ABSTRACT
The ‘epileptic’ hypothesis appears to be at odds with a great majority of shamanic situations where the shaman acts on behalf of others as well as himself to enquire about the origins of sickness or injury from spirits he encounters in his trance visions. The shaman is intrinsically superior as a result of having been reconstituted by the god at the anvil; the shaman’s gift of magical sight and communication are born of heaven and not of earth. The Vasyugan shaman has a similar number of helper spirits on his journey to the underworld, only in his case a bear is the most notable among his allies. Coupled with the concept of the shaman’s newly-found power is an initiatory dismemberment/rebirth theme which occurs in several forms of shamanism. The dismemberment-rebirth theme is not exclusively associated with Siberian shamanism and also occurs, for example, among Australian Aboriginal ‘men of high degree’.
