Siberian and Mongolian Shamanism: Where the Word Began

The Birth of a Word

The word “shaman” is one of the few terms from an indigenous language that has entered virtually every language on earth. It comes from the Tungusic Evenki people of Siberia — specifically from the word saman or samān, which is connected to the root sā-, meaning “to know.” A shaman, in the original sense, is one who knows — one who sees what others cannot, who travels where others dare not go, and who returns with knowledge that serves the living.

The word is attested across all branches of the Tungusic language family — Negidal, Lamut, Udehe, Nanai, Orok, Manchu, and Ulcha — suggesting it traces back to Proto-Tungusic roots extending at least two millennia into the past. Russian explorers and ethnographers encountered these practices in the seventeenth century and carried the word šamán back to Europe, where it eventually became the universal term for a spiritual practitioner who enters altered states of consciousness to interact with the spirit world on behalf of a community.

Yet the traditions behind this word are far older than the word itself. Archaeological evidence suggests shamanic practice in Siberia and Mongolia extends back tens of thousands of years, making it one of humanity’s most ancient spiritual technologies.

The Three Worlds: Cosmology of the Tungus

At the heart of Siberian shamanism lies a cosmology of three interconnected worlds, vertically arranged and linked by the World Tree — a cosmic axis that the shaman climbs or descends during trance journeying.

The Upper World is the domain of celestial spirits, benevolent deities, and the source of light. The Evenki imagined the Upper World as structured like the antlers of a great reindeer or elk, with multiple heavenly tiers — traditions speak of seven, nine, or even twenty-eight layers. Here dwell the sky gods, the spirits of weather and the seasons, and the guardian spirits who protect the plant and animal world. The spirit Seveki, guardian of living things, resides in these heights.

The Middle World is the realm of the living — the forests, rivers, tundra, and steppes where humans, animals, and nature spirits coexist. Every feature of the landscape — a mountain, a river bend, a particular grove of birch trees — possesses its own spirit. The Middle World is not merely physical; it has a spiritual dimension that is accessible to those who know how to see.

The Lower World is the domain of the dead, of ancestral spirits, and of darker entities. Among the Evenki, the Lower World was not simply a place of punishment or fear. Deceased ancestors lived there in a manner similar to earthly life, and shamans could visit them to seek wisdom. But another level of the Lower World was inhabited by hostile spirits and malevolent forces, and venturing there required immense skill and protection.

The World Tree — sometimes envisioned as a great larch, birch, or cosmic pillar — connects all three realms. Its roots sink into the Lower World, its trunk stands in the Middle World, and its crown reaches into the Upper World. The shaman’s journey is essentially a climbing or descending of this tree, and many shamanic costumes bear embroidered images of the World Tree with spirit figures attached to its branches.

The Drum: Vehicle Between Worlds

If the World Tree is the road, the drum is the vehicle. The shaman’s drum is perhaps the most iconic and essential tool in all of Siberian shamanism. It is not merely a musical instrument — it is a living being, a mount, a shield, and a map of the cosmos all at once.

Made from animal hide stretched over a wooden frame — often from a tree struck by lightning, which is considered to carry special power — the drum is ritually consecrated and believed to be animated by a spirit. When the shaman beats the drum, the rhythmic pulse induces an altered state of consciousness. The drum becomes the shaman’s “horse” or “reindeer,” carrying them across the boundaries between worlds. The drumstick serves as a whip or lash to urge the spirit-mount onward.

The drum also functions as a shield against malevolent spirits encountered during the journey. Some drums bear painted images of the three worlds, with the Upper World at the top, the Middle World in the center, and the Lower World at the bottom — creating a portable cosmological map that the shaman reads and navigates during trance.

The characteristic drumming rhythm — steady, repetitive, around four to four-and-a-half beats per second — has been shown by modern research to induce theta brainwave states, the same frequency associated with deep meditation, hypnagogic imagery, and visionary experience. What indigenous practitioners discovered through millennia of practice, neuroscience has only recently begun to confirm.

The Shaman’s Costume: Wearing the Spirit World

The ceremonial costume of the Siberian shaman is itself a masterwork of spiritual technology. Far from being mere decoration, every element carries precise symbolic meaning known only to initiates.

Siberian shamans wore robes made from animal hide and fur — often reindeer or bear — decorated with embroidery, bird feathers, silk tassels, ribbons, bells, small mirrors, jewelry, and metalwork. On the costume was an image of the World Tree, with spirit figures attached to its branches. Copper discs served as mirrors that enlarged the shaman’s ability to see into the spirit worlds. Bells and metal pendants created a cascade of sound during the ecstatic dance, adding to the sensory environment that facilitated trance.

Among the Tofalar, Soyet, and Darhat peoples, the costumes bore representations of human bones — ribs, arm bones, and finger bones — depicted on the fabric. This skeletal imagery is directly connected to the initiatory experience of dismemberment and reconstitution. The skeleton on the clothing is a re-enactment of the shaman’s initiatory death, a constant reminder that they have been taken apart and reassembled by the spirits, and that they carry the mark of that transformation every time they practice.

A group of pendants on an Evenk shaman’s costume symbolized the skeleton of the shaman’s spirit helper, into which it was reincarnated during trance.

