Such a bright smile can light up an entire continent. Adela Navas de Garcia is a vibrant healer from Iquitos, Peru. A mother of 8, she has been treating patients in her local community for over 60 years, and Lately she sometimes provides assistance to Westerners interested in ayahuasca. Her specialty is "arcanas" or spells for healing and protection from the black arts brujeria . She is also an ayahuasquera trained in various medicinal properties plants. In 2006, journalist Rak Razam interviewed Adele in Iquitos. She was 69 years old at the time. They talked about ayahuascaand her long career as a shaman, the challenges of being a female shaman and why there should be more female healers.
RAK: Adela, you've been a shaman for a long time, haven't you? Can you tell us a little about how it all started and what it's like to be a woman curandera (healer) in Iquitos?
ADELA: My parents' ancestors were from Portugal and Colombia, and healing is in my blood. I was born here in Iquitos. When I was young, I was very sick, but it was no ordinary illness - it was caused by black magic. The disease tormented me for many years, since I was only 13 years old at the time. My mother went to many doctors, doctors different types in Iquitos, but no one could identify the correct cure because they could not identify the disease itself. A little more and I would have died. The doctors said I had cancer - lung cancer - but I didn't. They were wrong. My mother finally took me to a shaman - on the Ucayali River in Iquitos. It was there that I took ayahuasca for the first time. The day after taking ayahuasca, both my fever and pain went away.
RAK: Do you think that the ayahuasca ceremony cured you, or were there any other medications or work with your subconscious?
ADELA: I had dizziness that lasted for seven hours, and I stood up many times during that time. I had many visions and had to rest for three months after the ayahuasca ceremony. I was on strict therapeutic diet- no meat, salt, sugar, oils or fatty foods, nothing, just vegetables and rest for three months in the shaman’s house. I spent all this time in silence. Before my mother came to take me to Iquitos, I took ayahuasca one last time to make myself completely happy and healthy. The shaman invited my mother to also drink ayahuasca with me, and I saw many lizards, snakes, many totems, and they whispered to me that I should sing a song, an e ncantada. Then I asked the shaman if I could sing the lizard's song. “I want to study,” I said, and he agreed. He was an amazing healer in the area, but even he was impressed by the songs I sang—seven lizard songs, seven icaros, came out of me.
RAK: And this was your initiation as a shaman, illness and healing and receiving icaros?
ADELA: Yes. But after this experience, I was surprised that ayahuasca did not affect me in that way again. I didn't see any more lizards. After drinking ayahuasca for the second time and receiving new lizard songs, I began to understand medicinal effects. And since then I have learned to work with spiritual doctors, the plants themselves. I consumed many plants, leaves and roots and studied their effects. And then I returned to Iquitos. I was very thin, but I was completely healthy.
CANCER: And did you feel called to spiritual work, or did you try to return to your daily life?
ADELA: I started out relatively normal everyday life. But my calling was in my blood - to heal people, I had this since I was born, but after I was cured, the feeling became even stronger...
RAK: Could you explain the type of healing you practice and when you started practicing it in the community?
ADELA: I have been treating people who need help for over 50 years. I use many plant medicines for healing, including many types of ayahuasca. I use Cielo ayahuasca (sky ayahuasca), and another type is called Quechua Yana ayahuasca (black ayahuasca), Rayo ayahuasca (sparkling ayahuasca), Huata ayahuasca (rope ayahuasca), Boa ayahuasca (named after the snake) and others. I have a farm outside of Iquitos where I grow ayahuasca and I do ceremonies there. And other plants and trees grow there, such as Warmicaspi (a Quechua word meaning "female tree" in English language) and La Punga (granny tree that connects to the water world).
RAK: How did your shaman feel about teaching a woman the ways of ayahuasca and plants? More often this knowledge is passed on to men, so were there any gender problems when studying the so-called “male magic”?
ADELA: My shaman teacher had already died, but he had many people who came to his house for healing, and he was a good curandero. He didn't have any problems with me; he knew that he was healing people and he was listening to the ayahuasca spirit who wanted me to become a healer too. At that time it was forbidden to give ayahuasca to women, but my teacher listened to the spirit of the plant, not other people. He initially made sure that no one was watching me drink ayahuasca while he was treating me - it was in the jungle - and we knew we had to be careful.
RAK: Was it difficult to learn as a female shaman when ayahuasca was forbidden? Have you had any difficulties with other people?
Adela: Men were surprised when they found out that I drank ayahuasca. I was the only woman who did it in the area, and I was very thin, and I guess they thought I didn't have the power to heal. My teacher also doubted when I came to him, I was so skinny and sick, he was not sure that I would survive. But he trusted ayahuasca, and he realized that I could do it, and he allowed it to cure me. My teacher did a good job to heal me, but he could not do more because I was in good health. He didn't give it to me again because twice was enough. But I worked with her for many years, learning the secrets of the vine. And when I was 23 years old, I began to use ayahuasca correctly. I started drinking it again with patients to diagnose their suffering, and I have been practicing this healing for many years.
CANCER: Do your patients always trust a female doctor - curandero, who undertakes to heal them?
