‘Shamanism: Comparative Ethnographical Essays’ was a work by ethnographer and historian Viktor Mikhailovsky (1846-1904), publ. in 1892. Only the first part of the work, consisting of two essays, was published: ‘The Worldview of Shamanists’ and ‘Shamanism of the Native Population of Siberia and European Russia’. The second issue was to include essays on Shamanism among the peoples inhabiting America, Africa, Australia, and Polynesia, but the book has been never published.
The first essay is started with an appeal to ethnographers for objective research. It is necessary to begin studying Shamanism with an acquaintance with the ‘soil’, the conditions of its shaping. The comparative method, as the author believes, allows us to consider Shamanism not as a religious system, but as a phenomenon that occurs in special conditions in different corners of the globe. Shamanism is a product of primitive consciousness, trying to protect itself from harsh nature, and to take control over it. The author notes that achieving such task is available only to elected, gifted members of the community, who serve as intermediaries between the world of people and the world of spirits. At the same time, following E. Taylor, the author considers the primordial man as a thinker who asks questions about soul, death and immortality. Speaking about objects accompanying the deceased, the author deduces the idea of a material soul inherent in primordial peoples. Then, he describes conceptions of the afterlife typical for various nations – from the transmigration of souls to the depiction of the underground worlds. A reason for a ‘separation of the soul’ from the body can be a disease, a swoon, an epileptic seizure, misinterpreted by people of archaic cultures. In general, the author treats Animism, which prevailed in the minds of primordial people, explaining both their belief in the transmigration of souls and spiritual beings, who own the world. Along with the cult of ancestors, the author notes the veneration of animals, which is common for Shamanists.
The second essay, ‘Shamanism among peoples of Siberia and European Russia’, is devoted to the characterization of Russian Shamanism and its comparison with similar phenomena in other nations. The activity of Shamans, as the author notes, is the same in almost all ethnic groups. The central element of this activity is the rite, the details of which the author describes in details, on the base of information about the Siberian peoples: Tungus, Yakuts, Votyaks, Altai tribes, Buryats, etc. The author describes the rite of initiation into Shamans. Concluding the essay and the entire issue, M. once again reminds of the recurrence of such a phenomenon as Shamanism among heterogeneous tribes.
Written from the position of the animistic theory by Taylor, the work was highly appreciated by the evolutionist ethnographer L.N. Shternberg, who noted ‘Shamanism’ as the only really scholarly contemporary research on Shamanism.