Saturday, October 3, 2009

What Does the Shaman Sing?

I'm writing this post in the hope that I can get somebody helping me transcribe a song of a Buryat shamaness. I don't know the shamaness personally, I just happened to be around and recorded her while she was channeling her spirit. The shamaness was (and probably still is) a member of the Mongolian Shamans' Golomt Center which gave me the permission to make recordings of its shamans. The footage was made in April 2005 in Selenge province, Mongolia, at a ritual site called Mother-tree (Eej mod). The Mother-tree is a huge pine tree that was once struck by lightening but it didn't die, it still shoots sprouts every spring. In 2005 the shamans of the Golomt Center took me to the site where I made footages of several shamans' rituals. Every shaman had his/her own tree near the Mother-tree. They arranged an altar below their trees and started performing their rituals in front of them. I want to use the ritual of this shamaness for my PhD which is about Buryat shamanism in Mongolia, but I understand only bits and pieces of her song. I have transcribed everything I could understand, but as you'll see there are still a lot of indistinct parts. So if you are Mongolian or Buryat or somebody who understands these languages well and have the time, energy and curiosity to help me transcribe this song please do so!
Click here to find my transcription!