What is Shamanism?
Posted on 27 April 2010
I was at a hospital here in Georgia earlier today, don’t worry I am mentally and physically fine, I actually went to see an aunt of mine. My aunt went to her doctor for a routine checkup for her almost ready to birth baby, the doctor sent her to the hospital for other reasons and she was in the labor area. Well I as an concern loving niece left work early (it’s my day off and I just went in to help out at work since today my class was turned into a lab) and stayed with her in the room. Right now they are just monitoring my soon to be new baby cousin’s heart beat.. Anyways, the nurse asked her (for the paper work) “what is your religion” and my aunt replied “Shamanism”, the nurse of course was unsure of what SHAMANISM is, let alone, she wasn’t even sure how to spell it (which wasn’t a problem at all). So she asked us “what is shamanism”, my aunt tried to explain to the nurse what Shamanism is, but I am sure, the nurse did not agreed to our religion what so ever, but it’s okay, she has her own belief and so do we, there’s no right or wrong.
So what is Shamanism?
I know what it is because I am a strong believer of Shamanism, for one, I was raised as a Shamanism and for two, I’ve seen lots of things to know that it really does exist; I know it in my heart and it doesn’t matter if anyone else agrees or not.
But to answer my simple question:::
It is hard to explain the culture of Shamanism thus I’ll do my best. Shamanism is the belief that everything has a spirit and we believe that our ancestors does not only leave the world, but one of their many spirits remains on earth to protect us, like a guardian angel. We (especially the shamans) can communicate with people from the after world, we believe that when an individual is sick, this can be cause by an ancestor or spirit thus the shaman will go to their world and negotiate a deal to solve and help cure the sick individual. We believe that there are higher beings in the heavens, but it’s our ancestors who are our protectors. The Hmong people believe that the heavens and the earth has eyes and ears that will see everything we do and say thus we will be punish for unkind things that we do.
Depending on the many cases, many times a feast must be paid to our ancestors during the rituals. Friends and families are invited to the feast, food and drinks are serve while the animal’s spirit is given to the said ancestor or spirit.
3 responses to What is Shamanism?
interesting? i’ve never heard of a hospital form asking for a patient’s religion before. well, the nurse sounds like a typical conservative bigot!
I usually don’t go into that deep in explaining what shamanism is. I just say, we believe in spirits.
I recalled that they asked me that also when I was in the hospital, and I told her that I was a Buddhist. I didn’t feel offended though, must be a routine thing for them, and I think it’s better that they asked, imagine if something went wrong and they sent a Christian Preacher to talk to me, it’d be an awkward moment.
To be honest, I didn’t know what is a Shamanism until I read your blog a while back. We also believe in Animism (the belief in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects and phenomena) and sort of combine it with the Buddhist teaching.