The Shaman Sickness

"I became ill when I was twenty-one years old and began to see with my eyes and hear with my ears things others could neither hear nor see. For nine years I fought against the spirit, without telling anyone what had happened because I feared they might not believe me or make fun of me.

In the end I became so ill that I was close to death. So I began to shamanize, and very soon my health improved. Even now I feel unwell and sick whenever I am inactive as a shaman over a longer period of time." Yakut shaman Uno Harva

"How did he become a shaman? Sickness seized him when he was twenty-three years old and he became a shaman at the age of thirty. That was how he became a shaman, after the sickness, after the torture. He had been ill for seven years. While he was ailing he had dreams: He was beaten up several times, sometimes he was taken to strange places. He had been around quite a lot in his dreams and he had seen many things...He who is seized by the shaman sickness and does not begin to exercise shamanism, must suffer badly. He might lose his mind, he may even have to give up his life. Therefore he is advised,'You must take up shamanism so as not to suffer!' Some even say, 'I became a shaman only to escape illness.'"
The wife of Kyzlasov, a shaman of the Sagay tribe from Kyzlan on the river Yes

"The man chosen for shamanism is first recognised by the black spirits. The spirits of the dead shamans are called black spirits. They make the chosen one ill and then they force him to become a shaman."
Sunchugasev, another Siberian shaman

"It has been a long time. With two of my brothers, the three of us went to hunt squirrels. Late at night we were crossing a mountain, going after the squirrels, when suddenly I saw a black crow right in the middle of the road. We were advancing in single file. I was the first. I came nearer, but the crow kept crouching in the middle of the road. It stayed right there and waited for me. When I reached it, I threw some snow toward it from a branch. It never moved. Then I hit its beak with my stick. Kok-kok. The knock resounded loudly. What was all this? What was going to happen to me? Because the night before - before seeing the crow - I had already felt miserable. Next day I went back to where I had seen the crow. Not even a trace of it was to be seen, anywhere! Although the others, that is my brothers, had seen it too. From then on, from the time I hit the beak of that crow, I became very ill. My mind was deranged. I have been suffering for as long as seven years."
Suzukpen, a shaman of the Siberian Soyot community near the Suy-Surmak River

"During my youth from more or less the age of seven or eight years I had some rare dreams. I still remember them. I remember dreams in which I flew, that my ego departed from the state in which it was, and I went to strange places in the form of a spiral. Or I flew in a vertiginous manner:sssssssssss, I departed. I tried to retain myself and I could not. Strange dreams, strange. In Lima I was studying fine arts and suddenly I began drinking and spending everything on drink. I came down with a rare sickness. It happened that on one occasion I saw a cat on my left shoulder. It was enough that with that impression of a cat everything that I did was over-turned, and I lost the power to hold things in my hand and to stand up. I completely lost all my strength. I could not hold myself up in a standing position and walked like a sleepwalker, according to what they tell me."
Eduardo Calderón, a Peruvian curandero

"I sought solitude, and here I soon became very melancholy. I would sometimes fall to weeping, and feel unhappy without knowing why. Then, for no reason, all would suddenly be changed and I felt a great, inexplicable joy, a joy so powerful that I could not restrain it, but had to break into song, a mighty song, with only room for the one word: joy, joy! And I had to use the full strength of my voice. And then, in the midst of such a fit of mysterious and overwhelming delight, I became a shaman, not knowing myself how it came about. But I was a shaman. I could see and hear in a totally different way."
The Eskimo shaman Aua

"I also became ill when I was about to become a shaman. First my head began to ache, then my hands. Around the full moon my head was splitting with pain. I had been ailing for about three years. In the meantime the spirits came to visit me. While I slept, my tongue was chanting. It chanted like the shamans do. But I did not know anything about it. When I awoke, my mother and father and my sister told me,"You were chanting shaman songs." After such occasions I always felt better for a few days. After three or four months the sickness overpowered me. My head was aching all the time, and when I slept my tongue was chanting shaman songs again. It went on like this, alternating every three or four months, for three years. I kept suffering and suffering. When I wanted to rest or sleep, my tongue would be chanting. I didn't know anything about it, because really it's the spirit chanting. But not all spirits chant equally well. Some chant beautifully, some chant hideously. The great spirit chants best. I was twenty-seven years old when I heard him chant. The little one, the little spirit used to come to me. He had flown into my mouth and then I used to recite shaman songs. When I had no more strength left to suffer, finally I agreed to become a shaman. And when I became a shaman, I changed entirely. Because being a shaman turns you into a totally different person."
Kokuiev, a Siberian shaman