Andrei A. Znamenski is an anthropologist at Alabama State University, Department of Humanities. He
specializes in the study of the Athabaskan peoples of south-central Alaska. His other publications
include: Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Siberian Spirituality (Dirdrecht &
Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2003), translations of primary sources from the Russian and Shamanism:
Critical Concepts in Sociology. (London, Routledge, 2004), a 3 volume set of essays on the
topic edited by Znamenki.
Znamenki's work is not an in-depth exploration of the beliefs and practices of shamans in various
cultures. Those seeking such information may find it in collections of ethnography or other primary
sources, or collated in the works of scholars such as Mircea Eliade and Michael Harner, among
others. Znamenski examines, rather, the interface between Western culture and native cultures as
explorers and scientists discovered, described and reacted to the range of practices that have been
subsumed under the label of shamanism.
Znamenski divides his work chronologically. He describes shamanism studies before the 1960s as a
byproduct of exploration and conquest and of the efforts of early anthropologists to chronicle
indigenous cultures before they disappeared or were altered by contact with the West. After the
1960s Znemenski observes a twofold change. A new generation of academics showed more respect for
indigenous practices and were less likely to view spiritual phenomena as something to be explained
away. At about the same time Western spirituality was opening to altered states, a concept of
different levels of reality and curiosity about the religious techniques of other cultures.
Shamanism was no longer a topic of interest only to scholars. “Caucasians of middle-class
background were attending drum workshops, reading the tales of Don Juan and even traveling to
experience peyote journeys with the Huichol.”
This work is valuable in several respects. Znamenski makes the reader aware of how Western
descriptions of shamanism have been shaped by the intellectual paradigm of the writer. For example,
early explorers were men of the Enlightenment. They tended to regard shamans as charlatans who took
advantage of the credulity of their fellow tribesmen. Later, psychologists tended to label the
“shamanistic crisis” as a manifestation of mental illness, expressing the belief that shamans were
mentally ill men and women for whom their cultures had created a niche. Back in the land of its
origins, shamanism was condemned by the Marxists of Soviet Russia as “obsurantism and conservatism”
and an obstacle to the building of the new Soviet man. Znamenski also discusses the differences of
opinion on what range of practices can be considered as shamanism and the related disagreement
among scholars about whether use of mind altering substances is part of core shamanism.
Znamenski examines and describes the contemporary situation, the differing views of scholars
about the nature of and definition of shamanism; reactions of native peoples, including the
argument about whether indigenous spiritual practices should be shared with outsiders; and
efforts of some Western religionists to reconstruct shamantic practices of other cultures, such as
the Celtic and Norse.
I recommend this work for anyone interested in shamanism as a scholar or potential practitioner.
