Yup'ik Shaman Masks

For many generations the Yup'ik (real) people of Alaska have created beautifully expressive masks for their traditional dances and ceremonies. Over the long winter darkness, dances and storytelling took place in the qasgiq (communal men's house) using these masks to honor and connect to the beings that made life possible in the Arctic environment. The masks were said to have made the unseen world visible. Masked dancing was once at the heart of Yup'ik spiritual and social life. It was a bridge between the ancient and the new, the living and the dead and a person's own power and the greater powers of the unseen world.

Many of the masks were visual representations of the shaman's journeys into the spirit world and often portrayed spirit helpers. The shaman either carved the masks himself or directed their carving. Masks were carved from driftwood collected on the shores and painted with natural pigments. The symbolic meaning of color varies with the creator of the mask and the story he or she is relating. Recurring colors include red which may sometimes symbolize life, blood, or give protection to the mask's wearer; black which sometimes represents death or the afterlife; and white which sometimes can mean living or winter. Painted spots appear on many masks and even on some participants. They represent snowflakes, stars, or eyes, depending on the mask's story. As in healing, the artist's touch may have been as significant as the mark left behind.

Masks were decorated with teeth, beads, animal hides, feathers and other organic materials related to the story being portrayed. They differ in size from forehead and finger 'maskettes' to enormous constructions that dancers need external supports to perform with. Ingenious theatrical devices were created and hung from the roof of the communal house, and beautiful costumes were sewn, all as part of a complex enactment of sacred stories.

After Christian contact in the late nineteenth century, masked dancing was suppressed, and today it is not practiced as it was before in the Yup'ik villages. However, the art of making masks is once again making its way into the traditional lifestyles of the Yup'ik. The elders are trying to get the young people involved and it's still a work in progress, but the revival of mask making is a hopeful story of Yup'ik continuity. 

"Drumming for the Orisa"

Colin Townsend is a cultural anthropologist and drummer who published a study on the ways identity is constructed among a group of drummers at Oyotunji Village, South Carolina. Oyotunji Village was founded by Oba Oseijeman I, born Walter King of Detroit, in 1970 with the purpose of providing African-Americans in the United States with a geographical, political, and cultural space to experience African culture. Modeled after Yoruba culture of southwest Nigeria, members of the community practice a religion known as orisa-voodoo.

Throughout the year, festivals are held dedicated to various orisa, "deities," in which the drummers play a crucial role in the religious experience of the orisa-voodoo adherents. An essential part of Yoruba culture, drumming acts as a musical bridge between humans and orisa, enabling orisa-voodoo practitioners to petition the orisa for guidance and intervention in their daily lives. Drumming traditions at Oyotunji Village provide drummers with a repository of cultural knowledge and practices from which to draw, while at the same time offering them a creative outlet capable of reshaping and redefining those very same traditions.

Townsend examines various processes of identity formation among the drummers as part of their musical apprenticeship, during which they learn not only how to play the instrument but also about Yoruba culture in general. He employs an analytical framework involving a "subject-centered musical ethnography" within a three-dimensional space of musical experience including time, location, and metaphor. Read "Drumming for the Orisa: (Re)inventing Yoruba Identity in Oyotunji Village."

To learn more about African drumming, I highly recommend Sule Greg Wilson's informative book, The Drummer's Path: Moving the Spirit with Ritual and Traditional Drumming. Wilson provides a useful introduction to the many different styles of traditional African drumming. This is an intriguing work that shows the relationship between drumming, spirit and health. His writing offers an interesting insight into the physical, metaphysical and spiritual aspects of drumming.

"Awaken the Inner Shaman"

Dr. José Luis Stevens, a psychotherapist and leading shamanic teacher, has published a new book, Awaken the Inner Shaman: A Guide to the Power Path of the Heart. According to Dr. Stevens, "the inner shaman is the wise one within each one of us....shamanically speaking, it's the one that's plugged into spirit." In this practical and informative guide, Dr. Stevens describes the human heart as the best place to access the inner shaman. The heart is a portal to the greater wisdom and knowing within -- and stepping into the power and responsibility we possess to shape and serve our world. In Awaken the Inner Shaman, Dr. Stevens challenges us to reclaim our lost power to heal, see truly, and fulfill our purpose in life. As Dr. Stevens writes: "The Inner Shaman, suppressed and ignored for centuries, can be discovered in the most obvious place possible -- within your own heart."

I also recommend Dr. Stevens's informative book Secrets of Shamanism: Tapping the Spirit Power Within You (1988), which was among the first books I read about shamanism. It is a useful introductory guide to personal shamanic practice. It is very easy to read and has lots of information. I keep a copy of this on my bookshelf for reference and recommend it to anyone interested in learning core shamanic techniques.

The Shaman's Rattle

The shaman's rattle is used to invoke the assistance of power animals and helping spirits. It is also possible to direct energy with rattles, much like a magician with a magic wand. Healing energy can be mentally transmitted through the rattle and out into the environment or into a patient's body. Prayer and intention can be broadcast to the spirit world. Moreover, you can create sacred space by describing a circle with the rattle while shaking it.

