Social Status of Shaman vs. Social Status of Biomedical Physician
Introduction
As multiple researches show, shamanism or healer practices have existed in different societies from the beginning of times (Hughes 2006: 122). Their role on the society was universal across indigenous cultures from Canada to the forests of Africa (Hughes 2006: 122), and their presence in the society is documented in the most ancient records of human activities (Hughes 2006: 122). Shamans were the people who underwent particular processes of initiation and training and were believed to have supernatural abilities, including ability to communication with spirits and power to shape future events. Among his or her various duties, a shaman was supposed to treat people and cure them from various diseases. Hence a shaman was the main provider of medical services in times when biomedical science was still in its rudimentary state. As medicine developed and gained reputation as the reliable and accessible path to health preservation, the societies where shamanism was a norm developed a dual system of health protection (Heyne 1999: 379).
Trained physicians are expected to provide ‘official treatment’ of bodies according to the rational Western pattern, whereas shamans perform functions of mediums that negotiate with spirits and protect the souls of ailing people (Brown 2009: n/p). The present paper aims to demonstrate that the social status of shamans in societies where shamanism is a long established practice is higher than the status of a medical worker, and this difference in statuses is being negotiated and used to improve the level of biomedical services provided to members of the society with imbedded trust to shamans.
Social Status of Shaman
There exist numerous theories related to the nature of shamanism and to the character of changes shamans undergo in order to attain supernatural powers (Merkur 1985: 56). Some researchers claim that shamans are people with various nervous disorders up to schizophrenia who managed to harness their illnesses and used their own experience to treat other people (Merkur 1985: 56).
Another view is that the transcendent journeys of shamans are not physical hallucinations (or experiences) but spiritual experience close to the religious trance in Christianity (Merkur 1985: 57). However, whatever the mature of this shamanic experience may be, it is his/her functions of a medical worker and spiritual leader in the society that pose the utmost interest in regard to his/her social status. Although the name of a shaman was coined by the Inuit people living in the north of Canada, the rest of ethnical groups had equivalent persons entrusted with shamanic functions and known under names of healers, medicine men, curanderos etc. (Hammerschlag (a) 2008: 3). As the description of shamanic culture of indigenous people of Central Mexico reveals, both men and women could become shamans, although by default social status of female shamans was lower than that of male shamans. Women usually have less training and are not allowed to be spiritual leaders of the community, although they perform healing procedures …
