By Christopher W. Rowley, January 2000
My Experience with a Buryat Shaman.

I had arranged travel to Irkutsk and Listvyanka before discovering Jack’s webpage. Baikal is considered a spiritual place, thus I arranged to stay in Listvyanka on the shore of Baikal in order to experience Baikal and possibly meet a shaman or spiritually oriented people in the area. I was to learn from Jack that Listvyanka is more a tourist area and not a very spiritual place, particularly compared to areas north of Listvyanka such a Olkhon island.

Jack knew of a Buryat shaman* in the village of Arshan which is South of Irkutsk in the Buriat Republic. The shaman required a bottle of vodka for his ceremony, however I forgot to buy a bottle in Irkutsk. Once realizing this we stopped in a small Buriat village to buy some vodka in a store. This turned out to be an interesting challenge and almost a comical situation. After entering the village, Jack asked a group of people the location of a store. The village had an almost an American Western film feel to it, except inhabited by an oriental populace. The buildings were wooden and fairly weathered looking and dull with no color, one or two stories high. Cattle meandered along the dirt streets and we had to drive around small piles of dung, the day was very sunny, yet very cold. We drove down another street, not being able to find the store, came across some kids playing some sort of game with wooden sticks and a few beat up tin cans. They pointed us in a direction and we drove down another road. No store appeared, we then turned around, returned to the kids and asked again. They pointed again in the same direction and told us we missed the store, it was only 15 to 20 meters away from where they were standing. How could this be? They were pointed at some house that looked like any other house along the street. The store was in the house! Me and Jack entered into a dark corridor, walked down to a room that seemed a combination pantry/storeroom/kitchen. There were three or four women talking as we entered the room. Jack asked if we could buy a bottle of vodka. After some discussion Jack related to me that this ‘store’ was out of vodka, but he was told of another ‘store’ that would surely have vodka in stock. As we walked out of the building with two of the women, Jack requested that one of them go with us in our car and show us the way, knowing the other store would be unmarked too and from our perspective most of the buildings in the town looked pretty much alike. But the women did not have time, so we got one of the kids to navigate for us. We drove to another unmarked building, the kid led us into a corridor that had a barred door on the left which was the ‘store’, we proceeded to the end where it entered into a small courtyard. The kid refused to go any further, fearing a vicious biting dog the I could not see or detect, preferring instead to call out to the proprietor of the store to come open it. He called out several times, we waited and waited. Finally the kid went around to the outside to knock on the owner’s door and returned with a young woman who opened the store. Finally I was able to buy a bottle of vodka for 33 roubles, and gave the kid a kopek piece.

We drove the kid back to his friends and proceeded to the shaman’s house in Arshan which was nearby. His house was very rustic looking with a horse barn nearby, we entered an entry way, which protected the interior from the cold, before entering the kitchen/dinning area. After being introduced I sat down in a chair and waited for him to be ready. He came and sat down in a chair across from me and began reading me by looking deep into my face and eyes. When a shaman is doing a reading he is trying to see and detect what illnesses or problems the patient has and what is the source or cause of these problems on a spiritual as well as physical level. As he looked into my eyes, reading me, he asked several questions or made observations, Jack would interpret for me and also translate my answers back to the shaman. When the shaman was done looking into my eyes he took the bottle of vodka from me, which I had been holding in my hands since the purchase one half hour earlier, to continue his reading of me by reading my energy in the bottle of vodka (Note: Objects become energized iwth a person’s energy from constant handling).

When he was done with his reading, I was directed to sit at a table across from him for the healing part of this session. The shaman had a supply of a small herb, I did not recognize the stick like herb. He took a piece of this herb and lit it with a match and proceeded to bless the vodka with the smoke from the burning herb. I have witnessed ceremonies where burning sage or sweetgrass is used to bless/purify objects and/or people. When he was done blessing the vodka he dropped the burning herb into the bottle of vodka to extinguish it. He then proceeded with his ceremony by tipping the bottle of vodka horizontal enough to let small amounts flow into a small glass. As he did this he chanted in his native Buriat language, (Jack could not translate this). This chanting would develop a rhythm or tempo that would climax with him hitting the neck of the vodka bottle very hard against the rim of the small glass. As this glass became full of vodka he would transfer the vodka into a larger glass or jar which acted as a reservoir.

During his chanting he would say my name at certain points, also occasionally stopping to make more observations or ask more questions. When the big glass was full of vodka the shaman took it outside, said a prayer and poured out the vodka into the snow, then said another prayer. He returned and continued the same procedure until the small glass was full again. He took another piece of the herb, lit it and blessed the small glass of vodka, this time extinguishing the herb in his mouth.

He picked up the glass of vodka and walked around the table, standing in front of me. He drew in a mouthful of vodka, then reaching out and pulling my layers of shirts way from my chest, he spit the mouthful of vodka down the front of my chest, he then repeated this once more, then he did the same to my back, except just once. He then had me drink the remaining vodka and gave me some sort of jam to help my empty stomach. This completed his ceremony, and we discussed many of his observations and what he had accomplished with his healing. During his reading and subsequently during the healing ceremony, the shaman made many observations, some he confirmed with me, some were more general, others were of a personal nature, and some concerned my ancestors or my future which I could not confirm.

For example, he asked me if I got back pain after sitting in certain positions too long. I told him yes. He asked me if when I awoke at night, that I had trouble getting back to sleep. I confirmed this. These at first seemed fairly general, then he told me that my stomach produced too much acid, this seemed less obvious to me, and I confirmed that it was true because I go get a lot of heartburn. He made some more observations that were of a personal nature, most I could confirm, others came true later. The shaman said that an ancestor of mine, six generations back, practiced black magic, the shaman could not tell me what side of the family this person was on. I asked if this affected me in some way. He answered yes and that he would help me with this.

The shaman told me a curse was preventing me from getting married. This curse was the result of my ancestor. It might seem strange that an ancestor six generations back would be affecting me in this way, but it was interesting for me to note to myself that all my relationships up to this point had gone nowhere toward marriage, and most of my friends my age were either married or had been engaged. The shaman had more to say about this. He said that I was suppose to be married and that he would remove the curse. He went on to say that I had a woman on my mind, she was from this part of the world (geographically speaking, Asia) and that I would marry this person next year. I had not mentioned at all to the shaman or to Jack about my continued journey to Tashkent Uzbekistan to meet a young woman that I had been corresponding with. The shaman also detected that I was on a spiritual path, learning about healing and the old ways, I previously had not mentioned this either. He told me that this path was right for me, that I was to learn about healing and he encouraged me to keep studying.

After the healing ceremony was over he told me that the curse had been removed and that my sleep problem was healed. He told me that because I was his 21st patient of the day, that he was not able to affect all the problems that he read in me. I do know from my studying shamanism and healing, that the more healings a person performs, the more drained they become. He told me that I should come back to see him and spend several days (10 to 15) so that he can focus on me and affect more healing.

In conclusion, after leaving the shaman and going to a place to spend the night, I slept through the night as well as every night after that, except the night after my trip back to the US where I was suffering from jet lag. And I continue to sleep well. In Tashkent I became engaged toward the end of my two and half week stay, though when I first arrived, the situation did not seem like it would turn out like that. But after a while something between us felt right, and becoming engaged also felt right, no hesitation or doubts. Almost as if it was suppose to happen that way. My experience with this shaman was the highlight of my travels in Russia. Although at first I was doubtful of many of the things this shaman told me at first, so many turned out to be true, others are intriguing and require some research on my part.

* A shaman we visited - Vladimir Ukoev - passed away in November 2001