Among Iroquois medicine societies of present-day central and upstate New York, the gourd rattle is described as the sound of Creation. The creation stories tell of the first sound, a shimmering sound, which went out in all directions; this was the sound of "the Creator's thoughts." The seeds of the gourd rattle embody the voice of the Creator, since they are the source of newly created life. The seeds within the rattle scatter the illusions of the conscious mind, planting seeds of pure and clear mind.

In South America, the shaman's rattle is a most sacred instrument. The rattle is believed to embody the sacred forces of the cosmos through its sounds, structural features, contents, and connection to shamanic trance. The various parts of the rattle also symbolize the structures of the world. The handle is the vertical axis that ascends into the Celestial Realm. The Upper World is represented by the rattle's great head-gourd, which contains spirits. Joining the head of the rattle to the handle symbolizes the joining of masculine and feminine elements in the universe, an act of fertilization that bestows the sound of the instruments creative shamanic power. From a shamanic perspective, caretaking the rattle and playing it properly during ritual fulfills the destiny of the human spirit -- to sustain the order of existence.

Rattles and drums work well together. The repetitive sound of the rattle, like that of the drum, helps induce trance states. The shaking of rattles creates high-pitched frequencies that complement the low frequencies of drumbeats. The high tones of rattles resonate in the upper parts of the body and head. The low tones of drums act primarily on the abdomen, chest, and organs of balance, while stimulating an impulse toward movement. Rattles stimulate higher frequency nerve pathways in the cerebral cortex than do drums. This higher frequency input supplements the low frequency drumbeats, thereby boosting the total sonic effect. Try a rattle and drum shamanic journey.

The Shaman's Drumstick

Drums are an essential part of shamanic work; we use them for journeying, healing and celebration, both for ourselves and for the community. Additionally, the shamanic techniques of divination, extraction and soul retrieval and can all be performed with the drum. It can be used as a spirit boat and carry souls inside it during soul retrievals. The drum may serve as a purifying tool, a spirit-catcher or the shaman's mount.

The drumstick or beater is also a significant shamanic tool and has a powerful spirit and sound of its own. The best drumsticks are made of strong hardwood with a padded, leather covered head. They are usually decorated with fur, feathers, bead work or engraved with sacred symbols. Different beaters work better with different drums to bring out the tone qualities. By using different parts of the drumstick to play on different parts of the drum, different timbres can be produced for transmitting different meanings. There are hard beaters, semi-hard beaters, soft beaters, and rattle beaters, which are simply beaters with a rawhide or gourd rattle attached to the base of the handle opposite the head. The clicking of the rattle adds not only an interesting sound effect, but also produces an offbeat, which adds a new dimension to the sonic experience.

Furthermore, the shaman's drumstick has certain uses independent of the drum. In Tuva (southern Siberia), the rattle beater or orba, with its spoon-shaped head covered with animal fur and metal rings attached for rattling, is in part for practicing divination and drawing the attention of the spirits. The snare sounds associated with metal, stone and bone rattlers attached to beaters and drum frames are described as "spirit voices." When Tuvan drums were being confiscated and destroyed during the times of Soviet repression, some shamans used only their orba for rituals.

Among the Altaians of Siberia, shamans use the orba to invoke helping spirits, collect them into the drum and purify sacred space for ritual. According to M. A. Czaplicka, author of Shamanism in Siberia (2007, p. 171), when the shaman summons the spirits, "His tambourine sounds louder and louder, and he staggers under the burden of the vast number of spirit-protectors collected in it. Now he purifies the host, hostess, their children, and relatives by embracing them in such a way that the tambourine with the spirits collected in it touches the breast and the drumstick the back of each. This is done after he has scraped from the back of the host with the drum-stick all that is unclean, for the back is the seat of the soul."

Thus, drumsticks and drums are used in a variety of ways in shamanic rituals. The first step in learning how to work with these shamanic tools is to connect with the spirits of the instruments. By journeying to connect with the spirits, each shamanic practitioner can find out what a particular drum or drumstick is best suited for, such as divination, journeying, extracting, etc. When you meet the spirit of the instrument, it may teach you some special ways you can use it for your shamanic work that you did not know before. It may have a specific name, purpose or type of energy. Be open to the possibilities.

If the initial communication with the spirit of the instrument is not very clear, that's OK. Journeys like this can be repeated a number of times, in fact it is a good thing to do just to develop an ongoing relationship. You can journey to connect with the spirits of your instruments as often as you like. To learn more, read "Waking the Drum."

The Landscape of Shamanic Knowledge

Anthropologist Benedikte Møller Kristensen lived among the Duha Tuvan reindeer nomads in Northern Mongolia, researching the relation between landscape and shamanic knowledge in post-communist Tuvan society. Duha Tuvans conceive their clan histories and their current problems through the landscape, and they continually create and re-invent the landscape through cosmological symbols, narratives and ritualized experience of space. In spite of violent repression during communist rule, shamanism among Tuvan people has survived up until today, and is now increasing in the Mongolian forests and in the Tuvan cities. The key to its viability seems to be the flexibility inherent in shamanism, where knowledge gained through ritual engagement with spirits in the landscape, rather than a strict cosmological doctrine, is seen as the core of shamanism. Shamanic knowledge of the landscape is used to confront, understand and challenge the turbulent changes which are taking place in this corner of the post-Soviet world. Read more.