plausible if one wants to avoid misun¬
derstandings caused by the unreasonable equation of mythology with religion, which
has often been done when investigating the contact zones of Central Asia and South
Siberia. In these territories, linguistic, conceptual and religious influences have been
extremely active there for millennia on end. Similar processes of cultural
interpénétra¬
tion
have sophisticated the spiritual being and the conceptual achievements of all
Asiatic peoples, too. Inherited shamanhood and classical doctrinal and theological
214
confessions
(such as Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam) coexist and inter¬
penetrate each other there. This melange spreads even towards the pure north cul¬
tures, affecting their rites and worldvicws.
Al
the same time, within the same Central
Asian and Siberian territories the concepts of Supreme sky deity (as well as worships
of water, earth, sun, beliefs in spirits, etc.) are preserved even after experiencing con¬
siderable religious influence. Parallel to this, shamanhood, more or less has regained
its influence on the religious/theological behaviour and concepts. A lot of research
problems, viewing shamanic features in theological societies and vice versa, as well as
the problem about religious syncretism are in a way constantly present in the publi¬
cations on the rites of a number of communities which are not to be classified as
pure Siberian hunting societies, loo.
RITES AND CONCEPTS. The universal term shaman is not known in the ma¬
jority of the Siberian cultures, though following J. Pcntikaincn, they are absolutely
shamanic . Years ago, the prominent researcher has focused attention on the differ¬
ence between shamanhood and shamanism but in vain, as far as in publications writ¬
ten in different languages they continue to be used as synonyms. Shamanhood is part
of the tradition of a particular society. Together with the acquisition of skills to heal
and of knowledge about the herbs, the shaman has to be fluent in the mytho-narra-
tives of his people, to know different songs, charms, spells, incantations, tales, narra¬
tives and myths, especially ones connected with the clan s origin, with the shaman s
genealogy, etc. It is also well known that shamans are travellers and mediators be¬
tween worlds, as well as that they possess special abilities to contact spirits. Many
researchers state that the so called shamanic soul journey is shaman s most distinc¬
tive feature.
Shamans belong to both sexes. Their teeth,
fon
tands,
hairs and some other inborn
bodily features are believed to foresee their vocation. The spirit of shaman-predeces¬
sor chooses the shaman-to be and takes hold of him at an early age. All this is tradi¬
tionally believed to be symptomatic for the so called shamanic disease or voca¬
tion . In the course of years, the vocation manifests itself in prophetic dreams, su¬
pernatural skills, temporary insanities , sudden mental or physical illness, initiation
visions of travels to the Upper world and body dismemberments followed by recover¬
ies. Nevertheless, vocations are rare ones and the future shamans more often learn the
craft from older ones, being apprentices for years on end. In the period of educa¬
tion, whose length depends on individual skills, candidates have to overpass mental
and physical trials. For the weaker shaman, as well as for the shamaness, this period is
as a rule shorter and less painful than for the strong shaman. In exceptional cases the
vocation comes even at a mature or elderly age
—
after a great misfortune, after having
suffered a serious and long disease or when loosing family kin. Shamanhood is not
restricted to a definite social stratum or sex, but to the individual s personal abilities.
Almost all nineteenth and early twentieth century observers point out that in the Sibe¬
rian peoples (such as the Yukagirs, the Kodaks, the
Chukchis,
the Samoyeds, the
Ostiaks, the Tunguzs, the Yakuts, the Burials...) shamanesses have an authority which
is as high as the male shamans one. According to a Chukchi shaman, The woman is
a shamaness by nature ; her initiation period is shorter and easier than
lhe
one of the
shaman; her social position is higher than that of the ordinary woman. Shamanesses
and shamans do not have to obey some taboos obligatory for the others. The Siberians,
some of the Turkic and other Asian people believe that the shamanhood is hereditarily
transmitted and consider only hereditary shamans true ones.
Shamanic ceremony is performed at personal request or when being a necessity
for the future well-being of a particular group
—
family, clan/clans or village. Shamanic
rites, with few exceptions, are not restricted to a particular calendar period. They have
215
diverse
aims and functions, depending on the local or nationality tradition; fortune
telling, blessing, protection, successful hunting, dealing with misfortunes or unex¬
pected crisis, healing, finding lost property, re-animation of a holy visual representa¬
tion, etc. Addressing different spirits, the so called propitiatory ceremonies arc also
individual or group ones (performed from behalf of a family, a clan, several clans, or
a village). Many of the village rites, lead by shamans, are aimed at the future well-
being of the whole community. They are usually performed on some particular sacred
places (such as hills, mountains and streams) believed to be dwellings of the spirits
helpers. Rites contain prayers, appeals, incantations and sacriflces. All Siberian hunt¬
ing societies have propitiatory rites for rich draught and for abundance of wild ani¬
mals and fish. The strongest animals (often believed to be totems and predecessors of
clans) are addressed and offered sacrifices before the hunt starts. In the past, practi¬
cally, every sacrificial ceremony was followed by a shamanic one (revealing if the
deities have benevolently accepted the sacrifice) and by communal dinners.
There are different types of shamans, varying in power and standing. Every ritual s
result, successful or unsuccessful depends on the abilities of the shaman. Shaman s
strength depends on the origin of the individual power whom he contacts on different
levels of the universe. Every type has a special name, a specific domain of efficiency
and particular rights to perform certain ceremonies. Classical differentiation between
white and black shamans is based on the type of spirits whom they contact, as well
as on the world of their journeys. The Mongols associate black and white shamans
with east and west spirits
(tenger).
Black shamans, because of serving to the dark, east
spirits
tenger,
arc believed to be capable of causing illnesses and human death. Such
a differentiation is not universally spread. It is possible to have a community with a
single shaman, acting both as a white and as a black one. Some peoples have special
shamans who escort the souis of the deceased in the underworld. According to a
universal Asiatic (and not only Asiatic) concept, some of the souls of the dead are not
able to find alone their way to the underworld and come back to the earth. In such
cases, the shaman sends them off to their true home. Making a journey to the under¬
world is considered the most difficult one and supposing special power. Shamans
capable of performing such tasks have high standing: they are believed to be big and
strong
опт.
Every soul journey and shamanic acting is coherent with mythic concepts about
the world and with concepts of world stratification. It is actually part of beliefs and
dcmonology of the particular people. Shamanic soul journeys and all the other
shamanic activities are thought to be impossible without the help of the so called
spirits helpers and spirits protectors. Some researchers differentiate between two basic
types of spirits protectors: the first ones are entirely under the control of the shaman,
while he calls the second ones when he needs them, The latter are lower deities or
souls of already dead shamans and have some sort of independence. Many of the
spirits helpers are zoomorphous or ornitomorphous (bears, elks, wolves, deer, rabbits,
tulles, eagles; howls, ducks, loons, swans, ravens). They are able to fly everywhere at a
high speed, they see and feel from a far away distance, they guide shaman s way
during his soul journey. Concepts that he is their master (he drives them, sits on their
backs) and can control or incarnate them are actually concepts about ideal identifi¬
cation within him and the spirits. The aim to get the unlimited abilities
ofthat
super¬
natural substance and to fuse oneself with it finds an expression in the personal
transformation of the shaman. Strong spirit helper chooses a particular shaman at the
very beginning of his vocation. Some people call that guide shaman s spirit animal-
double or animal-mother . The shaman takes its form during the soul journeys. As
the shaman gets more powerful, he gathers more spirits helpers and, respectively,
216
achieves new forms of reincarnation. Part of them is not zoomorphous. The Tunguzs,
the Nanays, the Udeks and some other people believe the deceased members of the
shaman s family could be his spirits helpers also.
In the rites, the soul journeys in the world of the spirits have particular, repeated
bodily significations. For example, movements ahead and upwards mark the begin¬
ning of the flight
—
either the one directing to the Upper or the one directed to the
Underworld. Different behaviour and movements of the Altaic shamans symbolise
and tell about passing through nine borders and two worlds . During the soul
journeys shamans are able to experience several changes of their embodiment (changes
of sex included). They are capable of undergoing series of transformations, for exam¬
ple, into birds then into human beings and after that into bears, following the taking
turn changes of the spirits who guide their journeys and possessing their bodies. Dur¬
ing those metamorphoses, the shamans might look and act inconsistently, or vice
versa, they might walk, dance and even tell those around about visions.
Journeys to the Underworld are a necessity when a shaman has to free a soul or
to send a soul of a deceased off to the kingdom of the dead. Shamans reach those
realms following different roads
—
crossing the River of the Universe, passing cav¬
erns, whirlpools, springs, etc., i.e. following the roads of the spirits. More often, such
endeavours are undertaken when healing heavy, chronic diseases, believed them to be
caused by soul deviations. The Siberian and Asiatic concepts of the human soul are in
Che rcot of all shamanic healings. Natives speak about the existence of several (usually
three) souls in every human being and each of them has different fate after his death.
When still alive, a man can lose one of his souls and it is the shaman who would
manage to bring it back. Beliefs that a lost or gone soul could cause a disease are
common for the Siberian and many of the Asiatic traditions. Getting a sou] back is the
most dangerous shaman s endeavour
—
he is supposed to make a long soul journey
beyond his body and undertakes the risk to loose his own soul.
In ethnological writings, shamanic journeys are often characterised as
trance
and ecstasy,
έκστασις/ενθεος,
évrovaiaapóçfexstàsislentheas,
enthousiasm) are terms
with a long tradition of usage (as doctrinal, theological and philosophic) and specific
meaning that cannot be ignored when speaking and writing about rituals. These terms
are clearly used and discussed in the Bulgarian writings: in the investigations of the
Thracian culture» as well in last century writings about rites. As far as shamanhood is
concerned
ř
exclude the use of
εκστασις
/extàsis
and
¡
ѕугоуанхоџосјешИоиѕ^аѕтоѕ
as
doctrinal and theological overburdened concepts (undergone on various interpreta¬
tions in the course of the time), and because of the lesson that formulation/wording of
every peculiar psychosomatic ritual state needs very convincing arguments. Here, and
generally about shamanhood I use the term trance, which is void of particular con-
creteness. It is based and derived from the content oftranscendental function, treated
in psychology as manifestation of energy, as promoting the passage from a particu¬
lar psychological condition to another one, as well as a specific link between the real
and the imaginative. A manifestation of transcendence in a ritual also, could be the
identifications between men and deities.
Shaman s dress (mantle, boots, hat), percussive instrument (drum) and all his rite
attributes are strictly personal belongings and an immanent part of his acts and jour¬
neys; they diverse in their nationality variations, degree of importance and accompa¬
nying concepts. Their making is a part of
lhe
shaman s initiation. Nordic shamans
usually make those objects by themselves, when the spirits give their permission to.
Shaman s attributes and dressing are always in accordance with his standing. Typical
rite objects are the so called shaman s
staff/ ^horse-stick ,
shaman s rod, dress, the
sacred sledge , the spirits bags^ houses , etc. Part of the shamanic costume is also
217
the masque identifying the shaman and making him part of the supernatural forces.
Some concepts and beliefs of Siberian and Central Asian shamanhood are repre¬
sented and multiplicated by different rite objects and activities. Multiplication of
symbolism is an expressive shamanic principle, allowing for a number of variants of
the ritual objects (and of the concepts related to them) and making them interchange¬
able.
Concepts about mediative functions and beings of shamans are expressed and
function in the content of all their attributes, objects, costumes, as well as in their
behaviour. Shaman enters the Beyond simultaneously from several aspects and be¬
come other, by means of object and semantic acts, by means of spirit s music , holy
smoke and fire, as well as with the help of the assistant
—
a figure, which acts in many
rites together with the shaman. An assistant could be a member/or members of the
shaman s family or a young apprentice-shaman. Presence and functions of assistant
show that in many cases the shaman is not capable
lo do
his ritc/fcamlanie alone,
especially when he has to fall into trance. Assistant s acting (singing, beating the
drum, performance of some appealing melodies, or preparation/the heating of the
instrument, etc.) in decisive ritual moments during shaman s journey, presupposes
abilities which put him in a parallel to the high shaman s position. Ritual substitu¬
tion and doubling , otherwise said, manifestation of similar contents on different
levels (in concepts, objects, figures and in acts) is a principle in shamanic rites. It
could be assumed that the assistant is a ritual duplicate of the shaman, his split
figure, symbolizing his simultaneous presence here and there at the time of the
journey.
It is believed that shamanic kamianie transforms irreversibly and positively every
profane dwelling. Without discussing in detail who is the possessing and who is the
possessed during the ritual (and the people s notion that the shaman masters the
spirits), it is evident that during the ritual, a spirit, and some kind of substitute is
present through the figure of the shaman
—
by means of the songs, by bubbling or
inadequate, unusual activities. His psychosomatic behaviour is a sign of the world
beyond and an
antìpode
of the profane life. That idea is unambiguously found in the
different people s etiological concepts about first man
—
shaman and the souls of the
shamans which are capable of turning into deities after death, etc. According to the
myths of origin, all their lives shamans are here and there, Up and Down. These
notions are evident also in the way they are accepted and treated by those around
them: as different and others . Their specific social and ritual status is revealed also
in the cases of their androgeneity. Shamans tombstones, symbols of the upper, mediative
and penennial (in similar to the sacred places, dedicated to spirits and deities) are
respected as sacred by clans and village communities.
However, what is shamanhood
? —
a religion, a form of cult or syncretic form, an
early form of a religion, genealogical institution, psychological technique... There are
different answers. In my opinion, the cssentiai shamanhood phenomenon emanates
also in a very important part of this tradition
—
in music making as shamanic ritual
behaviour.
VNTUGUN AND THE MUSIC OF THE SHAMAN. The percussive instru¬
ments of the shamans, like mantles and other ritual objects, arc symbols of the shamanic
phenomenon and its contents. As a construction and sound taking (by hitting a mem¬
brane with a hand or an object), this kind of instruments is known throughout Asia,
Africa and Europe, including the Mediterranean cultures. They have various appli¬
cations in rite or secular life and different names among the various ethnic groups.
However, because of its own ritual profile and application the shamans drum can
neither be called dayre (or with the Russian word for it
—
buben), nor
tupan
(as it is
218
named in the Bulgarian publications). Ethnomusicologists are aware that authentic
naming of musical instruments always is implying information about inherited rite
contents. Percussive shamanic instrument has tenths of names among the different
people of Siberia and Middle Asia. The Evenks, the Negidals, the Uluchs, the Nanays,
the Udegeys, the Orochs, etc. call this instrument untugun (or, derivatively, untuun,
ungtuvun, hunktuun, intiun, huntun, unchufunn, etc.). I accept this authentic name
and apply it as summarising (like the term
shamanhooď)
for the shamanic rituals of
the Siberian and Central Asian peoples.
Untugun is a membranophonic percussive instrument, a single skin-headed frame
drum. Its body is often fastened together with cramp irons and bars on the inner side.
The instrument has numerous regional and nationality variants, differing in size and
shape: it is oval or round and its diameter varies from
30
cm to
1
m. The people
preserve and make its traditional forms, implying in them specific conceptual con¬
tents. Some Siberian shamans have, as it is with the dresses, two drums, for example,
one for the journeys upwards and another for the journey down to the World of
the Dead, or one for the North and another one for the South sky, etc. The Uniugun s
membrane is decorated according to the local tradition. It has drawings either on one
of its sides or on both of them. According to some researchers, the drawings review one
ofthe most important meanings ofthe drum us symbol ofthe universe. Similarly, the
Uralian and Altaic people believe that the instrument symbolises the universe / the
whole earth . Typical for the facial part ofthe drums are images ofthe shaman s spirit
predecessor or spirit helper. They enable him to become personified and to experi¬
ence metamorphoses during hisjourney in the world beyond. The inner side Ggures of
the drum and their esoteric meaning are known only to the particular shaman or to
the person who has made it; there could be hung some metal figures symbolising
shaman s spirit helpers. At the inner side, there is also a handle (anthropomorphic on
Altaic instruments). Sometimes it is made of a deer horn in a natural size. Small bells
are hung on it and the faces ofthe shaman s spirits helpers are carved on it. Instru¬
ments with outer handles (fastened on the outer, lower side) could be found onJy in
the far Northeast (or in North America) among the Chukchies and the Eskimos.
Untugun
s
sound is taken by means of drum-rattle, made of wood or bone. Sometimes
it is covered with deer leather. An image ofthe spirit helper could be carved on one of
its ends; drawing of a lizard or a snake might be made on its inner side, too. Rattles
could be used separately for fortune telling and healing.
The percussive instrument is a ritual object, a mediator and a syncretic symbol of
the shaman, of his family and community. The drum is the shaman himself, and vice
versa. Rite identity untugun—shaman is formed since the time of his becoming
(and the shaman s initiation) and lasts to the end of the shaman s life. During the
initiation period, the shaman learns the drumming and the majority of the songs
which he performs later on, They contain descriptions of the journeys, of spirits help¬
ers and the lands beyond. At the time of kamlanie the shaman is supposed not to
show any signs of fatigue, because the spirits support him. It is also believed that the
preparation and the performance ofthe rite are in their hands, too. Music making or
producing the ritual singing, speech, and danco/pantomime reflects spiritual and
conceptual characteristics of shamanic ritual. According to shamans themselves, the
beats ofthe drum wake the spirits and are at the same time an appeal to them. The
shaman rides on a flying horse, deer or elk during hisjourney. Actually, they are being
symbolised by a slick or two in his hands or by the drum as the place where the spirits
helpers reside. The Samoyed shaman rides the instrument as if he is riding an elk.
Often the ceremony itself begins with the heating of the drum over the fireplace in
order to animate it. The following songs are chosen/and performed by the shaman in
219
accordance with the aims of the rite and most of them belong to the spirits themselves,
The investigations on shamanic rites have brought to the differentiation of two gen¬
eral types of songs. The Nenets for example, perform magic songs and shamanic
narrative songs , telling about shamans and mythic creatures (J.
Niemi).
The Ngsans
perform
shon
songs (connected with fortune telling and guessing) and long songs
(monologues, having from
100
to
250
lines, giving an expression of the mutual rela¬
tions of the shaman and the spirits). Those long songs are not always understandable
for the people, surrounding the shaman.
A very important idiosyncrasy concerning shaman s songs and drumming is the
improvisation of the sound, beating and movements, as well as the combinativeness of
song s lines and motives. That means that the melody or the so called initial melodical
model (together with the verbal text) is re-created differently in every musical perform¬
ance. Vocal intonation is often non-temperate and according to the researchers, some
songs could be called shouting . Exceptions are some melodies, calling the shaman s
spirits helpers, having comparatively defined melodically lines. Actually, the very na¬
ture of the rite with its non-predictiveness during its varyingly re-occurring perform¬
ances is fully reflected in its musical expression. Inconstant and often non-tem¬
pered singing and sound personify different images and situations on the sha¬
man s journey. This ritual performative style is interpreted by researchers in the con¬
text of the particular folk concepts of the world beyond, as well as connected with the
local ideas about shaman s flight (while ascending to the Upper or descending to
the Down worlds). The musical picture of shaman s flight directly reflects his interre¬
lations with the spirits. Their appearance almost exclusively defines and models his
behaviour. Full conceptual fusion of substances is expressed by physical and musi¬
cal transformation of the shaman, singing the songs of the spirits . Every spirits
helper has his own melody and when the shaman recognises his coming, he starts to
sing it. That performance and its different components (vocal, rhythm, movement,
song succession, etc.) is an expression of the shaman s view for the relief of the
world beyond.
Shaman s words, reflecting his dialogues with the spirits take turns with the
beats of the imtugun; all that often sounds incoherent and non-understandable to
those surrounding him. Very often, the accompanying beats of the drum make the
melody and the text inaudible. Beat s frequency and speed are not metronomous ;
the beating constantly varies in its tempo and strength, depending on the direction
and moments of the journey . For example, during the Buriat rites, symbolic sexual
movements together with the increasing tempo of the beats symbolise communication
of the shaman with his marital spirit helper. Sometimes, shamans, waiting the spirits to
come, beat monotonously for a long time; in other cases, they change in turns definite
rhythms in accordance with the moment of the journey or with its casualties and
specifics. Song successions also, entirely depend on shaman s condition, i.e. from the
world s level where he is believed to be. Its description, and the journey itself, is made
audible in different sound styles
—
melodica!
lines, recitations, charms, appeals, dia¬
logues, etc. As a whole, shaman s behaviour includes various vocal approaches
—
whistles, falsettos, guttural, hoarse and nasal sounds, as well as growling and grunt¬
ing. Those sound imitations of animals and birds are supposed to be as close to the
original as possible. They manifest shaman s transformations during his journey.
These imitative gestures and movements are coherent and common for all the Sibe¬
rian nationalities. Here, I would like to specify that deliberately put imitative (when
referring to
kantiane) in
inverted commas. Shamans do not imitate, they are
—
incar¬
nated in an animal or a bird, in a song/spirit, or even in the heavy breathing of the
speeding elk... Shamanic rites are typical examples for ritual syncretism, for entity,
220
built out of the unity of elements. Organised freely and differently in every single case,
they depend on the direction and function of the rite itself.
The singing, drumming, and
différent
sound making in the performance of sha¬
mans arc a part of the general intonational milieu; they express the specifics of the
musical thinking and concepts of a particular society. The singing and the melodical
lines, as far as their origin and nature is concerned, are traditional and own in the
shaman s community. People who are present and know how does the ceremony go
may repeat and intonate every verse of the shaman s songs-incantations, Thus, those
surrounding him do a kamlane as much as the shaman himself. They help the sha¬
man to fall in trance while repeating parts of his song or shouting. This interrelation
is evident in data about the mutual rite journey (of the shaman and of those around
him) in the world beyond. Following the observations of J.
Niemi,
Siberia is a region
with its own musical style . The Arctic and the sub-Arctic peoples have many funda¬
mental similarities in their means of living and sustenance (based most of all on
hunting, fishing and deer stalking), as well in their social organisation and attitude to
nature and the supernatural. Many common fundamental elements exist in their
musical cultures, too. Inconstant melodic heights and abundance of melodic and
rhythmic variants are common musical expressive features of the shamanic songs and
in the singing of the Siberian people at all. This referred to the small Siberian hunting
societies, as well as for the big state formations (e.g. Mongolia, whose own history is far
from being already rid of the nomadic experience). For example, the Mongolian so
called two-part songs without words ( throat-singings ) are performed not only by
the shamans. The majority of the Western Mongols and the Tuva men (most of them
occupied in nomadic cattle breeding), practice throat singing . A stylistic and sound
taking analogue of throat-singing is
aman
hur,
khomus (jaws/mouth harp), a widely
spread instrument used by shamans, too. Another example is the so called own melo¬
dies and personal songs, performed by the Chukchies, the Nenets, the Enets, etc.
This kind of songs, which everyone composes for himself, could be improvised at
every performance (concerning melodical lines, ornamentation and text s content).
The Ostiaks sing personal songs, too. K.
Lazar
reports that they think , figuratively
speaking, in types of motives and lines , as well as in melodic and rhythmic variants.
Their pieces do not have
stropnic
structure and they arc rearranged and changed
in every single case of performance. The melodies are difficult to transcribe (because
of their inconstant interval correlations) and could not be brought under a common
flnalis.
It is well known that every shamanic rite is standing on a priori existing ideo¬
logical sphere. By means of his incarnations, songs and ritual behaviour the shaman
projects and enacts its conceptual and myth system and for the community this
reality happens in, and through every ritual. The shaman himself personifies and
symbolises the unity of his clan in the same way in which the drum (together with the
dress and the other attributes) symbolises the shaman himself. Like musical charac¬
teristics, contents and specifics of kamlanies are to be sought in the very roots of
people s traditions. In the older observations, behind the lines of, one could read
an ancient and non-personai layer of tradition, which seems to have generated the
acts and the figures of present day shamans. For example, Bogoras reports that every
Chukchi family used to have one or more drum instruments. It was a common thing,
especially in winter times, for the old Chukchi to beat the instruments and to sing
their own melodies. At least one in a family used to try to contact spirits and to tell
the future . The idea about the origin of so called individual and professional sha¬
mans from the family shamanhood is known just from Bogoras. Every Khanty fam¬
ily had a percussive instrument also, where the spirit-protector of the family was
221
living. Shamans, when asked to come and solve some problems, used the family drum.
