M. A. Czaplicka

Worth getting hold of. It’s from 1914: a survey of ethnography from before that date. My fear with old ethnography on shamanism is the attitude taken; possibly – though I’m not qualified to make statements – this being pre-Soviet is an advantage. Soviet study on shamanism had to take the hardest of scientific lines, whereby shamans are assumed to be insane and/or cheats and exploiters of the people. The studies Czaplicka draws on are by ethnographer-explorers – a few of them political exiles to Siberia, such as Bogoras and Jochelson, who used their time there to research.

Still to an extent hostile witnesses, yet one can write: “The duties undertaken by the shamans are not easy; the struggle which he has to carry on is dangerous... The wizard who decides to carry on this struggle has not only material gain in view, but also the alleviation of the griefs of his fellow men; the wizard who has the vocation, the faith, and the conviction, who undertakes his duty with ecstasy and negligence of personal danger, inspired by the high ideal of sacrifice, such a wizard always exerts an enormous influence upon his audience.”

I have this book as a paperback from Theophania Publishing, 180 pages. The title page says:

Shamanism in Siberia
Excerpts from
Aboriginal Siberia: a Study in Social Anthropology

I also have a reproduction of the full work, ‘Aboriginal Siberia’, from Nabu Public Doman Reprints, at 374 pages. Here the reproduced print is faint, poor, hard to read; when I’ve agonised through it I’ll report.… (altro)