Buryat Shamanism: Home and Hearth — A Territorialism of the Spirit
Anthropology of Consciousness December 1, 1999 Eva Jane Neumann Fridman 1 citation
In the revival of shamanism in Buryatia, kinship and locale are central. Shamans, representing their clans and kinship lines, mediate between people and sacred spirits, especially those of specific places tied historically to a clan and its buried ancestors. The clan shaman appeals to these ancestral and place spirits for blessings and protection. The historical relationship of Buryat tribes to their land and their pre-Soviet kinship structure parallels traditional spiritual territorial cults. Buryat social organization into hierarchical, patrilineal kinship units corresponds to conceptions of protective deities linked to territorial groupings matching tribes, clans, villages, and families. Cases of renewing home and hearth through clan shamans' appeals to ancestral and local spirits are presented.