page_title: Shamanism
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Shamanism / Terminology / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: An illustration of a shaman in Siberia, produced by the Dutch explorer Nicolaes Witsen in the late 17th century. It is the earliest known pictorial depiction of a Siberian shaman to have appeared in Europe, where Witsen's account first popularised the term "shaman".
context_page_description: Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner, a shaman, who is believed to interact with a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct these spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world, for healing or some other purpose.
  Beliefs and practices that have been categorized as "shamanic" have attracted the interest of scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, religious studies scholars, philosophers and psychologists. Hundreds of books and academic papers on the subject have been produced, with a peer-reviewed academic journal being devoted to the study of shamanism. In the 20th century, many Westerners involved in counter-cultural movements have created modern magico-religious practices influenced by their ideas of Indigenous religions from across the world, creating what has been termed neoshamanism or the neoshamanic movement.
context_section_description: The word shamanism probably derives from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman, meaning "one who knows". The word shaman may also have originated from the Evenki word šamán, most likely from the southwestern dialect spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples. The Tungusic term was subsequently adopted by Russians interacting with the Indigenous peoples in Siberia. It is found in the memoirs of the exiled Russian churchman Avvakum.
  The word was brought to Western Europe in the late 17th century by the Dutch traveler Nicolaes Witsen, who reported his stay and journeys among the Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking Indigenous peoples of Siberia in his book Noord en Oost Tataryen (1692). Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published in 1698 his account of a Russian embassy to China; a translation of his book, published the same year, introduced the word shaman to English speakers.
  The etymology of the Evenki word is sometimes connected to a Tungus root ša- "to know". This has been questioned on linguistic grounds: "The possibility cannot be completely rejected, but neither should it be accepted without reservation since the assumed derivational relationship is phonologically irregular (note especially the vowel quantities)." Other scholars assert that the word comes directly from the Manchu language, and as such would be the only commonly used English word that is a loan from this language.
  However, Mircea Eliade noted that the Sanskrit word śramaṇa, designating a wandering monastic or holy figure, has spread to many Central Asian languages along with Buddhism and could be the ultimate origin of the Tungusic word. This proposal has been thoroughly critiqued since 1917. Ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen regards it as an "anachronism" and an "impossibility" that is nothing more than a "far-fetched etymology".
  Twenty-first-century anthropologist and archeologist Silvia Tomaskova argues that by the mid-1600s, many Europeans applied the Arabic term shaitan (meaning "devil") to the non-Christian practices and beliefs of Indigenous peoples beyond the Ural Mountains. She suggests that shaman may have entered the various Tungus dialects as a corruption of this term, and then been told to Christian missionaries, explorers, soldiers and colonial administrators with whom the people had increasing contact for centuries.
  A shamaness (female shaman) is sometimes called a shamanka, which is not an actual Tungus term but simply shaman plus the Russian suffix -ka (for feminine nouns).
caption: The earliest known depiction of a Siberian shaman, by the Dutch Nicolaes Witsen, 17th century. Witsen called him a "priest of the Devil" and drew clawed feet for the supposed demonic qualities.[6]
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