ADELA: Yes, yes. There are many types of curandero, but if a shaman follows a diet to cleanse himself physically and spiritually, then he can become a great healer. One type of healer is an encantada, one who heals through singing. But I believe more in the effectiveness of the diet after becoming a shaman and working with plants. Diet means that you cleanse your body - you don't have sex, meat, salt, sugar - all this, this is the way of the shaman - diet.
RAK: So you advise your patients to follow a proper diet, but you also sing icaros during the ceremony?
ADELA: Yes, but it's not just a song, it's not enough to heal, songs come from the spirits themselves.
RAK: And your other specialty is arcana, right? Could you tell us a little about them?
ADELA: Arkanas are songs that have different properties and functions. Some arcana protect the body from spiritual attack, from bad shamans or brujeria who may send their energy to you. The other arcana control dizziness and nausea during the ceremony when you receive mareacions (visions). The Arcana can control visions, but they can do much more. When I chant the lasso, the disease manifests itself to me, and the sound I make controls the patient during the healing. Other songs are used to raise energy and make people feel better.
RAK: Is it difficult to raise a family in a normal world and still be a curandero? To rule two worlds?
ADELA: (laughs). I had eight children and have been married 56 years. I'm 69 years old (she winks) - it's the medicine that keeps me so young (laughs). I learned ayahuasca before I got pregnant when I was very young. This has always been a part of my life, so I never saw any difficulty in raising a family and being curandero simultaneously. It was like I was learning more about ayahuasca and learning how to raise a family at the same time.
My family members were Catholics, but they also accepted the old beliefs, so I never had a problem with them. I married when I was 24 years old to a man from Spain - a dentist, so I am here in Iquitos because of his work and my family, which I love very much. Otherwise I would be in the jungle. My husband passed away a year and a half ago and passed on to another world, and sometimes at ceremonies I feel him there.
CANCER: Did your husband have problems with you being a curandero?
Adela: He was a good man, and he understood me and what I was doing. When I was dieting he never offered me sex and he knew I had to eat the right products. He understood me. This is good because I was constantly on a diet and ayahuasca taught me constantly, even until now. My knowledge is advancing, but I don't know if I will ever know everything.
CANCER: What about the authorities, have you ever had any problems with them given that you are a woman involved in ayahuasca?
ADELA: Maybe not so much because I'm a woman, but because I'm a curandero. One day the military came in during the ceremony and I had American tourists with me at the time. They came in and accused me of being a terrorist! They said I was a bad woman, a witch. But I don't practice brujeria. There is no terrorism in Iquitos or the Amazon, this is a complete lie. I'm just doing my job - I'm a healer.
RAK: Many young Peruvian people are not interested in shamanism. Do you think this is a dying art? Do you have a student to pass on your knowledge?
ADELAH: Yes, some young people are still studying, although it is not as widespread as it used to be. I don't have a student, but it would be great if the new generation learned Ayahuasca because it can cure many diseases without Western chemical medicine. She treats only in a natural way. I would like young people to become professional curanderos.
RAK: Do you think that younger women should become curandero?
ADELA: Yes! If more women became curandero, there would be more respect for them in general and for medicinal plants. Because male shamans are always attracted to women, but if women start using and know about the medicine themselves, men will have to respect them more. And women shamans can be the best healers.
Scientific director
A lesson on “Folklore of Siberia” is in full swing. We listen very carefully. The topic is fascinating. The teacher talks interestingly about shamans, their abilities, their skills, and attributes. We sit, listen and wonder: how many incomprehensible mysteries are there still in the world? How much we don't know. How much we don’t pay attention to!
– Few of us have seen a living shaman. But we are sure that almost each of us vividly imagines the picture known from books and films: a man in fancy clothes is rushing around a dimly lit yurt in a frenzied dance. He beats a large tambourine with a mallet, summoning the spirits. His face is distorted, his eyes are closed. Now the blows become more frequent and stronger, now he dodges the invisible enemy. At the end of the session the shaman falls unconscious. Then he will tell the people sitting in the yurt about his meeting with the spirits.
The teacher is trying to tell us that not only now, but also much earlier, the shaman was presented in the public consciousness as a dark and terrible charlatan, deceiving the ignorant. Shamans were often called “people from the social norm”, people suffering from nervous disorders. “The view of a shaman as a person who is nervously or mentally ill has become almost universally accepted in science, and the very emergence of shamanism began to be thought of as a result of mental abnormalities,” the teacher refers to the words of E. Revunenkova, who has written many books on the study of shamanism. The phenomenon of shamanism is explained in a similar way in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.
In a work devoted to shamanism in the East Indies, the Dutch scientist G. Wilken wrote: “A shaman is a sick, weak person, suffering from a nervous disease and often madness... Shamanic ecstasy belongs to hysterical epilepsy and hypnosis, definitely to somnambulism ".
“Everyone knows that neurotic patients in Siberia are shamans and does not need any special proof,” he unconditionally asserted in 1936. And he, who later became a prominent representative of Soviet ethnographic science, wrote back in 1910 in the journal “Ethnographic Review”: “When studying shamanism, we, first of all, come across entire categories of men and women suffering from nervous excitability, sometimes clearly abnormal or completely crazy... In any case, when studying shamanism, we must not forget that this is a form of religion created by selecting the most nervously unstable people.”
