Dancing and swinging of who, when and why? Deciphering two murky lines of Buryat shamanic poetry
M. Balogh
Asian Ethnicity July 2, 2020 DOI: 10.1080/14631369.2019.1663151 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Keywords | Linguistics |
| Key points | Argues that Buryat shamanic poetry's riddle-like, elevated language is difficult even for native speakers and ritual attendees, leading to guesswork in scholarly translation, and proposes that explanations from a shaman's assistant can clarify two frequently recurring lines that are crucial to understanding Buryat shamanic practice. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT Buryat shamanic poetry is a difficult genre to understand and to translate. Its lyrics can be challenging to understand even for native speakers, for it is believed that shamans’ spirits speak and prefer to be spoken to in a language characterized by riddles and roundabout phrases. Attendees of shamanic rituals barely understand this highly elevated language. Therefore, an assistant, i.e. a person familiar with the spirits’ language acts as an interpreter during the ritual. No wonder that when Buryat shamanic poetry is translated to another language for scholarly purposes, the result contains a considerable amount of guesswork, and lines that do not seem to fit well in the entire corpus. In the present paper based on the explanations given by a shaman’s assistant, I am going to shed more light on two lines that frequently recur in shamanic incantations and are crucial to our understanding of Buryat shamanic practice.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California | 1998 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press | 2020 | Historical analysis | |
| Anthropology, Shamanism, and Alternate Ways of Knowing–Being in the World: One Anthropologist's Journey of Discovery and Transformation | 2010 | Reflective essay or personal narrative |