shaman
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shaman
1. a priest of shamanism
2. a medicine man of a similar religion, esp among certain tribes of North American Indians
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
shaman
a provider of religio-ethnomedical services in simple societies. Usually a part-time rather than a full-time practitioner, the shaman typically emerges as different from his clients by an ability to enter trance-like states or other abnormal states of consciousness. This is interpreted as involving a special capacity to make contact with and mobilize supernatural powers. The position of the shaman is based on these personal powers; this contrasts with the priest in more differentiated forms of religion, who is recruited to the organization. See also MAGIC, WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY.Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Shaman
a priest in the cult of shamanism. The shaman has the ability to enter into kamlanie, a state of ritual ecstasy, during which, his followers believe, he communicates with spirits. With the spirits’ aid, he can, for example, heal the sick or predict the future.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.