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# System prepended metadata

title: Religion(Shamanism) & Healing

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# Religion(Shamanism) & Healing
> Taught By **Joel Stocker** PhD
> Note Taken By **Chang, EnJui**
## Medical Anthropology: Social Science, Humanities & Biological Sciences
Medical anthropology use cultural and biological perspectives to compare health and sickness practices within and across societies. It is critical of the common western biomedical view, and it belives that western biomedicine is also an ethnomedical system. Medical Anthropology  aims to improve health and healthcare, but it also wants to improve understanding of the social world.

## Personalistic & Naturalistic Medicine
### Healing & Curing
- Healing
    - Focused by traditional medicine
    - Dealing with body having spirit loss or intruded by real/symbolic objects 
    - restoring wholeness of body, mind, emotion and spirit
- Curing
    - Focus by western biomedicine
    - Dealing with bodyinvaded by natural pathogens
    - attck the symptoms or enemy

Providing culturally appropriate care is to respect for difference and to have self-awareness.
### Personalistic Medical system
Personalistic medical system treats diseases as active, purposeful intervention of agents. These agents may be human(e.g. witch, sorcerer), nonhuman(e.g. ghost, ancestor, evil spirit) or supernatural(e.g. deity).
Therefore, in personalistic medical system, a patient is a **victim**.
In other words, personalistic medical system locates the origins of disease outside the patient's body. Illness originated from social relations, environment and spiritual/cosmic order.
The healing in personalistic medical system believes **part affects whole**(contagious) and **similarity**(sympathetic).
### Naturalistic System
Naturalistic systems view illnes in impersonal, systematic ways.
Naturalistic system might use placebo effect, psychosomatic/sociosomatic disorders or culture-bound syndromes to explain personalistic medical system.
### Comparison Between The Two Systems 
| Personalistic | Naturalistic |
| -------- | -------- |
|**Non-Western**;'Traditional'|Biomedicine, Ayurveda(阿育吠陀), TCM|
|small-scale, magical, spiritual|large-scale, systematic/scientific  |
|informal, situational; ability|formal, professionalized; expertise|
|particularistic, relativistic|universalistic, absolutist|
|social relations; human/nonhuman/supernatural|biological, physical, environmental|
|holistic,communal|atomistic,institutional|

|          | personalistic | naturalistic|
| -------- | -------- | -------- |
| cause    | active agent|loss of equilibrium|
| illness is|misfortune|not misfortune     |
| religion |illness-related|not related|
| cause level|multiple|single|
| prevention|take action|avoid cause|
| responsibility|beyond the patient|patient     |

:::info
#### Example:
In a personalistic medical system, diagnosis
may include an 'efficient cause,' an
'instrumental or immediate cause,' and an
'ultimate cause,' the three of which can be
described, respectively (in the above order), in
the following manner:
A. why did it happen, who did it, how did
they do it
B. who did it, how did they do it, and why
did it happen
C. how did they do it, who did it, and why
did it happen
D. why did it happen, how did they do it,
and who did it

The correct answer is: **B. who did it, how did they do it, and why did it happen**

##### Explanation:

In a **personalistic medical system**, illness is often explained in terms of **personal agents** (such as spirits, ancestors, or witches) who cause the affliction. This framework includes three types of causes:

1. **Efficient cause** – **Who did it?**
   This refers to the agent responsible for the illness (e.g., a witch, spirit, or angry ancestor).

2. **Instrumental (or immediate) cause** – **How did they do it?**
   This is the method or mechanism used to bring about the illness (e.g., a curse, poisoning, or spell).

3. **Ultimate cause** – **Why did it happen?**
   This addresses the reason or justification behind the affliction (e.g., a moral failing, broken taboo, or retribution).

So, the order **who did it**, **how they did it**, and **why it happened** corresponds to:

- **Efficient cause**
- **Instrumental cause**
- **Ultimate cause**

✅ **Answer: B**
(By ChatGPT, double checked by Gemini, Grok, Copilot)
:::
## Introduction to Shamanism
Shamanism is a style of uncodified(loosely organized) religious activity and a kind of understanding of the world. It originated in economically small-scale, non-literate societies. Spirit mediation used to heal group or individual, but shamans can do **harm**, too. That is, roles of the shaman are numerous.
Shamanism concerns well-being of society and its individual, social harmony and growth and reproduction of the world as a whole. It also believes that there is a hidden, mysterious reality acts upon the visible reality of everyday life.
### Characteristics of Shamans
Shamans are usually **part-time** specialists. They can be men or women depending on the society. In addition, they are chosen by the gods or spirits, by inheritance or disposition but always **approved by their community**. In some cultures, shamans can experience soul flight; in some other cultures, shamans can summon spirits to speak through them.