Koriak
shamans did not have their own drums and did the kamlancs with family yyai
(drum). The Laplands treated runebom (the drum) as family or kin sacred object and
kept it in the holly corner (in the backside) of their huts.
The description of the so called wolf ceremony of the littoral Kodaks also has
a similar background. After killing a wolf, they take down the skin together with the
head and one of the men puts it on. He walks around the fireplace with the wolf
while at the same time the others beat the drum. Koriaks also, and this is not less
important, tell that in the time of the Big Raven ordinary people used to travel from
one world to the other (as the shamans do) and were capable of turning into animals
or inanimate objects. All kinds of data about rites without a participation of a shaman
speak about a historically older generative cultural level, which has brought to life the
shamanhood itself. There are nineteenth century descriptions certifying that most of
the Paleo-Siberian people did not definitely need shamans to lead kin sacrifice offer¬
ings or propitiation ceremonies (with offerings, incantations and appeals to the
spirits protectors). Those rites were often led by the head of the family. Krasheninnikoff,
who travelled around Siberia in the middle of the eighteenth century, wrote about the
Itelmens as having only one big annual ceremony . It was held in November and the
leading part in it belonged to the old men, T. Atkinson reports similar facts about
sacrifice offerings of the Mongol Kalmiks: the man who leads the offering says a long
prayer (glorifying the spirits and asking for the well-being of the herds) while beating
his drum
—
an activity typical for the shamans. The Mongol ritual practices in hon¬
our of spirits do not necessarily presuppose presence of a shaman as well; some cer¬
emonies performed at equinox in honour of the mountain spirits are made under the
leadership of the oldest clan or community member. This type of rites exists also today,
in parallel with the rites of the individual shamans. Gumilev is interpreting this
phenomenon (old men s rituality) as a relict from Tengrism. Simultaneous presence
and functioning of elderly men and shamans, typical for the traditions of some com¬
munities is unquestionably important evidence for different ritual levels. Typologi-
cally speaking, the figure of the old man is well known in the non-shamanic commu¬
nities, too. The Bulgarian votive sacrificial rites are always led by an old man even
today, but the other figure/and level
—
that of the shaman, is absent.
PERKE (The country that had earlier been called Perke was re-named to Thrake
-
after a nymph proficient in sorcer} and herbs...
—
Arrianus. Bithyn. Fr. 13.J
Thrace and the Thracians belong to the geographical, ethno-cultural and his¬
toric community of the Paleo-Balkan and Western Asia Minor, to the Indo-European
language family. Thrace and the Balkans are viewed as a part of the Circumpontic/
Aegean area
—
a political, ideological and territorial integrity with specific, common
features in the characteristics of culture and history. That s why, the hypotheses about
the existence or non-existence of ancient Thracian and Hellenic shamanhood con¬
cern more or less the stationary estate and class societies as a whole, belonging to the
southeastern part of the Europe (of the Late Chalcoiithic civilization from the end of
the 5111 millennium
ВС,
till the mid-first millennium
ВС).
They concern both the eth¬
nically pre-Greek Pelasgian/Thracian population and the territory named Ellada af¬
ter the end of the Trojan War. The same problem, with much more acutcness, arises
after eighth century
ВС
—
with the appearance of polis-type organization of societies
and the Hellenization of Thracian spiritual culture, and in the period of Antiquity
and the flourishing of the Thracian states (V-IH century
ВС).
Thrace and the Thracians
—
as state organization, ideology, as well as cultural
and historical matters have been thoroughly investigated by the Bulgarian Thracology.
Yes or Not to the existence of shamanhood in ancient Thracian society (and in the
222
Cicrum-Aegean
region)
seem to be a. purely research problem of some foreign and
Bulgarian theoretical investigators and their interpretation of data in old written sources.
Statements about Greek shamanism , posed by Dods years ago (and that of his fol¬
lowers) have simply shrunk into the long line of merely theoretical assumption. But
some of the contemporary writings which explore similar standpoints do not take into
consideration, too, the syncretic processes and mutual co-existence of the Balkan and
the Circumpontic spiritual unities: for example, the fact that the Thracian Orphism is
at the same time Hellenic ritualily with its immanent Hellenic ethnic affiliation. The
Bulgarian authors admit the lack
ofinformation
and data on shamanism in Ellada
and Thrace, as well as the conventional application of the term
—
under condition
about Thracian religious life. Nevertheless, the shamanism is discovered by struc¬
tural ( morphological ) approaches, comparing similar elements (including shamanic
ones) from different ethno-cultural territories. The Bulgarian and the foreign research¬
ers Who accept such viewpoints treat shamanism as widely spread practice of com¬
munication with the forces of the world beyond or as a certain technique, available
in different epochs . Further, fitting in certain pieces into a shamanic structure might
be done comparatively easy
—
right on the research desk, provided the relevant writ¬
ings on the topic. Such procedure does not presume detailed research on the ethno-
territorial specifics and on their diverse contents
—
issues, which are carefully investi¬
gated in every professional ethnological research. Such an approach, as extraction
and comparison of pure structures, is a kind of a scientific relict. It poses, figura¬
tively speaking, questions without answers and manipulates nothing else but simplis¬
tic knowledge in the public space. Even more, it misinterprets the nature of
shamanhood itself. Actually, this is one of the basic motives for my critical attitudes
and for writing them down here. Denouncing the possibility of a structural investiga¬
tion of shamanhood, I will examine the matters otherwise. Firstly, I should ask why it
is impossible to speak about shamanhood in ancient Thracian and Hellenic milieu.
Then (basing on folklore data and other written, image and archaeological sources) I
will draw attention to the differences between Thracian rites, on the one hand, and
the shamanhood, on the other, as phenomena belonging to different cultural and
historical areas.
Shamanhood is far from being a ritual technique. It is a system of beliefs1 (fol¬
lowing M.
Hoppal),
which
synchronie
and diachronic spread is deeply connected
with a certain socium and territory. In my own opinion, some typologically similarities
between Balkan spiritual heritage and shamanhood is not a reason to recognise
shamanic rites in Thracian and Hellenic ethno-cultural milieu. It is well known that
similar
and corresponding elements could be found in different types of rite systems,
as well as in different historical times and ethnic communities. However, the Balkan
ideology and rituality and that of the Siberian territories are connected with different
types of cultural and historical problems. The differences could be traced both in
the nature of their worldviews and systems of beliefs and in particular rite perform¬
ances . Moreover, here, the following text has been considered as a representation of
the non-shamanic nature of the Thracian ideology. Before going deeper into those
contents, let me state in advance a consideration for non-existence of shamanhood
within old Bulgarians: the shamanhood is not a religion which served statehood
ideas and the state, i.e. a political organisation of a society, based on the own develop¬
ment of economy, ownership forms, social structure/class society, law, writing... There
is also no data that it existed within Thracian chiefdoms
—
the oldest form of state
organizations, appeared in Southeast Europe in the second half of the fourth millen¬
nium
ВС.
Simply said, the existence of state institutions is immanently connected
with a higher degree of religious thinking and different (from the shamanhood)
223
ritual system, with different type of mutual dependence within ideology and power
institution. The classical Siberian communities and the Thracian ethnoses show
radical differences, as far as their social and ideological stratification belong to
divergent political and historical realities.
The classical shamanhood dominates in the lineal, socially non-stratified Sibe¬
rian communities; their beliefs in
anima
mundi
were not coherent with/and support¬
ing any concepts about state, ruler and his sacred organised socium/and territory. A
state society is having as a rule a calendar system of rites (not only seasonal ones), well
developed
ideology
around of the divine origin and hierarchy of the kings, a pan¬
theon of worshipped gods with different functions. Such a kind of ideology might be
doctrinally sophisticated (as within Thracians and Hellenics) and written down. One
of the fundamental differences between Thracian ideology and shamanhood con¬
cerns the Supreme substance/God. The Early Thracian antiquity (and the East Medi¬
terranean region) was characterised by the confession of a genuine belief in the
Sun . The solar and king ideology of the late Chalcolythic society of Ancient Thrace
is perfectly reflected in the necropolis of Varna. Solar is also the ideology of the
Anciont Thracian society during the whole Early Bronze Age. Statehood ideas, beliefs
and rites, reflecting social differentiation have found their materialisations in the
erection of megalith buildings, temples, tumuli and shrines. Old written data and
numerous archaeological findings testify to that. By the time of the early Thracian
states (at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries
ВС),
the same
religious tradition created the architecture complexes including a palace, a sanctu¬
ary, a sepulchre and a heroon. The belief in the Sun was actually an early, pre-Hel-
lenic form of the Thracian oral ethnic Orphism
—
the characteristic feature of the
Thraco-Pelasgian ethnic and cultural community before and after the Trojan War,
and of the Thracians from the early time of written history. Thracian Orphism was a
Paleo-Balkan oral religious doctrine confessing the immortality of the intellectual
energy
—
in the face of the Thracian king-priest statute and Us divinity. The focus of
leaching was the sacral matrimony between the Great Goddess-Mother and her Son
(Sun/Fire), conceptualised and visualised as
a cosmogonie
mystery. The Son mixed
his blood with the Earth and gave birth to his own son and priest
—
the Thracian
Orphic king. A system of rites and animal sacrifices provided the annual renovation
and ritual re-birth of the king (as an incarnation of the dying and rising Orphic God)
and consequently, of the socium under his rule. Orphic doctrine was aristocratic
religious teaching connected to a closed male circle. It was a king ideology and all
participants in the Orphic mysteries (especially after fifth century
ВС)
are representa¬
tives of the king-priest lineages. Nevertheless, its practising was not alienated from
popular belief, as far as the society would otherwise be disintegrated
(Al. Fol).
The
king-pricst-teacher was believed to take, the form of an anthropo-demon after his
death and to become a divine (doctrinally initiated) mediator between men and deity.
The supreme Orphic deity (called by the Thraco-Phrygian Sabazios), the Son of
the Great Goddess-Mother is dual by nature (both solar and chthonic). This divine
character is conceptually different from the non-personified abstract concept of the
Sky (or of the Supreme deity who inhabits the highest celestial stratum without any
concern for human affairs and mundane matters). The Hellenic Supreme God ( the
Thunderer ) and his cohort of courtier-deities were also deeply involved, for ages,
in the intrigues of
polis
life and its politics. Differences between Orphic and shamanic
ideologies become even more clear in the period of Hellenization of the north regions
(after eighth century
ВС)
when the esoteric Orphic mysteries were converted into
exoteric rites. After eighth century
ВС,
the Thraco-Pelasgian cosmological beliefs in
solar and chthonic energies were Grecized and personified as Apollo and
Dionysos .
224
Different
ritual
acts corresponded to the two personified ideas.
Dionysos
was a chthonic
deity related to the idea that the divine knowledge is attainable only in a state of a
mania . This referred both to the deity itself and to his Bacchas in which he was
believed to find his incarnation during the
orgia .
Euripides tells, This deity
(Dionysos)
is a prophet, because Bacchanalia outrage and madness have great pro¬
phetic power . The
Dionysos
Bacchic mysteries were exoteric. Guided by a priest, they
took place in mountain settings or within cavities during the nights; the
sacrificial
animal as a rule was the bull, i.e. a zoomorphous form of the male principle. This
collective mysteriality was enthusiasmic, because the believer introduces God into
himself through internal tension and tasting the bloody sacrificial meat. Apollo
(Orpheus) was a solar deity of the initiated and his ritual system was not collective; it
was individual and ecstatic, because the believer reaches God . This mysteriality was
properly Orphic, only for men; along the vertical, the King (initiated in Orphism) and
the other initiated worshippers sought the shortest way to become one with the divine.
Orphic esoteric mysteries enacted sacrament as
εκσταις
of the people dedicated to
the Son (Sun/Apollo, Fire/Dionysos), Orphico-Bacchic esoteric mysteries
—
as
ενθουσιασμός
of the Son in thebelievers
(Fol.
ΑΙ.).
In the sources, Thracian Orphism is concealed below the Hellenic Orphism.
Orphic cosmogony, theogony and mythology from 6th century
ВС
changed the original
semantics of the adopted Thracian (Pelasgian)
realia.
The Orphism gave food to
the Pythagoreanism in the
6Ih-5lłl
century
ВС
and to the literary-philosophical, mystic
orphie
teaching of the 5Ih-4th century
ВС.
In literary Hellenic Orphism
Dionysos
was the main deity, although the image of Orpheus was in fact more frequently asso¬
ciated with Apollo.
The enthusiasmic states were painful and led to insanity the prophets of
Dionysos
(known from the verses of Orpheus
—
a poet and prophet ). In different cultural tra¬
ditions (including the shamanic ones) the experience of possession (the incarnation of
the
Göd/spirit/
Saint in a human being) is always painful, That is, so to say, a ritual
universality, manifested in similar psychosomatic behaviour but with different con¬
tents. Twenty-five centuries after Euripides that was preserved in Southeast Thrace
region of Bulgaria in Nesiinar possession and prophecy (felt as pain and heaviness).
Here, it could be mentioned briefly that the Nestinarstvo, in its late nineteenth and
twentieth century form, could not be classified as Bulgarian shamanhood (as some
Bulgarian authors declare). It is a relict from the Zagreyan/Sabazian mysteriality and
the Zagreyan sacrifice giving (i.e. re-creation of the ritual death of the God). In
Thracian doctrinal rites, the sacrificial animal was believed to be a semantic double
of the Orphic king. A similar belief
—
for the sacrificial animal as a genuine mediator,
has been preserved in the late Bulgarian rite tradition
(1
9lh-20lh centuries): the Bulgar¬
ians believe that it carried on its back that dead or alive human being for whom it was
sacrificed, to the world beyond. In the Siberian rituals, the sacrificial animal is not
believed as carrier but as carried/mediated by the shaman who leads the souls of sac¬
rificed animals to the world beyond and delivers them to the deities. These sacrificial
animals are not believed neither as personifications of the God, nor as substitutes of
the King (as Son of the God). In Thracian Orphic mysteriality the sacrificial animal
did not pass certain number of celestial strata and there was no need of spirit media¬
tor because it was the sacrificed God/Son himself— in the image of the bull. Accord¬
ing to the oral Thracian and non-literate ethnic Hellenic tradition, the bloody sacri¬
fice was a vision of the sacral matrimony
—
the penetrating of the blood into the
earth, symbolised the copulation of the Son with the Great Goddess-Mother and his
re-birth.
5.
Имало ли е шамани на Балканите?
225
The existing of typological/structural
universais
in the performances of sacrifi¬
cial rites all over the world does not necessarily prove for conceptual overlapping
between one and another ideology. Similar or even the same ritual acts could perform
different tasks on diverging levels of ritualities in particular ethno-historic forma¬
tions. In the shamanic kamlanie and in the Thracian and the Hellenic rites are act¬
ing conceptually different mediators; different are also the corresponding images
about the journey in divine space and about the chosen personages capable to
experience re-birth.
The problem about the heterogeneous ideological concepts leading to different
ethnocultural modes of behaviour is unreasonably simplified by the morphological
principle of investigation, which puts an equation sign between Thracian ideology
and shamanhood. Such efforts could never explain the gap between the doctrine of
the Orphic immortality and the Siberian (and Asiatic) concepts about and com¬
pound human/and animal soul (which components are having different fate after
death). I.e., the substantially different concepts about the multitude soul and the
soul as a whole . Thracian mysterial and doctrinal rituality provide evidence neither
for multitude soul (in humans, in animals), nor for the resettlement and/rc-birth
of souls after physical death. These Thracian concepts (for the human soul as an
immortal whole) had been registered from the ancient writers as Herodotus, Plato,
Pomponius Mela, etc. According to Siberian and Asiatic cosmogonies, it is not within
the possibilities, both of an ordinary man and of a shaman, to bring back the whole
unity of the deceased creature s souls. The researchers often state that the great
shaman was capable to bring back a dead person, but this is simply a metaphor of
his rang and power. The shaman
—
a great one or not, actually is able to bring back
only one of the souls of a deceased person, and to have it, e.g. as a spirit helper. In
the Ancient Greek Orphic writings, the Thracian beliefs in immortality were trans¬
formed and developed toward the Hellenic belief in the salvation of the soul. That
was represented as going to, or coming back from Hades ; in some myths, Dionysos-
Zagreus was told to be the son of Persephone and Hades
—
the God of the under¬
world kingdom where the dead resided before their re-birth .
Orpheus and Zalmoxis were believed to have resided at Hades and to have
performed catabases and ascension. Because
ofthat,
certain researchers define them
as archetypal shaman figures (Bogdanov, Marasov). Actually, ritual deaths, catabases
and ascension are universal components of all rites of the passage. The shaman, as
every divine or semi-divine figure was capable of crossing worlds , he often possessed
androgynous characteristics and attributes. Nevertheless, quite contrary to the Thracian
mysterial and doctrinal rites (where the image of the world beyond as separated in
layers is missing), in his kamlanie the Siberian shaman can travel and reach up to
definite layer of the universe. This axiomatic belief, together with the concept of the
component soul presupposes also, the specifics of his catabases
—
in kamlanie and
shamanic initiation. Indeed, the shaman leads away the souls of the deceased (and
pursues the evil spirits in the cases of curing) to a certain point to the underworld
—
through soul journey. Only some of the Mongolian and the Turkic shamans were
capable of negotiation with
Erleg Khan.
Thus, despite some typological resemblance
between the figure of the shaman and Hermes (the God of Thracian kings and the
God-psychopomp in Greek mythology), they have to be considered substantially dif¬
ferent. Although functioning sometimes as a psychopomp, the shaman himself is
never identified with a God/or son of the God, the shaman is not a substitute of a
deity. In this connection, the statement that one has to see in Orpheus a supreme
shaman capable of turning into a deity (according to Bogdanov) is an illogicality.
The only one, permitted to contact directly with God in the Thracian rituality was the
226
Orphic king, because of his divine nature and origin. There is no need to remind that
more of the shamans never did reach the supreme celestial strata.
Many research statements insisting on shamanism within Thracians and An¬
cient Greeks are based on Orpheus catabasis. These are commonly done by foreign
and Bulgarian authors who search for argumentation in the mythic text about Orpheus
and
Eurydice
(and other figures from Thracian culture). Following the narrative, but
not the ritual contents, the theses ignore that the image of Orpheus is a literary
Hellenic personification of the Teacher, i.e. of the Orphic doctrine, and it has lately
accumulated folkloristic features. The theme about the catabasis or the one about
Orpheus misogyny actually is a literary, not an ideological one and resulted from
Ancient Greek mythographic literature interpretation. At the same time, Orpheus
misogyny (because of Eurydice s death) and male love , typical for the Thracian
singers and Kings-priests is a literature testimony for a ritual statute, expressing the
idea for the doubleness as an ideal form, as an entity. Male couples in the Ancient
Balkan doctrinal societies (in love with men
—
Orphic singers or males born by
muses , such as Tamiris, Orpheus and Kalais, Strimon and Rez/Rezos, Achilles and
Patrocle, etc.) are ancient mythographic and figurative (pictorial and plastic) vari¬
ants of a general form/and concept of initiated Orphic figure as an
anthropo-űte/KO/í/
mediator. Different chronology of the ancient data about male couples also sup¬
ports the proposition about ritual doubleness as a sign of belonging to Orphic socie¬
ties. Unlike the shamans, Orphic couples had a stable status and permanently re¬
peated pictoriai art images certifying for their direct divine or semi-divine personal
origin (and lineage).
The theme, concerning the doctrinal and mysterial societies on the Balkans is
deeply connected with another part of ancient Greek literature sources and pictorial
art images
—
the data about music/
μουσικά.
That is another point of differentiation
between Thracian and Siberian societies and rituality. The old Greek writings conse¬
quently describe and give evidences about developed musical art and skills mani¬
fested in vocal, instrumental and vocal-instrumental activities. The data report for:
specific social strata of the instrumentalists-singers (Thracian and Hellenic); special¬
ised instrument masters; different musical (vocal and instrumental) styles and re¬
gional musical peculiarities; musical-poetical genres rich in thematic and functions
(epical, on wedding, lamentations,
Dionysos
ones, chain dance ones dedicated to
Artemis, etc.); female initiation rites with their own chore songs and instrumental
melodies. That old musical tradition was developed on system of hypo- and hyper-
mclodical scales
(μονην).
The availability of calendar and other song cycles is expected in the Ancient
Balkan stationary ruled societies, for their social and religious degree of development.
The important is, that the data about music making, instruments and genres certifies
for a particular musical-poetical repertoire which is not based on improvised sound
making, as it is typical for the behaviour of the shaman. Here,
1
should repeat that the
sound picture (the most of the so called songs ) performed by the shaman is believed
not to be his own one, but of the spirits: this kind of songs is always different and is
based on the presumption that it
ís
not created by the shaman, but by a spirit who
appears in its singing. The classical Siberian communities too, know neither the
Special social stratum of professional music players, nor the existence of different
kinds of musical instruments.
Written data about Thracian
μουσικά
and about music making in the Thracian
Diaspora, as well as the Greek art images of the cult scenes with musical instru¬
ments and players are evidences for the commitment of the music (and its semantic
functions) with beliefs and rituals. Even the first researchers working with the texts of
227
the ancient Greek writers were aware of the close relations between deity, instrument
and rite system . In the Thracian and Ancient Greek tradition, most of the musical
instruments (similarly to the singers-musicians) are believed to be of a divine or semi-
divine origin and to be attributes of the deities. There is no evidence that classical
shamanhood knew something of the kind
—
no instrument belonged there to the
Supreme Sky/God of the Sky or to another high deity/spirit. Within Siberian people,
the Supreme Deity/Sky does not invent and bestow the drum instrument to the sha¬
man and there is no generation of heavenly musicians in these communities. The
leading factor in making and acquisition of the drum is spiritual contact
—
revelation
and embodiment with the shaman s spirit helper; and the musical activity of the
shaman is deeply tied with animistic spiritual sphere, but not with any godlike pan¬
theon. Supreme God and spirit are different statuses in the religious hierarchy
and respectively, the way of their resounding (vocal and instrumental) is different too
—
in different times and societies.
On the Balkans, the connection between the Great Goddess-Mother and the reed
instrument
{αυλούς)
is very frequently available one, and proved in many archaeo¬
logical findings, pieces of
ari
and writings. The Thraco-Phrygian mysteries in honour
of the Great Goddess-Mother (known in the classical, in the Greek and Roman times
under different names such as Kibella, Demetra, Hekatha, Arthemis...) were Orphic
ones. The
αυλούς
¡avios
too, very often accompanies the art images of the supreme
Orphic deity
—
Dionysos.
The semantic row and unity of soul— breath— instru¬
ment— life—death determined early implementation of the
αυλούς
ín
doctrinal and
mystéria
I/Bacchanal Thracian and Ancient Greek rites, as well as later folklorized
concepts and implementations of reed instruments as mediators, in the Bacchanal
mysteries, the
αυλούς
is often accompanied with drum instrument. The ancient cou¬
ple of avlos and tympanos could be the probable ritual prototype of the contempo¬
rary bagpipe and tapan/daouli (two-headed skin drum). Today, the both instru¬
ments are stiJI resounding in the ritual sacrifice in East Thrace (the region of Strandzha
Mountain).
On the Balkans, the ancient tympanos (known from old written sources and art
pieces) and the contemporary
(apans
(an ancient instrument also, known from early
medieval sources) differ from the shamanic drums in principle
—
in their ritual con¬
tent and constructively. The Balkan s percussion instruments are missing the concep¬
tual drawings of the shaman s drums, the notion for the untugun as incarnation of the
spirit-helper (including zoomorphic
onej,
and any kind of data for the typical rid¬
ding on the drum. In the art representations (vase paintings) of the tympanos, there is
not a drum rattle also. In a word, the classical unity shaman-drum , the concepts
and the ritual drum-making are totally unknown on the Balkans.
