Shaman
A person who have magic powers resulting from contact with the supernatural, often through dreams and trances.
Something of a medicine man/priest/healer, yet the shaman is more than that. While a medicine man will tend to the sick, working with herbs, barks and the like, the shaman works more on the psychological level. He will go down on "a journey" for the benefit of the one who is ill; he will direct sacrifices, he will seek out new knowledge, and he will accompany the spirits of the dead on their journey to the afterlife.
The word shaman comes from the Siberian tribal language of Tungus (of the Ural-Altaic peoples of the arctic and central Asian regions), though the practice of shamanism is by no means limited to that area. The Eskimos, Maoris, Polynesians, Mongolians and the American Indians are some of the peoples that believe in the abilities of shamans. Their powers are often believed to be hereditary and their assistants ancestral spirits. Many have to undergo initiation ceremonies before fully realizing their powers.
Members of the societies in which shamans operate believe that the human soul can leave its body and that this results in illness. Shamans alone can enter the spirit world and recapture the soul, returning it to the sick individuals, thereby restoring health.
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Sources: (1) Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopedia of Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (2) Pickering, David, Cassell Dictionary of Witchcraft, Cassell Academic; (3) The Encyclopaedia Britannica Eleventh Edition Handy Volume Edition, Oxford University Press.
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