Introduction
In indigenous cultures there's are always traditional stories and it is usually the Medicine men in the society that are keepers of those stories.
Often the Medicine man is a person who heals people with medicinal herbs or gives advice and heals by teaching based on the traditional stories and traditional knowledge. Turkic people call the Medicine man Kam and in some places Sham. The origin of the name Shaman is related to the word Sham. There is many misuses of the word Shaman. Shaman should be used to define a Sham or a Kam. In the Great Lakes area in US and Canada there are different types of Medicine men, the Great Lake area versions of a Kam. One of them is a Tchissakiwinini whose work is based on the idea of communication with underworld spirits. Many people think of a Shaman being magician or a sorcerers as soon as they hear about the Shamans work being associated with communicating with spirits. That's true for places where there's a sorcerer or magician being called a Shaman.
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In indigenous cultures in Turtle Island the Shamans in general use medicinal herbs to heal people. There is a number of Shamans who try to communicate with spirits. This practice dates very far back in time among indigenous people. It is commonly accepted that there are creatures like us but from another substance and different from us. In Arabic they are know as Jinn. In Algonquin languages they are called Manidoos. The Shamans that practice communicating with them have a tradition of doing that since before the Ice Age. According to the monotheistic religions of the Middle East, before Ice Age there was a time when people and Jinn, Manidoos, if we can say, could see each other.
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Then according to the scriptures Suleyman, Solomon, asked the Creator that people stop abusing Jinn, Manidoos if we can call them that. After that people could no longer see Jinn, Manidoos, if we can say, and communication with Jinn was very much reduced. To indigenous people Suleyman, Solomon, lived in a very distant place and they could have easily not heard any messages from Suleyman, Solomon, and have continued to practice communication with Jinn by calling them and having them enter people or designated places. The persons specializing in that were Shamans. They would ask Jinn, Manidoos, if we can say, where animals for hunting were, what the weather in distant locations was like etc. Obvious placing a Jinn, a Manidoo, at the level of a god is contradictory to a monotheistic belief. The debatable question is whether the Shaman associated with communicating with a Jinn, Manidoo, is simply communicating or placing the Jinn, Manidoo, in the position of a god. The Shamans in the Great Lakes area as well as all traditional aboriginals claim not to be worshiping Manidoos but rather One Creator only.
According to the monotheistic religions of the Middle East every
human being has a companion Jinn, a Kareen. Followers of those religions
explain that when the person dies that companion Jinn, Kareen, lives on
and knows everything about the person he lived with. They say that a who
may communicates with a Kareen and get information can about the
deceased person from the Kareen and that the Kareen pretenders to be the
deceased person.
Going to people and telling them not to talk to Jinn
after they have been talking with Jinn for millennia is an interesting
issue. In a Muslim country there were Muslims who had a zeal for Islam
but didn't ever learn Islam well enough because they lived far away from
Arabic countries. There was a grave in front of an old mosque at their
location. Apparently they didn't know that graveyards should not be
placed in front of mosques.
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A young man, who spent time in an Arabic country, came and told the Imam there, who was a very old man, that it's not permissible to pray towards a grave. The old Imam said: "Our Jamaa here has been praying like that for 600 years, and you come to tell us now." There are Shamans, Kam, who practice communication with Jinn, Manidoos, if we can say, since well before the Ice Age. It would be interesting to hear what they would say if a young man told them that after Suleyman, Solomon, using Jinn, Manidoos if we can say, stops.
In the Great Lakes region as well as in many other indigenous cultures there is a Shaking Tent ceremony. During the Shaking Tent ceremony the Shaman, called Tchissakiwinini in Great lakes region culture, is tied inside a small tent , then untied and noises come from inside the tent and the surrounding area. The primary spirit that the Tchissakiwinini claims to be communicating with during this ceremony is an underwater panther with horns and spikes on the back.
According to people who read the Bible, the spirits that the Tchissakiwinini's work is based on communicating with, are horned devils. The traditionalist Shaking Tent ceremony practitioners associate the underwater panther with storms and waves on water and strong rapids.
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In their culture they are not considered evil but rather a part of nature. On this point, in all human cultures waves, rapids and currents are natural occurrences and not evil devils. Followers of the the Bible that join the Shaking Tent ceremonies call the underworld spirits devils which is a clear contradiction since the underworld spirits represent natural phenomena such as waves on water.
