Dusk lingered long, the sky a glowing ashen canopy, with the air chilling fast. This was Paris perhaps, but Paris of Siberia.
Yet not Irkutsk but Lake Baikal and its alleged mystic powers drew us to this time zone. One gray morning, we boarded a marshrutka (minivan bus) for the trip north to the mostly Buryat village of Khuzhir, population 1,500, on Olkhon Island, halfway up the lake’s western shore, and accessible by ferry. Famous as a “pole of shamanistic energy,” Olkhon attracts Russian aficionados of the spiritual arts and of shamanism in particular. The island’s Cape Burkhan, with a cave within its bizarre marble boulder—called Shamanka—is regarded as the chosen abode of the deity Khan-Khute-Baabay, and draws worshippers from all over Russia. Nevertheless, the cramped, seven-hour ride through taiga and across drab, grassy plains hardly inspired. And neither did the island itself, a mostly barren rock outcropping dotted with scraggly conifers and gaunt grazing cows. Khuzhir stood on high ground, its weathered shacks and izbas (Russian log huts) lashed by winds that never let up and stirred dust storms on its sandy streets, causing people and the many stray dogs to wince. The island’s western bank faces the mainland’s majestic taiga, where bears prowl and moose roam. The eastern side flanks the open Baikal; on the high bluffs stand, here and there, firs, their branches covered in prayer ribbons—gifts, proffered by visitors, to the local gods.
In the age of tourism, shamanism, is, not surprisingly, a business in Khuzhir. As far as is understood, Asian shamanism originated with the region’s Turkic and Mongol peoples. It involves, essentially, self-induced trances, chants, and a beating of drums that permit practitioners ingress into the spirit world and the power to heal and do harm among temporal earthlings. We found the most accessible shamans to be those with yurts—broad, quasiconical tents of animal hides, held up by poles—standing on the outskirts of the village. For a modest fee, you can listen to a lecture on the basics of shamanism. This seemed like a good idea, so we dipped inside, paid, and took seats with a half-dozen Russians.
The shaman-instructor, a young Buryat man, explained that, long ago, the heavens sent ninety-nine tengri (deities) to earth to help us humans out. The tengri grant shamans their powers, which, in the case of the exalted Zarin shamans, include being able to fly. One who is called upon to be a shaman may die if he refuses. Becoming a shaman involves surviving a three-day ritual. The most prestigious and powerful shamans are the shamany-kuznetsy (blacksmith shamans). Blacksmiths are revered because they once forged items essential to life in the region. They also have a lot of sway in the two Other Worlds, being able to call for help from the seventy-seven blacksmith deities.
A man named Igor raised his hand. He had, he said, fought in various wars, but considered God his guardian angel. Nevertheless, he was critical of the Church.
“I don’t like how the Orthodox Church charges seven thousand rubles [$112] for a baptism, when a lot of people make only about twelve thousand a month. What do you shamans charge?”
“We have no set fee. Each gives us according to the wishes of his soul.”
We decided we needed more insight than the “shamanism 101” lecture we had just heard. So, we arranged to meet a prominent local shaman, Gennady Tugulov, who is a Buryat native of Khuzhir. Tugulov, in his late fifties, is a blacksmith shaman. He arrived at our inn one evening toting his tools—a tiny hammer, a tiny anvil, a tiny file, and a small silver bowl—along with his folded indigo blue felt shamanistic robes and matching cap, all emblazoned with silver suns, for a meeting out on the wooden porch.
“Mind if I smoke?” he asked, setting his load down on the table.
“Is it allowed?” we asked.
“It is for me! After all, I’m a shaman.”
He promptly lit up. With his cigarette dangling from his lips, he put on his robes and cap and laid out his tools, puffing as he did so. No one really knows, he told us, who came first to this region—the Buryats, the Sakha (as the Yakuts call themselves), or the Mongols. He affixed a dagger to his leather belt, which sported a silver buckle and silver bangles; around his neck hung, on green-and-blue ribbons, disks of burnished silver and gold, one signifying the moon, the other the sun. “Their circularity symbolizes eternity,” he explained. He then gave us a rundown of his qualifications: he was a thirteenth-generation shaman; of the nine levels of shamanism, he has one left to attain. One does not decide to become a shaman but is selected for the honor by one’s clan.
“What are these tools for, exactly?” we asked.
“Well, I put this file in the fire to heat it up. When it’s hot, I sprinkle it with vodka from this silver bowl and sprinkle the drink on people to help them. This little hammer I use to pound the anvil and call spirits. The bear claw I have here protects me. The silver plate hanging from my neck means I’m a white shaman. The copper one wards off people’s bad energy. There’s a lot of that around these days, so it’s necessary for people in my profession. A shaman must never fear, even when meeting bad people.”
He took a drag on his cigarette.
“Shamans help people, help the sick; we were once the healers and judges here. We speak to our ancestors and consult them for advice. You have to be a shaman or you can’t hear them. We also divine things through reflection and can see things through dreams. We do a lot of good, as you see, that simple folk cannot do on their own. The Soviets repressed us, yet still they came to us when they needed us; in fact, the very ones doing the killing came to us and sought our aid in purifying themselves after their bad deeds. In the 1990s we revived our profession and now practice it freely.”
“So things are returning to normal here?”
“Normal? No. You have seen Shamanka?”
“The rocky outcropping on Cape Burkhan?”
“Yes. Well, it has a cave running right through it. Since Soviet times mankind has desecrated nature around the lake. People have built resorts on the shores. These have to close or they risk really angering Baikal. People even bathe and do their laundry in the lake, which they should never, ever do. They take from the lake but they don’t give back. They need to ask permission from the goddess of water, and she must be asked politely, as you would ask a woman. When the lake gets angry, its waters will rise in terrible revolt. Terrible.”
Shamans, he told us, commune in solitude with nature, learning the language of the birds, the bears.
“You talk to bears?” we asked.
“We listen to them. Bears are very perceptive. If you talk to them, they won’t bother you. But they can tell you a lot.”
He fiddled with the bear claw he wore on a black cord around his neck.
“All our world’s problems come from people going against nature. Yet we must observe nature and obey it. We cannot go against nature. Nature will take its own.”