418 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



the Jersu (earth) lords can be approached directly by ordinary 

 men, who offer them gifts or revere them by casting a stone on a 

 pile, or sing them hymns of praise. 



Contrary to these are the dwellers in the nine strata of the nether- 

 world, the evil spirits with their King Erlik Kan, enemies of man 

 who endeavor to harm him. From Erlik issue all misfortunes, from 

 poverty to death. He also seduces men to sin. From birth to death 

 there is a struggle between the good spirits and the evil ones about 

 man. At the birth of a human being a good spirit is sent down by Bai 

 Ulgan to supply it with life from the " sea of milk," and ever after 

 to remain at his right shoulder, guiding him aright. But simul- 

 taneously Erlik sends up a devil from below to stand at the left 

 shoulder and mislead him. At death the soul goes to Erlik to be 

 judged by him, and both spirits give a record of his deeds. If the 

 good deeds predominate, the soul is delivered by the good spirit from 

 the realm of darkness and carried to the third heaven; if evil is 

 greater than good, it is dragged to hell and cast into a gigantic 

 caldron filled with boiling tar. Erlik is nevertheless called " Father " 

 Erlik, "because all men belong to him, and at the end he takes the 

 lives of all." * 



Now, only the earth lords can be approached directly by ordinary 

 men without an intermediary priest. Far different is it with the 

 great lords of the upper and the under world. They must be ap- 

 proached through the mediation of the spirits of the dead — in case 

 of the good gods through the Somo, the nine guardian ancestors of 

 men. But the power to control the ancestral and other spirits is in- 

 herent only in certain families. This power manifests itself when 

 a member of such a family is seized with an ecstasy and becomes 

 inspired and in this state is able to act in the capacity of an inter- 

 * mediary between man and the spirits. 



To sum up the above delineation of the world view of Shamanism, 

 it may be said its philosopliy is the personification of the forces of 

 nature, the view of the world as pervaded by spiritual agencies. 

 Man stands under the influence of two opposite powers, the power 

 of light and the power of darkness. The first, obviously, dwells in 



* Erlik is in many of his aspects a counterpart in Shamanistic mythology of Ahriman 

 (Angromainyus) in Zoroastrian theology. The conception of two spirits, one good and 

 one evil, accompanying maa through life and recording his deeds after death, has some 

 analogy in Jewish and Mohammedan lore. " Two angels — one good and one evil — accom- 

 pany man as he returns from the synagogue to his home on Sabbath," Talmud, Shabbath, 

 119." " The two augels who accompany man testify as to his behavior," Talmud, Hagi- 

 gah IG'. Mohammedan sources also assign two angels to accompany each person through 

 life, the one at his right recording his good deeds, the one at his left his evil doings. 

 Compare Koran, Sura xiii, 12 : " Each man has a succession of angels before and behind 

 him, they watch him by the command of God " ; and Sura L, 16 : " When the two angels 

 deputed to take account of a man's behavior take an account thereof, one sitting on the 

 right hand and the other on the left : he uttereth not a word " ; that is, in the hour of 

 death the two angels write down the actions of man, the one on the right the good ones, 

 the one on the left the bad, and man can not produce an excuse for the latter. 



