Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 4 – In what
appears to be an effort to make the shamans of Siberia seem even more exotic
and alien to Russian life, Artur Priymak of Nezavisimaya gazeta reports that
a group of shamans from Buryatia made a two-week “official” visit to Ghana,
Benin and Togo to meet with voodoo priests.
In an article entitled “The Siberian
Shamans and Voodoo Priests Will Return Humanity to Pre-Historic Times,” the
Moscow religious affairs reporter describes the visit by the Buryat shamans to
voodoo shrines and quotes both their leaders and specialists on the meaning of
this unusual ecumenical activity (ng.ru/ng_religii/2020-02-04/13_480_shaman.html).
Zaarin Boo (Bair Tsyrendorzhiyev),
the supreme shaman of Buryatia, says that from the outside it may appear that “Tengrianism
and Voodooism are diametrically opposed and the mentality of the
Buryat-Tengrians and the Africans are also different.” But in fact, “the religions of the native
peoples of Africa are similar to those of the indigenous peoples of Siberia.”
“New religions,” like Christianity,
Islam and Buddhism, “differ among themselves, [but] the ancient religions,
Tengrianism, African shamanism, voodoo and so on are practically the same,” the
shaman continues. The basic divinities
are the same, and that means that the Buryat shamans “felt at home” in Africa.
The chief shaman adds that the agreement he
and his colleagues reached with voodoo leaders in Togo is “an international
confirmation of mutual respect and mutual understanding between the Tengrians
of Buryatia and the African followers of voodoo.” Both want to preserve and
expand their traditional religious faiths.
“Globalization has allowed people to
understand how humanity lived in times which it is customary to call
pre-historic” and as a result, people are reversing the course they passed in
more recent times to return to that earlier understanding of “all-human unity
and initial harmony” between people and nature.
Yevgeny Nechkasov, a Russian
specialist on neo-pagan religions, says that the agreement is a statement of
intentions rather than anything more. But it does highlight one thing: “other
pagan religions are strictly ethno-centric while Tengrianism and voodooism are
religions for all and they have a supreme god.”
But Nikolay Abayev, a historian at
the Ivolgin Datsan University of Buddhism, disagrees. Tengrianism is a religion
of “the Eternal Heaven, light and peace” while voodooism is a cult of evil spirits
that can lead to horrific developments like the terrorist tonton macoutes of
Haiti under the Duvaliers.
Any notion that voodoo is “a
religion of harmony” has been formed “under the influence of Western mass
culture,” he says. He is also dismissive
of Tengrianism and says it is alien to the Buddhist traditions of the Buryats. The Tengrians engage in PR schemes in which
they collect enormous sums of money from the curious.
It is money from those activities
that paid for this latest trip to Africa, Abayev concludes.
No comments:
Post a Comment