Danish religious scholar O. Olmarx even diagnosed a disease that affects shamans, and at the same time their ordinary fellow tribesmen. This, in his opinion, is the “polar hysteria” really known among the peoples of the North.
The teacher stops for a second, then continues:
– One can and should disagree with these statements. Everything is much more complicated. There is evidence to the contrary. In fact, shamans are very intellectually and spiritually developed, capable people, endowed with unusual data. For example, Mircea Eliade, a famous scientist, insists in all his studies that the opinion of shamanism as a mental illness is completely wrong.
During the period of shamanic initiation, the initiate has the appearance of a mentally ill person, emphasizes M. Eliade, but when the initiation is over, the shaman is stronger, healthier and more mindful than other people of his tribe.
There is ample evidence that the signs of epilepsy and other mental illnesses that mark a call to shamanism are erased after initiation.
Anna Smolyak testifies to the same thing: “The shamans of the Nanai and Ulchi, in most cases, were people respected by their fellow villagers... all of them are strong, strong-willed people, knowledgeable in many ways, experienced in everyday affairs and crafts.”
We, who listened with enthusiasm to the teacher, began to think. But shamans still exist today. It would be very interesting to communicate with them, as they say, to hear the “subtleties” first hand.
The group began to roar. Everyone started asking her questions.
The teacher stopped us:
– Maybe we can interview her? Surely, the answers will reveal some of the secrets of the shamans.
This is how I was born project idea: interview a woman shaman and, based on his analysis, try to understand whether shamans can really be called “from the social norm.”
To implement this idea it was necessary:
Meet the shaman.
Formulate interview questions.
Analyze the shaman's answers.
Draw a conclusion: is he really “out of the social norm”?
Project type: social research
Social significance of the project: shamanism is interesting to us not only as a fragment of history that helps to better understand the distant past of humanity. Shamanism is still a pressing problem today. To know shamanism means to be able to correctly assess the features of modern religious consciousness in our country, including in the territory of our Siberian region.
Project duration: short
Project participants: 2nd year students studying the discipline “Folklore of Siberia”.
Our respondent was born in 1935. Its homeland is Ulus Bilchir, Nukut region. lives in the village. Alyat, Alar district, Irkutsk region. She is a veteran of labor, a former teacher of Russian language and literature (40 years of work experience), an Excellent Student of Education.
- Is shamanism hereditary or a skill that can still be acquired somehow?
- this is heredity, acquisition is impossible - this is quackery.
- Tell me, is such a gift always inherited?
become at their own request, based on an inherited gift.
- Do you become a shaman of your own free will?
S.F. At your own request, you can not accept it, even if there is heredity.
- How did you become a shaman, from early childhood or not?
S.F. In early childhood this was impossible, after fifty years I began to feel feelings of malaise, began to get sick, as if I were hearing some kind of voice (there were illnesses, operations, headaches, and most importantly, insomnia). I went to my homeland (Nukutsk region), where my second cousin (shaman Torokha, his father was a recognized shaman in the Irkutsk region during the war years) suggested that I need to accept the ritual and start shamanizing, otherwise life will be short.
-Can you tell us in more detail about the first rite of passage?
introduction to shamanism was held in 1990. At home in the Nukut region between the two mountains Turoon and Khashkhai, on the Unga River. They slaughtered a ram and cooked the meat in a cauldron. Relatives were invited - sisters, brothers, villagers. Shaman Torokha, in a very serious, loud voice, called upon the spirits of these mountains and the spirits of rivers, valleys, and the Almighty God. He addressed the hero of the Buryat legend Geser, and the entire older generation of Bilchirs who had long gone to another world. He brought them a sacrifice in the form of an honorable piece of meat, dripped milk tarasun (a type of light alcoholic drink of the Buryats), and dripped a lot of milk. Dripped (brought drops of the drink, or splashed the top in Russian). He threw large coals in all four directions, jumped barefoot on the ground, around me, circled the fire with incense (in a frying pan), then circled everyone present. Only then did they begin the ceremonial meal.
- How can shamans help people?
S.F. From my experience, I can say that those who contacted me left calmed, satisfied, and things got better for them, their problems were resolved. Consciously (that is, I felt the power) I have been helping people for the last 20 years, I began to travel at the invitation of people to other villages, villages and even cities.
Are there real hereditary shamans who can really heal, speak with spirits, see and feel some other forces?
, which is not enough. There are many people who consider themselves shamans. They probably have something, but in my opinion there are still few real ones.
According to legends, a shaman must be old, dirty, shabby, always narrow-eyed, walk in rags and live as a hermit in the forest. You will agree or disagree with this.
S.F. In ancient times there were probably such people - real hermits. All Buryats are narrow-eyed. Modernity makes adjustments - the eyes have become wider. Nowadays modern shamans wear ties, women wear perfume.