Initiation: Being Torn Apart and Reborn

The path to becoming a shaman in Siberian tradition is not chosen — it is imposed by the spirits. The calling often manifests as a severe illness, a psychological crisis, vivid and terrifying dreams, or a near-death experience. This is known as the “shamanic illness” or “shamanic crisis,” and it cannot be cured by ordinary means. Only by accepting the call and undergoing initiation can the suffering be resolved.

The central initiatory experience, documented across dozens of Siberian peoples, is the visionary dismemberment. During an extended trance state — sometimes lasting days — the initiate witnesses their own body being torn apart by spirits. The flesh is stripped from the bones. The organs are removed, examined, and replaced. The bones are counted, cleaned, and reassembled. In some traditions, new organs or additional bones are inserted, granting the shaman new powers.

According to Yakut tradition, the spirits cut off the shaman’s head and place it beside them, because the candidate must watch the entire process with their own eyes. The body is then reduced to minute pieces, which are distributed to the spirits of various diseases — this is what gives the shaman the power to heal those specific illnesses. Afterward, the bones are covered with fresh flesh, and sometimes new blood is introduced.

Powerful shamans, it is said, undergo this dismemberment three times. Lesser shamans experience it only once. The experience is understood not as destruction but as transformation — a death of the old self and a rebirth as something more than human, a being who belongs simultaneously to the world of the living and the world of spirits.

Soul Retrieval and Healing

Healing in the Siberian shamanic worldview is fundamentally about the soul. The Evenki understood that a person possesses a soul called omi that animates the body. Death occurs when the omi permanently departs. But illness — especially mysterious, chronic illness that defies ordinary treatment — was often attributed to the partial loss or theft of the soul.

Soul loss could occur through fright, trauma, grief, or through the deliberate action of a hostile shaman’s spirit helpers, who might steal a soul to weaken or destroy a rival’s clan member. When someone fell ill in this way, the community’s shaman would enter trance, journey through the spirit worlds, locate the missing soul, and negotiate or battle for its return. This practice — soul retrieval — is one of the most widespread healing techniques in shamanic traditions worldwide, and Siberia is its ancestral home.

The shaman also performed extraction healing, removing spiritual intrusions — foreign energies, curses, or spirit-sent illnesses — from the patient’s body. And the shaman served as psychopomp, guiding the souls of the recently dead to the Lower World, ensuring they reached the realm of the ancestors and did not linger as troubled ghosts among the living.

Tengerism: The Living Sky of Mongolia

Mongolian shamanism — known as Böö Mörgöl (the Way of the Shaman) and sometimes called Tengerism — shares deep roots with Siberian shamanism but has its own distinct character, shaped by the vast open steppes, the horse culture, and the historical memory of the great Mongol Empire.

At the center of Mongolian spiritual life is Tenger — the Eternal Blue Sky, Father Heaven. Tenger is not a distant, abstract deity but a living presence felt in every breath of wind, every storm, every shaft of sunlight breaking through clouds over the steppe. The Mongolian shaman (böö for males, udgan for females) serves as an intermediary between the human community and Tenger, as well as with the vast hierarchy of nature spirits, ancestor spirits, and territorial guardians.

The Mongolian spiritual cosmos is populated by ninety-nine tngri — fifty-five benevolent or “white” tngri and forty-four terrifying or “black” tngri — along with seventy-seven natigai or “earth-mothers” and countless gazriin ezen, the master spirits of specific places on earth: mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, and even settlements. Sacred mountains hold particular significance — they are understood as dwelling places of powerful spirits, and ceremonies conducted on their slopes carry special potency.

Ancestor spirits (ongon) play a central role. The spirits of deceased shamans are especially powerful, and a new shaman typically inherits their calling through an ancestral lineage — the spirit of a dead shaman ancestor choosing a living descendant to carry on the work. During ceremonies, the shaman may become possessed by these ancestor spirits, speaking in their voices and delivering their messages.

Mongolian shamanic ceremony involves drumming, chanting, dancing, and offerings — often of milk, airag (fermented mare’s milk), or animal sacrifice. The shaman’s costume includes a headdress with fringe that covers the eyes (to facilitate the shift from outer to inner vision), a mirror on the chest, and streamers of cloth that represent spirit helpers. When the shaman enters trance, the ribbons fly and the mirror catches firelight, creating a visual spectacle that reinforces the sense of a boundary being crossed between worlds.

Today, roughly 2.5 percent of Mongolia’s population practices Tengerism, and there has been a significant revival of shamanic practice since the fall of Soviet-influenced communism in the 1990s. What was nearly destroyed by decades of religious suppression has proven remarkably resilient — the spirits of the ancestors, it seems, are not so easily silenced.

The Enduring Legacy

Siberian and Mongolian shamanism gave humanity not just a word but a template for understanding the relationship between consciousness and the cosmos. The three-world cosmology, the drum journey, the initiatory death and rebirth, the practice of soul retrieval — these are not relics of a primitive past. They are sophisticated technologies of consciousness developed over millennia by peoples who lived in intimate relationship with some of the harshest environments on earth.

These traditions remind us that the capacity to journey between worlds is part of our human inheritance. The drum still beats. The World Tree still stands. And the shamans of Siberia and Mongolia continue to climb it, as they have for longer than anyone can remember.