Hayvan ve Şaman: Orta Asya'nın Antik Dinleri

by Julian Baldick, Nevin Şahin (Translator)

Hayvan ve Şaman, antik İç Avrasya kavimlerinin inançlarının karşılaştırmalı bir incelemesini sunuyor. İskitlerden Mançulara, Türklerden Finlere kadar, günümüzün bazı uluslarının "kültürel" çekirdeğini oluşturan çok sayıda kavmin ortak dinsel mirasını, iki bin yıldan daha uzun bir zaman aralığına yayılmış metinlerde anlatılan mitler, ritüeller, efsaneler aracılığıyla ortaya koyuyor.

Julian Baldick, Türk, Moğol ve Tunguz tipleriyle üç ana çizgiye ayırdığı bu ortak mirasın çağımıza kadar erişen boyutlarını inanç ve ritüellerin sürekliliğinin yanında, Avrasya'nın kalan bölümünde olduğu kadar Avrupa'da da edebi öykü ve motiflere sızan ve orada melezlikler oluşturan etkilerle açıklıyor. Bu büyük etkileşimin merkezinde ise bazen travesti bir şifacıya, bazen modern bir sahne sanatçısına, bazen de bir ordu komutanına benzeyen şamanın ruhsal yolculukları yer alıyor.

Genres: Religion, History

234 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 2000

Reviews

[Bryn Hammond]

Unless you can trawl through academic journals, or read French, there's so little in the way of historical work on indigenous steppe religion. It's great to have this: a survey that pulls together the information, and tries to draw together the common threads, find the steppe-wide religious concepts... animals are his theme, humans-animals, shamans-animals. True, it's largely an excursion through the materials we have for study: from steppe epic to anthropology, but gives you thumbnails of what's written in French and Russian and Hungarian, and is quite exhaustive, even if each stop on the trip is far too brief. As an introductory on steppe religion - before, underneath Buddhism and Islam - what else is out there? Four stars for usefulness.

Now, who's going to translate from French Roux's Religion of the Turks and Mongols? Who can I beg?

[Dan]

A dry summary of what's known (from old European, Muslim and Chinese accounts and modern scholarship) of the "Inner Eurasian" religion of the Turkic, Altaic and Mongol peoples, which has some overlap with Indo-European beliefs. The beliefs and rituals pile up with not enough attempt at analysis for my taste, although Baldrick may not have been too concerned for the purposes of this book with What It All Means.

Shamans figure heavily, as does the Inner Eurasian triad of sky, Earth and the in-between realm of mountains, trees and the like (the underworld was apparently a fairly late import), along with the famous Indo-European division of divine and human activity into religion, war and fertility.

Baldick does point out some remarkable similarities between Inner Eurasian myths and Greek ones (notably the story of Jason) as well as sections of the Odyssey. He also offers the delightful observation, courtesy of 13th-century Flemish Franciscan William of Rubruck, that "The Mongol women never wash clothes, as this is thought to make God angry and to cause thunder, of which the Mongols are extraordinarily frightened." So a slightly numbing (to a non-academic reader) accumulation of details, with scattered highlights.

[M. Altuğ Yayla]

Ortalama bir kitaptı.

[Katie Putz]

Animal and Shaman: Ancient Religions of Central Asia by Julian Baldick

💫 This is a survey of indigenous pre-Christian and pre-Islamic religious across Eurasia, including the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, the Mongols and the Tunguz and Manchus. 

Because it is a survey work it's both packed with information but also jumps around and at times lacks depth. It does have plenty of signposts to scholars working on specific areas but as a (somewhat but not entirely) casual reader it is a cumbersome read.

It is, however, still very interesting, especially in the comparison between religions across time and space, particularly the commonalities in myths. Baldick highlights a tripartite structure that repeats across cultures: the sky (the above), the earth (the below) and the middle (rivers, seas); and a second such structure: religious sovereignty, physical force/power, and fertility. 

Most interesting in this text were the examples that highlight a heritage that seems so far removed from contemporary Central Asia, while much else felt familiar in ways -- looking at you, section on "transvestism among inner Eurasian shamans."

Obviously, bonus points for sections on the Memorial Feast of Kokotoy Khan in the Turk chapter AND the Kalevala in the conclusion (the Finnish national epic, cited for comparison and also a book I've read and been mildly obsessed with).

I read this partially in France and partially in DC. It was dense and I dragged my feet finishing it. 

IYKYK: there were fascinating bits on how pre-Islamic Central Asian societies viewed the soul.

[çiğdem]

Ilginç bir kitaptı. Orta asyada yaşayan türkler dışında moğollar, macarlar, finler gibi toplulukların dini hakkında da bilgi veriyor. Bu bilgiler genel, herkesin bildiği şeyler değil. Şaşırdığım çok şey oldu. Giriş niteliğinde bir kitap değil. Din üzerine çalışanlar ya da bu konuya ilgisi olanlar okumalı. Gerçekler ağırdır.

[Nani Chen]

Great as a jumping off point for research. It summarises a lot of different reports which helps me clarify which are most relevant for my purposes.

[Christopher]

A good overview with some nice details left out of some of the older and more polite narratives and compiled here for the purposes of comparison. I appreciated the attempt to show connections with Finnish mythology as well.