- Who more often becomes a shaman: a woman or a man? Is there a difference in whether a shaman is a woman or a man?
it makes no difference who becomes a shaman. Both women and men. The only thing is that the woman must be aged, that is, not childbearing, that is, like a man. There are differences - a man is a stronger sex. A man himself can make a sacrifice. And a woman needs to have such a worker with her in order to perform the entire ritual: to slaughter a sheep and a horse according to all the rules. I always take such a worker with me, sometimes two.
- Can a shaman have a family? Tell us about your family and ancestors.
S.F. Yes, a shaman can have a family. I have six children, 16 grandchildren, 6 great-grandchildren. All of them are under my protection. Ancestors on the maternal line were Gursep (my mother was 7 generations after him. He was a predictor: he foresaw the appearance of tractors, telephone communications, civilizational changes), my mother herself (was a herbalist, knew different medicinal herbs, she collected it herself, her mother was from the mountains by birth (Okinsky district, foothills of the Sayan Mountains), she was a sholushamanka, knew how to do everything, and her mother treated people for various diseases. On the paternal side - the Trofimovs were Soldonka-boo (shaman), Nikola-boo, Nyakhala-boo, Torokha-boo, Moses-boo and the father himself - Fadey Dmitrievich-boo.
- What should a real shaman be able to do?
must understand people, be kind, love children, respect every person, preserve nature, treat the entire living world with care, not think badly of people, not wish anyone, much less do evil.
- What problems do people usually come to you with?
S.F. ABOUT they come together due to illness, grief, when they go on a long journey - to the army (sent to Chechnya, somewhere else), going on a long journey - abroad, enrolling in universities, etc.
- How does a shaman know how many diseases a person has?
S.F. Only man knows how many diseases a person has. The shaman cannot find out; in general, one can determine whether a person is sick or not.
- Don’t go to church? Do you believe in anything?
all holy, shamanism coincides with Buddhism - one god, although the Buddhist church does not accept us - the lamas believe that we shamanists communicate with the world of the dead. And we treat our ancestors as guardian spirits. If you don’t contact them, don’t pray to them, they may get angry.
- Can a shaman help people of other nationalities?
We can provide assistance to other nationalities, especially if they live in the Buryat shaman lands.
- Why don’t shamans build churches and datsans to perform their prayer services?
There is no need for such buildings, nature itself is a holy temple. It has holy places - especially places of worship. Therefore, there is no need for a temple there. It should always be clean and tidy, people should not litter there. This is a real living temple.
- You often travel around the world, for what purpose?
S.F. I travel around the world – to other villages and cities, if asked. So I went to Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, the villages of Kutulik, Novonukutsk. Yes, and they come to me from other areas - from the Osinsky district, village. Osy, Bokhansky district, village. Taras (who has ancestors from our place).
- Tell us about your attributes, how do they help you?
S.F. I use modest attributes - my father’s belt, wooden cups for milk, tarasuna always with me and herbs (fir, thyme, with the help of which the ritual of purification by fire is carried out).
- What is Kamlanie for a shaman?
– according to scientific theory, the translation is obtained from a shamanic ritual. It's like a prayer. Kamlanie is a prayer in the Russian style.
- What real power does a word have for a shaman?
S.F. The word is very important, it raises the spirit of love, healing, liberation, etc. in a person.
- It turns out that words do not disappear anywhere, do not evaporate in the air, but always materialize?
they don’t disappear anywhere, they are materialistic.
-Who are soul catchers? How to recognize soul catchers today?
S.F. There are soul catchers. In Russian they practice black magic. In Russian - such people cause strong fear in a person, that is, they unbalance people unexpectedly in order to steal their soul, with which they will live better. And that person will become apathetic towards everything, he may get sick and soon die.
- Is there a specialization of shamans - black shaman, white shaman? Which one do you associate yourself with?
S.F. Yes, there are black shamans, and there are white ones. Black people, I think, are charlatans. Those people who have accepted this rank perform rituals for the sake of money and earnings. These are black shamans. They bring harm, first of all, to themselves. I come from the white shamans. I simply could not take the black path.
The Dutch scientist G. Wilken wrote: “A shaman is a sick, weak person, suffering from a nervous disease and often insanity... Shamanic ecstasy belongs to hysterical epilepsy and hypnosis, definitely to somnambulism.” Is there truth in these words?
S.F. G. Wilken is partly right, there are shamans who go into ecstasy, they do this deliberately in order to hypnotize people.
- Why are shamans called people from the social norm? How are they different from ordinary people?
S.F. IN ordinary life shamans are no different. They are the same people.
One of the shamans declared himself this way: “I go to work by car, and don’t fly out of the window on a tambourine.” How can you say about yourself?
S.F. The shaman is not Baba Yaga, he is an ordinary person. It's more of a fairy tale. I travel by car now, sometimes on a tractor - during the rainy seasons, thaw, I had to ride on a fuel tanker, a milk tanker, that is, on all types of transport, sometimes I rode on a horse in a cart. Previously, shamans rode horses and carts. Now is the time for foreign cars.
- Has the attitude towards the shaman changed in society today compared to Soviet times?
S.F. Yes, now is a different time - free. In Soviet times, this was prohibited; they practiced shamanism at night. I remember from childhood Bilbuun Bayanov the shaman, who came to us at night and performed shamanism.
