ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that shamanism was not merely a religious practice or a rite, but a system of beliefs with its own specific cosmologies, and thus a religious complex in its own right. Thus, shamanism forms a religious belief system based on religious experience and sacred myths, as well as on rites that find expressions through culturally-specific shamanistic techniques, in which trance or ecstasy play a prominent role. The development of shamanism and hunting magic was almost inevitable. The adaptive features of shamanism enhance the life of a community that subsists by hunting animals and gathering wild plants. The principle of duality, although an inherent part of shamanistic cosmology, does not necessarily imply that the shaman's worldview is dichotomous. In the course of its long history as a cultural feature among mankind, shamanism endeavored to unravel the universal enigmas: the origins of the cosmos, the earth, men, animals, and plants.