Shamans by inheritance is called family lineage(ascribed status); shaman may answer callings(achieved status). Shamans answering callings would experience **ordeals** such as hardships and tragedies and go through ascetic rituals(禁慾儀式) such as fasting, lengthy dancing.
### Types of Shamans
Shamans can be healers, sorcerers(a.k.a. dark shamans) or spirit mediums.
### Spirit Fright: A Waste-basket Diagnose for Shamans
Spirit fright is called susto in some parts of Latin America, which is as common as it is in China.

## Shamans & Types of Society
### Types of Society
- Band部族
    - small, foraging(狩獵採集)
    - egalitarian平均主義
    - gender, age role
    - Do not produce surplus food
    - e.g. Inuit
- Tribe部落
    - villages, horticultural/pastoral(園藝/牧民)
    - relatively egalitarian
    - often matrilineal(母系)
    - Do not produce surplus food
- Chiefdom酋邦
    - larger, town/city, agricultural
    - fixed role, social ranking
- State國家
    - large, urban, industrial
    - specialized role, elite rulers
    - stratification by class, gender, etc.
:::info
#### Example:
1.What type of society tends to have shamans(healers) and
sorcerers (shamanic evil-doers) or witches?
2.What type of society tends to have ghosts or ancestor spirits who can do
bad things?

Band and tribal societies with little hierarchy  based on wealth, age, or gender tended to have shamans good or bad (spiritual healers or sorcerers)—called ‘witches’ in the agricultural societies that colonized them.

A. Shaman’s soul is usually believed to travel outside of the body. Agricultural societies that honor the elders have evil or malicious ghosts or ancestors that bring misfortune and illness (such as China).
B. “Complex societies” are more likely to have possession trances, with a person’s body believed to be possessed or taken over by a spirit (and commonly guided/translated by helpers/experts).


##### **1. What type of society tends to have shamans (healers) and sorcerers (shamanic evil-doers) or witches?**

✅ **答案：Band and tribal societies**

* 這些社會通常是**小型、平等主義**的（在財富、年齡、性別上階層分化較小）。
* 他們傾向於擁有**薩滿（shamans）**與**巫術從事者（sorcerers 或在農業社會中稱為 "witches"）**。
* 這些角色被視為可以與靈界互動的中介，有些是醫療性質，有些是惡意的。

📝 搭配敘述選項中的這句話：

> "Band and tribal societies with little hierarchy ... tended to have shamans good or bad..."

##### **2. What type of society tends to have ghosts or ancestor spirits who can do bad things?**

✅ **答案：Agricultural societies that honor the elders**

* 在這類農業社會中，**祖先崇拜盛行**，但同時也有相信祖靈會對後代帶來災禍的觀念。
* 例如中國文化中，若後代失德或未祭祖，祖先靈魂可能變成**惡靈**或帶來**疾病與厄運**。

📝 搭配敘述選項中的這句話：

> "Agricultural societies that honor the elders have evil or malicious ghosts or ancestors that bring misfortune and illness (such as China)."

---

##### 補充整理對照：

| 類型                        | 典型社會形式                               | 靈性特徵                        |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | --------------------------- |
| Shamans / Sorcerers       | Band & Tribal Societies              | 薩滿靈魂出遊、進行治療或施法              |
| Ghosts / Ancestor Spirits | Agricultural Societies (e.g., China) | 敬老、祖先靈有能力帶來不幸（若被冒犯或忘記）      |
| Possession Trances        | Complex (stratified) Societies       | 靈魂附身儀式，有專人翻譯指引（例如非洲或亞洲部分地區） |

(By ChatGPT)
:::


## Shamans & Sorcerers: Shipibo Shamans in Peru
For Aguaruna people of Peru, shamans can cure illness. People believe that illness are caused by sorcerers(shamans acting evil); therefore they kill sorcerers. However, sometimes the boundary between sorcerer and shaman is not clear. That is, many shamans work under life threats.
## Shamanism in Taiwan: A Example of Tsou Community
Shamans in Tsao community are called Yoifo. They can heal illness, give blessing. However, they cannot help themselves or their spouses. Yoifo shamans were banned by Christian church, even the color they wear(red) was viewed as the color of devil by the church. Yet, Yoifo culture has been appointed as an "intangible culture asset" by the local government.