The semanlic unity Deity/God
—
musical instrument (aerophonic, percussive
or string one) is typical for the paintings and rituality on the Balkans until the end of
the first millennium
ВС.
At the same time, Ancient Greek images and writings (and
later Roman ones) offer data that the same instruments were sounding and func¬
tioned on different spiritual levels, in different rites and in different hands. These
multiple implementations of music, probably was tied with the evolution of melodical
scalcs/moduses on the Balkans, with the so called stationary model of the Thracian
and the Ancient Greek societies. Here, the ritual music was confirmed into a model of
professional artistic behaviour.
On the mutual dependence between music and rites,
Ϊ
should briefly mention the
well-known data about Thracian healer Zalmoxis. In some Bulgarian writings, Zalmoxis
(together with Orpheus) is interpreted as an archetypal figure of a shaman in An¬
cient Thrace . Plato writes that Zalmoxis and the Thracian healers of Zalmoxis
228
believed in soul s immortality. In Plato s text is an evidence for theThracian concepts
and manners of healing, which are different from the shamanic ones. The Orphic
fixing of the order
—
in the space, in the human body, was realized by means of
reciting or singing melodical incantations and by the concept ( unknown to the Greek
healers ) for curing every part of the body as pars pro
toto ,
i.e. by curing the whole
body and the soul as entity. There is no data for soul journeys and flights to the
world beyond, for use of knives, arrows, or red iron; Zalmoxis healers were not be¬
lieved to chaise spirits, or search for lost souls in the world beyond. Shortly speaking,
there is substantial difference between shamanic healing and space structuring by
singing and reciting incantations described in some Ancient Greek writings. In prin¬
ciple, different types of trance might be accompanied (or better reflected) by different
sound levels . But, as a rule, the music playing/singing and cataleptic (ranee is mutu¬
ally exclusive states. In the Ancient sources there is not even a single report informing
of non-temperate sound performance, so typical for the shamanic trance-like condi¬
tion. One has to accept that if this kind of musical/and ritual idiosyncrasy had ever
existed in Thracian and Ancient Greek milieu, they would have hardly been omitted
by the ancient observers and mythographers. Even the trance-like states in Bacchic
mysteries were described as accompanied with
αυλούς
playing in Phrygian scale/
modus.
In the Balkan s narrative and ritual traditions, the figure of the initiated musi¬
cian-singer (who was also a healer or an Orphic king-priest...) is brought to the level
of cultural hero . The one, who was acknowledged like that, both in the ethnic and
in the written
polise
tradition, was Orpheus. He was believed to be the master of
animate and inanimate nature and according to
Apollon. Rhod.
—
of the river route
to the underworld. The Thracian
Heros —
a ruler riding on horseback , was pre¬
sented as a cultural hero, too. The data describing the Organisation of space by
means of music (by way of singing and playing), inventing of musical instruments
(both by humans and by deities) and new genres of singing, bring closer the mythic
creators-singers to their interpretation as cultural heroes. The data for Orpheus as
organising the space in the sacred oak woods1 by playing string instrument could be
found in Euripides writings, too. They describe Orpheus as gathering
—
with the
help of the muses
—
trees and wild beasts together or bringing mountains, hard
rocks and river currents under the charm of his singing . Other Orphic figures are
told to possess similar abilities, too.
The string instrument, sounding melodicalty (not rhythmically) in the hands of
initiated Orphic take him far away from the shamanic structure , too. The connec¬
tion shaman
—
string instrument is not a classical one; it is available, e.g. in some
territories in Middle Asia where the ideological and rilual syncretism makes it diffi¬
cult to confirm the practice of proper shamanhood . In the same territories some
contents and functions of the shamanic drum instruments have been transferred to
the string ones (e.g. the string instruments of
baqşa).
In the context of the Thracian
doctrinal rite system, the string instrument (lyre or guitar) was not the instrument of
the Bacchic mysteries. It was not entrancing, but rising to the God. Later on, the
string instrument regularly accompanied the Balkan epic singers, which had nothing
to do with the trance-like states and the concepts, e.g. of Central Asian baxsy singers.
The old Thracian Orphic instrument is
αύλούς{Α .
Fol).
The statement that Orpheus
used his musical instrument to spell spirits (Bogdanov) is a scientific jobbery with¬
out any support in the ancient mythographic sources. And all attempts to manipulate
the connection between Thracian singer/lyrc-player and shaman are not convincing.
Regardless of what we are re/searching for (music, musical organology, religios¬
ity , memory and knowledge , sculpture images, temple buildings belonging to dif¬
ferent epochs, etc.) we had always to remember the following facts:
229
•
The Siberian communities, unlike the Thracian and the Ancient Greek socie¬
ties, did not have early political and ideological written history.
•
Classical shamanhood was firmly connected to oral rite systems without holy
books and writings.
•
Shamans are not consolidated in a specific society (as the
Orphies,
the Bud¬
dhists and the Christian priests). Classical shamans do not have centralised manag¬
ing committee , specific guild or collegium , they are not members of a union ,
and, finally, they did not form and act in shamanic ritual groups as the male druzhims
in the ritual Balkan traditions.
•
Shamans did not form mystcrially initiated aristocratic strata; they do not
undergo Orphic or warrior initiation.
•
Classical shamans did not enter in-, or erect temples and sepulchres.
•
Siberian people did not know esoteric doctrinal rituals {for reaching the God
through
εκστασις),
supporting centralised king-priest power and the concepts of its
divinity.
•
Shamans did not establish or support mass mysteries. The Supreme sky deity/
spirit of Siberian people has nothing in common with the Thracian s (and Greek s)
God
Dionysos
in mania, who was entrancing into believers (known as
ενθουσιασμός).
•
Palco-Siberian people (not the Middle-Asiatic ones) do not have developed
instrumental music and a stratum of professional players, as it was in the Thracian
and Greek society.
•
The memory-knowledge about Universe and its secrecy
—
the core in the
Thracian mysterial and doctrinal rituals (proved by written and archaeological testi¬
monies) was far from being a shamanic one. The basic concept of the Thracian
ideology, the idea about the dual God — Son of the Great Goddess-Mother who con¬
ceived from him and gave birth to the Orphic king is radically different from the
concepts of the Siberian people for the Supreme Sky Deity (Creator and Master of the
Universe), and the sphere of the spirits .
SCUND
AND RITUALS ON THE ROUTE OF THE BULGARIANS. The hy¬
pothesis for shamanhood within ancient Bulgarians are based on limited number of
stone graffito finds (with uncertain ethnical origin, dating, and drawing content), on
typological/structural comparison of some Bulgarian ritual acts and shamanhood s
(such as curing , nervous fits, visions
—
in the rites of nestinari,
rusalii,
kalusharì
etc.).
AU
the hypotheses and statements are written in case of total absence of the
figure of shaman and his world of spirits in Bulgarian folk heritage. I have serious
reasons not to share the opinions about the existence of shamanhood and shaman¬
ism on the Balkans (as brought here by the ancient Bulgarians, as existed within
ancient Thracians and Greeks). My basic arguments come from the sphere of the
inherited traditional music and rites with their particular contents and performance.
In every culture, the level of musical sound and musical thinking is deeply con¬
nected with ideological contents and ritual system. In a particular way, it reflects
levels of immaterial concepts, specifying certain territory. The musical and ritual
tradition of the Bulgarians are characterised by strict cyclical calendar detcrminacy.
The ritual musical thinking of the Bulgarians, if compared to traditions of shamanizing
peoples, is completely different (as sound and music making, performance, concepts
and constructing ideas about the instruments, singing phraseology, built on a par¬
ticular systems of moduses, etc.). The same is also true for instrumental repertoire.
Annual calendar (not seasonal) rites of the Bulgarians are characterised by their
twin model , as well as by their multilayer dualism, inherited from the model of
classical initiations . When speaking about the relics from the initiation on the Bal¬
kans (about rites
de
passage, not predominantly about mythical fables and mythical
230
narratives
with an open origin), usually that means the existence and the activity of
ritual groups (strictly defined on social and sexual grounds). Following an old, inher¬
ited principle, the ritual group (male or female one) is sacralizing the territory by
moving through and around it
—
by way of a dance, by going along a road, around a
topos.
In contrast with the sound liberties of the shaman s/shamaness spirits, the
voice Vrepertory of the ritual group is strictly fixed at the level of melodic perform¬
ance, Not the unpredictable sound invention and intonation, but the rcpetitiveness of
constant melodic images and tunes, strictly defined in successions, emanates the
ideas about sacred nature and successful realisation of rituals. Figuratively speaking,
the spirit behind the song and instrumental melody, is frozen in a constant and
definite melodic appearance and it is not permitted to improvise sound jour¬
neys according to the moment. In the Bulgarian ritual tradition the acting ritual
figure (as a summarising term) and the music have been distanced from the con¬
cept of ideal transformation (e.g. with a spirit) and have reached constant and
strictly defined position; the concepts of spirits and animate substances are stylized
and performed in a system of symbolic acts.
The same, Bulgarian ritual tradition has never lost sight of the space beyond,
which also contains some belief traces of stratification. Rites are abundant in con¬
cepts about contacts and endless interrelations between this and the other world.
In the song heritage, the concepts of the world beyond are indirectly present in the
very form of the utilitarian crossing rite sound
—
mediator, sometimes marked as
voice Vmelody of the world beyond (either by the performers or by the verbal content
of the song). That idea is preserved as a musical symbol (but not as behaviour of
inverted world) in different types of rite songs, instrumental pieces, ritual silence,
etc. The same idea is recognisable also in the very milieu of performance; in the song s
verses (bringing forth archaic images and mythologemes), in the melodic resounding
and standing against the sun, in the sacral circular walking (round the village, the
fields and the graveyard), sometimes accompanied by a constant imitation of flying,
in the triple going round with a slow ring dance (near by springs, in the house yards,
near by wells, sheep-folds and churches), in trampling down herbs and ill men and
women, in the beliefs about the power of the group and its benevolent capabilities.
The sound transcendence is typical for female rituality and vocalisation during the
so called passage period (from the Long Lent and the first of the so called
Lazar
Sundays until Ascension Day), The ritual melodies are thought as mediative and
having a sympathetic benevolent influence. They have permanent and repetitive me¬
lodic structure, as well as strictly defined time and place of performance. The stylistic
specifics of rite behaviour and singing are transmitted as such to the following gen¬
erations.
Ina
similar way and style of performance is acting the instrumental ritual tradi¬
tion. Probably, here could be mentioned some particular differences between the Bal¬
kan (Bulgarian and Greek) tapanjdauli (two-headed skin drum) and the shamanic
drum. Each of them has its own construction and ethnocultural history . In contrast
with the untugun, the Bulgarian
tupan
has no drawings, pictures or carvings on the
membranes; it does not have a handle, too. On the Balkans, there are not female and
male drums. Here, completely unknown are also concepts about getting and mak¬
ing of shamanic instruments. There is not any data until now, certifying that the
Greeks, Thracians and the ancient Bulgarians had had such concepts. The spir¬
itual relations between the shaman and his untugun are unknown to the drummers
on the Balkans, Very typical for the Bulgarian instrumental style at all are the
successions of particular rhythmic models/stereotypes, while, within the shamanhood,
this kind of notion and importance of rhythm and rhythmic models is missing. The
231
different rhythmic profile and musical thinking is a substantial difference be¬
tween the shamanizing Siberian peoples, the theological societies and the
classi¬
ca!
agricultural societies.
In every tradition, the sphere of the folk music and musicians is one of the socium s
faces. The level of that sphere is at the same time the level of social stratification and
differentiation of the human mind. Shamanhood itself, as part of a folklore tradition,
definitely contains and expresses its specific immaterial and musical expressive char¬
acteristics. Images/drawings on the untugun, concepts and sound performance
—
as a
whole, the heavy semantics of the drum, symbolise the very essence of shaman and
shamanhood. I should repeat that the shamans had to know myths, songs, spells,
incantations, etc., i. c. they had to know their own people s basic stock of folk music
and tradition. Thus, shamans focus and emanate community concepts about the uni¬
verse and its structure. To state it otherwise, the social milieu has dropped on the
shaman the burden of many social and ritual functions, which in stratified agricul¬
tural societies are spread and taken upon the calendar rituality and the ritual groups.
To my mind, this is the basic principle of classical shamanhood, its essence and
uniqueness. Moreover, E. Hultkranz was proved right, when he wrote, shamanism is
the religious complex developed around the shaman . The distance between rite fig¬
ure of the shaman, his soul journey and unpredictable behaviour, and the walking
around, sacralizing and singing ritual group (sometimes acting with similar func¬
tions), the distance between the acting/and realising an image and its non-visual
symbolic utterance and sounding, between the concept about the untugun and thai of
the music and ethos of the Balkans (with their deep theological and doctrinal roots,
well known from the written history of those lands), is an uncovered stage within
the classical Siberian communities. The total neglecting of these factors is the basic
source of the misinterpretations in the Bulgarian and in the foreign publications,
which discover relics about shamanhood in a non-shamanizing social and rite mi¬
lieu (contemporary, proto-Bulgarian, Greek and Thracian ones).
Every professional ethnological investigation pays attention to ways of life and of
making a living, to social stratification, to military and state, administrative structures
(if there are ones), to theological confession (if there is one), to traditional rite music
(as the true face of the faith), etc. Ancient Bulgarian concept of state has found its
realisation in a few territorial transpositions that took place on different stages of its
existence. Chronologically, these are the territories in Northwest Pamir and Hindukush
(Bakriya), north and northeast Caucasus, the valley of Volga-Kama and the Balkan
peninsula. In the course of the time, of spatial changes and historical metamor¬
phoses Bulgarians reached settled way of life, considerable development of agricul¬
ture and crafts, as well as hierarchic military and administrative system. Available
data certifies that in earlier Bulgarian states, the above-mentioned peculiarities were
connected with an adequate ideology and type of rites. There is no data that the
ancient Bulgarians, which were Tengrists, have known shamanhood. Their stable so¬
cial stratification were legitimised by adequate religious stronghold; the old runic
writing used by the Bulgarians even on the Balkans up to
1018
is another evidence for
their social status; the latter and the state organization definitely demands another (no
shamanic) kind of rituality. Therefore, it is explainable that in inherited tradition
there is not a figure even reminding the idiosyncrasy of the shaman (with his specific
initiation, ritual attributes, expressive soundings, psychosomatic behaviour, etc.). There
is no data, even relicts of shamanhood within the traditions of contemporary de¬
scendants of old
Bulgars
(Chuvash, Tatars, and Kabardino-Balkarians). Something
more, I did not find such a kind of relics even within Finno-Ugrian people in the
region of Volga-Kama at my field research last year, August-September
2002.
232
At the same time, it is important that the Balkan-Bulgarian ritual tradition bares
many features of the rites performed on the ex-Bulgarian territories, and among the
other Asiatic people: sacrifice giving, orientation (of temples and rite movements),
concepts of holy places and ways of their worship, concepts of celestial and rites
connected with it, healing by means of telling ethnological legends, etc. Supreme
celestial God is always present in genealogical myths and its hold over the territory of
the old Asian state formations. Concept of the sky as archetype of the universal
order , deity of oaths and protector of soldiers is personified in the supreme figure
of the khan and emperor, believed to be son of the sky and its representative on earth.
This is evident even in the names of Tengri and Umay as Tengrikhan} Celestial Em¬
peror, Benevolent Queen , etc. The
proto
-Bulgarian concept of relation between the
Tangra/Tanagra and the khan (supreme state authority) belong to that type, too.
At the territories, where from the Bulgarian phenomena originate, took place
different linguistic, religious, ethnocultural interrelations and inter-penetrations. This
is typical also for some Asiatic people, knowing both
—
classical theological confes¬
sions (such as Zorastrism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism) and inherited
shamanhood. The latter has been preserved also on the state-territories where people
make their living on agriculture. An appropriate example here is the Korean tradition,
which is a millennium long mixture of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Ko¬
rean and foreign researchers point out religious influence on the native animistic
concepts of Korean shamanhood and folklore. Korean agrarian cycle and annual
rites are following the lunar calendar. Some of the rituals presuppose going round the
village (by way of visiting every single house) with songs and instrumental pieces. At
the same time, the Korean tradition has preserved both the ritual groups (having
apothropeic and reproductive influence on the socium and the village) and the figure
of the shaman/shamaness (together with all the concepts about him/her). It was just
the old Korean tradition (rich in the systematic, refined and sophisticated teach¬
ings , in family and calendar rites, and shamanhood), that suggested to some also,
some serious doubts about the existence of shamanhood on the Balkans. It proves to be
impossible for an ethnic culture to forget its old ideological sphere (as faith and
behaviour), never mind how intensive religious and social changes it has undergone.
Moreover, if the figure of the shaman is immanent, native and authentic component
in some tradition, it could not be defaces either by processes of syncretisation, state
organization, or by high religious influences.
TURA/TÈIRI/TÀNGRA
-
DUES IN ACTU. Since
5
century B.C. the Bulgarian
system of state (in Northern Caucasus, on the Balkan Range, in Volga-Kama.region/
Volga
Bulgars)
maintained the territory and the social order through an adequate,
high religious ideology, called Tengriansivo. The notions of the Supreme God
—
Tura/
TèirijTàngra
are focused in and emanated by the khan ( a Ruler by God s will ), as
well by the
yÚQSis/
askals as appointed by Tangra . The Supreme God predetermined
the destiny of the kingdom (and the khan himself), this life human existence, believed
as extending in the world to come. The substratum of Tengrianstvo, its rituality and
beliefs are inherited within folk tradition of Chuvash, Tatars ,
Balkars
and
Bulgars
on the Balkans. The pagan religion of
Balkars
and Karaehai is inheritance from
Tengrianstvo (Jurtubaev
2004)
and the Supreme Teiri/Tangra, according to some opin¬
ions is brought in Northern Caucasus by ancient
Bulgars
(Balkanski
T.
1984).
The
folk tradition and mythology of these people is
á
synthesis of old-turick, alanian and
common-Caucasian components , still keeping, the- traces of deep archaism and
ancient mythological beliefs (Malokonduev
í
988).
Later on, regardless of the
earíy
Christianity and the expansion of Islam (at the end of
16
and the beginning of
20
century)
Balkars
and Karaehai stick pagans in their minds. There are lots of deities
233
walking within their mytho-stories and pantheon (at the head with the Supreme
God of the Sky and Universe
-
The Great
Tengrí ),
unknown to the neighbor peoples
system of beliefs. The late Bulgarian presence and self consciousness in Northern
Caucasus is evidenced in the written and the archeological data; after the disintegra¬
tion of
Magna Bulgarica
(Great Bulgaria) till today many people keep bearing the
name of
Bulgars...
According to a standpoint the Supreme God Teiri took the place of
the ancient solar deity (Jurtubaev, Bolatov
2004),
which associate the early medieval
notion to the ancient belief in the Sun, known once in the Circumpontic area. The
solar and astral features of the God are visible on different levels in the folk traditions
within the former territories of
Bulgars
(Northern Caucasus, within Chuvash and
Tatar people). In these lands the relicts of the Supreme Tora/Tura/Teiri are analo¬
gous of function and essence; in the past, its cult pierced completely agricultural
cycle of the folk tradition. The old data tells that the Chuvash believed in a heavenly
God, Who cares of all human deeds . He is the Greatest God
{Mun
Tora),
There is
a whole retinue of deities pottering around Him, which act as his hypostasis. Their
hierarchy, byname and functions as well as the religion of the Chuvash itself recre¬
ates the hierarchical structure of the society . The stability of these beliefs has been
observed in the beginning of
20
century, too (Messarosh
2000).
The old observers also
say that basically, the Chuvash paganism is pure dualism (Artmcev
2001).
In some
etiological myths the origin of Universe, the Earth and the people is resulted from the
unity of action and withstanding, at the same time, of two divine creative powers
—
Supreme God and his Antagonist (His brother, twin brother or son).
Suiti Tura
—
the
Supreme God is the cosmic and
subastral
Creator, God of the sky and the Upper
world, God of the weal and the light. His brother Sholtan/Shultan is a Creator too
—
the Master of the Underworld; in later mythical versions influenced by Islam and
Christianity, Shuitan was reduced to a god of evil and darkness, to a devil. Similar are
the myths telling that the Universe was created by
Torà
with the help of his twin
brother/or son Kiremet (a Master of Underworld and a mediator among heavenly
and chthonous divinities ), who appears like double of Shuitan (Egorov
1995).
In all
types of mytho-stories the Supreme
Tora
is associated with the Universe and its Order.
The concept of the World as a global monolithic shape (as a world giant tree, as a
world egg) stratificated in levels, the beliefs of the reverse order of the Beyond is an
archaic mythical heritage with common elements and contents within Chuvash,
Balkars
and
Bulgars
(on the Balkans). It consists also of the notions about the passage within
the levels of the Universe, about the existence of dead and alive in parallel worlds as
being in different dimensions. Some other Chuvash myths contain probably an earlier
stage
οΐ
the God
—
the image of
Тога
as a giant. The origin of the lightning, the roll of
thunder and the rain from the vault of Heaven under the foot of the giant
Шар
(who
became the Almighty God
Ћдга )
produces
Tora
as a classical Thunderer. Similar
legends within Tatars are considered as old-Bulgarian epos relics (Urmanchccv
2001).
The variety of aspects and notions about Tora/T ira is preserved in the folk tradi¬
tions of the investigated territories. In the past the Chuvash celebrated
Tora
with two
and even more all-village rituals with
sacrifices
{Mun
chuk),
running in the transi¬
tional calendar periods (Spring and Autumn). In parallel, according to the written
data from
18
century every village or a few villages jointed observed on a definite day
a big Kiremet . In the myths and in the rituality Kiremet is
ä
split version of
Tora
and
his dual nature (good or wreckling). Both, Kiremet and
Tora was
kept in honour
through family and all-village rituals of similar content (turned to the fertility and
the well-being of the people), territories (in sacred oak sanctuaries) and sacred sym¬
bols (a tree, a solar metal image
-
in the forest, on a hill or on an upland near by gully
234
with a spring). According to Denisov
(1955)
the concept of the World tree (and the
same motif in Chuvash cloths) is brought in the region of Middle Volga by Turkic
Bulgars
...
Within Turkic and Finno-Ugrian people... the cult to the sacred tree is
central, much more clear and distinct than within the east slaves tradition . These
rituals and beliefs are well described by different observers and still are preserved in
the memory of old generation. In the remote past they are evidenced by bishop Izrail,
travelling within Chuvash in
684.
Nowadays, in contemporary
Tatarstan
a few Kiremcts
are hold Up in honour also.
Both the Chuvash and
Balkar
all-village rituals on sacred places (usually
irt
the
forests) are running in a similar way and consist the idea and the idiosyncrasy of the
passage ; they divide and organize the calendar year in a two halfs like the twin-
brothers Saints in Bulgarian folklore (inheritors of mythical characters, Popov
1991).
A particularly substantial aspect of the ancient Supreme God of
Bulgars,
Chuvash
and
Balkars
is His relation with the deceased and the ancestors. Within the Chuvash
folk tradition
Tora
is burdened with different and important tasks, including the
cyclic memorial rites (taking place in Spring and in Autumn). The cyclic calendar
rituals in the memory of the deceased is well preserved within nowadays Bulgarians
(and other people) on the Balkans also. The notions and the appearance of God (and
some of his hypostases) are Identical too, within
Bulgars,
Chuvash and
Balkars
( a
good-natured, grey-beard old man, who, sometimes descends here on earth... ). The
Old age is another metaphorical expression of Power and Supremacy, of the eternal
and independent position of Supreme God; it is also a denotation of His
anthropomorphous nature and human form, The folk institution of the elders and
the old man as a ritual figure (conducting and saying the prayers in the rites) are
inherited as modes of behaviour from the ancient traditions, including Tengrianstvo.