- Isn’t it time to organize training for shamans at some Russian university?
S.F. Training in shamanism is impossible. Shamanism is not even considered a religion in classical religious studies, although it is both a religion and a faith.
The literature describes that in the past shamans successfully searched for lost people and pets. Is this possible now?
S.F. To search for people and animals, you need to be not a shaman, but a psychic. In the old days they said this about the shaman. Now people are turning to healers.
- By the way, they say that a real master will never take payment for his work.
S.F. A true shaman never sets a fee.
- Do you get paid for the rituals?
have no right to take payment. Another thing is gifts. What people can give is their gratitude.
- For you, as a shaman, are there any taboos or rules?
S.F. There are rules and taboos - you don’t need to use shamanism when you’re sick, there aren’t any special ones.
- What is the role of shamanism in our turbulent world?
S.F. The role of shamanism is great - to return people to folk memory, genetic self-determination, and the preservation of peace in society and in nature.
We thanked Sofya Fadeevna for the interesting interview and, having analyzed the answers, came to the conclusion: probably the shaman really goes beyond the social norm of his society, and in this sense he is abnormal, although outwardly they give the impression ordinary person. But, most likely, those scientists who insist on his mental health are right. It is difficult to imagine that all the many shamanic-type communities that exist around the globe are composed of mentally ill people. After all, not only the shaman himself, but also his fellow tribesmen, since they believe him, must have a similar mental structure.
There is no more reason to consider them all crazy on this basis than for an atheist to consider any Christian participating in the Eucharistic sacrament to be crazy. And if you at least admit subjective reality spiritual world, then the phenomenon of shamanism becomes easily explainable: communicating every day with spirits, accepting them into himself, ascending and descending in their abode, the shaman will certainly seem “strange,” “possessed,” “ecstatic.” That's what he is. But his strangeness and obsession are explained by his belonging simultaneously to two worlds - the human world and the demonic world. The shaman himself and his fellow tribesmen are absolutely sure of this.
The shaman comes from a social norm, although all his actions are permeated with internal logic - this is how wrong actions create disharmony in a person and the world, breaking the connection that connects all three worlds. And the goal of the shaman’s life is to restore this broken connection, bringing all worlds into balance and fulfilling the will of the highest gods even in the lowest of the worlds. Therefore, the shaman’s duty is not to provide “one-time help”, but to take care of maintaining the “divine balance” and helping people who find themselves out of this balance and suffer from various psychophysical diseases, which explains the cause of many diseases and other human misfortunes - violation of the principles of life defined ancient gods at the time of the creation of the world.
A shaman can be called nothing more than a stalker, a guide between worlds, and therefore he will have to be ready to perform any task that the gods give him - to heal, predict the weather, read love spells, etc. There is nothing special about this - it’s just one of components the great repeating cosmological cycle that ancient civilizations believed in. He must maintain contact with the guardian spirits, being, as it were, a “spirit specialist.”
Bibliography
1. G. A. Wilken. Het schamaniwsme bij de volken van den lndischen Archipel // Verspreide geschriften. D.III. s"Gravcnhage, 1912. P. 325.
2. Bogoraz. On the psychology of shamanism among the peoples of North-East Asia // Ethnographic Review. M., 1910. No. 1–2. pp. 3–5.
3. Gomboev Eternal Blue Sky. Shamanism. Holy unquenchable faith./ . – Ulan-Ude: n-p, 2010. – 336 p. pp. 240-241]
4. Cult of ongons in Siberia // Remnants of totemism in the ideology of Siberian shamans. M.-L., 1936. P. 363.
5. Zelenin of Siberian shamanism.// News of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Ser. total Sci. 1935.No. 8.
6. Zelenin ongons in Siberia. M.-L., 1936.
7. Revunenkova of Malaysia and Western Indonesia. M., 1980.
8. Origin and Meaning of the Concept of Shamanism http://www. *****/religions-392-1.html
9. Space and history... P. 167–168.
10. Essays on Yakut folklore. M., 1974. P. 178.
Initially, only women could be shamans, and this “property” was transmitted exclusively through the female line. Fire priestesses in ancient times were always women, no matter what cult, be it shamanism or Ancient Egypt, even ancient Slavic... “Keeper of the Hearth” - that’s where it came from. And shamanism itself is probably the most ancient pagan religion. For example, let’s look at the “feminine principle” of ancient Siberian shamanism:
Paleolithic figurines of women, “spirit mistresses of different elements” were found by Asian explorer A.P. Okladnikov during the Lena historical and archaeological expedition of 1941-1943. In the Lena River basin, 28 sites with Paleolithic finds were discovered. Women of that distant era were considered super-powerful beings. Kinship was recognized only through the female line. Household subordinated completely to the woman-mother. She was independent and occupied a leading, dominant position in society.
According to the orientalist scholar G. Ts. Tsybikov, “The first priests were women.” They were obliged to watch the fire and make an offering to it. As guardians of household shrines, cult ministers were depicted on rocks. Female figurines were made from stone, bone, and mammoth ivory. The first shaman was a woman (“utgan” - ut-fire, gan-feminine), who received the gift of shamanism from an eagle - a priestess of fire, the first servant of the cult. Other researchers also say that shamanism is genetically connected with the maternal lineage, that women played a big role in the formation and development of shamanic ideology: K. Rychkov, A. Zolotarev, A. Anisimov, S. Purevzhav.
