Buryat Shamanism: Home and Hearth — A Territorialism of the Spirit

Summary

Kinship and locale are crucial in the regeneration of shamanism in Buryatia, with shamans acting as intermediaries between people and ancestral spirits tied to specific locations. The study highlights the historical connections between Buryat tribes' land and kinship structures, showing parallels with traditional spiritual practices. Protective deities are associated with territorial groupings that reflect social organization. Several examples illustrate how clan shamans renew homes by appealing to these ancestral and local spirits.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In the regeneration of shamanism in Buryatia, kinship and locale play a significant and, indeed, determining role. Shamans, as representatives of their clans and kinship lines, are the intermediaries between people and the sacred, between people and the spirits in nature, in particular spirits of a specific locale which is linked historically to a clan and to the ancestors who have been buried there. It is to these ancestral spirits as well as to the spirits of place that the clan shaman makes entreaties and asks for blessings and protection from ill fortune.The historical relationship of the Buryat tribes to the present land of Buryatia and Ust‐Orda region and the kinship structure of these tribes as existent prior to the Soviet period is shown to have parallels with traditional spiritual territorial cults of Buryats. There is a clear‐cut link between Buryat social organization into hierarchical units of kinship structures along patrilineal descent lines and their conceptions of deities according to locality, that is, they traditionally conceived of protective deities as associated with wider or narrower territorial groupings which corresponded to the social groups of tribes, clans, villages, and families.Several cases of renewal of home and hearth through appeal to ancestral and local spirits by the clan shaman are presented.