The poly-functional nature of Torn/Tciri/Tangra is a result of centuries-old synthe¬
sis of ideas. Probably, in the epoch of Old Bulgarian system of state, He summarized
and unified polytheistic functions/and deities, which restored to life within the folk
system of beliefs and customs through His own general image . The contents
ofthat
model multiplies through the calendar ritual cycle in twin couples and divine
hypostasis... That model is so alive, pliable and adaptable as the folk tradition itself.
The Sacred Sky as an idea of originating but an inaccessible and non-anthropomorphous
beginning, i.e. as Dem otiosus is too narrow for the Supreme
Tora/Tèiri/Tàngra.
The
establishment of the religious ideas within old
Bulgars
at the head with that Supreme
God was a next step and an advance of Tengrianstvo; at that stage, the celestial God-
Creator (as a former idea of God ) was usher in a new era and saturated with
new and different meanings within a religious but not animistic ritual system. Namely,
this Supreme God does not bear any stories for shamanhood, even in an obscure
and a remote past.
There arc many typological and functional parallels within the material and spiri¬
tual/intellectual traditions through the investigated territories of Chuvash,
Balkars
and
Bulgars/Bulgarians evinced on different levels in the folk traditions (in stories, notions,
beliefs, myths, rituals, music, archaeological data etc.). The deciphering of the ethnocultural
heritage is particularly acute and problematic in the range of the Balkans, because of the
deposit of conceptionally similar beliefs and ritual
realia
from Thracians and ancient
Bulgars.
Some of these could be carefully identified in the late folk tradition (18lll-20th
centuries), still consisting of such a kind bilateral parallels.
The state organization as a settled social institution (with ancient roots on the
Balkans) unlike the nomadic empire creates and sustains models of behaviour and
faith/religion, passing through generations, which incorporate the different ethnic
groups in the territory regardless of their demographic amount. Because
ofthat
social
235
law the state of the Bulgarians on the Balkans could not be determinate as a Slavic
one (or
Bulgars
as assimilated by
slavs),
according to the old
totalitarie
and some
contemporary points of view. I would like to remind that in the former and nowadays
territories of
Bulgars
is running since ages a synthesis of cultures and every one-sided
ethnic position and defining of the survived traditional memory in a centuries-old
commonwealth is not a scientific, but a biased geographical orientation of political
interests
WITCHCRAFT AND SHAMANHOOD
-
DIFFERENCES AND POSSIBLE
PARALLELS. As an ethnologist, I do not underestimate the importance of typologi¬
cal similarities between different traditional heritages. However, every professional is
aware that ethnically different parallels (in the sphere of rites and in music) are not a
direct proof that two cases under comparison are kindred ones and have common
genettcal and functional origin. I hope, it s well known that one and the same/or
similar animistic, mythical, mythological, etc. idea could be told, sung or drawn
oul
on different conceptual and musical levels, in different ethnocultures and in differ¬
ent types of rites. In order to exemplify this point, I have chosen to present here some
typologically close parallels with different territorial origin and belonging to different
communities. These materials are subordinate also on the main problem
—
about
lhe
reading and interpretation of the data concerning shamanhood and specific par¬
ticularities of traditional rite self-expression.
As far as Europe is concerned, the theme about shamanhood is mainly discussed
in regards to
lhe
descendents of the Finno-Ugrians. According to some researchers,
an undoubted representative here is the Hungarian shamanism and the survivals
from the so called European witchcraft . The Bulgarian witches
(vèshteri
—
persons,
possessing esoteric knowledge and skills) fall into the European witchcraft , too.
They possess similar (typological and functional) features close to those ones, trcaled
as shamanic in Hungarian taltoses. The latter and the Italian benandanti have iden¬
tical parallels in the Bulgarian and the Balkan witches (called magyosnitsas, brodnitsas,
zhitomamnitsas, vrazhallsas, mamnitsas..,). The common features and contents within
them refer to: hereditary and inborn signs of vocation; transcendence and flight (their
souls come out of their bodies while being asleep); mediativeness and esoteric knowl¬
edge about future and past, about this and the other world, about the herbs, etc);
rite personification/transformation (into animal, bird, or back into a human being);
specific time for acting
—
the night, in the dead of night (as a time open for
contacts); typical place of gathering and visit having the semantics of the world
.beyond (deserted water-mills, graveyards, faraway fields, out of the village...); status
and sex: they could be both men and women (they could be married, but more often
they are at a non-fertile age); typical for all these figures is also the concept of trance
as a dream and vice versa; most of them are respected persons in their community (as
a kind of leaders, of people who knows ), etc. The Bulgarian witches (like the Euro¬
pean ones) are characterised by their dual nature: they are ill-willed and good-willed
at the same time, they are able to heal and to cause diseases, to bring difficulties and
death and to remove them, to divide husband and wife or to bring them together, to
turn a young man into a he-deer and a virgin into a she-deer and back into their
human bodies. The
dualistic
nature of witches on the Balkans is described in some
old sources (Arrianus. Bithyn. Fr.
13,
second century AD).
Similarities in characteristics and functions of those figures (including the sha¬
man), are clear and do not cause any doubt. They give reasons to suppose kindred
initial concepts, which had further been developed in diverse ethnoeultural and folk
traditions. Nevertheless, there are no reasons to define, i.e. to unify them and their
origin as shamanic one by one of grown up , resulted forms (the shamanhood).
236
Because, an initial idea (which has certain ambiguity!ambivalence in itself) could be
differentiated into its diverging aspects and personifications , and because, it is pos¬
sible to find different animistic, mythological and gnostic viewpoints behind the typo-
logically similar features from different territories (probably, some of them coming
from similar archaic prototypes). Probably thus, had been generated the witches, the
taltoses, the benandanti, the man-serpent, brodnUsas and some other personages. The
diverge development of an initial ambivalent idea is also the possible origin of an¬
tagonism between the benandanti and the witches, between the taltoses and the witches,
between the shamanic evil spirits and spirits helpers... Within Balkan witches it is
not available the concept about the multitude soul , as well as the concept about
their origin from spirit and step-by-step initiation (strictly determined to the world
of spirits, e.g. to animistic ideological sphere).
The Balkan witches (veshters) have also been associated with another sacral ac¬
tivity named robbing . There is data certifying that robbing as a rite (lowered in the
later folk tradition to be deprivation of the others fertility ) was known on the Bal¬
kans since ancient times and very often, it is associated with productivity. This kind of
stealing (with a wide spectre of objects) is a typical ritual act, systematically present
in some Bulgarian rites
—
weddings, virgin initiation rites on St. Lazar s Day (the day
before Palm Sunday), rain propitiation rites on the eve of St. George s and St. Enyo s
day (Whitsuntide), on Christmas Day and on St. Theodore s Day. Ritual stealing is
also associated with some rites of the passage, acquiring a new social status. In a word,
in the inherited Bulgarian rite tradition the ritual stealing is not only in the hands of
the witches. It is completely possible that symbolic stealing of fertility (done by
mamnitsas, zhitomamnitsas, etc.) has more archaic functions than the ones which
have survived until nowadays. Probably, precisely that type of witchcraft keeps the
idea of old sacralizing of a territory and its magical conquest.
One of the differences between the figure of shaman and some Bulgarian witches
is the opposition naked—dressed body . Actually, in the rituals these opposite states
have similar aim: contact and entering into the world beyond. Ritual nakedness
and ritual dress-taking (symbolising just the getting into another state) are very typical
for some of the Bulgarian and Balkan rites (in the nestinarstvo
—
at the trampling on
the embers, in the practices of the some Witches/zhitomamnitsas/vrazhaiitsas, in heal¬
ing practices and spell casting, in midnight virgin comings out during the Long Lent,
in some male rites, etc. The concept about mediativeness and contact finds yet an¬
other expression
—
in the touch of the earth (and singing), when trampling on the clay
(at the ritually making of some household pottery pieces), when the virgins, dressed
only in chemises trample the dew-sprinkled grass during the Long Lent, as well as in
some commemorative practices. This happens differently in shamanic practices as
far as shamans are supposed to be dressed and to sit on a piece of holy skin function¬
ing as a mediator. The Bulgarian folk concept of transcendence (based on the
belief of open sky yworlds, too) is symbolically expressed in spatial movements. Some
mlchas/brodnilsas,
like to ritual groups, are mastering the space/the territory by
cross-shaped movement and circling (i.e. in a non-static way and not during the
trance), for example, a particular place in order to get power on it.
The same concept (of the transcendence and opened sky ) is available in
witchcraft1 practice calling down the moon. The fables about these particular cases
are in direct relation with the ancient Bulgarian and Thracian beliefs ¡n celestial
luminaries and celestial deities. The images of luminaries as dappled cow , calf,
elderly man and the concept that the earth stays on ox s/or buffalo s horns belong to
the Indo-European cosmogony and beliefs of the celestial bull . The Bulgarians
believe that it is possible to call down the sun, too (at Midsummer Day). There are
237
legends for the sun and the moon as brother and sister. The sun is also imagined as a
little buffalo and as a calf. Calling down (he moon and milking it, often believed to
cause eclipses, is only possible at its apogees. Such an act is equivalent to drawing
out and adopting the moon s/sun s/God s strength and energy, and it presupposes a
magical1 power over the movements (of ascent or descent). The witches, calling down
the moon/the sun, do not travel in trance (to Oght, in searching lost souls), do not
ride on spirit or undergo any transformations, they do not have an antagonist. They
are mastering to moon (in the form of bull/cow/calf or old man , which is believed,
according to an eyewitness , to be sitting petrified on a chair ) and obtaining the
celestial power by means of words, body movements and rite attributes. The oldest
evidence aboit calling down the Moon by witches appeared for the first time in
Aristophanes (Neph.
749-755,
first half of the 5l century
ВС),
next in Theocritus (II
48-52),
Vergil
(Buc.
VIII 69),
etc. According to an oppinion (Hristova
1997),
calling
down the Moon was a sacred act of the Great Goddess-Mother... and Orphic myster¬
ies... Ancient practice was semantically reduced (and profaned) to magic for fertility
and healing . Within the inherrited Bulgarian folk narratives the concept of celestial
teophany has also another aspect
—
according to the needs of a state formation. The
witches milk the moon in cases of fights and wars, too, because according to beliefs,
the drinking of moon s milk makes army soldiers strong and powerful. Here, it could
be mentioned, that in some Asiatic empires the Lord of the Skies is also Protector of
the Army .
Unlike the shamanhood, the actions of the most Bulgarian witches were condi¬
tioned by twin calendar model
—
they acted twice in the year, in springtime and in
the late autumn. In my opinion, the most important difference between Bulgarian
witchcraft and shamanhood is the very different musical face and expressions of
the both phenomena. In that connection, I could not agree with some Hungarian
investigators, interpreting the sieve in the light oP the shamanhood
—
as a drum
equivalent of their old shamans . The sieve was practiced by Hungarian mitoses as a
drum in their magical, especially curing rituals. Why not! However, this is not evi¬
dence that the sieve is acting as a substitute of the drum. The sieve itself is not an
artefact and as a ritual object, it has nothing to do with shamanhood at all. It is a
witch s and ritual instrument on the Balkans also. The transformation and turning
over the sieve as a drum is well known within many East folk traditions, in contempo¬
rary East Bulgaria, and once
—
in Attica. And the so called frame drums somewhere
are known us sieve drums. Nevertheless, the classical shamanhood never turns the
sieve into untugun.
The Bulgarian concepts about the Universe arc no less saturated with beliefs in
the invisible immaterial substance than the concepts typical for the shamanizing cul¬
tures. The Bulgarians also, believe that certain places and plants (such as fireplaces,
trees, springs, vineyards, meadows, houses and graveyards) are guarded by the good-
willed spirits of deceased predecessors deserving respect and worship. Bulgarian
singing and narrative traditions are abundant in images of zoomorphic and anthro¬
pomorphic mediative figures
—
zmeys (serpents),
halas (monsters), samodivas, rusalkas
(mermaids), orisnitsas (weird sisters), inhabiting the Upper and the Lower, dwelling
rivers, bridges, pools, ponds, fountains, wells, gorges, caverns, i.e. places which are
also believed to be Gods dwellings on the earth. As a rule, such figures are believed to
be dual in nature also. In the course of work, I have come across many typological/
structural similarities between narratives and, generally speaking, concepts of Euro¬
pean witchcraft, shamanhood and the Bulgarian folklore. The finding of such com¬
mon structures in different ethnic traditions is a question of good will and fluent
general knowledge. Problems and real research challenges start with the searching of
238
the specific and the own in them. The interpreting elements of mytho-narratives/
and tales, which cover wide topics, presupposes one type of efforts» but the reading
of rituality as it happens is a quite different endeavour. The latter could only be
successful
ifit
takes under consideration the system within the rites appear and func¬
tion. In the authentic Bulgarian folk texts there are no spirit hunters and the ritual
melodies are not dependent and submitted to the improvisation at the moment.
Different opinions and findings of shamanic features in the Bulgarian or in the
Balkan cthnocultural tradition (in graffito drawings, in mythological inheritance and
even in some rites) have to be subjected again to a careful investigation, preferably by
the same authors. I doubt if those features are shamanic at all. It might be better to
state that most of the similarities belong to the trans-territorial spread and existing
common ritual signs (e.g. the concepts and symbols of the well known world Tree/
or River , the vocation from above , the belief in spirits and different kind of ani¬
mation , different forms of transformations, the transcendence, etc.). At least, as far as
lhe
Bulgarian rites and the ritual music are concerned, the route from West Pamir to
the Balkans contains many reef barriers for everyone who wants to carry the burden of
shamanhood along it. Such a route of thinking leads to a no-land ... In a certain folk
tradition, it is the specific applicability and configurations of the elements that create
its own image and form. This is the reason why I m not interested, for example, in the
typological similarities between some Bulgarian and some Red Indian rugs, nor in
the melodic motives of one and the same type (with different ethnical origin), but in
Ihcir happening , in their suggestions and meanings in a sphere they belong. Actu¬
ally, in the ways of moving and transpositions of the memory, creating the indi¬
viduality and the uniqueness of every traditional culture.
23У
|
| adam_txt |
СЪДЪРЖАНИЕ
ТРЕВОЖНО ЧЕТИВО ЗА КАБИНЕТНИ ШЛМАНОЛЮБИТЕЛИ
Проф. д.и,н.
Александър
Фол
/
S
УВОДЪТ, КОЙТО СЕ ПИШЕ ПОСЛЕДЕН
/ 7
ШАМАНСТВО/ШАМАНнзгш
/ 1
1
„Класически" територии и вярвания/
II
Обредност и представи
/ 32
Уптугуп и „музиката" на шамана
/ 51
ВЪВ ВРЕМЕТО И ПО ПЪТЯ НАЗАД
/ 88
Перки
j
88
Заук и обредност по пътя на българите
/119
ТургјТеиријТангра
—
Ducs
in actu
/147
За вещерстаото и шаманството
—
разлики и допустими паралели
/ 176
СЪКРАЩЕНИЯ
/ 192
ЛИТЕРАТУРА
/ 193
ВЕЩЕН И ИМЕНЕН ПОКАЗАЛЕЦ
/
2Ü7
РЕЗЮМЕ НА АНГЛИЙСКИ ЕЗИК
/ 211
240
CONTENTS
Λ
DISTURBING READING FOR ARMCHAIR
SHAMKWHlhS.
Aleksandar
Fol,
Prof.
Dr.
Sc.fLitt.
degree)
/ 5
ТНК
PREFACE THAT IS WRITTEN IN THE ILND
/ 7
SHAMANHOOD/SHAMANwm
/ 1 ]
"Classical" Territories and Beliefs
/ 11
Rites and Concepts
/ 32
Untugun and the "Music" of the Shaman
/ 5
1
BACK THROUGH THE TIME
/ 88
Pèrkc
/ 88
Sound and Rituals on the Route of the Bulgarians
/119
Tum/Tèiri/Tàngra
—
Dues in actu
/ 147
Witchcraft and Shamanhood
—
Differences and possible Parallels
/ 176
ABBREVIATION
/ 192
BIBLIOGRAPHY
/ 193
INDEX
/ 207
SUMMARY IN ENGLISH
/211
241·
SHAMANS
-
DIO
THEY EXIST ON THE BALKANS?
(Summary)
This book is a result of participation in a number of projects realised in collabo¬
ration of the Institute of Folklore at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
(BAS)
with the
Department of Music Anthropology at the University of Tampere, Finland. Here, I
would like to thank Finnish colleagues for their help, to colleagues from the institute
of Folklore
—
BAS
(Sofia) and from the Institute of Thracology
-
BAS
(Sofia).
The theme about shamanhood with its regional specifics and debatable problems
is quite alien to the Bulgarian scientific circles. Limited number of publications has
been written until now mainly by historians, as well as by art historians. Those works
treat and use some aspects of shamanhood with a particular aim
—
to prove its exist¬
ence among the ancient Thracians and among the proto-Bulgarians. Due to the poorly
studied and, respectively, poorly presented nature of the phenomenon in Bulgarian
scientific and popular writings, readers cannot evaluate the reliability of the state¬
ments and hypotheses in them. So, to a great extent, this book is addressed to introduce
lhe
Bulgarian reader in the milieu and specifics of the shamanhood. Regionally and
thematically, the text is focused on the rites and musical characteristics of the so
called "classical shamanhood", which has been so far investigated in a number of
works with different volume and aims. The peculiarities of the phenomenon (repre¬
sented mostly in the first three chapters) are extracted precisely in the way they are
mentioned in the fieldwork studies. Thus, my viewpoint relies on their "reading", as
well as on the knowledge about the Bulgarian ritual system. From scientific point of
view, a contribution to the investigations on the shamanhood is the second part of the
book, discussing on the possibility to speak about that phenomena on the Balkans.
í
would like to say in advance that as an ethnologist and cthnomusicologist I do
not share the concept that shaman hood/sham an ism has existed in the ethnocultural
tradition of the Balkans, including the assumption that it is inherited from the old
Bulgarians. One of my basic arguments comes from the sphere of traditional ritual
sound and melody. The traditional folk music is an aspect of the rites and makes a
substantial part of their "hidden" text. Melody, object and speech are equal in impor¬
tance within ritual space. There, they present simultaneously the same content on
different "languages". As far as sound "code" is concerned, it carries out substantial
information and is able to provide missing parts of the research puzzle. Ii is a well
known fact, that the traditional culture of the Bulgarians (successors of old agricul¬
tural ethnic formations) is not a "pure", but rather a multilayer and syncretic one. It is
a spiritual and factual heritage of the ritual system of the ancient Bulgarians and the
Balkan peoples rather than of the Slavs, as it was stubbornly imposed during the
communistic regime. At the same time, differing in name and origin ethnic compo¬
nents on the Balkans have nevertheless similar ethnocultural heritage with a lot of
common in their conceptual contents and ritual systems. They possess many of the
universal
—
archetypal (psychological) myth-generating structural elements, charac-
2Л
leristic for the different spheres of immaterial culture. My experience as an ethnolo¬
gist and ethnomusicologist dedicated to the study of the complicated ethnographical
milieu of the Balkan taught me to be on the alert about fundamental problems of rites
as "multifacetious" phenomena, re-created and innovated gradually in the course of
millennia. Whenever comparing
—
in search of common (or kindred) element
—
a
Balkan case with another one belonging to different cthnocultural rite circles, one
had to think over: on the content and survivals of the "antiquity", which spans on
these lands back to the third millennium
ВС
(and even, relying on the dating of the
Varna necropolis, to the second half of the fourth millennium
ВС);
on the historical
fate, stratification of self-consciousness and social structure, as well as on the
ethnocultural rituals' content and beliefs of the regions, once inhabited by the ancient
Bulgarians and the Thracians. If one is nevertheless determined to search for signs of
"belonging" (e.g., to the shamanhood), he has to rely on the content of the rites as
Faith and Behaviour, rather than on their being an "official" religion.
"CLASSICAL" TERRITORIES AND BELIEFS. It is well agreed that
shamanhood
—
in its pure, "classical" form is typical for the non-stratified communi¬
ties, relying on hunting commodity economy for their living and existence. Theories in
which the ethnologists see the so called "classical form of shamanhood" refer to areas
where there still could be seen moving communities such as the regions of Siberia and
parts of Central Asia. Siberia, belonging administratively to Russia since the sixteenth
century, is a particular area remarkable for its abundance in separate small nationali¬
ties. Ethnodemographic data about these territories refer to the different theories about
origins of shamanhood, as well as to the chart of its specific nationality profile. Im¬
portant is also the following fact: together with the big territorial span, multiple lin¬
guistic differences and separate ethnic traditions, shamanhood shows universally re¬
peated concepts and other characteristic. This has brought forth to the search of its
supposedly common centre of origin, as well as to the presumption that there have
once existed relations between nationalities living today far from each other. Siberian
shamanhood remains here a classical pillar case for comparisons in many publica¬
tions. Several aspects of the Siberian case have been compared with the Asiatic one in
order to conceptualise peculiarities of shamanhood in the geographical centre of
Asia, as
weil
as westwards and eastwards. There are also many studies founded on the
assumption that Siberia is a "cultural continuation" of Central Asia and they view
Siberian shamanhood as related to Central Asian one. At the same time, many inves¬
tigations of these territories consider the complicated and important question about
the religious impute of high cultures on shamanhood (the ones from India, Tibet and
China), about the implication of mythological, doctrinal and theological elements.
Archaeological findings certify that ancient mythical concepts and beliefs of
shamanizing Siberian people have been pres'ent in their cultures for a couple of mil¬
lennia. This immaterial treasure has been created by illiterate communities, predomi¬
nantly ones without ethnos organisation (such as chiefdom or state), but with family/
lineal ones. They are void of systematically developed calendar rituals and have only
seasonal ones. Siberian moving societies have contemplated and meditated the nature,
the Cosmos, the Heavenly Sky and themselves as a whole and from different angles of
the settlements. Unity with the environment is a way of life in which one is not obvi¬
ated apart to observe and to describe systematically the view and understanding for
the surrounding world in a mythology. Therefore, the mytho-narratives and ritual data
of Siberian people are collected by nineteenth and twentieth century foreign fieldworkers
and observers. In a number of recent scientific and popular writings, this set, called "a
body or collection of myths" (gathered from the viewpoint of "the others"), is usually
called "mythology". The popular use of the term is ignoring its second component,
212
;
coming from the Ancient Greek
λόγος.
Actually, this component is still respected on
¡[he Balkans and in the land of Greeks from where the word
μυθολογία
has origi¬
nated. Its authentic meaning is literary interpretation of folk motifs, i.e. "literary leg¬
end". This is important to be mentioned because mythologies have been written as a
:
rule by observers belonging to ethnically stratified communities. The distance between
"evergreen", always recreated mytho-narratives and their writing, e.g. "freezing" as a
[mythology, could take ages of linear time. Everybody who knows the latter would in
■vain search the native mythographers
(μυθογράφος)
of the Siberian mythologies. So,
Mi's more correct to denote that Siberian tradition as mytho-narratives.
I Essential in Siberian and Asiatic spiritual life (i.e. of the demonological, mythic,
;
mythological, doctrinal and religious spheres) are beliefs in spirits of animate and
Inanimate nature. One of the terms characterising such beliefs is "animism"
—
etymologically and historically coming from
anima
mundi.
In Asia, in the centuries
following Buddha and Confucius' births potentials of animism have been brought to
¡the highest doctrinal level. Referring to animism is a safe ground for the interpreta¬
tion of shamanhood concept. Nevertheless, it has to be keep in mind that this is only
a ground: as far as beliefs in the vitality of substances is not Asia's "patent". Classical
Ishamanhood, which according to its prominent researchers is based on animism, has
traditional and territorial context and motivation. Shaman and the other local people
act in it. Shamanhood is folklore, i.e. rituality. Thus, it has to be investigated as part of
[he traditional conceptual and ritual system of a particular ethnocultura! milieu.
¡This is the right way to its specifics and a steady fundament for its comparative re¬
search.
■.
