Shamanism: The Five Major Characteristics Of Indigenous People

Many Indigenous cultures have a person in their community that is respected as a healer, and a religious leader. This person has special privileges in the community, or tribe. Most anthropologists and religious scholars define a shaman as an intermediary between the natural and spiritual world, who travels between worlds in a state of trance. Once in the spirit world, the shaman would commune with the spirits for assistance in healing, hunting or weather management. Ripinsky-Naxon describes shamans as, "People who have a strong interest in their surrounding environment and the society of which they are a part."

This belief in natural forces that protect, empower, and guide a person is characterized by five major characteristics. 1. The
Indigenous people believe that everything, both animate (living) and inanimate (nonliving), is imbued with a personal supernatural essence or powers of nature. Shamanism refers to a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. There are many variations in way shamanism is used throughout the world. It is the responsibility of the shaman to educate his/her people and, yes to punish those who have vilated the spitits and the laws of the spirit world. though there are some beliefs that are shared by all forms of shamanism. www.shamanportal.org. “what is
The Indigenous people used large statutes to represent the powerful spirits that only a shaman could talk to. Evidence from cave art, daring back at least 30,000 years, suggests caves were used for magical ritual purposes. In certain cases it must have been necessary to crawl for hours through the caves in order to reach the locale of the artwork and related artifacts. It may be that solitude inside such a cavern was an initiation technique used to explore the inner realms of being. Markings on antlers and bones indicate that people made notations of the phases of the moon as long as 30,000 years ago and suggest that the cave rituals and other cultural practices had a seasonal or periodical orientation. It has been suggested that prehistoric people may have been sensitive to different phases in the lunar cycle as special times for meditation. The monumental Stonehenge, built in prehistoric England, is oriented towards equinoxes, solstices and lunar eclipses during the equinox and suggests similar