ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights several violence-related topics. The result is a complex and multidimensional mosaic map, which serves the goal of detailing and exploring the role, purpose and phenomenology of violence and its relation to shamanism across a wide range of different contexts. Shamans are soul-hunters, warriors and leaders, they use magical weapons, they battle bravely against evil forces, witches and witchcraft, and they can restore social and physical balance and health. Shamans' paraphernalia not only include weapons and armour: the whole ritual apparatus is conceived as a fight, ending only when the evil influences are destroyed, killed or banished from this world after being lured into a simulacrum or a sacrificial substitute of the patient. The book explores several dimensions of shamanic violence, with special reference to Chinese minorities and Korean shamanism.