To call a wave on the lake or river evil with the pretext that all evil should be eradicated, would be trying to eradicate a natural phenomenon that is an important part of the universe. In Islamic beliefs which are a part of the religions from the Middle East, just like the Bible based religions, it is forbidden to say anything negative about the wind and weather elements, including waves.
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Therefore not all religions from the Middle East support the Bible based concept of all underworld spirits being evil.
Regarding talking to Jinn, Manidoo, if we can say, in many Muslim countries, Arab countries in particular, many Muslims indulge in talking to persons who they believe have been possessed by a Jinn, a Manidoo if we can say. Does that make them sorcerers is debatable. Then when the Tchissakiwinini according to people's beliefs is talking to a sprit or Manidoo or Jinn, from the area with water, about the water conditions there, the question whether this is it an act of sorcery is debatable.
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The Turtle Island Story "Earth-diving" after a great flood is a subject found in Native cultures in Turtle Island (North America) hence the continent's name, as well as among indigenous Turkic people in Central and Western Siberia. After the last Ice Age vast bodies of ice were known to have melted into great rivers and lakes. These stories recollect that time period in human history. One such story is present in the Ojibway (Anishinabek) culture as well as in Sibirga and Buryat cultures in Siberia." MSM Ojibway Creation Story -Kim Echlin, Toronto, Canada The selection presented here
describes Nanabush's re-creation of earth, as presented in William
Jones, Ojibwa Texts, I. (New York: G.E. Stechert, 1919.
AMS. 1974 pp.274-78). Myth is both immediate and timeless
and demands that both its aspects be perceived simultaneously. It is
rooted in a particular tradition and cultural setting but it speaks
in structures and symbols which transcend barriers of culture,
language, even time itself. The performance of myth reinforces this
dual aspect. Each individual performance is immediate and contingent
on the particular story telling situation. But the story lives
through many generations using the story teller as its medium. Only
the voice changes. Traditional Ojibway thought accounts for the
immediacy and timelessness of myth by understanding that the
aadisokan (sacred story) has an existence independent of the
storyteller. The aadisokan is viewed as an autonomous being
with the power to impress itself upon the anishinaabe (the
people). This translation tells the particular
Ojibway creation story; it is also about all creation. Michibizieu
steals the wolf-nephew who hunts for Nanabush. When Nanabush
retaliates by trying to {30}
kill the underwater being, Michibizieu causes a flood. The flood is
associated in many traditions with the re-creation of the world
after one of the world's forces becomes so strong as to destroy the
essential equilibrium. Here, Michibizieu has stolen Nanabush's
source of food and his link to the instinctual knowledge of the
animal world. In trying to recover what he lost, Nanabush
inadvertently precipitates a flood so that he must make a new earth. Nanabush reestablishes the link
between himself and the animals by making them helpers in creation.
He asks them to dive for earth and to discover the size of the new
world. It is the fourth, the weakest diver, Muskrat, who is able to
retrieve earth. In an Ojibway context the use of four divers has
sacred significance symbolizing harmony and wholeness; the success
of the most unlikely diver reflects the high respect of the Ojibway
for each individual's ability to contribute in life. In an Ojibway
context the breath which creates earth is also associated with
sacred forms of breathing (blowing) in the Midiwiwin rites,
foregrounded stylistically by the word kuniginin which is
ancient and used only in myth-telling. But what of the significance of
this story today -- generations, in many cases a language and
culture, removed? When Nanabush blows gently, his breath is also the
breath of language. Words become stories and stories become whole
new worlds. A young man of Cree parentage told me once that he saw
in the act of diving for the earth a metaphor for reaching deep down
inside yourself to find a tiny grain of sand. When you find it you
bring it up and you see a world for yourself. To create meaning one
must reach down inside and transform through the breath of
creativity. To me, the real mystery is where the grain of sand came
from in the first place, and that, I suggest, is the autonomy of the
myth speaking to us. In Ojibway tradition, Nanabush
creates earth for people from a world which has always existed. This
reflects a vision of this world in the great, ongoing cycles of
nature. In Ojibway tradition, Nanabush, the trickster-transformer
who is part man, part manidoo, also links the people and their gods
to the animals. Nanabush needs the help of animals at first; then he
defines the perimeters of the earth with his own creative breath. In
this creation story it is an image of man with some manidoo power
and some help from the animals who creates our present world out of
the ancient earth. If stories could be arranged in
concentric circles, the creation story would be at the center. The
initial act of creation is a prototype for every other subsequent
creative act and reflects a culture's ideas about itself. The
Ojibway creation story reflects a perception of the people as part
of a greater natural cycle, linked to the old earth, the animals and
the manidoo. It portrays the people, through Nanabush, as defining
their own limits through acts of creativity. The creative act, like storytelling, is limitless. In the ongoing movement of dynamic exchange between storyteller, text, and audience, the myth encourages us to a deeper understanding of our world. Consider now the first creation of Nanabush: 1. Taiya Nanabush! He was
really afraid! 1. A'tawa Nanabucu! Misa gäga't
sägisit.