Demonological and mythical spheres of the majority of the shamanizing Sibe¬
rian and Central Asian peoples exhibit similar concepts about high and low deities
;(or "spirits") and similar features in their ritual activities. Most of the researchers
speak about the existence of common features in animistic and mythic motivation of
shamanhood. One common concept is the belief in Supreme Celestial being, whom
the inhabitants of Siberia and Central Asia, generally speaking, accept as omnipre¬
sent, beneficent, Creator and Lord of the Universe. Arctic and North Asian native
concepts about Supreme Celestial Deity (rendered concrete in its identification with
lhe
sky and the "celestial phenomena") are accepted in science to be of a native
origin. Yet it has to be taken into consideration that shamanizing societies do not
always differentiate the concepts of the sky as a deity and the sky as inhabited by a
deity. Beliefs and appeals to "the Sky itself. so far as it goes", i.e. as abstract and non-
personified, are not coherent with other efficient concepts about Deities, as for exam¬
ple in the case of the agricultural societies in the area, of South Asia and beyond it.
The use of god, deity and spirit as synonyms in a considerable number of investiga¬
tions and fieldwork studies is a hint for their merging and
undi
f
ferenti
ating
in the
native consciousness and tradition. Some of the researchers use spirit and deity to
mark different degree of worship and height in the hierarchy of the spirits, as well as
varying degrees of sophistication in their cults. The oblique verge between god, deity
and spirit probably is due to the vague personification of the supreme "proto-image".
In scientific circles, it is known as
"Deus otiotis".
The Siberian and some of the Asiatic
people commonly call him Majestic, Bright, Good, Great Old Man, White Old Man,
Golden Old Man, Father-Sky, Eternal Sky, etc. Even today under discussion remains
also another question: if the God of the sky has gradually become anthropomorphous
(and the celestial phenomena have been conceptualised as its "kin") or if he has
primordially been such and his late personification is a turn back to the older proto-
ìmage.
Both possible understandings refer to the fact that divine sky is "multiplied"
and particularised in other divine figures, generated from him and from the concept
213
of vital spirit as present in every thing. In the
demonologiem
and in the mythical
concepts Sky is always supreme and unapproachable. At the same time rile practices
of shamanizing communities (Paleo-Siberian, Turkic and Mongol ones) function mostly
as worships of other, lower status gods or simply of spirits.
In many regions of Siberia and Central Asia, there are common myihic concepts
about construction and stratification of the worlds. Some researchers state that the
Mongol people and the Altaic Turkic population have probably accepted some of
them under the influence of Buddhist cosmology. Both Upper, Lower and Here on
Earth worlds have sun (or suns), moon, forests, humanoid inhabitants and even sha¬
mans. Concepts about directions, as well as about horizontal and vertical layering of
the world (which usually comprises of seven layers, here on earth
—
one, three upper
ones and three underworlds) are concepts about the celestial and earth's perimeters
falling under the power of diverse spirits and deities. In analogy with the celestial
spirits, all over Asia there are worshipped the spirits of the yurts/huts (called "house-
beings"), as well as the ones of the winter settlement constructions. Separate group are
the so called clan/kin deities
—
spirits of dead predecessors (the drowned ones, the
ones burnt in Ore or torn by bears) which are regularly offered kin sacrifices.
Many Siberian peoples have seasonal (autumn, winter, spring or winter) village
sacrifice "ceremonies". They suppose thanksgiving after the end of the hunting and
fishing seasons. The offerings arc dedicated mainly to the good spirits supplying suc¬
cessful hunting and fishing. Most important are said to be the autumn and the early
winter ceremonies, such as "whale", "bear", "wolf" and the "deer" ones. Deification of
"Father Sky" and of "Mother Earth" as supreme generative "beings" is conceptual
universais
in Siberia and in Central Asia. "Mother Earth" (or the spirit of Mother
Earth) in analogy with the Sky is also void of an anthropomorphous image. It is what
it is
—
the earth itself: the mountains, the streams, the forest, the rocks anothe trees are
her identification. They are also dwelling place of the so called "nature spirits", per¬
sonified by means of the earth's structure. Concepts that every mountain (hill, rock),
even every point of the earth has its own spirit able to protect the one passing by are
common in that region, too. Every clan (and somewhere every village) has its sacred
mountain and its spirit protector. Ho is offered sacrifices during the village rites, as
well as during some rites performed in a course of several years or in a time of an
equinox. Each littoral nationality has its sea deities and offers them sacrifices to ob-
lain good draught. Some of those people believe thai the sea master, which is the sea
itself, is a woman. "Mother earth's" and "Father Sky's" daughter (called Umay in
Middle Asia; she is also called
Tenger
Ninannian, derived from the
Tunguz
language
Tor earth and soil) occupies the highest place in the pantheon of the earth deities and
is believed to protect birth giving and children. Another deity, whose worship is show¬
ing common features within the Siberian people, also, is "Mother/spirit of fire", Well
spread is the belief that the fire is a living, omnipresent and wise substance, which
bans on its desecration (e.g. poking and stirring it with an iron bar). Fire is also fed
and it gets paths of everything that is cooked on it.
The Paleo-Siberian peoples confess neither of the "major" religions (Christianity,
Buddhism, Islam, etc.). Following R. Gillberg, one could say that they are not theo¬
logical. Such a conditional definition is quite plausible if one wants to avoid misun¬
derstandings caused by the unreasonable equation of mythology with religion, which
has often been done when investigating the contact zones of Central Asia and South
Siberia. In these territories, linguistic, conceptual and religious influences have been
extremely active there for millennia on end. Similar processes of cultural
interpénétra¬
tion
have sophisticated the spiritual being and the conceptual achievements of all
Asiatic peoples, too. Inherited shamanhood and "classical" doctrinal and theological
214
confessions
(such as Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam) coexist and inter¬
penetrate each other there. This melange spreads even towards the "pure" north cul¬
tures, affecting their rites and worldvicws.
Al
the same time, within the same Central
Asian and Siberian territories the concepts of Supreme sky deity (as well as worships
of water, earth, sun, beliefs in spirits, etc.) are preserved even after experiencing con¬
siderable religious influence. Parallel to this, shamanhood, more or less has regained
its influence on the religious/theological behaviour and concepts. A lot of research
problems, viewing shamanic features in theological societies and vice versa, as well as
the problem about "religious syncretism" are in a way constantly present in the publi¬
cations on the rites of a number of communities which are not to be classified as
"pure" Siberian hunting societies, loo.
RITES AND CONCEPTS. The universal term shaman is not known in the ma¬
jority of the Siberian cultures, though following J. Pcntikaincn, they are "absolutely
shamanic". Years ago, the prominent researcher has focused attention on the differ¬
ence between shamanhood and shamanism but in vain, as far as in publications writ¬
ten in different languages they continue to be used as synonyms. Shamanhood is part
of the tradition of a particular society. Together with the acquisition of skills to heal
and of knowledge about the herbs, the shaman has to be fluent in the mytho-narra-
tives of his people, to know different songs, charms, spells, incantations, tales, narra¬
tives and myths, especially ones connected with the clan's origin, with the shaman's
genealogy, etc. It is also well known that shamans are "travellers" and mediators be¬
tween worlds, as well as that they possess special abilities to contact spirits. Many
researchers state that the so called shamanic "soul journey" is shaman's most distinc¬
tive feature.
Shamans belong to both sexes. Their teeth,
fon
tands,
hairs and some other inborn
bodily features are believed to foresee their vocation. The spirit of shaman-predeces¬
sor chooses the shaman-to be and takes hold of him at an early age. All this is tradi¬
tionally believed to be symptomatic for the so called "shamanic disease" or "voca¬
tion". In the course of years, the "vocation" manifests itself in prophetic dreams, su¬
pernatural skills, temporary "insanities", sudden mental or physical illness, initiation
visions of travels to the Upper world and body dismemberments followed by recover¬
ies. Nevertheless, vocations are rare ones and the future shamans more often learn the
"craft" from older ones, being apprentices for years on end. In the period of educa¬
tion, whose length depends on individual skills, candidates have to overpass mental
and physical trials. For the weaker shaman, as well as for the shamaness, this period is
as a rule shorter and less painful than for the strong shaman. In exceptional cases the
vocation comes even at a mature or elderly age
—
after a great misfortune, after having
suffered a serious and long disease or when loosing family kin. Shamanhood is not
restricted to a definite social stratum or sex, but to the individual's personal abilities.
Almost all nineteenth and early twentieth century observers point out that in the Sibe¬
rian peoples (such as the Yukagirs, the Kodaks, the
Chukchis,
the Samoyeds, the
Ostiaks, the Tunguzs, the Yakuts, the Burials.) shamanesses have an authority which
is as high as the male shamans' one. According to a Chukchi shaman, "The woman is
a shamaness by nature"; her initiation period is shorter and easier than
lhe
one of the
shaman; her social position is higher than that of the ordinary woman. Shamanesses
and shamans do not have to obey some taboos obligatory for the others. The Siberians,
some of the Turkic and other Asian people believe that the shamanhood is hereditarily
transmitted and consider only hereditary shamans true ones.
Shamanic ceremony is performed at personal request or when being a necessity
for the future well-being of a particular group
—
family, clan/clans or village. Shamanic
rites, with few exceptions, are not restricted to a particular calendar period. They have
215
diverse
aims and functions, depending on the local or nationality tradition; fortune
telling, blessing, protection, successful hunting, dealing with misfortunes or unex¬
pected crisis, healing, finding lost property, re-animation of a holy visual representa¬
tion, etc. Addressing different spirits, the so called "propitiatory ceremonies" arc also
individual or group ones (performed from behalf of a family, a clan, several clans, or
a village). Many of the village rites, lead by shamans, are aimed at the future well-
being of the whole community. They are usually performed on some particular sacred
places (such as hills, mountains and streams) believed to be dwellings of'the spirits
helpers. Rites contain prayers, appeals, incantations and sacriflces. All Siberian hunt¬
ing societies have propitiatory rites for rich draught and for abundance of wild ani¬
mals and fish. The strongest animals (often believed to be totems and predecessors of
clans) are addressed and offered sacrifices before the hunt starts. In the past, practi¬
cally, every sacrificial ceremony was followed by a shamanic one (revealing if the
deities have benevolently accepted the sacrifice) and by communal dinners.
There are different types of shamans, varying in power and standing. Every ritual's
result, successful or unsuccessful depends on the abilities of the shaman. Shaman's
strength depends on the origin of the individual power whom he contacts on different
levels of the universe. Every type has a special name, a specific domain of efficiency
and particular rights to perform certain ceremonies. Classical differentiation between
"white" and "black" shamans is based on the type of spirits whom they contact, as well
as on the world of their journeys. The Mongols associate black and white shamans
with east and west spirits
(tenger).
Black shamans, because of serving to the dark, east
spirits
tenger,
arc believed to be capable of causing illnesses and human death. Such
a differentiation is not universally spread. It is possible to have a community with a
single shaman, acting both as a white and as a black one. Some peoples have special
shamans who escort the souis of the deceased in the underworld. According to a
universal Asiatic (and not only Asiatic) concept, some of the souls of the dead are not
able to find alone their way to the underworld and come back to the earth. In such
cases, the shaman sends them off to their "true" home. Making a journey to the under¬
world is considered the most difficult one and supposing special power. Shamans
capable of performing such tasks have high standing: they are believed to be big and
strong
опт.
Every soul journey and shamanic acting is coherent with mythic concepts about
the world and with concepts of world stratification. It is actually part of beliefs and
dcmonology of the particular people. Shamanic soul journeys and all the other
shamanic activities are thought to be impossible without the help of the so called
spirits helpers and spirits protectors. Some researchers differentiate between two basic
types of spirits protectors: the first ones are entirely under the control of the shaman,
while he calls the second ones when he needs them, The latter are lower deities or
souls of already dead shamans and have some sort of independence. Many of the
spirits helpers are zoomorphous or ornitomorphous (bears, elks, wolves, deer, rabbits,
tulles, eagles; howls, ducks, loons, swans, ravens). They are able to fly everywhere at a
high speed, they see and feel from a far away distance, they guide shaman's way
during his soul journey. Concepts that he is their master (he drives them, sits on their
backs) and can control or incarnate them are actually concepts about ideal identifi¬
cation within him and the spirits. The aim to get the unlimited abilities
ofthat
super¬
natural substance and to "fuse" oneself with it finds an expression in the personal
transformation of the shaman. Strong spirit helper chooses a particular shaman at the
very beginning of his vocation. Some people call that guide shaman's spirit "animal-
double" or "animal-mother". The shaman takes its form during the soul journeys. As
the shaman gets more powerful, he gathers more spirits helpers and, respectively,
216
achieves new forms of reincarnation. Part of them is not zoomorphous. The Tunguzs,
the Nanays, the Udeks and some other people believe the deceased members of the
shaman's family could be his spirits helpers also.
In the rites, the soul journeys in the world of the spirits have particular, repeated
bodily significations. For example, movements ahead and upwards mark the begin¬
ning of the "flight"
—
either the one directing to the Upper or the one directed to the
Underworld. Different behaviour and movements of the Altaic shamans symbolise
and tell about passing through "nine borders" and "two worlds". During the soul
journeys shamans are able to experience several changes of their embodiment (changes
of sex included). They are capable of undergoing series of transformations, for exam¬
ple, into birds then into human beings and after that into bears, following the taking
turn changes of the spirits who guide their journeys and possessing their bodies. Dur¬
ing those metamorphoses, the shamans might look and act inconsistently, or vice
versa, they might walk, dance and even tell those around about visions.
Journeys to the Underworld are a necessity when a shaman has to free a soul or
to send a soul of a deceased off to the kingdom of the dead. Shamans reach those
realms following different roads
—
crossing the River of the Universe, passing cav¬
erns, whirlpools, springs, etc., i.e. following the roads of the spirits. More often, such
endeavours are undertaken when healing heavy, chronic diseases, believed them to be
caused by soul deviations. The Siberian and Asiatic concepts of the human soul are in
Che rcot of all shamanic healings. Natives speak about the existence of several (usually
three) souls in every human being and each of them has different fate after his death.
When still alive, a man can lose one of his souls and it is the shaman who would
manage to bring it back. Beliefs that a lost or gone soul could cause a disease are
common for the Siberian and many of the Asiatic traditions. Getting a sou] back is the
most dangerous shaman's endeavour
—
he is supposed to make a long soul journey
beyond his body and undertakes the risk to loose his own soul.
In ethnological writings, shamanic journeys are often characterised as
trance
and ecstasy,
έκστασις/ενθεος,
évrovaiaapóçfexstàsislentheas,
enthousiasm) are terms
with a long tradition of usage (as doctrinal, theological and philosophic) and specific
meaning that cannot be ignored when speaking and writing about rituals. These terms
are clearly used and discussed in the Bulgarian writings: in the investigations of the
Thracian culture» as well in last century writings about rites. As far as shamanhood is
concerned
ř
exclude the use of
εκστασις
/extàsis
and
¡
ѕугоуанхоџосјешИоиѕ^аѕтоѕ
as
doctrinal and theological overburdened concepts (undergone on various interpreta¬
tions in the course of the time), and because of the lesson that formulation/wording of
every peculiar psychosomatic ritual state needs very convincing arguments. Here, and
generally about shamanhood I use the term trance, which is void of particular con-
creteness. It is based and derived from the content oftranscendental function, treated
in psychology as manifestation of energy, as promoting the "passage" from a particu¬
lar psychological condition to another one, as well as a specific link between the real
and the imaginative. A manifestation of transcendence in a ritual also, could be the
identifications between men and deities.
Shaman's dress (mantle, boots, hat), percussive instrument (drum) and all his rite
attributes are strictly personal belongings and an immanent part of his acts and jour¬
neys;'they diverse in their nationality variations, degree of importance and accompa¬
nying concepts. Their making is a part of
lhe
shaman's initiation. Nordic shamans
usually make those objects by themselves, when the spirits give their permission to.
Shaman's attributes and dressing are always in accordance with his standing. Typical
rite objects are the so called shaman's
staff/'^horse-stick",
shaman's rod, dress, the
"sacred sledge", the spirits' bags^'houses", etc. Part of the shamanic costume is also
217
the masque identifying the shaman and making him part of the supernatural forces.
Some concepts and beliefs of Siberian and Central Asian shamanhood are repre¬
sented and multiplicated by different rite objects and activities. Multiplication of
symbolism is an expressive shamanic principle, allowing for a number of variants of
the ritual objects (and of the concepts related to them) and making them interchange¬
able.
Concepts about mediative functions and beings of shamans are expressed and
function in the content of all their attributes, objects, costumes, as well as in their
behaviour. Shaman enters the Beyond simultaneously from several aspects and be¬
come other, by means of object and semantic acts, by means of spirit's "music", "holy
smoke" and fire, as well as with the help of the assistant
—
a figure, which acts in many
rites together with the shaman. An assistant could be a member/or members of the
shaman's family or a young apprentice-shaman. Presence and functions of assistant
show that in many cases the shaman is not capable
lo do
his ritc/fcamlanie alone,
especially when he has to fall into trance. Assistant's acting (singing, beating the
drum, performance of some appealing melodies, or preparation/the heating of the
instrument, etc.) in decisive ritual moments during shaman's journey, presupposes
abilities which put him in a parallel to the "high" shaman's position. Ritual substitu¬
tion and "doubling", otherwise said, manifestation of similar contents on different
levels (in concepts, objects, figures and in acts) is a principle in shamanic rites. It
could be assumed that the assistant is a ritual duplicate of the shaman, his "split"
figure, symbolizing his simultaneous presence "here" and "there" at the time of the
journey.
It is believed that shamanic kamianie transforms irreversibly and positively every
profane dwelling. Without discussing in detail who is the possessing and who is the
possessed during the ritual (and the people's notion that the shaman "masters" the
spirits), it is evident that during the ritual, a spirit, and some kind of "substitute" is
present through the figure of the shaman
—
by means of the songs, by bubbling or
inadequate, unusual activities. His psychosomatic behaviour is a "sign" of the world
beyond and an
antìpode
of the profane life. That idea is unambiguously found in the
different people's etiological concepts about first man
—
shaman and the souls of the
shamans which are capable of turning into deities after death, etc. According to the
myths of origin, all their lives shamans are here and there, Up and Down. These
notions are evident also in the way they are accepted and treated by those around
them: as different and "others". Their specific social and ritual status is revealed also
in the cases of their androgeneity. Shamans' tombstones, symbols of the upper, mediative
and penennial (in similar to the sacred places, dedicated to spirits and deities) are
respected as sacred by clans and village communities.
However, what is shamanhood
? —
a religion, a form of cult or syncretic form, an
early form of a religion, genealogical institution, psychological technique. There are
different answers. In my opinion, the cssentiai shamanhood phenomenon emanates
also in a very important part of this tradition
—
in "music making" as shamanic ritual
behaviour.
VNTUGUN AND THE "MUSIC" OF THE SHAMAN. The percussive instru¬
ments of the shamans, like mantles and other ritual objects, arc symbols of the shamanic
phenomenon and its contents. As a construction and sound taking (by hitting a mem¬
brane with a hand or an object), this kind of instruments is known throughout Asia,
Africa and Europe, including the Mediterranean cultures. They have various appli¬
cations in rite or secular life and different names among the various ethnic groups.
However, because of its own ritual profile and application the shamans' drum can
neither be called dayre (or with the Russian word for it
—
buben), nor
tupan
(as it is
218
named in the Bulgarian publications). Ethnomusicologists are aware that authentic
naming of musical instruments always is implying information about inherited rite
contents. Percussive shamanic instrument has tenths of names among the different
people of Siberia and Middle Asia. The Evenks, the Negidals, the Uluchs, the Nanays,
the Udegeys, the Orochs, etc. call this instrument untugun (or, derivatively, untuun,
ungtuvun, hunktuun, intiun, huntun, unchufunn, etc.). I accept this authentic name
and apply it as summarising (like the term
shamanhooď)
for the shamanic rituals of
the Siberian and Central Asian peoples.
Untugun is a membranophonic percussive instrument, a single skin-headed frame
drum. Its body is often fastened together with cramp irons and bars on the inner side.
The instrument has numerous regional and nationality variants, differing in size and
shape: it is oval or round and its diameter varies from
30
cm to
1
m. The people
preserve and make its traditional forms, implying in them specific conceptual con¬
tents. Some Siberian shamans have, as it is with the dresses, two drums, for example,
one for the journeys "upwards" and another for the journey "down" to the World of
the Dead, or one for the North and another one for the South sky, etc. The Uniugun's
membrane is decorated according to the local tradition. It has drawings either on one
of its sides or on both of them. According to some researchers, the drawings review one
ofthe most important meanings ofthe drum us symbol ofthe universe. Similarly, the
Uralian and Altaic people believe that the instrument symbolises the "universe"/"the
whole earth". Typical for the facial part ofthe drums are images ofthe shaman's spirit
predecessor or spirit helper. They enable him to become "personified" and to experi¬
ence metamorphoses during hisjourney in the world beyond. The inner side Ggures of
the drum and their esoteric meaning are known only to the particular shaman or to
the person who has made it; there could be hung some metal figures symbolising
shaman's spirit helpers. At the inner side, there is also a handle (anthropomorphic on
Altaic instruments). Sometimes it is made of a deer horn in a natural size. Small bells
are hung on it and the faces ofthe shaman's spirits helpers are carved on it. Instru¬
ments with outer handles (fastened on the outer, lower side) could be found onJy in
the far Northeast (or in North America) among the Chukchies and the Eskimos.
Untugun'
s
sound is taken by means of drum-rattle, made of wood or bone. Sometimes
it is covered with deer leather. An image ofthe spirit helper could be carved on one of
its ends; drawing of a lizard or a snake might be made on its inner side, too. Rattles
could be used separately for fortune telling and healing.
The percussive instrument is a ritual object, a mediator and a syncretic symbol of
the shaman, of his family and community. The drum is the shaman himself, and vice
versa. Rite identity "untugun—shaman" is formed since the time of his "becoming"
(and the shaman's initiation) and lasts to the end of the shaman's life. During the
initiation period, the shaman learns the drumming and the majority of the songs
which he performs later on, They contain descriptions of the journeys, of spirits help¬
ers and the "lands" beyond. At the time of kamlanie the shaman is supposed not to
show any signs of fatigue, because the spirits support him. It is also believed that the
preparation and the performance ofthe rite are in their hands, too. Music making or
producing the ritual singing, speech, and danco/pantomime reflects spiritual and
conceptual characteristics of shamanic ritual. According to shamans themselves, the
beats ofthe drum "wake" the spirits and are at the same time an "appeal" to them. The
shaman rides on a flying horse, deer or elk during hisjourney. Actually, they are being
symbolised by a slick or two in his hands or by the drum as the place where the spirits
helpers reside. The Samoyed shaman rides the instrument as if he is riding an elk.
Often the ceremony itself begins with the heating of the drum over the fireplace in
order to animate it. The following songs are chosen/and performed by the shaman in
219
accordance with the aims of the rite and most of them belong to the spirits themselves,
The investigations on shamanic rites have brought to the differentiation of two gen¬
eral types of songs. The Nenets for example, perform "magic songs" and "shamanic
narrative songs", telling about shamans and mythic creatures (J.
Niemi).
The Ngsans
perform
"shon
songs" (connected with fortune telling and guessing) and "long songs"
(monologues, having from
100
to
250
lines, giving an expression of the mutual rela¬
tions of the shaman and the spirits). Those long songs are not always understandable
for the people, surrounding the shaman.
