Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 2.-3. 1961-1962 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1963)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Makkay János: An Important Proof to the Prehistory of Shamanism. II–III, 1961–62. p. 5–10.

Fig. 3. The female figurines of the Upper Palaeolithic Age might imitate such abstract deities too, in the bodily form of the most fertile mothers. Finally we should like to deal with the question, why was it usual of old, nay almost to our day, to represent the human body on the shaman costume, or later (possibly ot the very end of the Palaeolithic Age already) the human skeleton. Ethnological literature gives the most various answers to this question. This variety itself is a reason why we are doubting the correctness of any if these answers. Such a circumscribed phenomenon namely, not to be mistaken with anything else, can have a specific individual reason only. Similarly the explanations given by the people who wore the shaman costumes once, diverging far from each other, bear out the longevity of the custom. 1. A part of the students held that the bones sewn on the costume were no imitations of human bones but of bird or imáimmal bones, the skeleton being an imitation of such skeletons.

19 2. Later ever more scholars adopted the view that the bones represented the more or less coherent picture of the human skeleton.

20 3 According to Uno Harva the applied bones and plates were intended to protect the bones of the shaman actually dressed in the costume.

21 As we have 19 j. HOLMBERG, The Shaman Costume and Its Significance. Annales Universitatis Fennicae Aboensis 1 (1922); A. FRIEDRICH, op. cit. 20 U. HARVA, op. cit.; V. F. TROSHCHANSKY, op. cit.; H. FINDEISEN, op. cit. 85—87; К. DONNER op. cit. 21 U. HARVA, op. cit.; V. DIÓSZEGI, op. cit.; K. DONNER, op. cit. 22 K. DONNER, op. cit. 23 H. FINDEISEN, op. cit. Schamanentum 89. 24 w. SCHMIDT, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee. Band XU Abt. 3: Die Religionen der Hirtenvölker. VI. Synthese der Religionen der Asiatischen und der Afrikanischen Hirtenvölker. (Münster i. W. 1955) 727—728. seen, V. Diószegi holds the same view and so does K. Donner too.

22 On our part we regard this explanation as an early reinterpretation of the ancient custom. 4. According to H. Findeisen, wearing the bones on the costume in this way has a symbolic significance, excluding a uniform explanation.

23 True, there are masks and shaman costumes of the recent past which have appliquéd trimmings and metal plates imitating doubtless animal bones. As we have alluded to it, however, their problem must be separated in part from the shaman costumes decorated with human bones. The former are based namely on the misunderstanding of the original custom and the forgetting of its original interpretation owing to the fact that the prehistoric shaman has appeared clad in animal hides and a staghorn on his head, with human bones on his costume nevertheless. To see the original custom without knowing its meaning was enough for supplanting the human bones by the animal bones, doubtless moire at hand. The bones were taken from the animal which was represented by the head-dress, the mask. 5. According to W. Schmidt the bones represent the skeleton of the leader of the infernal spirits on the shaman costumes of soime Turkish peoples,

24 6. M. Eiliade bases his view on the superstitious beliefs attached to the bones. He knows the belief that the bones of the body make its resurrection possible. It is a widely extended idea of Shamanism that, being in the state of extasis, the shaman leaves his body, nay he may even die. However, he rises from the dead according to this belief, if his bones are gathered and prepared in the appropriate way. This is why some peoples refrain from breaking the bones brought down during the hunt; they rather gather them carefully and bury in the required manner, placed them in the sea or into the water of lake on a "platte-forme".

25 In this way they hope to ensure the resurrection on further propagation of the animal respectively. It is remarkable, nay of a decisive importance, that this idea appears just .among the beliefs of the Upper Palaeolithic Age, having even a large significance,

26 though in a somewhat different form. Summarizing, we .may reach the following; conclusion: The human body or the human skeleton was represented on the mask, or rather on the costume made of animal hides with emphasis, as shown on the shaman costume of Les Trois Frères. The shaman performs a dancing movement, or to use the langvage of Shamanism, he is in extasis. Having reached this state, his soul leaves his body. We hardly know anything on the Upper Palaeolithic beliefs ss to the soul. We might even suppose that, according to the original view, the shaman clad in animal hides did not leave his own body when in extasis but his costume only. It is evident that dressing in animal hides precedes the evolution of Shamanism even in a cultic role. Primitive man has doubtless used an animal mask and clothing 25 M. ELIADE, Le chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l'extase. (Paris 1951) 151—153; K.DONNER, holds that the role of the bones and metal plates fastened to the costume is also connected with the journey of the shaman in Heaven. The shaman namely cannot bring along his own bones to this journey, while the bones made of iron plates, sewn on to his costume, are suitable for this purpose. This view is perhaps the most archaic of the data on Shamanism, and this comes the nearest to Palaeolithic precedents, together with the appropriate costume of course. (Op. cit., Ethnological Notes, 80.) 26 J. MARINGER, op. cit. 138—142, 205—208. 9