Does Shamanism Have a History? With Attention to Early Chinese Shamanism
Numen September 28, 2017 Thomas Michael 8 citations
A history of shamanism remains elusive. The article examines four scholarly approaches—prehistoric rock art, cultural myth origins, memory studies, and cultural resistance movements—and finds each inadequate. Focusing on early Chinese shamanism, it critiques these options and then turns to the frameworks of Mircea Eliade and Roberte Hamayon as two alternative pathways. The author proposes a third way between them, aiming to construct a viable history of shamanism without relying on the rejected approaches.