A very important idiosyncrasy concerning shaman's songs and drumming is the
improvisation of the sound, beating and movements, as well as the combinativeness of
song's lines and motives. That means that the melody or the so called "initial" melodical
model (together with the verbal text) is re-created differently in every musical perform¬
ance. Vocal intonation is often non-temperate and according to the researchers, some
songs could be called "shouting". Exceptions are some melodies, calling the shaman's
spirits helpers, having comparatively defined melodically lines. Actually, the very na¬
ture of the rite with its non-predictiveness during its varyingly re-occurring perform¬
ances is fully reflected in its "musical" expression. Inconstant and often non-tem¬
pered "singing" and sound "personify" different images and situations on the sha¬
man's journey. This ritual performative style is interpreted by researchers in the con¬
text of the particular folk concepts of the world beyond, as well as connected with the
local ideas about shaman's "flight" (while ascending to the Upper or descending to
the Down worlds). The musical picture of shaman's flight directly reflects his interre¬
lations with the spirits. Their appearance almost exclusively defines and models his
behaviour. Full conceptual fusion of substances is expressed by physical and "musi¬
cal" transformation of the shaman, singing the "songs of the spirits". Every spirits
helper has his own melody and when the shaman recognises his coming, he starts to
sing it. That performance and its different components (vocal, rhythm, movement,
song succession, etc.) is an expression of the shaman's view for the "relief of the
world beyond.
Shaman's words, reflecting his "dialogues" with the spirits take turns with the
beats of the imtugun; all that often sounds incoherent and non-understandable to
those surrounding him. Very often, the accompanying beats of the drum make the
melody and the text inaudible. Beat's frequency and speed are not "metronomous";
the beating constantly varies in its tempo and strength, depending on the direction
and moments of the "journey". For example, during the Buriat rites, symbolic sexual
movements together with the increasing tempo of the beats symbolise communication
of the shaman with his marital spirit helper. Sometimes, shamans, waiting the spirits to
come, beat monotonously for a long time; in other cases, they change in turns definite
rhythms in accordance with the moment of the journey or with its casualties and
specifics. Song successions also, entirely depend on shaman's condition, i.e. from the
world's level where he is believed to be. Its description, and the journey itself, is made
audible in different sound styles
—
melodica!
lines, recitations, charms, appeals, dia¬
logues, etc. As a whole, shaman's behaviour includes various vocal approaches
—
whistles, falsettos, guttural, hoarse and nasal sounds, as well as growling and grunt¬
ing. Those sound "imitations" of animals and birds are supposed to be as close to the
"original" as possible. They manifest shaman's transformations during his journey.
These "imitative" gestures and movements are coherent and common for all the Sibe¬
rian nationalities. Here, I would like to specify that deliberately put "imitative" (when
referring to
kantiane) in
inverted commas. Shamans do not imitate, they are
—
incar¬
nated in an animal or a bird, in a song/spirit, or even in the heavy breathing of the
speeding elk. Shamanic rites are typical examples for ritual syncretism, for entity,
220
built out of the unity of elements. Organised freely and differently in every single case,
they depend on the direction and function of the rite itself.
The singing, drumming, and
différent
sound making in the performance of sha¬
mans arc a part of the general intonational milieu; they express the specifics of the
musical "thinking" and concepts of a particular society. The singing and the melodical
lines, as far as their origin and nature is concerned, are traditional and "own" in the
shaman's community. People who are present and know how does the ceremony "go"
may repeat and intonate every verse of the shaman's songs-incantations, Thus, those
surrounding him do a kamlane as much as the shaman himself. They help the sha¬
man to fall in trance while repeating parts of his song or shouting. This interrelation
is evident in data about the mutual rite journey (of the shaman and of those around
him) in the world beyond. Following the observations of J.
Niemi,
Siberia is a region
with "its own musical style". The Arctic and the sub-Arctic peoples have many funda¬
mental similarities in their means of living and sustenance (based most of all on
hunting, fishing and deer stalking), as well in their social organisation and attitude to
nature and the supernatural. Many common "fundamental" elements exist in their
musical cultures, too. Inconstant melodic heights and abundance of melodic and
rhythmic variants are common musical expressive features of the shamanic songs and
in the singing of the Siberian people at all. This referred to the small Siberian hunting
societies, as well as for the big state formations (e.g. Mongolia, whose own history is far
from being already rid of the nomadic experience). For example, the Mongolian so
called "two-part songs without words" ("throat-singings") are performed not only by
the shamans. The majority of the Western Mongols and the Tuva men (most of them
occupied in nomadic cattle breeding), practice "throat singing". A stylistic and sound
taking analogue of "throat-singing" is
aman
hur,
khomus (jaws/mouth harp), a widely
spread instrument used by shamans, too. Another example is the so called "own melo¬
dies" and "personal" songs, performed by the Chukchies, the Nenets, the Enets, etc.
This kind of songs, which everyone composes for himself, could be improvised at
every performance (concerning melodical lines, ornamentation and text's content).
The Ostiaks sing "personal" songs, too. K.
Lazar
reports that they "think", figuratively
speaking, in "types of motives and lines", as well as in melodic and rhythmic variants.
Their pieces do not have
stropnic
structure and they arc "rearranged" and changed
in every single case of performance. The melodies are difficult to transcribe (because
of their inconstant interval correlations) and could not be brought under a common
flnalis.
It is well known that every shamanic rite is standing on 'a priori' existing ideo¬
logical sphere. By means of his incarnations, songs and ritual behaviour the shaman
"projects" and "enacts" its conceptual and myth system and for the community this
"reality" happens in, and through every ritual. The shaman himself personifies and
symbolises the unity of his clan in the same way in which the drum (together with the
dress and the other attributes) symbolises the shaman himself. Like musical charac¬
teristics, contents and specifics of kamlanies are to be sought in the very roots of
people's traditions. In the older observations, "behind the lines" of, one could "read"
an ancient and "non-personai" layer of tradition, which seems to have generated the
acts and the figures of present day shamans. For example, Bogoras reports that every
Chukchi family used to have one or more drum instruments. It was a common thing,
especially in winter times, for the old Chukchi to beat the instruments and to sing
their own melodies. At least one in a family used to try to "contact spirits" and to "tell
the future". The idea about the origin of so called individual and professional sha¬
mans from the "family shamanhood" is known just from Bogoras. Every Khanty fam¬
ily had a percussive instrument also, where the spirit-protector of the family was
221
living. Shamans, when asked to come and solve some problems, used the family drum.
Koriak
shamans did not have their own drums and did the kamlancs with family yyai
(drum). The Laplands treated runebom (the drum) as family or kin sacred object and
kept it in the "holly corner" (in the backside) of their huts.
The description of the so called wolf "ceremony" of the littoral Kodaks also has
a similar background. After killing a wolf, they take down the skin together with the
head and one of the men puts it on. He walks around the fireplace with the "wolf'
while at the same time the others beat the drum. Koriaks also, and this is not less
important, tell that in the time of the Big Raven ordinary people used to travel from
one world to the other (as the shamans do) and were capable of turning into animals
or inanimate objects. All kinds of data about rites without a participation of a shaman
speak about a historically older generative cultural level, which has brought to life the
shamanhood itself. There are nineteenth century descriptions certifying that most of
the Paleo-Siberian people did not definitely need shamans to lead kin sacrifice offer¬
ings or "propitiation" ceremonies (with offerings, incantations and appeals to the
spirits protectors). Those rites were often led by the head of the family. Krasheninnikoff,
who travelled around Siberia in the middle of the eighteenth century, wrote about the
Itelmens as having only one "big annual ceremony". It was held in November and the
leading part in it belonged to the old men, T. Atkinson reports similar facts about
sacrifice offerings of the Mongol Kalmiks: the man who leads the offering says a long
prayer (glorifying the spirits and asking for the well-being of the herds) while beating
his drum
—
an activity typical for the shamans. The Mongol ritual practices in hon¬
our of spirits do not necessarily presuppose presence of a shaman as well; some cer¬
emonies performed at equinox in honour of the mountain spirits are made under the
leadership of the oldest clan or community member. This type of rites exists also today,
in parallel with the rites of the "individual" shamans. Gumilev is interpreting this
phenomenon (old men's rituality) as a relict from Tengrism. Simultaneous presence
and functioning of elderly men and shamans, typical for the traditions of some com¬
munities is unquestionably important evidence for different ritual levels. Typologi-
cally speaking, the figure of the old man is well known in the non-shamanic commu¬
nities, too. The Bulgarian votive sacrificial rites are always led by an old man even
today, but the other figure/and level
—
that of the shaman, is absent.
PERKE (The country that had earlier been called Perke was re-named to Thrake
-
after a nymph proficient in sorcer}' and herbs.
—
Arrianus. Bithyn. Fr. 13.J
Thrace and the Thracians belong to the geographical, ethno-cultural and his¬
toric community of the Paleo-Balkan and Western Asia Minor, to the Indo-European
language family. "Thrace and the Balkans" are viewed as a part of the Circumpontic/
Aegean area
—
a political, ideological and territorial integrity with specific, common
features in the characteristics of culture and history. That's why, the hypotheses about
the existence or non-existence of ancient Thracian and Hellenic shamanhood con¬
cern more or less the stationary estate and class societies as a whole, belonging to the
southeastern part of the Europe (of the Late Chalcoiithic civilization from the end of
the 5111 millennium
ВС,
till the mid-first millennium
ВС).
They concern both the eth¬
nically pre-Greek Pelasgian/Thracian population and the territory named Ellada af¬
ter the end of the Trojan War. The same problem, with much more acutcness, arises
after eighth century
ВС
—
with the appearance of polis-type organization of societies
and the Hellenization of Thracian spiritual culture, and in the period of Antiquity
and the flourishing of the Thracian states (V-IH century
ВС).
Thrace and the Thracians
—
as state organization, ideology, as well as cultural
and historical matters have been thoroughly investigated by the Bulgarian Thracology.
"Yes" or 'Not" to the existence of shamanhood in ancient Thracian society (and in the
222
Cicrum-Aegean
region)
seem to be a. purely research problem of some foreign and
Bulgarian theoretical investigators and their interpretation of data in old written sources.
Statements about "Greek shamanism", posed by Dods years ago (and that of his fol¬
lowers) have simply shrunk into the long line of merely theoretical assumption. But
some of the contemporary writings which explore similar standpoints do not take into
consideration, too, the syncretic processes and mutual co-existence of the Balkan and
the Circumpontic spiritual unities: for example, the fact that the Thracian Orphism is
at the same time Hellenic ritualily with its immanent Hellenic ethnic affiliation. The
Bulgarian authors admit the lack
ofinformation
and data on "shamanism" in Ellada
and Thrace, as well as the conventional application of the term
—
"under condition"
about Thracian religious life. Nevertheless, the "shamanism" is discovered by "struc¬
tural" ("morphological") approaches, comparing similar elements (including shamanic
ones) from different ethno-cultural territories. The Bulgarian and the foreign research¬
ers Who accept such viewpoints treat "shamanism" as "widely spread practice of com¬
munication with the forces of the world beyond" or "as a certain technique, available
in different epochs". Further, fitting in certain pieces into a shamanic structure might
be done comparatively easy
—
right on the research desk, provided the relevant writ¬
ings on the topic. Such procedure does not presume detailed research on the ethno-
territorial specifics and on their diverse contents
—
issues, which are carefully investi¬
gated in every professional ethnological research. Such an approach, as extraction
and comparison of "pure" structures, is a kind of a "scientific" relict. It poses, figura¬
tively speaking, questions without answers and manipulates nothing else but simplis¬
tic "knowledge" in the public space. Even more, it misinterprets the nature of
shamanhood itself. Actually, this is one of the basic motives for my critical attitudes
and for writing them down here. Denouncing the possibility of a structural investiga¬
tion of shamanhood, I will examine the matters otherwise. Firstly, I should ask why it
is impossible to speak about shamanhood in ancient Thracian and Hellenic milieu.
Then (basing on folklore data and other written, image and archaeological sources) I
will draw attention to the differences between Thracian rites, on the one hand, and
the shamanhood, on the other, as phenomena belonging to different cultural and
historical areas.
Shamanhood is far from being a ritual technique. It is a 'system of beliefs1 (fol¬
lowing M.
Hoppal),
which
synchronie
and diachronic "spread" is deeply connected
with a certain socium and territory. In my own opinion, some typologically similarities
between Balkan spiritual heritage and shamanhood is not a reason to recognise
shamanic rites in Thracian and Hellenic ethno-cultural milieu. It is well known that
similar
and corresponding elements could be found in different types of rite systems,
as well as in different historical times and ethnic communities. However, the Balkan
ideology and rituality and that of the Siberian territories are connected with different
types of cultural and historical problems. The differences could be traced both in
the nature of their worldviews and systems of beliefs and in particular rite "perform¬
ances". Moreover, here, the following text has been considered as a representation of
the non-shamanic nature of the Thracian ideology. Before going deeper into those
contents, let me state in advance a consideration for non-existence of shamanhood
within old Bulgarians: the shamanhood is not a "religion" which served statehood
ideas and the state, i.e. a political organisation of a society, based on the own develop¬
ment of economy, ownership forms, social structure/class society, law, writing. There
is also no data that it existed within Thracian chiefdoms
—
the oldest form of state
organizations, appeared in Southeast Europe in the second half of the fourth millen¬
nium
ВС.
Simply said, the existence of "state" institutions is immanently connected
with a higher degree of "religious thinking" and different (from the shamanhood)
223
ritual system, with different type of mutual dependence within ideology and power
institution. The "classical" Siberian communities and the Thracian ethnoses show
radical differences, as far as their social and ideological "stratification" belong to
divergent political and historical realities.
The classical shamanhood dominates in the lineal, socially non-stratified Sibe¬
rian communities; their beliefs in
anima
mundi
were not coherent with/and support¬
ing any concepts about state, ruler and his sacred organised socium/and territory. A
state society is having as a rule a calendar system of rites (not only seasonal ones), well
developed
ideology
around of the divine origin and hierarchy of the kings, a pan¬
theon of worshipped gods with different functions. Such a kind of ideology might be
doctrinally sophisticated (as within Thracians and Hellenics) and written down. One
of the fundamental differences between Thracian ideology and shamanhood con¬
cerns the Supreme substance/God. The Early Thracian antiquity (and the East Medi¬
terranean region) was characterised by the confession of a "genuine belief in the
Sun". The "solar" and king ideology of the late Chalcolythic society of Ancient Thrace
is perfectly reflected in the necropolis of Varna. "Solar" is also the ideology of the
Anciont Thracian society during the whole Early Bronze Age. Statehood ideas, beliefs
and rites, reflecting social differentiation have found their materialisations in the
erection of megalith buildings, temples, tumuli and shrines. Old written data and
numerous archaeological findings testify to that. By the time of the early Thracian
states (at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries
ВС),
the same
religious tradition created the architecture complexes including a palace, a sanctu¬
ary, a sepulchre and a heroon. The belief in the Sun was actually an early, pre-Hel-
lenic form of the Thracian oral ethnic Orphism
—
the characteristic feature of the
Thraco-Pelasgian ethnic and cultural community before and after the Trojan War,
and of the Thracians from the early time of written history. Thracian Orphism was a
Paleo-Balkan oral religious doctrine confessing the immortality of the intellectual
energy
—
in the face of the Thracian king-priest statute and Us divinity. The focus of
leaching was the sacral matrimony between the Great Goddess-Mother and her Son
(Sun/Fire), conceptualised and visualised as
a cosmogonie
mystery. The Son mixed
his blood with the Earth and gave birth to his own son and priest
—
the Thracian
Orphic king. A system of rites and animal sacrifices provided the annual renovation
and ritual re-birth of the king (as an incarnation of the dying and rising Orphic God)
and consequently, of the socium under his rule. Orphic doctrine was aristocratic
religious teaching connected to a closed male circle. It was a king ideology and all
participants in the Orphic mysteries (especially after fifth century
ВС)
are representa¬
tives of the king-priest lineages. Nevertheless, its practising "was not alienated from
popular belief, as far as the society would otherwise be disintegrated"
(Al. Fol).
The
king-pricst-teacher was believed to take, the form of an anthropo-demon after his
death and to become a divine (doctrinally initiated) mediator between men and deity.
The supreme Orphic deity (called by the Thraco-Phrygian Sabazios), the Son of
the Great Goddess-Mother is dual by nature (both solar and chthonic). This "divine
character" is conceptually different from the non-personified abstract concept of the
Sky (or of the Supreme deity who inhabits the highest celestial stratum without any
concern for human affairs and mundane matters). The Hellenic Supreme God ("the
Thunderer") and his cohort of "courtier-deities" were also deeply involved, for ages,
in the intrigues of
polis
life and its politics. Differences between Orphic and shamanic
ideologies become even more clear in the period of Hellenization of the north regions
(after eighth century
ВС)
when the esoteric Orphic mysteries were converted into
exoteric rites. After eighth century
ВС,
the Thraco-Pelasgian cosmological beliefs in
solar and chthonic energies were Grecized and personified as "Apollo" and
"Dionysos".
224
Different
ritual
acts corresponded to the two personified ideas.
Dionysos
was a chthonic
deity related to the idea that the divine knowledge is attainable only in a state of a
"mania". This referred both to the deity itself and to his "Bacchas" in which he was
believed to find his incarnation during the
"orgia".
Euripides tells, "This deity
(Dionysos)
is a prophet, because Bacchanalia outrage and madness have great pro¬
phetic power". The
Dionysos
Bacchic mysteries were exoteric. Guided by a priest, they
took place in mountain settings or within cavities during the nights; the
sacrificial
animal as a rule was the bull, i.e. a zoomorphous form of the male principle. This
collective mysteriality was enthusiasmic, because the believer "introduces God" into
himself through internal tension and tasting the bloody sacrificial meat. Apollo
(Orpheus) was a solar deity of the initiated and his ritual system was not collective; it
was individual and ecstatic, because the believer "reaches God". This mysteriality was
properly Orphic, only for men; along the vertical, the King (initiated in Orphism) and
the other initiated worshippers sought the shortest way to become one with the divine.
Orphic esoteric mysteries enacted sacrament as
εκσταις
of the people dedicated to
the Son (Sun/Apollo, Fire/Dionysos), Orphico-Bacchic esoteric mysteries
—
as
ενθουσιασμός
of the Son in thebelievers
(Fol.
ΑΙ.).
In the sources, Thracian Orphism is concealed below the Hellenic Orphism.
"Orphic" cosmogony, theogony and mythology from 6th century
ВС
changed the original
semantics of the adopted Thracian (Pelasgian)
realia.
The "Orphism" gave food to
the Pythagoreanism in the
6Ih-5lłl
century
ВС
and to the literary-philosophical, mystic
"orphie"
teaching of the 5Ih-4th century
ВС.
In literary Hellenic Orphism
Dionysos
was the main deity, although the image of Orpheus was in fact more frequently asso¬
ciated with Apollo.
The enthusiasmic states were painful and led to insanity the prophets of
Dionysos
(known from the verses of Orpheus
—
a "poet and prophet"). In different cultural tra¬
ditions (including the shamanic ones) the experience of possession (the incarnation of
the
Göd/spirit/
Saint in a human being) is always painful, That is, so to say, a ritual
universality, manifested in similar psychosomatic behaviour but with different con¬
tents. Twenty-five centuries after Euripides that was preserved in Southeast Thrace
region of Bulgaria in Nesiinar possession and prophecy (felt as "pain" and heaviness).
Here, it could be mentioned briefly that the Nestinarstvo, in its late nineteenth and
twentieth century form, could not be classified as "Bulgarian shamanhood" (as some
Bulgarian authors declare). It is a relict from the Zagreyan/Sabazian mysteriality and
the Zagreyan sacrifice giving (i.e. re-creation of the ritual death of the God). In
Thracian doctrinal rites, the sacrificial animal was believed to be a semantic double
of the Orphic king. A similar belief
—
for the sacrificial animal as a genuine mediator,
has been preserved in the late Bulgarian rite tradition
(1
9lh-20lh centuries): the Bulgar¬
ians believe that it carried on its back that dead or alive human being for whom it was
sacrificed, to the world beyond. In the Siberian rituals, the sacrificial animal is not
believed as carrier but as carried/mediated by the shaman who leads the souls of sac¬
rificed animals to the world beyond and delivers them to the deities. These sacrificial
animals are not believed neither as personifications of the God, nor as substitutes of
the King (as Son of the God). In Thracian Orphic mysteriality the sacrificial animal
did not pass certain number of celestial strata and there was no need of spirit media¬
tor because it was the sacrificed God/Son himself— in the image of the bull. Accord¬
ing to the oral Thracian and non-literate ethnic Hellenic tradition, the bloody sacri¬
fice was a "vision" of the sacral matrimony
—
the penetrating of the blood into the
earth, symbolised the copulation of the Son with the Great Goddess-Mother and his
re-birth.
'5.
Имало ли е шамани на Балканите?
225
The existing of typological/structural
universais
in the performances of sacrifi¬
cial rites all over the world does not necessarily prove for conceptual overlapping
between one and another ideology. Similar or even the same ritual acts could perform
different "tasks" on diverging levels of ritualities in particular ethno-historic forma¬
tions. In the shamanic kamlanie and in the Thracian and the Hellenic rites are "act¬
ing" conceptually different mediators; different are also the corresponding images
about the "journey" in divine space and about the "chosen" personages capable to
experience re-birth.
The problem about the heterogeneous ideological concepts leading to different
ethnocultural modes of behaviour is unreasonably simplified by the "morphological"
principle of investigation, which puts an equation sign between Thracian ideology
and shamanhood. Such efforts could never explain the gap between the doctrine of
the "Orphic immortality" and the Siberian (and Asiatic) concepts about and "com¬
pound" human/and animal soul (which components are having different fate after
death). I.e., the substantially different concepts about the "multitude soul" and the
soul as a "whole". Thracian mysterial and doctrinal rituality provide evidence neither
for "multitude soul" (in humans, in animals), nor for the "resettlement" and/rc-birth
of "souls" after physical death. These Thracian concepts (for the human soul as an
immortal whole) had been registered from the ancient writers as Herodotus, Plato,
Pomponius Mela, etc. According to Siberian and Asiatic cosmogonies, it is not within
the possibilities, both of an ordinary man and of a shaman, to bring back the whole
"unity" of the deceased creature's souls. The researchers often state that the great
shaman was capable to "bring back" a dead person, but this is simply a metaphor of
his rang and power. The shaman
—
a great one or not, actually is able to bring back
only one of the "souls" of a deceased person, and to have it, e.g. as a spirit helper. In
the Ancient Greek Orphic writings, the Thracian beliefs in immortality were trans¬
formed and developed toward the Hellenic belief in the salvation of the soul. That
was represented as "going to, or coming back from Hades"; in some myths, Dionysos-
Zagreus was told to be the son of Persephone and Hades
—
"the God of the under¬
world' kingdom where the dead resided before their re-birth".
Orpheus and Zalmoxis were believed to have "resided" at Hades and to have
performed catabases and ascension. Because
ofthat,
certain researchers define them
as "archetypal shaman figures" (Bogdanov, Marasov). Actually, ritual deaths, catabases
and "ascension" are universal components of all rites of the passage. The shaman, as
every divine or semi-divine figure was capable of crossing "worlds", he often possessed
androgynous characteristics and attributes. Nevertheless, quite contrary to the Thracian
mysterial and doctrinal rites (where the image of the world beyond as separated in
layers is missing), in his kamlanie the Siberian shaman can travel and reach up to
definite layer of the universe. This axiomatic belief, together with the concept of the
"component" soul presupposes also, the specifics of his catabases
—
in kamlanie and
shamanic' initiation. Indeed, the shaman leads away the souls of the deceased (and
pursues the evil spirits in the cases of curing) to a certain "point" to the underworld
—
through soul journey. Only some of the Mongolian and the Turkic shamans were
capable of negotiation with
Erleg Khan.
Thus, despite some typological resemblance
between the figure of the shaman and Hermes (the God of Thracian kings and the
God-psychopomp in Greek mythology), they have to be considered substantially dif¬
ferent. Although functioning sometimes as a psychopomp, the shaman himself is
never identified with a God/or son of the God, the shaman is not a substitute of a
deity. In this connection, the statement that "one has to see in Orpheus a supreme
shaman capable of turning into a deity" (according to Bogdanov) is an illogicality.
The only one, permitted to contact directly with God in the Thracian rituality was the
226
Orphic king, because of his divine nature and origin. There is no need to remind that
more of the shamans never did reach the supreme celestial strata.