Many peoples of Siberia have a whole cycle of Udagan mythology.
Early epic tales are especially rich in divine maidens. Heavenly shamans carry out the will of Urun Aiyy Toyon and protect the ayyy heroes. They revive the dead, heal the wounded, and fight the evil shamans of the lower world. They have attributes: a shaman costume, a tambourine and a mallet.
In general, among the inhabitants of the upper world there are no male shamans, there are only divine Udagan maidens. Only in the lower world are the shamans and shamans of the abaas who are the sole rulers.
In the middle world, the image of a woman acts as the foremother of everything living and everything growing. The personified image of the mistress of the land Aan Alakhchyn is endowed with the qualities of an udagan shaman. She is both a prophetess of heroic destinies, and a defender of a protected country, and an invisible sorceress of the middle land.
The ancient cult of the mother goddess and the Udagan shaman was preserved in vestigial forms among the Siberian peoples until the beginning of the 20th century. In historical folklore there is whole line legends and traditions that testify to the stable nature of religious beliefs confirming the strength and power of women shamans. One story, recorded by G.V. Ksenofontov in 1925, says verbatim as follows: “The shaman had a younger sister, a shaman of light, heavenly spirits. Dissatisfied with the actions of her elder brother-shaman, she left his monastery forever. And through the smoke hole, turning into a bird, she flew away to the celestials. The shaman brother could not hold her. His sister, as a shaman, was stronger than him. The second case confirming the supremacy of the Udagan women over shamans is described in the widespread cycle of stories about the Udagan woman Alysardaakh. She was destined to become a great shaman. She had to be raised and initiated into udaganka by great shamans. Shaman Ekecheen immediately admits that he will not be able to teach her the craft of witchcraft, since the soul of the future Udagan woman Alysardaakh was raised much higher than the nest of the shaman Ekecheen.
If you delve further into the depths of mythological and historical folklore, then there is quite a lot of information about female shamanism, about the strength and power of udagankas.
For example, some modern nations still have beliefs that in order for a man to receive a shamanic gift, it takes time, training, etc., but in order for him to perfectly master shamanic knowledge, he needs to become a “real woman.” Hence the female attributes in clothing, habits, hairstyle, and there are even real “transformed shamans”; they, taking the imitation of female nature to the extreme limit, become the most powerful shamans, combining two principles - male and female. For male shamans who retain their gender, “spirit girls” are often assistants and mentors. 
Yes... and about the “damn mother” who absorbs everything and everyone!
…. this is the truth that gives birth to everything and everyone, if we are to be completely objective and look at the coin from both sides))) “from dust to dust you will return”...
In all cosmic processes, the interconnection of two principles is clearly visible - male (idea) and female (creation/birth). Both of these principles must be united in a higher reality, but it is the feminine cosmic principle that represents the dominant force in the Universe and occupies a dominant position in all the most ancient religious systems. In total, the creative process of creation begins and it does not come “out of nothing,” it takes “matter” (energy) from the endless ocean of feminine energy (dust of the earth, prana, water of life), where it comes from the destruction of life-elements that have served their purpose. Some kind of cycle.
Let's look:
Bible - “... created man from the dust of the ground...” - dust-prana-energy of life-feminine.
The Mother Goddess represented the Earth or Nature, which contains the creative power of all life.
Slavic mythology - Mokosh, the goddess of fertility, who spins endless yarn - the all-pervading energy of the universe. Mokosh, Madder, Sea, Mor, Mara are consonant names associated with the water element, with the living and dead principles.
In the Akkadian pantheon - the mother goddess Aruru, who creates the hero of the epic of Gilgamesh Enkidu from clay, she is also the creator of people, who determined their destinies.
The ancient Arabs worshiped the sky and rain goddess Allat, who was associated with the Kaaba in Mecca, a shrine of pre-Muslim times.
The cult of the mother goddess, fertility, love and water Anahita was widespread in Armenia.
The ancient Persians worshiped the goddess of purity and purity, Anahita. In the names of these goddesses there is a clear connection with the name of the heart chakra - Anahata - the place of love.
In the mythology of the Ingush and Chechens, the goddess Aza is known - the patroness of all living things. In some myths, she acts as the mother of the sun.
Ancient Egypt - Maat - the mother of the world. Hathor is the oldest mother goddess who was revered as the heavenly cow who gave birth to the sun. Well, etc…. 
Here's another:
According to the rules of sacred geometry, since ancient times, straight lines have been considered masculine, and curved lines – feminine. Geometric symbols expressing the feminine principle include an arc, a spiral, but the most important feminine form on Earth is a sphere (ball, circle). The sphere is the mother. Along with the cube ( male form), these are the two most important forms in all of Reality when it comes to the original relationships in Creation.
