SHAMANISM & THE DRUM · LESSON 6 OF 12 · 13 MIN
Helpers and Power Animals
The spirits a shaman works with — the Nanai ayami that chooses its shaman, the Inuit tuurngaq, the familiars of Europe's cunning folk — and how Harner's "power animal" grew out of them.
Almost nowhere does the shaman work alone. The drum, the costume and the journey are means; what the shaman has that others lack is spirits who help — and in most traditions it is the spirits who choose the shaman, not the other way round. This lesson looks at how four very different cultures described those helpers, and at where the modern "power animal" came from.