Many research' statements insisting on "shamanism" within Thracians and An¬
cient Greeks are based on Orpheus' catabasis. These are commonly done by foreign
and Bulgarian authors who search for argumentation in the mythic text about Orpheus
and
Eurydice
(and other figures from Thracian culture). Following the narrative, but
not the ritual contents, the theses ignore that the image of "Orpheus" is a literary
Hellenic personification of the Teacher, i.e. of the Orphic doctrine, and it has lately
accumulated folkloristic features. The theme about the catabasis or the one about
Orpheus' misogyny actually is a literary, not an "ideological" one and resulted from
Ancient Greek mythographic literature interpretation. At the same time, Orpheus'
misogyny (because of Eurydice's death) and "male love", typical for the Thracian
singers and Kings-priests is a literature testimony for a ritual statute, expressing the
idea for the doubleness as an ideal form, as an entity. Male couples in the Ancient
Balkan doctrinal societies (in love with men
—
Orphic singers or "males born by
muses", such as Tamiris, Orpheus and Kalais, Strimon and Rez/Rezos, Achilles and
Patrocle, etc.) are ancient mythographic and figurative (pictorial and plastic) vari¬
ants of a general form/and concept of initiated Orphic figure as an
anthropo-űte/KO/í/
mediator. Different chronology of the ancient data about "male couples" also sup¬
ports the proposition about ritual doubleness as a sign of belonging to Orphic socie¬
ties. Unlike the shamans, Orphic couples had a stable "status" and permanently re¬
peated pictoriai art images "certifying" for their direct divine or semi-divine personal
origin (and lineage).
The theme, concerning the "doctrinal and mysterial" societies on the Balkans is
deeply connected with another part of ancient Greek literature sources and pictorial
art images
—
the data about music/
μουσικά.
That is another point of differentiation
between Thracian and Siberian societies and rituality. The old Greek writings conse¬
quently describe and give evidences about developed musical art and skills mani¬
fested in vocal, instrumental and vocal-instrumental activities. The data report for:
specific social strata of the instrumentalists-singers (Thracian and Hellenic); special¬
ised instrument masters; different musical (vocal and instrumental) styles and re¬
gional musical peculiarities; musical-poetical genres rich in thematic and functions
(epical, on wedding, lamentations,
Dionysos
ones, chain dance ones dedicated to
Artemis, etc.); female initiation rites with their own chore songs and instrumental
melodies. That old musical tradition was developed on system of hypo- and hyper-
mclodical scales
(μονην).
The availability of calendar and other song cycles is expected in the Ancient
Balkan stationary ruled societies, for their social and religious degree of development.
The important is, that the data about music making, instruments and genres certifies
for a particular musical-poetical "repertoire" which is not based on improvised sound
making, as it is typical for the behaviour of the shaman. Here,
1
should repeat that the
sound picture (the most of the so called "songs") performed by the shaman is believed
not to be his own one, but of the spirits: this kind of "songs" is always different and is
based on the presumption that it
ís
not created by the shaman, but by a spirit who
"appears" in its singing. The classical Siberian communities too, know'neither the
Special social stratum of professional music players, nor the existence of different
kinds of musical instruments.
Written data about Thracian
μουσικά
and about music making in the Thracian
Diaspora, as well as the Greek art images of the "cult" scenes with musical instru¬
ments and players are evidences for the commitment of the music (and its semantic
functions) with beliefs and rituals. Even the first researchers working with the texts of
227
the ancient Greek writers were aware of the close relations between "deity, instrument
and rite system". In the Thracian and Ancient Greek tradition, most of the musical
instruments (similarly to the singers-musicians) are believed to be of a divine or semi-
divine origin and to be attributes of the deities. There is no evidence that classical
shamanhood knew something of the kind
—
no instrument belonged there to the
Supreme Sky/God of the Sky or to another high deity/spirit. Within Siberian people,
the Supreme Deity/Sky does not "invent" and bestow the drum instrument to the sha¬
man and there is no generation of "heavenly" musicians in these communities. The
leading factor in making and acquisition of the drum is spiritual contact
—
revelation
and embodiment with the shaman's spirit helper; and the "musical" activity of the
shaman is deeply tied with animistic spiritual sphere, but not with any godlike pan¬
theon. "Supreme God" and "spirit" are different statuses in the "religious" hierarchy
and respectively, the way of their resounding (vocal and instrumental) is different too
—
in different times and societies.
On the Balkans, the connection between the Great Goddess-Mother and the reed
instrument
{αυλούς)
is very frequently available one, and proved in many archaeo¬
logical findings, pieces of
ari
and writings. The Thraco-Phrygian mysteries in honour
of the Great Goddess-Mother (known in the classical, in the Greek and Roman times
under different names such as Kibella, Demetra, Hekatha, Arthemis.) were Orphic
ones. The
αυλούς
¡avios
too, very often accompanies the art images of the supreme
Orphic deity
—
Dionysos.
The semantic row and unity of "soul— breath— instru¬
ment— life—death" determined early implementation of the
αυλούς
ín
doctrinal and
mystéria
I/Bacchanal Thracian and Ancient Greek rites, as well as later folklorized
concepts and implementations of reed instruments as mediators, in the Bacchanal
mysteries, the
αυλούς
is often accompanied with drum instrument. The ancient "cou¬
ple" of avlos and tympanos could be the probable ritual prototype of the contempo¬
rary "bagpipe and tapan/daouli" (two-headed skin drum). Today, the both instru¬
ments are stiJI resounding in the ritual sacrifice in East Thrace (the region of Strandzha
Mountain).
On the Balkans, the ancient tympanos (known from old written sources and art
pieces) and the contemporary
(apans
(an ancient instrument also, known from early
medieval sources) differ from the shamanic drums in principle
—
in their ritual con¬
tent and constructively. The Balkan's percussion instruments are missing the concep¬
tual drawings of the shaman's drums, the notion for the untugun as incarnation of the
spirit-helper (including zoomorphic
onej,
and any kind of data for the typical "rid¬
ding on" the drum. In the art representations (vase paintings) of the tympanos, there is
not a drum rattle also. In a word, the "classical" unity "shaman-drum", the concepts
and the ritual drum-making are totally unknown on the Balkans.
The semanlic unity "Deity/God
—
musical instrument" (aerophonic, percussive
or string one) is typical for the paintings and rituality on the Balkans until the end of
the first millennium
ВС.
At the same time, Ancient Greek images and writings (and
later Roman ones) offer data that the same instruments were "sounding" and func¬
tioned on different spiritual levels, in different rites and in different hands. These
multiple implementations of music, probably was tied with the evolution of melodical
scalcs/moduses on the Balkans, with the so called "stationary model" of the Thracian
and the Ancient Greek societies. Here, the ritual music was confirmed into a model of
professional artistic behaviour.
On the mutual dependence between music and rites,
Ϊ
should briefly mention the
well-known data about Thracian healer Zalmoxis. In some Bulgarian writings, Zalmoxis
(together with Orpheus) is interpreted as an "archetypal figure of a shaman in An¬
cient Thrace". Plato writes that Zalmoxis and "the Thracian healers of Zalmoxis"
228
believed in soul's immortality. In Plato's text is an evidence for theThracian concepts
and manners of healing, which are different from the shamanic ones. The Orphic
"fixing" of the order
—
in the space, in the human body, was realized by means of
reciting or singing melodical incantations and by the concept ("unknown to the Greek
healers") for curing every "part" of the body as "pars pro
toto",
i.e. by curing the whole
body and the soul as entity. There is no data for 'soul journeys' and 'flights' to the
world beyond, for use of knives, arrows, or red iron; Zalmoxis' healers were not be¬
lieved to chaise spirits, or search for "lost" souls in the world beyond. Shortly speaking,
there is substantial difference between shamanic healing and space structuring by
singing and reciting incantations described in some Ancient Greek writings. In prin¬
ciple, different types of trance might be accompanied (or better reflected) by different
'sound levels'. But, as a rule, the music playing/singing and cataleptic (ranee is mutu¬
ally exclusive states. In the Ancient sources there is not even a single report informing
of non-temperate 'sound' performance, so typical for the shamanic trance-like condi¬
tion. One has to accept that if this kind of musical/and ritual idiosyncrasy had ever
existed in Thracian and Ancient Greek milieu, they would have hardly been omitted
by the ancient observers and mythographers. Even the trance-like states in Bacchic
mysteries were described as accompanied with
αυλούς
playing in Phrygian scale/
modus.
In the Balkan's narrative and ritual traditions, the figure of the initiated musi¬
cian-singer (who was also a "healer" or an Orphic king-priest.) is brought to the level
of "cultural hero". The one, who was acknowledged like that, both in the ethnic and
in the written
polise
tradition, was Orpheus. He was believed to be the "master" of
animate and inanimate nature and according to
Apollon. Rhod.
—
of the river route
to the underworld. The Thracian
Heros —
a "ruler riding on horseback", was pre¬
sented as a cultural hero, too. The data describing the Organisation of space' by
means of music (by way of singing and playing), inventing of musical instruments
(both by humans and by deities) and new genres of singing, bring closer the mythic
creators-singers to their interpretation as cultural heroes. The data for Orpheus as
organising the space in the 'sacred oak woods1 by playing string instrument could be
found in Euripides' writings, too. They describe Orpheus as "gathering
—
with the
help of the muses
—
trees and wild beasts together" or bringing "mountains, hard
rocks and river currents under the charm of his singing". Other Orphic figures are
told to possess similar abilities, too.
The string instrument, sounding melodicalty (not rhythmically) in the hands of
initiated Orphic take him far away from the shamanic 'structure', too. The connec¬
tion 'shaman
—
string instrument' is not a "classical" one; it is available, e.g. in some
territories in Middle Asia where the ideological and rilual syncretism makes it diffi¬
cult to confirm the practice of "proper shamanhood". In the same territories some
contents and functions of the shamanic drum instruments have been transferred to
the string ones (e.g. the string instruments of
baqşa).
In the context of the Thracian
doctrinal rite system, the string instrument (lyre or guitar) was not the instrument of
the Bacchic mysteries. It was not entrancing, but "rising" to the God. Later on, the
string instrument regularly accompanied the Balkan epic singers, which had nothing
to do with the trance-like states and the concepts, e.g. of Central Asian baxsy singers.
The old Thracian Orphic instrument is
αύλούς{Α\.
Fol).
The statement that "Orpheus
used his musical instrument to spell spirits" (Bogdanov) is a scientific "jobbery" with¬
out any support in the ancient mythographic sources. And all attempts to manipulate
the connection between Thracian singer/lyrc-player and shaman are not convincing.
Regardless of what we are re/searching for (music, musical organology, "religios¬
ity", "memory and knowledge", sculpture images, temple buildings belonging to dif¬
ferent epochs, etc.) we had always to remember the following facts:
229
•
The Siberian communities, unlike the Thracian and the Ancient Greek socie¬
ties, did not have early political and ideological written history.
•
Classical shamanhood was firmly connected to oral rite systems without holy
books and writings.
•
Shamans are not consolidated in a specific society (as the
Orphies,
the Bud¬
dhists and the Christian priests). Classical shamans do not have centralised "manag¬
ing committee", specific guild or "collegium", they are not "members of a union",
and, finally, they did not form and act in shamanic ritual groups as the male druzhims
in the ritual Balkan traditions.
•
Shamans did not form "mystcrially" initiated aristocratic strata; they do not
undergo Orphic or warrior initiation.
•
"Classical" shamans did not enter in-, or erect temples and sepulchres.
•
Siberian people did not know esoteric doctrinal rituals {for reaching the God
through
εκστασις),
supporting centralised king-priest power and the concepts of its
divinity.
•
Shamans did not establish or support mass mysteries. The Supreme sky deity/
spirit of Siberian people has nothing in common with the Thracian's (and Greek's)
God
Dionysos
in mania, who was entrancing into believers (known as
ενθουσιασμός).
•
Palco-Siberian people (not the Middle-Asiatic ones) do not have developed
instrumental music and a stratum of professional players, as it was in the Thracian
and Greek society.
•
The "memory-knowledge" about Universe and its secrecy
—
the core in the
Thracian mysterial and doctrinal rituals (proved by written and archaeological testi¬
monies) was far from being a shamanic one. The basic concept of the Thracian
ideology, the idea about the dual God — Son of the Great Goddess-Mother who con¬
ceived from him and gave birth to the Orphic king is radically different from the
concepts of the Siberian people for the Supreme Sky Deity (Creator and Master of the
Universe), and the sphere of the 'spirits'.
SCUND
AND RITUALS ON THE ROUTE OF THE BULGARIANS. The hy¬
pothesis for shamanhood within ancient Bulgarians are based on limited number of
stone graffito finds (with uncertain ethnical origin, dating, and drawing content), on
typological/structural comparison of some Bulgarian ritual acts and shamanhood's
(such as "curing", nervous fits, visions
—
in the rites of nestinari,
rusalii,
kalusharì
etc.).
AU
the hypotheses and statements are written in case of total absence of the
figure of shaman and his world of spirits in Bulgarian folk heritage. I have serious
reasons not to share the opinions about the existence of shamanhood and "shaman¬
ism" on the Balkans (as "brought" here by the ancient Bulgarians, as existed within
ancient Thracians and Greeks). My basic arguments come from the sphere of the
inherited traditional music and rites with their particular contents and performance.
In every culture, the level of musical sound and musical "thinking" is deeply con¬
nected with ideological contents and ritual system. In a particular way, it reflects
levels of immaterial concepts, specifying certain territory. The musical and ritual
tradition of the Bulgarians are characterised by strict cyclical calendar detcrminacy.
The ritual musical thinking of the Bulgarians, if compared to traditions of shamanizing
peoples, is completely different (as sound and music making, performance, concepts
and constructing ideas about the instruments, singing phraseology, built on a par¬
ticular systems of moduses, etc.). The same is also true for instrumental repertoire.
Annual calendar (not seasonal) rites of the Bulgarians are characterised by their
"twin model", as well as by their multilayer dualism, inherited from the model of
"classical initiations". When speaking about the relics from the initiation on the Bal¬
kans (about rites
de
passage, not predominantly about mythical fables and mythical
230
narratives
with an open origin), usually that means the existence and the activity of
ritual groups (strictly defined on social and sexual grounds). Following an old, inher¬
ited principle, the ritual group (male or female one) is sacralizing the territory by
moving through and around it
—
by way of a dance, by going along a road, around a
topos.
In contrast with the sound "liberties" of the shaman's/shamaness spirits, the
"voice'Vrepertory of the ritual group is strictly fixed at the level of melodic perform¬
ance, Not the unpredictable sound invention and intonation, but the rcpetitiveness of
constant melodic "images" and tunes, strictly defined in successions, emanates the
ideas about sacred nature and successful realisation of rituals. Figuratively speaking,
the "spirit" behind the song and instrumental melody, is "frozen" in a constant and
definite melodic "appearance" and it is not "permitted" to improvise sound "jour¬
neys" according to the moment. In the Bulgarian ritual tradition the acting ritual
figure (as a summarising term) and the music have been "distanced" from the con¬
cept of "ideal transformation" (e.g. with a spirit) and have reached constant and
strictly defined position; the concepts of "spirits" and animate substances are stylized
and performed in a system of symbolic acts.
The same, Bulgarian ritual tradition has never lost sight of the space beyond,
which also contains some belief traces of stratification. Rites are abundant in con¬
cepts about contacts and endless interrelations between "this" and "the other" world.
In the song heritage, the concepts of the world beyond are indirectly present in the
very form of the utilitarian "crossing" rite sound
—
mediator, sometimes marked as
"voice'Vmelody of the world beyond (either by the performers or by the verbal content
of the song). That idea is preserved as a musical symbol (but not as behaviour of
"inverted" world) in different types of rite songs, instrumental pieces, ritual silence,
etc. The same idea is recognisable also in the very milieu of performance; in the song's
verses (bringing forth archaic images and mythologemes), in the melodic resounding
and standing against the sun, in the sacral circular walking (round the village, the
fields and the graveyard), sometimes accompanied by a constant imitation of flying,
in the triple going round with a slow ring dance (near by springs, in the house yards,
near by wells, sheep-folds and churches), in trampling down herbs and ill men and
women, in the beliefs about the power of the group and its benevolent capabilities.
The "sound transcendence" is typical for female rituality and vocalisation during the
so called passage period (from the Long Lent and the first of the so called
"Lazar
Sundays" until Ascension Day), The ritual melodies are thought as mediative and
having a sympathetic benevolent influence. They have permanent and repetitive me¬
lodic structure, as well as strictly defined time and place of performance. The stylistic
specifics of rite behaviour and singing are transmitted as such to the following gen¬
erations.
Ina
similar way and style of performance is acting the instrumental ritual tradi¬
tion. Probably, here could be mentioned some particular differences between the Bal¬
kan (Bulgarian and Greek) tapanjdauli (two-headed skin drum) and the shamanic
drum. Each of them has its own construction and ethnocultural "history". In contrast
with the untugun, the Bulgarian
tupan
has no drawings, pictures or carvings on the
membranes; it does not have a handle, too. On the Balkans, there are not female and
male drums. Here, completely unknown are also concepts about "getting" and mak¬
ing of shamanic instruments. There is not any data until now, certifying that the
Greeks, Thracians and the ancient Bulgarians had had such concepts. The "spir¬
itual" relations between the shaman and his untugun are unknown to the drummers
on the Balkans, Very typical for the Bulgarian instrumental style at all are the
successions of particular rhythmic models/stereotypes, while, within the shamanhood,
this kind of notion and importance of rhythm and rhythmic models is missing. The
231
different rhythmic "profile" and "musical thinking" is a substantial difference be¬
tween the shamanizing Siberian peoples, the "theological" societies and the
"classi¬
ca!"
agricultural societies.
In every tradition, the sphere of the folk music and musicians is one of the socium's
faces. The level of that sphere is at the same time the level of social stratification and
differentiation of the human mind. Shamanhood itself, as part of a folklore tradition,
definitely contains and expresses its specific immaterial and musical expressive char¬
acteristics. Images/drawings on the untugun, concepts and sound performance
—
as a
whole, the heavy semantics of the drum, symbolise the very essence of shaman and
shamanhood. I should repeat that the shamans had to know myths, songs, spells,
incantations, etc., i. c. they had to know their own people's basic stock of folk music
and tradition. Thus, shamans focus and emanate community concepts about the uni¬
verse and its structure. To state it otherwise, the social milieu has "dropped on" the
shaman the burden of many social and ritual functions, which in stratified agricul¬
tural societies are spread and taken upon the calendar rituality and the ritual groups.
To my mind, this is the basic principle of classical shamanhood, its essence and
uniqueness. Moreover, E. Hultkranz was proved right, when he wrote, "shamanism is
the religious complex developed around the shaman". The distance between rite fig¬
ure of the shaman, his "soul journey" and unpredictable behaviour, and the walking
around, sacralizing and singing ritual group (sometimes acting with similar func¬
tions), the distance between the "acting/and realising" an image and its "non-visual"
symbolic utterance and sounding, between the concept about the untugun and thai of
the music and ethos of the Balkans (with their deep theological and doctrinal roots,
well known from the "written" history of those lands), is an "uncovered" stage within
the "classical" Siberian communities. The total neglecting of these factors is the basic
source of the misinterpretations in the Bulgarian and in the foreign publications,
which "discover" relics about shamanhood in a non-shamanizing social and rite mi¬
lieu (contemporary, proto-Bulgarian, Greek and Thracian ones).
Every professional ethnological investigation pays attention to ways of life and of
making a living, to social stratification, to military and state, administrative structures
(if there are ones), to theological confession (if there is one), to traditional rite music
(as the true face of the faith), etc. Ancient Bulgarian concept of state has found its
realisation in a few territorial transpositions that took place on different stages of its
existence. Chronologically, these are the territories in Northwest Pamir and Hindukush
(Bakriya), north and northeast Caucasus, the valley of Volga-Kama and the Balkan
peninsula. In the course of the time, of spatial changes and "historical" metamor¬
phoses Bulgarians reached settled way of life, considerable development of agricul¬
ture and crafts, as well as hierarchic military and administrative system. Available
data certifies that in earlier Bulgarian states, the above-mentioned peculiarities were
connected with an adequate ideology and type of rites. There is no data that the
ancient Bulgarians, which were Tengrists, have known shamanhood. Their stable so¬
cial stratification were legitimised by adequate religious stronghold; the old runic
writing used by the Bulgarians even on the Balkans up to
1018
is another evidence for
their social status; the latter and the state organization definitely demands another (no
shamanic) kind of rituality. Therefore, it is explainable that in inherited tradition
there is not a figure even reminding the idiosyncrasy of the shaman (with his specific
initiation, ritual attributes, expressive soundings, psychosomatic behaviour, etc.). There
is no data, even relicts of shamanhood within the traditions of contemporary de¬
scendants of old
Bulgars
(Chuvash, Tatars, and Kabardino-Balkarians). Something
more, I did not find such a kind of relics even within Finno-Ugrian people in the
region of Volga-Kama at my field research last year, August-September
2002.
232
At the same time, it is important that the Balkan-Bulgarian ritual tradition bares
many features of the rites performed on the ex-Bulgarian territories, and among the
other Asiatic people: sacrifice giving, orientation (of temples and rite movements),
concepts of holy places and ways of their worship, concepts of celestial and rites
connected with it, "healing" by means of telling ethnological legends, etc. Supreme
celestial God is always present in genealogical myths and its hold over the territory of
the old Asian state formations. Concept of the sky as "archetype of the universal
order", "deity of oaths" and protector of soldiers is personified in the supreme figure
of the khan and emperor, believed to be son of the sky and its representative on earth.
This is evident even in the names of Tengri and Umay as Tengrikhan} Celestial Em¬
peror, "Benevolent Queen", etc. The
proto
-Bulgarian concept of relation between the
Tangra/Tanagra and the khan (supreme state authority) belong to that type, too.
At the territories, where from the Bulgarian phenomena originate, took place
different linguistic, religious, ethnocultural interrelations and inter-penetrations. This
is typical also for some Asiatic people, knowing both
—
"classical" theological confes¬
sions (such as Zorastrism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism) and inherited
shamanhood. The latter has been preserved also on the state-territories where people
make their living on agriculture. An appropriate example here is the Korean tradition,
which is a millennium long mixture of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Ko¬
rean and foreign researchers point out religious influence on the native animistic
concepts of Korean shamanhood and folklore. Korean "agrarian cycle" and annual
rites are following the lunar calendar. Some of the rituals presuppose going round the
village (by way of visiting every single house) with songs and instrumental pieces. At
the same time, the Korean tradition has preserved both the ritual groups (having
apothropeic and reproductive influence on the socium and the village) and the figure
of the shaman/shamaness (together with all the concepts about him/her). It was just
the old Korean tradition (rich in the "systematic, refined and sophisticated teach¬
ings", in family and calendar rites, and shamanhood), that suggested to some also,
some serious doubts about the existence of shamanhood on the Balkans. It proves to be
impossible for an ethnic culture to "forget" its old ideological sphere (as faith and
behaviour), never mind how intensive religious and social changes it has undergone.
Moreover, if the figure of the shaman is immanent, "native" and authentic component
in some tradition, it could not be defaces either by processes of syncretisation, state
organization, or by "high" religious influences.
TURA/TÈIRI/TÀNGRA
-
DUES IN ACTU. Since
5
century B.C. the Bulgarian
system of state (in Northern Caucasus, on the Balkan Range, in Volga-Kama.region/
Volga
Bulgars)
maintained the territory and the social order through an adequate,
high religious ideology, called Tengriansivo. The notions of the Supreme God
—
Tura/
TèirijTàngra
are focused in and emanated by the khan ("a Ruler by God's will"), as
well by the
yÚQSis/
askals as "appointed by Tangra". The Supreme God predetermined
the destiny of the kingdom (and the khan himself), this life human existence, believed
as extending in the world to come. The substratum of Tengrianstvo, its rituality and
beliefs are inherited within folk tradition of Chuvash, "Tatars",
Balkars
and
Bulgars
on the Balkans. The pagan religion of
Balkars
and Karaehai is inheritance from
Tengrianstvo (Jurtubaev
2004)
and the Supreme Teiri/Tangra, according to some opin¬
ions "is brought in Northern Caucasus by ancient
Bulgars"
(Balkanski
T.