The sphere form is present everywhere, it is the source of everything. The basis of our entire existence is made of “balls” - spheres of various sizes. Atoms are spheres, we live on a sphere - the Earth. The Moon, Sun, stars are spheres. The entire Universe - from macrocosm to microcosm - is created from small spheres in one way or another. Light waves moving through space are also spheres; they travel spherically.
….. The shape of a sphere (ball, circle) is the most feminine shape on Earth.
Masculinity should not be effeminate. The man is an ideologist. And as the “ideas” are, so is the creation. This is what we have so far: after all, any “idea” comes to life... and is absorbed by death, giving life to something new.
Isdzan - Apache Woman by Howard Terpning
I once lived in a slave camp,” she said, handing him a bowl of buffalo berries. - I was a slave for 12 years.
- How did you escape? - he asked with interest.
“I ran away as soon as my daughter turned 12,” she answered. - My master was also a slave. In fact, all the people in that camp were slaves and did not know it.
- If everyone was a slave, what or who kept you in subjection? - he asked. - Are you serious?
“Very seriously,” she smiled. - Our master was the law, our tradition. I lived alone with a man and a child. He was from the Black Lodge people. Each family lived separately, each in its own wigwam. The women of the camp never helped each other, and each woman raised her own children. The men of the camp were engaged in hunting and farming. Each family had its own corn garden. Nobody ever helped anyone. Men would gather together to hunt, but after the hunt they would cultivate the land separately. It was terrible.
I was looked after very well. My husband loved me and tried to please me in everything. As a woman, I lived inside and ran my little world, my wigwam. But on the outside I was helpless. The most amazing thing was that even though the men made the laws and ran the camp, they too were helpless. (…) If a woman’s husband died, she was left alone until she found a new husband. She was losing everything. Your own wigwam - that's all. The wigwam and garden went to the husband's parents.
- Incredible stupidity! - The Dancing Tree laughed. - There is enough land for everyone. From the center of each camp the land extends ten thousand steps,” he laughed again.
“But it wasn’t like that in that camp,” she frowned. - It was strictly forbidden to create one yourself new garden. All the land in the camp, as far as the eye could see, was divided into plots and divided among the people. Breaking the law in that camp meant exile or death.
For many years I have not seen anything wrong with such an organization - nothing. I still get amazed when I think about it! I didn't understand the madness and loneliness of our lives until my daughter was seven winters old.
I will always remember how my awakening began. I was working in the garden when my sister came running to me. I saw that she was crying. I asked what happened. and she replied that her husband separated from her, threw her out into the street for another woman. We had no other family in the camp - we were new arrivals. We had no one - no brothers, no sisters, no one.
My sister was seven years older than me, very beautiful woman. Her husband abandoned her, claiming that she was infertile. It was hunting time and the men had just left camp. My sister came to me and we were thinking about what to do. The only unmarried person in the camp was a terrible, withered old man who had a lot of land and even more power. According to the law, the sister would have to marry this man. The situation was dire.
We went to seek advice from a woman called the Elder Mother. She wasn't older than us, as you might think, but she was rich. She had parents and many sons. We talked to her about my sister. Her only advice was that her sister should do something useful. I asked her what she meant by "useful" and she said that if my sister could do something that men couldn't, she would keep her place in the camp. If not, then she will have to marry the only man left.
My sister and I were still waiting for my husband to return. We desperately needed help and he was the only one we could turn to. When he finally came, we told him about our problem. I will never forget that day. My husband's answer stunned me. I was so paralyzed with fear and disgust that I just stood there and shook.
- What could he say that was so terrible? - The Dancing Tree smiled.
“He said my sister only has two options,” she said, looking into his eyes. - Only two. One is to marry an old man. The second is to buy a husband from another camp. There were no horses in those days. The nearest camp was twelve days' journey away. It was a dangerous journey. And I know what he meant by “buying a husband”! What he really meant was to sell my sister, just as she and I were sold by our parents. I even knew the price. One journey would cost twenty feather belts and twenty blankets. This was the price for the escort that would be required.
We both begged my husband to let my sister stay with us until next spring. We hoped, of course, that something would change. Our tears and pleas convinced him to ask the council for permission. He was not a man who would go against the authorities. He was afraid of advice.
We held our breath. He was gone all day. We were harvesting the garden and everyone was looking over our shoulders to see if he was coming. Late in the evening he finally returned. I asked him where he had been and why it took him so long to return. He replied that he had spent the evening gambling.
“Speak quickly,” I said, “what did the council say?” He yawned and said that the council had allowed his sister to stay. We cried with joy! But by the time of the first snow, when the winter dance began, my joy turned to tears. I was returning from the river when suddenly I heard sounds near the place where we stored corn underground. I discovered that the sounds were coming from the kiva corn. I began to peer closely, fearing that something had happened. I saw that my sister went out to collect corn. My husband followed her and tried to rape her.
I just stood there like a stalk of dry grass. Something inside me snapped, as if a bowstring had snapped. I didn't care that my husband wanted to make love to my sister. That's not what worried me! I started crying because now I felt what so many women before me had felt. I used to sometimes walk around in horror, knowing that one day I could be the woman who would be left behind, but I never allowed myself to think about it. In fact, over time, I began to look down on it, thinking that it would never happen to me. I dreamed of the day when I would have wealth and grandchildren. Now I understood that if my husband left me, I would have nothing, I would not be able to do anything, and that only he, my husband, gave me the right to be an individual in the camp. It was at that moment that I fully realized my slave position.