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THE SHAMAN'S CREATION STORY
- Irkutsk Region, Siberia Narrated by Shaman Valentin Khagdaev The first earth was lost in the depths of the primal ocean. The earth was under water. Then the Creator created the first bird and ordered it to dive to the bottom of the ocean. It dove, but came It dove, but came back empty twice. Finally, it extracted the earth and brought it back in its beak. From that earth the Creator created the big earth. But that big earth was again sinking into the depth of the primal ocean. Then he put the earth in his palms, took a pinch of clay from it, and created the second earth. He loaded that earth on a back of a turtle. This earth was flat, there were no hills, no mountains. And the ocean was flat. All animals, all birds, all insects, and all plants were created. All birds, all animals, all insects, and all fish were all happy. And man was created the last. This man was the only one who was not happy. Everyone was content except this man. They lived for a long time. Many thousands of years passed. Man is still not happy. He curses the heaven and the earth, the sun, and the moon, and the Creator. And then the Creator has sent a thought from the depth of the universe to the first mammoth and the first snake in order to ask what this first man wants. That first man still had four legs. The giant mammoth, who was holding the sky with his back, and the first snake approached the first man and asked him, “What do you want, you worm, earthly man? Why are you grumbling and whining?" Then, he raised one paw, looked at him and said, "Everything is flat! The earth is flat, the ocean is flat. I’m bored to death! That’s why I’m whining." Then the mammoth started digging the earth with his trunk. Thus the mountains formed. The snake crawled in between them — thus the rivers formed. And no river flows straight, all rivers zigzag like snakes. Ten more thousand years passed. All the animals, all the birds, all fish, all insects are happy. But man is not happy. He’s cursing the Creator. Then from the depths of the universe, the Creator descended on earth. He convened all earthly creatures to discuss all earthly matters, including the fate of the first man. Back at these wonderful times, the first moose was running as fast as a horse along the Lake Baikal. And all of a sudden a Codfish dives out of the water, "Where are you going, Horned Moose?" Then the Moose stopped and said, "I’m running to the meeting of all living creatures." "You are late!" says Codfish. "I’ve just returned from there. Everything has been decided." Then the Moose stopped and asked, "So what have you decided to do with this man who is always grumbling?" Codfish hit the water with his fin and said, "It’s not good at all. Before, he had four legs, so he could catch some animal and eat it. But they have made him of two legs. His front legs were bent like this, they became hands. His ears do not hear well now, nor can he see or smell well. Not good at all..." Then the Moose asked, "Well, you've taken everything away from him, what have you given him instead?" Codfish hit the water with his fin and says, "We gave him intelligence. We don’t really know what it is though. The Creator advised this." At this point, the Moose began crying. Back then, the Moose had four eyes, two on the top and two below. The Moose was crying and crying, and cried his two upper eyes away. Now there’s just a little dimple above his eyes. As he was sobbing, the Moose said, "Oh, living creatures. You must know. Now there won’t be peace for a bird in the sky from this man. Not even a swimming fish will have peace from this man. Not even a running animal will have peace from this man." And that was what happened, that was fulfilled... The story was transcribed from the
film Shaman Akkanat of the Sibirga nation living in Novokuznetsk has a similar story with him but without the moose having four eyes.
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