In this highly readable ethnographic study, Manduhai Buyandelger describes shamanic practices among the Buryats of northeastern Mongolia, with a special focus on gender differentials and the politics of forgetting and remembering. The time span of this anthropological epic stretches from the Russian colonial era in Buryatia, through the migration of Khori Buryats from Transbaikalia to Mongolia at the beginning of the twentieth century, through decades of Soviet domination, up to postsocialist times. As a consequence of the Buryats’ nomadic lifestyle and their long history of displacement, a portable version of shamanism developed that became emblematic of cultural survival in the face of social, economic, and political disruption. Using gender and memory as prisms, Buyandelger reflects on the meaning and usefulness of these alternative “mobile histories” (p. 39) for healing the ruptures occasioned by the sudden transition from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism. In lucid and sympathetic detail, she describes the proliferation of shamanic rituals used by Buryat Mongolians not only to placate the suppressed and forgotten spirits of their ancestors, but also to explain their impoverishments and misfortunes, and to mend the spiritual rifts caused by the repression of their genealogies and religious lore.
In the introduction, Buyandelger explains how shamans create memories by retrieving and personalizing knowledge that was lost, forgotten, or repressed under state socialism. Simultaneously, using shamanism “as an analytical and interpretive tool” (p. 26), she explains how gendered power structures are reemerging, despite the egalitarian nature of shamanic rituals and the prevalence of female shamans.
In the first chapter, Buyandelger describes the spirit landscape, the shamanic environment during Russian colonialism, and the Khori Buryats’ history of displacement and resettlement in Mongolia. Along with the loss of their ancestral lands, many also lost the identities and “addresses” of their origin spirits. The retrieval of these supernatural entities represents both a means of cultural renewal and resistance to oppression, but unfortunately many spirits have been lost forever. Shamans wield inordinate power as they reconstruct lost genealogies and attempt to mollify spirits, while distressed clients consult multiple shamans and seek truth in consensus. As depicted in the story of a shaman (Bud) and a Buddhist lama (Sangasva), the spiritual landscape is rife with conflicts, among both human and unseen contenders, that need to be healed.
The second chapter explains the haunting sense of loss, oblivion, and trauma caused by the politics of forgetting engineered and enforced by the socialist state. Using copious examples and rich theoretical analysis, Buyandelger identifies a passage from state violence and suppressed memories to the creation of new narratives that substitute for Soviet-manufactured histories and compensate for the irretrievable loss of Buryat cultural identity. Eager to console the anguished and dangerous spirits of murdered ancestors trapped between this world and the next, collective funeral rites are performed over anonymous bones at mass burial sites.
The third chapter recounts the efforts of the people of Bayan-Uul to explain their suffering and poverty in the new capitalist economy as the work of these neglected, often malevolent spirits. Open markets have not fulfilled their economic promise; livestock distributed to herders enriched only a few; and most assets were lost to fires, blizzards, and mismanagement. To reverse their misfortunes, ordinary clients commission elaborate rituals near and far, performed by shamanic specialists who are competing in a spiritual marketplace of complex social and economic relationships.
The fourth chapter presents narrative histories of several shamans, male and female, that describe the ways they negotiate state power, diagnose maladies, and do their best to appease the diverse denizens of the spirit world. The stories are notable not only for their clarity, but also for their honesty and compassion. Beating a drum, the spirit of Khorlo sobs while recounting the condemnation she suffered during “the time of fog and clouds” (p. 160), then offers advice to the researcher!
The fifth chapter investigates shifts in the position of women and gender relations before, during, and after socialist reforms. For example, Buyandelger explores a variety of theories to understand why male shamans generally enjoy higher prestige than their female counterparts, even though women are “considered more gifted than men in connecting with the spirits” (p. 170). As reflected in the story of the female shaman Sarnai, pro-natal state policies, societal expectations, and changing constructions of gender in a postsocialist society often combine to constrain female shamans.
In the sixth chapter, Buyandelger tells the stories of individual shamans such as Tömör and Luvsan, describing their training, paraphernalia, motivations, social networks, successes, and failures. She explains how Tömör's transgressive charisma and Luvsan's dazzling attire on an international tour exemplify the intangible assets of male privilege and family support that boost male shamans’ ascent to prominence.
The last chapter illustrates the politics of forgetting and remembering from the side of the client in the story of a woman named Baasan and her desperate efforts to remedy a tragic family history by reconstructing her spiritual genealogy. In a tale worthy of legend, the appearance of two skulls and an old woman on the family hearth revives memories of her great-grandmother and grandfather who died unmourned during Stalinist times. Thus begins her journey of atonement. Her story exemplifies the poorly understood role of shamanic clients such as Baasan as agents of cultural production, and the ruptured histories that they struggle to mend.
The book includes an extensive bibliography and a brief, useful glossary of key terms. Despite errors in editing, this study makes an important contribution to religious anthropology by providing an emic perspective on shamanic experience and by drawing on multiple, cross-cultural threads of analysis. The portrayals are so convincing, one can almost inhale the ritual smoke.