That night, lying next to my husband, I did not sleep. I thought about other women around me. I thought about my daughter. I thought about dancing and advice. I saw everything as it was - nothing! It was as if I was standing on a mountain and looking at the people from my camp. I looked at the children. I watched them play. They were lonely, as lonely as the mothers waiting for them. I have seen mothers raising children completely alone. I watched children grow up and become just like me and other men and women. I watched as women were married off to other wigwams, where they would be just as lonely. I looked and tears flowed for them.
The next morning I asked my sister if her husband had raped her. She replied that he would have done it if I had not passed by.
By the time of the Spring Dance Preparations, I was completely relegated to a corner. My husband didn't even sleep with me anymore. He slept with his sister, who was afraid to stop him. She and I talked a lot about it and tried to think about escaping. I shared all my thoughts with her, and she with me. When the time came for the End of the Sowing Dance, we both knew we had to run. We collected food and blankets and hid them by the river. Late that night we took our two dogs and two more dogs stolen from the Rain Helping family and quietly slipped away from the camp.
We traveled for sixty days. We were exhausted, ragged and close to starvation when we met the Two Singing Horns. It was a young man, from a tribe calling itself the People. (...) He took us to his village, where they fed us and gave us clothes. We both became part of that People, and I never left them.
“I don’t understand everything in your story,” the Dancing Tree frowned. - How was the attitude towards you different in the second camp?
“They treated me like a person,” she smiled. - To a real person. My child was a child among other children. All children belonged to the People. All children were brothers and sisters. There was equality, joy and laughter among the People. The advice was equal. Half of its members were men, half were women. Shamans, women and men, were equal. Nobody owned the land! No one owned the other person. Everyone had the right to speak out. If the People didn't like the laws, they changed them. All the people worked together. We all participated in the work. Each wigwam was separate and had power in itself, but each of them was part of a single circle, the entire camp. No woman was a slave to a man in that camp. There was no competition between women for food and wealth, and never for a husband! If a woman's husband died, the circle of People took care of her. What a wonderful place to raise my daughter!
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Altai women shamans
The status of the female shaman in the Altai culture was quite high. This can be judged by the stories in folklore about girls/women/old women shamans who act as heroines or assistants to the main positive hero, for example, in a heroic epic. However, the negative hero also has them. Even if some female characters are not directly called shamans, they still perform such functions. Women endowed with unusual abilities are told in historical legends and stories.
Today, Altai people have the opinion that a female shaman is obviously weaker than a male shaman, since she is burdened with reproductive function. In traditional culture, it is believed that a woman cannot fully perform shamanic duties until she has raised children.
There are exceptions when the shamanic disease manifests itself in girls. These girls are “guided” by the bashtandyrar - more experienced, respected shamans who determine the future path of the “patient”. A young shaman, for example, can then treat children or adults, i.e. a certain age category. But, at the same time, newly initiated young shamans are recommended to “specialize” in children due to their sacred purity. Since the youngest shaman is about to become a mother, she must therefore protect herself from “impurity”, which she will not be able to resist if she deals with the problems of adults. In the case of early initiation (in adolescence, for example), as a rule, a young shaman is doomed to loneliness, childlessness and a short life span.
Altai women shamans these days are mainly engaged in treatment, predictions, and correction of human destiny. The main goal of shamanic treatment is to strengthen the “protective belt” - kurchuu, the weakening of which leads to a person falling ill. Thus, in general terms, they continue the tradition, encompassing the circle of daily duties of any woman, called uy-kizhi “person of the house” or “household person.”
The shamanic gift, like any other talent, is inherited by a person from his ancestors and relatives. It is inherited through direct and lateral branches of kinship. If a person inherits this gift from both the maternal and paternal lines, he receives power doubled by two genealogical traditions. These, obviously, are those who are popularly considered shamans uktukam, that is, initiates.
Despite the fact that it should be added that a male shaman is considered stronger than a female shaman, there are no fewer people wanting to receive the latter’s help. As a rule, in choosing a specialist of this kind, a person trusts his intuition, based not only on the stories of patients, but also on signs, dreams, etc., or follows the recommendations of other “knowledgeable people”.
The private life of these women is full of unanswerable questions. Relationships with others, friends, relatives are problematic, since every person who is not endowed with a special gift experiences, if not fear, then, at the very least, wariness in relation to them. Extensive practical opportunities, some of which are sometimes attributed to shamans, the priority of masculinity in the culture of the Altai people, and the ongoing modernization leave their mark on their position in society. At the same time, no one freed female shamans from their feminine responsibilities, the most important of which is maintaining relationships with relatives by blood, clan, and marriage. They run their own household, raise children and grandchildren, like ordinary women.
Using the example of life stories of modern Altai shamans, one can illustrate the complexity of the complex “sacredness /traditional culture/ modern society“not so much in terms of its research, but in everyday life.