1984).
The
folk tradition and mythology of these people is
á
''synthesis of old-turick, alanian and
common-Caucasian components", still keeping, the- traces of "deep archaism and
ancient mythological beliefs" (Malokonduev
í
988).
Later on, regardless of the
earíy
Christianity and the expansion of Islam (at the end of
16
and the beginning of
20
century)
Balkars
and Karaehai stick pagans in their minds. There are lots of deities
233
"walking" within their mytho-stories and "pantheon" (at the head with the Supreme
God of the Sky and Universe
-
"The Great
Tengrí"),
unknown to the neighbor peoples'
system of beliefs. The late Bulgarian presence and self consciousness in Northern
Caucasus is evidenced in the written and the archeological data; after the disintegra¬
tion of
Magna Bulgarica
(Great Bulgaria) till today "many people keep bearing the
name of
Bulgars."
According to a standpoint the Supreme God "Teiri took the place of
the ancient solar deity" (Jurtubaev, Bolatov
2004),
which associate the early medieval
notion to the ancient belief in the Sun, known once in the Circumpontic area. The
solar and astral features of the God are visible on different levels in the folk traditions
within the former territories of
Bulgars
(Northern Caucasus, within Chuvash and
"Tatar" people). In these lands the relicts of the Supreme Tora/Tura/Teiri are analo¬
gous of function and essence; in the past, its cult pierced completely agricultural
cycle of the folk tradition. The old data tells that the Chuvash believed in a "heavenly
God, Who cares of all human deeds". He is "the Greatest God"
{Mun
Tora),
There is
a whole retinue of deities pottering around Him, which act as his hypostasis. Their
hierarchy, byname and functions as well as "the religion of the Chuvash itself recre¬
ates the hierarchical structure of the society". The stability of these beliefs has been
observed in the beginning of
20
century, too (Messarosh
2000).
The old observers also
say that basically, the Chuvash paganism is "pure dualism" (Artmcev
2001).
In some
etiological myths the origin of Universe, the Earth and the people is resulted from the
unity of action and withstanding, at the same time, of two divine creative powers
—
Supreme God and his Antagonist (His brother, twin brother or son).
Suiti Tura
—
the
Supreme God is the cosmic and
subastral
Creator, God of the sky and the Upper
world, God of the weal and the light. His brother Sholtan/Shultan is a Creator too
—
the Master of the Underworld; in later mythical versions influenced by Islam and
Christianity, Shuitan was reduced to a god of evil and darkness, to a devil. Similar are
the myths telling that the Universe was created by
Torà
with the help of his twin
brother/or son Kiremet (a Master of Underworld and a "mediator among heavenly
and chthonous divinities"), who appears like double of Shuitan (Egorov
1995).
In all
types of mytho-stories the Supreme
Tora
is associated with the Universe and its Order.
The concept of the World as a global monolithic shape (as a world giant tree, as a
world egg) stratificated in levels, the beliefs of the reverse order of the Beyond is an
archaic mythical heritage with common elements and contents within Chuvash,
Balkars
and
Bulgars
(on the Balkans). It consists also of the notions about the passage within
the levels of the Universe, about the existence of dead and alive in parallel worlds as
being in different dimensions. Some other Chuvash myths contain probably an earlier
stage
οΐ
the God
—
the image of
Тога
as a giant. The origin of the lightning, the roll of
thunder and the rain from the vault of Heaven under the foot of the giant
Шар
(who
"became the Almighty God
Ћдга")
produces
Tora
as a classical Thunderer. Similar
legends within "Tatars" are considered as old-Bulgarian epos' relics (Urmanchccv
2001).
The variety of aspects and notions about Tora/T\ira is preserved in the folk tradi¬
tions of the investigated territories. In the past the Chuvash celebrated
Tora
with two
and even more all-village rituals with
sacrifices
{Mun
chuk),
running in the transi¬
tional calendar periods (Spring and Autumn). In parallel, according to the written
data from
18"'
century every village or a few villages jointed observed on a definite day
a "big Kiremet". In the myths and in the rituality Kiremet is
ä
split version of
Tora
and
his dual nature (good or wreckling). Both, Kiremet and
Tora was
kept in honour
through family' and all-village' rituals of similar content (turned to the fertility and
the well-being of the people), territories (in sacred oak sanctuaries) and sacred sym¬
bols (a tree, a solar metal image
-
in the forest, on a hill or on an upland near by gully
234
with a spring). According to Denisov
(1955)
"the concept of the World tree (and the
same motif in Chuvash cloths) is brought in the region of Middle Volga by Turkic
Bulgars
.
Within Turkic and Finno-Ugrian people. the cult to the sacred tree is
central, much more clear and distinct than within the east slaves tradition". These
rituals and beliefs are well described by different observers and still are preserved in
the memory of old generation. In the remote past they are evidenced by bishop Izrail,
travelling within Chuvash in
684.
Nowadays, in contemporary
Tatarstan
a few Kiremcts'
are hold Up in honour also.
Both the Chuvash' and
Balkar'
all-village rituals on sacred places (usually
irt
the
forests) are running in a similar way and consist the idea and the idiosyncrasy of the
"passage"; they divide and organize the calendar year in a two halfs like the twin-
brothers Saints in Bulgarian folklore (inheritors of mythical characters, Popov
1991).
A particularly substantial aspect of the ancient Supreme God of
Bulgars,
Chuvash
and
Balkars
is His "relation" with the deceased and the ancestors. Within the Chuvash
folk tradition
Tora
is "burdened" with different and important tasks, including the
cyclic memorial rites (taking place in Spring and in Autumn). The cyclic calendar
rituals in the memory of the deceased is well preserved within nowadays Bulgarians
(and other people) on the Balkans also. The notions and the appearance of God (and
some of his hypostases) are Identical too, within
Bulgars,
Chuvash and
Balkars
("a
good-natured, grey-beard old man, who, sometimes descends here on earth."). The
Old age is another metaphorical expression of Power and Supremacy, of the eternal
and independent position of Supreme God; it is also a denotation of His
anthropomorphous nature and human form, The folk "institution" of the elders and
the old man as a ritual figure (conducting and saying the prayers in the rites) are
inherited as modes of' behaviour from the ancient traditions, including Tengrianstvo.
The poly-functional nature of Torn/Tciri/Tangra is a result of centuries-old synthe¬
sis of ideas. Probably, in the epoch of Old Bulgarian system of state, He summarized
and unified polytheistic functions/and deities, which "restored to life" within the folk
system of beliefs and customs through His own general "image". The contents
ofthat
"model" multiplies through the calendar ritual cycle in "twin couples" and divine
hypostasis. That "model" is so alive, pliable and adaptable as the folk tradition itself.
The Sacred Sky as an idea of originating but an inaccessible and non-anthropomorphous
beginning, i.e. as Dem otiosus is too "narrow" for the Supreme
Tora/Tèiri/Tàngra.
The
establishment of the religious ideas within old
Bulgars
at the head with that Supreme
God was a next step and an advance of Tengrianstvo; at that stage, the celestial God-
Creator (as a former idea of God") was "usher in a new era" and saturated with
new and different meanings within a religious but not animistic ritual system. Namely,
this Supreme God does not bear any "stories" for shamanhood, even in an obscure
and a remote past.
There arc many typological and functional parallels within the material and spiri¬
tual/intellectual traditions through the investigated territories of Chuvash,
Balkars
and
Bulgars/Bulgarians evinced on different levels in the folk traditions (in stories, notions,
beliefs, myths, rituals, music, archaeological data etc.). The deciphering of the ethnocultural
heritage is particularly acute and problematic in the range of the Balkans, because of the
deposit of conceptionally similar beliefs and ritual
realia
from Thracians and ancient
Bulgars.
Some of these could be carefully identified in the late folk tradition (18lll-20th
centuries), still consisting of such a kind bilateral parallels.
The state organization as a settled social institution (with ancient roots on the
Balkans) unlike the nomadic "empire" creates and sustains models of behaviour and
faith/religion, passing through generations, which incorporate the different ethnic
groups in the territory regardless of their demographic amount. Because
ofthat
social
235
"law" the state of the Bulgarians on the Balkans could not be determinate as a "Slavic"
one (or
Bulgars
as assimilated by
slavs),
according to the old
totalitarie
and some
contemporary points of view. I would like to remind that in the former and nowadays
territories of
Bulgars
is running since ages a synthesis of cultures and every one-sided
ethnic position and defining of the survived traditional memory in a centuries-old
commonwealth is not a scientific, but a biased "geographical" orientation of political
interests
WITCHCRAFT AND SHAMANHOOD
-
DIFFERENCES AND POSSIBLE
PARALLELS. As an ethnologist, I do not underestimate the importance of typologi¬
cal similarities between different traditional heritages. However, every professional is
aware that ethnically different parallels (in the sphere of rites and in music) are not a
direct proof that two cases under comparison are kindred ones and have common
genettcal and functional origin. I hope, it's well known that one and the same/or
similar animistic, mythical, mythological, etc. idea could be told, sung or drawn
oul
on different conceptual and musical levels, in different ethnocultures and in differ¬
ent types of rites. In order to exemplify this point, I have chosen to present here some
typologically close parallels with different territorial origin and belonging to different
communities. These materials are subordinate also on the main problem
—
about
lhe
"reading" and interpretation of the data concerning shamanhood and specific par¬
ticularities of traditional rite self-expression.
As far as Europe is concerned, the theme about shamanhood is mainly discussed
in regards to
lhe
descendents of the Finno-Ugrians. According to some researchers,
an undoubted representative here is the "Hungarian shamanism" and the survivals
from the so called "European witchcraft". The Bulgarian witches
(vèshteri
—
persons,
possessing esoteric knowledge and skills) fall into the "European witchcraft", too.
They possess similar (typological and functional) features close to those ones, trcaled
as "shamanic" in Hungarian taltoses. The latter and the Italian benandanti have iden¬
tical parallels in the Bulgarian and the Balkan witches (called magyosnitsas, brodnitsas,
zhitomamnitsas, vrazhallsas, mamnitsas.,). The common features and contents within
them refer to: hereditary and inborn signs of vocation; transcendence and flight (their
souls come out of their bodies while being asleep); mediativeness and esoteric knowl¬
edge about future and past, about "this" and the "other" world, about the herbs, etc);
rite personification/transformation (into animal, bird, or back into a human being);
specific time for "acting"
—
the night, "in the dead of night" (as a time "open" for
contacts); typical place of gathering and visit having the semantics of the "world
.beyond" (deserted water-mills, graveyards, faraway fields, out of the village.); status
and sex: they could be both men and women (they could be married, but more often
they are at a non-fertile age); typical for all these figures is also the concept of trance
as a dream and vice versa; most of them are respected persons in their community (as
a kind of leaders, of people "who knows"), etc. The Bulgarian witches (like the Euro¬
pean ones) are characterised by their dual nature: they are ill-willed and good-willed
at the same time, they are able to heal and to cause diseases, to bring difficulties and
death and to remove them, to divide husband and wife or to bring them together, to
turn a young man into a he-deer and a virgin into a she-deer and back into their
human bodies. The
dualistic
nature of witches on the Balkans is described in some
old sources (Arrianus. Bithyn. Fr.
13,
second century AD).
Similarities in characteristics and functions of those figures (including the sha¬
man), are clear and do not cause any doubt. They give reasons to suppose kindred
initial concepts, which had further been developed in diverse ethnoeultural and folk
traditions. Nevertheless, there are no reasons to define, i.e. to unify them and their
origin as shamanic one by one of "grown up", resulted forms (the shamanhood).
236
Because, an initial idea (which has certain ambiguity!ambivalence in itself) could be
differentiated into its diverging aspects and "personifications", and because, it is pos¬
sible to find different animistic, mythological and gnostic viewpoints behind the typo-
logically similar features from different territories (probably, some of them "coming
from" similar archaic prototypes). Probably thus, had been generated the witches, the
taltoses, the benandanti, the man-serpent, brodnUsas and some other personages. The
diverge development of an initial ambivalent idea is also the possible origin of an¬
tagonism between the benandanti and the witches, between the taltoses and the witches,
between the shamanic "evil" spirits and spirits helpers. Within Balkan witches it is
not available the concept about the "multitude soul", as well as the concept about
their origin from "spirit" and step-by-step initiation (strictly determined to the world
of spirits, e.g. to animistic ideological sphere).
The Balkan witches (veshters) have also been associated with another sacral ac¬
tivity named "robbing". There is data certifying that robbing as a rite (lowered in the
later folk tradition to be "deprivation of the others fertility") was known on the Bal¬
kans since ancient times and very often, it is associated with productivity. This kind of
"stealing" (with a wide spectre of objects) is a typical ritual act, systematically present
in some Bulgarian rites
—
weddings, virgin initiation rites on St. Lazar's Day (the day
before Palm Sunday), rain propitiation rites on the eve of St. George's and St. Enyo's
day (Whitsuntide), on Christmas Day and on St. Theodore's Day. Ritual stealing is
also associated with some rites of the passage, acquiring a new social status. In a word,
in the inherited Bulgarian rite tradition the ritual stealing is not only in the hands of
the witches. It is completely possible that "symbolic stealing" of fertility (done by
mamnitsas, zhitomamnitsas, etc.) has more archaic functions than the ones which
have survived until nowadays. Probably, precisely that type of witchcraft keeps the
idea of old sacralizing of a territory and its magical conquest.
One of the differences between the figure of shaman and some Bulgarian witches
is the opposition "naked—dressed body". Actually, in the rituals these opposite states
have similar aim: contact and "entering" into the world beyond. Ritual nakedness
and ritual dress-taking (symbolising just the getting into another state) are very typical
for some of the Bulgarian and Balkan rites (in the nestinarstvo
—
at the trampling on
the embers, in the practices of the some Witches/zhitomamnitsas/vrazhaiitsas, in heal¬
ing practices and spell casting, in midnight virgin comings out during the Long Lent,
in some male rites, etc. The concept about mediativeness and contact finds yet an¬
other expression
—
in the touch of the earth (and singing), when trampling on the clay
(at the ritually making of some household pottery pieces), when the virgins, dressed
only in chemises trample the dew-sprinkled grass during the Long Lent, as well as in
some commemorative practices. This happens differently in shamanic practices as
far as shamans are supposed to be dressed and to sit on a piece of holy skin function¬
ing as a mediator. The Bulgarian folk concept of "transcendence" (based on the
belief of "open sky'yworlds, too) is symbolically expressed in spatial movements. Some
mlchas/brodnilsas,
like to ritual groups, are "mastering" the space/the territory by
cross-shaped movement and circling (i.e. in a non-static way and not during the
trance), for example, a particular place in order to get power on it.
The same concept (of the "transcendence" and "opened sky") is available in
witchcraft1 practice calling down the moon. The fables about these particular cases
are in direct relation with the ancient Bulgarian and Thracian beliefs ¡n celestial
luminaries and celestial deities. The images of luminaries as "dappled cow", calf,
elderly man and the concept that "the earth stays on ox's/or buffalo's horns" belong to
the Indo-European cosmogony and beliefs of the "celestial bull". The Bulgarians
believe that it is possible to call down the sun, too (at Midsummer Day). There are
237
legends for the sun and the moon as brother and sister. The sun is also imagined as a
little buffalo and as a calf. Calling down (he moon and "milking" it, often believed to
cause eclipses, is only possible at its apogees. Such an act is equivalent to "drawing
out" and adopting the moon's/sun's/God's strength and energy, and it presupposes a
'magical1 power over the movements (of ascent or descent). The witches, calling down
the moon/the sun, do not "travel" in trance (to Oght, in searching lost souls), do not
ride on 'spirit' or undergo any transformations, they do not have an antagonist. They
are mastering to moon (in the form of bull/cow/calf or 'old man', which is believed,
according to an 'eyewitness', to be sitting "petrified on a chair") and obtaining the
celestial power by means of words, body movements and rite attributes. The oldest
evidence aboit calling down the Moon by witches appeared for the first time in
Aristophanes (Neph.
749-755,
first half of the 5l" century
ВС),
next in Theocritus (II
48-52),
Vergil
(Buc.
VIII 69),
etc. According to an oppinion (Hristova
1997),
calling
down the Moon was "a sacred act of the Great Goddess-Mother. and Orphic myster¬
ies. Ancient practice was semantically reduced (and profaned) to magic for fertility
and healing". Within the inherrited Bulgarian folk narratives the concept of celestial
teophany has also another aspect
—
according to the needs of a state formation. The
witches milk the moon in cases of fights and wars, too, because according to beliefs,
the drinking of moon's milk makes army soldiers strong and powerful. Here, it could
be mentioned, that in some Asiatic empires the "Lord of the Skies" is also "'Protector of
the Army".
Unlike the shamanhood, the actions of the most Bulgarian witches were condi¬
tioned by "twin calendar model"
—
they acted twice in the year, in springtime and in
the late autumn. In my opinion, the most important difference between Bulgarian
witchcraft and shamanhood is the very different musical "face" and expressions of
the both phenomena. In that connection, I could not agree with some Hungarian
investigators, interpreting the sieve "in the light oP' the shamanhood
—
as a "drum"
equivalent of their "old shamans". The sieve was practiced by Hungarian mitoses as a
drum in their magical, especially curing rituals. Why not! However, this is not evi¬
dence that the sieve is acting as a substitute of the drum. The sieve itself is not an
artefact and as a ritual object, it has nothing to do with shamanhood at all. It is a
witch's and ritual "instrument" on the Balkans also. The transformation and "turning
over" the sieve as a drum is well known within many East folk traditions, in contempo¬
rary East Bulgaria, and once
—
in Attica. And the so called frame drums somewhere
are known us sieve drums. Nevertheless, the "classical" shamanhood never turns the
sieve into untugun.
The Bulgarian concepts about the Universe arc no less saturated with beliefs in
the invisible immaterial substance than the concepts typical for the shamanizing cul¬
tures. The Bulgarians also, believe that certain places and plants (such as fireplaces,
trees, springs, vineyards, meadows, houses and graveyards) are guarded by the good-
willed spirits "of deceased predecessors" deserving respect and worship. Bulgarian
singing and narrative traditions are abundant in images of zoomorphic and anthro¬
pomorphic mediative figures
—
zmeys (serpents),
halas (monsters), samodivas, rusalkas
(mermaids), orisnitsas (weird sisters), inhabiting the Upper and the Lower, dwelling
rivers, bridges, pools, ponds, fountains, wells, gorges, caverns, i.e. places which are
also believed to be Gods' dwellings on the earth. As a rule, such figures are believed to
be dual in nature also. In the course of work, I have come across many typological/
structural similarities between narratives and, generally speaking, concepts of Euro¬
pean witchcraft, shamanhood and the Bulgarian folklore. The "finding" of such com¬
mon structures in different ethnic traditions is a question of good will and fluent
general knowledge. Problems and real research challenges start with the searching of
238
the specific and the "own" in them. The interpreting elements of mytho-narratives/
and tales, which cover wide topics, presupposes one type of efforts» but the "reading"
of rituality as it "happens" is a quite different endeavour. The latter could only be
successful
ifit
takes under consideration the system within the rites appear and func¬
tion. In the authentic Bulgarian folk texts there are no "spirit hunters" and the ritual
melodies are not dependent and "submitted" to the improvisation at the moment.
Different opinions and "findings" of shamanic features in the Bulgarian or in the
Balkan cthnocultural tradition (in graffito drawings, in mythological inheritance and
even in some rites) have to be subjected again to a careful investigation, preferably by
the same authors. I doubt if those features are shamanic at all. It might be better to
state that most of the similarities belong to the trans-territorial spread and existing
common ritual "signs" (e.g. the concepts and symbols of the well known "world Tree/
or River", the vocation from "above", the belief in spirits and different kind of "ani¬
mation", different forms of transformations, the transcendence, etc.). At least, as far as
lhe
Bulgarian rites and the ritual music are concerned, the route from West Pamir to
the Balkans contains many reef barriers for everyone who wants to carry the burden of
shamanhood along it. Such a route of thinking leads to a "no-land". In a certain folk
tradition, it is the specific applicability and configurations of the elements that create
its own image and form. This is the reason why I'm not interested, for example, in the
typological similarities between some Bulgarian and some Red Indian rugs, nor in
the melodic motives of one and the same type (with different ethnical origin), but in
Ihcir "happening", in their suggestions and meanings in a sphere they belong. Actu¬
ally, in the ways of "moving" and "transpositions" of the memory, creating the indi¬
viduality and the uniqueness of every traditional culture.
23У |
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| any_adam_object_boolean | 1 |
| author | Nejkova, Ruža |
| author_GND | (DE-588)1056139501 |
| author_facet | Nejkova, Ruža |
| author_role | aut |
| author_sort | Nejkova, Ruža |
| author_variant | r n rn |
| building | Verbundindex |
| bvnumber | BV023270081 |
| ctrlnum | (OCoLC)230135053 (DE-599)BVBBV023270081 |
| edition | 1. izd. |
| era | Geschichte gnd |
| era_facet | Geschichte |
| format | Book |
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| geographic | Südosteuropa (DE-588)4058449-5 gnd |
| geographic_facet | Südosteuropa |
| id | DE-604.BV023270081 |
| illustrated | Illustrated |
| index_date | 2024-07-02T20:35:35Z |
| indexdate | 2024-07-09T21:14:36Z |
| institution | BVB |
| isbn | 954322076X 9789543220762 |
| language | Bulgarian |
| oai_aleph_id | oai:aleph.bib-bvb.de:BVB01-016455111 |
| oclc_num | 230135053 |
| open_access_boolean | |
| owner | DE-12 |
| owner_facet | DE-12 |
| physical | 241 S. Ill., Kt., Notenbeisp. |
| publishDate | 2006 |
| publishDateSearch | 2006 |
| publishDateSort | 2006 |
| publisher | Akad. Izdat. "Prof. Marin Drinov" |
| record_format | marc |
| series | Studia Thracica |
| series2 | Studia Thracica |
| spelling | Nejkova, Ruža Verfasser (DE-588)1056139501 aut Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? Ruža Nejkova 1. izd. Sofija Akad. Izdat. "Prof. Marin Drinov" 2006 241 S. Ill., Kt., Notenbeisp. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Studia Thracica 9 PST: Shamans - did they exist on the Balkans? - In kyrill. Schr., bulg. - Zsfassung in engl. Sprache Geschichte gnd rswk-swf Schamanismus (DE-588)4052062-6 gnd rswk-swf Südosteuropa (DE-588)4058449-5 gnd rswk-swf Südosteuropa (DE-588)4058449-5 g Schamanismus (DE-588)4052062-6 s Geschichte z DE-604 Studia Thracica 9 (DE-604)BV000904989 9 Digitalisierung BSBMuenchen application/pdf http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=016455111&sequence=000002&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA Inhaltsverzeichnis Digitalisierung BSB Muenchen application/pdf http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=016455111&sequence=000004&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA Abstract |
| spellingShingle | Nejkova, Ruža Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? Studia Thracica Schamanismus (DE-588)4052062-6 gnd |
| subject_GND | (DE-588)4052062-6 (DE-588)4058449-5 |
| title | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? |
| title_auth | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? |
| title_exact_search | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? |
| title_exact_search_txtP | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? |
| title_full | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? Ruža Nejkova |
| title_fullStr | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? Ruža Nejkova |
| title_full_unstemmed | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? Ruža Nejkova |
| title_short | Imalo li e šamani na Balkanite? |
| title_sort | imalo li e samani na balkanite |
| topic | Schamanismus (DE-588)4052062-6 gnd |
| topic_facet | Schamanismus Südosteuropa |
| url | http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=016455111&sequence=000002&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=016455111&sequence=000004&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA |
| volume_link | (DE-604)BV000904989 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nejkovaruza imaloliesamaninabalkanite |