Shamanism is often seen as the paragon of animism. Shamanism has been the object of approaches so diverse (and is itself so multiform) that a short recap is essential before coming to the exemplary case of the hunting peoples of the Siberian forest in the pre-Soviet period. They are exemplary, first, because it is from the language of the Tungus people that the term “shaman” comes. But they are exemplary especially because shamanism occupies a central position in their societies: it governs hunting according to animist conceptions which legitimate it and make it possible; it manages the ensuing relations – both with the natural environment and within society. And this conception adapts to other contexts, as I will show through an outline of the concept of spirit in contemporary Siberia.

A WESTERN CONCEPT

The concept of shamanism is a Western construction, which developed in several stages. The first observers (at the end of the seventeenth century) were Russian Orthodox clergy for whom the shaman was a religious character and a dangerous rival suspected of being in the service of the devil because of his extravagant cries and gesticulations, in contrast to the restrained contemplation of the Christian (van Gennep 1903; Pascal 1938; Delaby 1976; Hamayon 2003; Stépanoff 2005). This perception anchored the idea that in shamanism there is a link between the state of the soul and bodily expression.