{"id":6430,"date":"2014-04-30T15:35:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T21:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6430"},"modified":"2014-04-30T16:25:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T22:25:13","slug":"anthropologist-describes-rebirth-of-mongolian-shamanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6430","title":{"rendered":"Anthropologist Describes Rebirth of Mongolian Shamanism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A news release from the MIT News Office carries the subhead, “MIT anthropologist finds that after Soviet domination, a rebirth of shamanism helped Mongolia rewrite its own history.”<\/p>\n

The release continues,<\/p>\n

In 1990, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating, Mongolia, long a satellite of the U.S.S.R., regained its independence. Socialism was out and free markets returned. Religion \u2014 in the form of Buddhism, shamanism, and other folk religions \u2014 became officially accepted again in Mongolian society. That, in turn, produced another unexpected change: The return of shamans, religious figures who claim to have a supernatural ability to connect with the souls of the dead.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as MIT anthropologist Manduhai Buyandelger chronicles in a new book, the revival of shamanism has shaped Mongolia in surprising ways in the last two decades. From storefronts in Ulan Bator, the nation\u2019s capital, to homes in rural Mongolia, shamanism has become a growth industry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest here, it’s good.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you see the 2009 documentary The Horse Boy<\/em><\/a>, about an autistic boy whose parents take him to Mongolia for shamanic treatment, there is a fair amount of restored shamanism there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A news release from the MIT News Office carries the subhead, “MIT anthropologist finds that after Soviet domination, a rebirth of shamanism helped Mongolia rewrite its own history.” The release continues, In 1990, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating, Mongolia, long a satellite of the U.S.S.R., regained its independence. Socialism was out and free markets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,120,11],"class_list":["post-6430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anthropology","tag-mongolia","tag-shamanism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1FI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8198,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8198","url_meta":{"origin":6430,"position":0},"title":"Pentagram Pizza at the Mongolian Grill","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Some links worth exploring: \u2022 In post-Soviet Mongolia, shamanism is a \"growth industry,\" says an MIT anthropologist. In Manuduhai Buyandelger's Tragic Spirits: Shamanism, Memory, and Gender in Contemporary Mongolia, she writes how, \"shamanism is a historical memory for people who lost parts of their ancestral homeland, and who had been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Mongolia\"","block_context":{"text":"Mongolia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=mongolia"},"img":{"alt_text":"pentagrampizza","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/pentagrampizza-126x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3994,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3994","url_meta":{"origin":6430,"position":1},"title":"Introduction to Mongolian Shamanism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Introductory ten-minute video about Mongolian shamanism, revived in the post-Communist decades. Just enjoy the visuals, unless you understand the language. Jenghiz Khan shows up, of course, as does Buddhism. This well-made video shows the drumming and trance dancing of both male and female shamans. Some of the drums seem to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Mongolia\"","block_context":{"text":"Mongolia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=mongolia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1546,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1546","url_meta":{"origin":6430,"position":2},"title":"The Horse Boy: See it for the Shamanism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"When a psychology professor and a human-rights activist\/journalist have an autistic son, their lives become incredibly difficult. Among other things, little Rowan never learns bowel control, and like many autistic children, he is prone to screaming, inconsolable tantrums. But his parents live in rural Texas, and they discover when Rupert\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Mongolia\"","block_context":{"text":"Mongolia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=mongolia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9017,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9017","url_meta":{"origin":6430,"position":3},"title":"On Michael Harner (1929\u20132018)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The news of Michael Harner's passing has been going around, and of course some magical practitioners have to react by disrespecting him. You might well have heard the usual string of insults: he is an academic poser, he's a fake . . . a cultural imperialist . . . from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"shamanism\"","block_context":{"text":"shamanism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=shamanism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/michael_drum.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":837,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=837","url_meta":{"origin":6430,"position":4},"title":"The most controversial anthropologist","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"One episode of a BBC series called Tales from the Jungle on famous anthropologists examines the \"shamanthropologist\" Carlos Castaneda (d. 1998), appropriately described as the most controversial anthropologist ever.For those of us who can't watch the Beeb, it is available in segments from YouTube.There are also episodes on Bronislaw Malinowski\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6561,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6561","url_meta":{"origin":6430,"position":5},"title":"The “Horse Boy” and the Shamans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"If you saw the 2009\u00a0 documentary The Horse Boy, about Rowan, the autistic boy who is helped somewhat by horseback riding and by Mongolian shamans, there is more to the story. (There is also a book, The Horse Boy: A Memoir of Healing, published in 2010.) Before it was released\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"childhood\"","block_context":{"text":"childhood","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=childhood"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6430"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6438,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6430\/revisions\/6438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}