432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



shine, is about to happen, sooner or later anyway, and by shrewd 

 turning to account of accidents he manages to assert and maintain his 

 ascendenc3^ Obviously, it can not be otherwise that many of the 

 divinations and predictions of the shaman are belied by the results, 

 but with childlike credulous peoples one successful instance causes 

 them to ignore or forget all previous failures and deceptions. 



Still the shamans could hardl}'^, for any length of time, keep up 

 the belief in their superiority without convincing the people by 

 "miracles" — that is, by executing feats which exceed the power of 

 the laity to perform or to understand — of their supernatural endow- 

 ments. And, as a matter of fact, according to the testimony of 

 travelers and explorers, some shamans are past masters in the arts 

 of ventriloquism and sleight-of-hand tricks. Thus Bogoras says: 

 " Shamans could, with credit to themselves, carry on a contest with 

 the best practioners of similar arts in civilized countries. The voices 

 are successful imitations of different sounds; human, superhuman, 

 animal, even of tempests and winds, or of an echo, and come from 

 all sides of the room, from without, from above, and from under- 

 ground. The whole of nature may sometimes be represented in the 

 small inner room of the Chukchee," ^* 



" The shamans of the Ostiaks," says Landtman, " strengthen their 

 reputation not infrequently by delusive demonstrations of their in- 

 vulnerability, stabbing themselves with knives in different parts of 

 the body. For the same purpose the shamans of certain Tartar 

 tribes throw themselves into the fire and seize live coals with their 

 hands." ^* " On another occasion," relates Jochelson, " the shaman 

 took his laiife, which Avas sharp and looked like a dagger, and thrust 

 it into his breast up to the hilt, while emitting a rattling sound from 

 his throat. I noticed, however, that after cutting his jacket he 

 turned the laiife downward. He drew out the knife with the same 

 rattling in his throat and resumed beating the drum * * * and 

 returning the laiife to him showed through the hole in his coat the 

 blood on his body. Of course, these spots had been made before." 

 Jochelson adds : '' However, this can not be looked upon as mere 

 deception. Things visible and imaginary are confounded to such 

 an extent in primitive consciousness tliat the shaman himself may 

 have thought that there was, invisible to others, a real gash in his 

 body as has been demanded by the spirits."-^ Czaplicka remarks 

 (p. 233): "The practice of stabbing oneself through the stomach 

 with a knife is universal in Shamanistic performances * * *. It 



^ Quoted in Czaplicka, op. cit., p. 231 ; comp. also W. Jochelson, The Koryak, p. 49, 

 and J. Stadling, " Shamanism " in The Contemporary Review, January, 1001, p. 9G, for 

 graphic descriptions of the mimic talent of shamans and their adeptness In ventrilo- 

 quism. 



** Landtman, op. cit., p. 141 f. 



»« W. Jochelson, The Koryak, p. 52, quoted by Czaplicka, p. 229 f. 



