spirits who controlled their fates. So-called medicine men serve a similar function
and are comparable to the Apollonine oracles of Ancient Greece (Bailey, 1998:170).
On the issue of gender variation, Eliade notes that:
... among the Araucanians, shamanism is practiced by women; in
earlier times, it was the prerogative of sexual inverts
[ homosexuals]. A like situation is found among the Chukchee:
the majority of shamans are inverts and sometimes even take
husbands; but even when they are sexually normal their spirit
guides oblige them to dress as women (Eliade, 1951:125).
Eliade goes on to explain:
There is a class of Chukchee shamans who undergo a change of
sex. They are the ‘soft men’ or men ‘similar to women’, who
receiving a command from the ke let [ spirit] , have exchanged their
male clothing and behaviour for those of women and have even
finally married other men. Usually, the ke let’s bidding is obeyed
only in part: the shaman dresses as a woman, but he continues to
cohabit with his wife and to have children.... Ritual transformation
into a woman also occurs among the Kamchadal, the Asiatic
Eskimo, and the Koryak ... the phenomenon is not confined to
north-eastern Asia; transvestitism and ritual change of sex are
found, for example, in I ndonesia (the manang bali of the Sea
Dyak), in South American (Patagonians and Araucanians) and,
among certain North American tribes (Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ute,
etc.) (Eliade, 1951:257-258).
An interesting cross-cultural and historical examination by Conner on
gender-variant shamans, priests, magicians and artists, describes an engraved
drawing which appears on a wall of the Addayra cave near Palermo, Sicily and
which was executed around 10,000 B.C.E., the drawing:
... is undoubtedly one of the most provocative works of Upper
Palaeolithic art ... depicts a group of superbly drawn bird-masked
male figures engaged in a ritual drama and who were probably ...
participants in rituals [ dedicated to the] Goddess. From the bird
masks, it appears that the men may have been honouring that
aspect of the Great Goddess now referred to as the Bird Goddess.
The bird-masked men are dancing in a circle. They are nude
except for the masks, thick with plumage, which they wear. Their
genitals are visible. At least two of the men have erections
(Conner, 1993:23). [ Tumescence is frequently seen as an
indication of an altered state of consciousness.]
Harold Bloom explains that shamanism is not a religion but a series of
modes of ecstasy, some of which may be starting points for the experience of
Gnosis, for a knowing in which the knower herself is deeply known, a reciprocity of
deep self and tutelary spirit (Bloom, 1996:143). Here Bloom also avers that another