Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 6.-7. 1965-1966 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1966)
Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Makkay János: Some ancient sources to the Shamanism. VI–VII, 1965–66. p. 27–42. t. XV.
ance here. In one passage Gilgamesh himself occurs as „the drum of the people" (evidently for „the drummer of the people") °. Similarly lines rev. 43-44 of U. 9364 allude to drum and stick. Expressions like „whose lustiness was irresistible" and „whose pulsations could not be drowned out" may not refer to anything but, the drum and the drumstick. One cannot think of a corded or a wind-instrument at all. The quoted passages bear out further that Gilgamesh's drum was no musical instrument for a profane purpose but one intended to perform a religious act. Unfortunately we have not succeeded in finding any further parallel among the written statements handed down to us by ancient civilisations. Accordingly, if one wants to investigate the actions relating to the drum of Gilgamesh in more detail, one must base one's conclusions on the recorded customs and religious beliefs of the peoples of the recent past. The role of the drum, as it is generally known, used to be most important in the religious life of almost every backward people. So it was in Siberian Shamanism in the first place. Therefore we try to compare some passages of the Sumerian tablet to customs and opinions taken from the orbit of Shamanism. Naturally, this process ought not to be restricted to phenomena severed from their connections but it should embrace the chain of events beginning with the antecedents of the manufacture of the drum (including the genesis of the mythical first tree), following the work on the instrument, ending with its use and loss equally. Nevertheless, in order to preserve the unity of our argumentation, we shall disregard customs and beliefs attached to the „tree of life" and not specifically to Shamanism, as a rule. The tree of life was namely an old symbol, extended over all Eurasia. 1. The drum has a dominant role in the life of the shaman and in the ceremonies performed by him. He goes into ecstasies by the help of drumming in the first place. This is common knowledge, there is no need to prove it. 2. Special drum and drumsticks are to be manufactured for each shaman. According to the beliefs of Yakuts and Dolgans the supreme god, having created the world, has given life to a shaman as well. He is the mythical ancestor of 30. II. iv. 30: ,_The drum of the people is free from nuptial ohoise." This line makes doubtless that the drafter of the text or tradition, respectively, regarded Gilgamesh as the one-time priest of the community as well. 31. L. STERNBERG: Der Adlerkult bei den Völkern Sibiriens. AfR 28 (1©3'0) p. 134; U. HARVA: Die religiösen Vorstellungen der Altaisehen Völker. FFC 1И5 (Helsinki 1938) p. 4&0. 32. u. HARVA: loc. cit.; L. Stermbern: op. cit. p. 134. 33. U. HARVA: op. Cit. p. 481; L. STERNBERG: op. cit. pp. 145—146. ЗА. V. DIÓSZEGI: A sámánhit emlékei a magyar népi műveltségben. (Relies of Shamanism in Hungarian Folk Culture.) (Budapest 1968) p. 159. shamans. The supreme god also planted a sacred tree of eight branches, a never-bending one, in front of his dwelling. 31 It was the wood of this first tree which served as the material of a drum and a drumstick, manufactured by the god for the shaman as his foremost magical instruments. 32 Also the Golds thought that the first shaman accepted the drum and the drumstick of the wood of the first tree brought to existence after the creation of the world. ,? i 3 On the other hand, we know that each shaman possessed a tree in the recent past. His drum and drumstick had to be manufactured for him out of the wood of this tree, not of anything else. 34 3. This first tree after the Creation is placed by the imagination of shamanistic peoples at the banks of a river or a considerable stretch of water, such as a big lake. According to Mansi (Vogouls) belief the hallowed birch of the Pelim god, a tree of golden branches, stood near a sacred rivulet 5 . On the other hand, the Chantis (Cstyaks) mention the sea, on the shores of which this big ancestral tree has grown 3 ". 4. The ceremony used for the initiation of a shaman followed the ancestral story connected with the Creation. On the eve of the rite one or more trees had to be brought, together with the roots, before the house of the shaman from the hallowed grove or the cemetery (a sacred place too). ::7 At some places a special tent has been erected for this purpose, the uprooted birch — or pine — tree has been brought there. This became the tree of the shaman, and he was bound actually to climb it. This act symbolize his ascent to Heaven or descent to the Nether World, i. e. his ability to intercourse with the gods, to mediate between them and the human beings, forwarding human wishes and complaints just as divine commands. According to general opinion the eagle, the shaman's bird, perches on the shaman's tree. 38 The belief of shamanistic peoples also holds that a snake used to dwell among the roots of the same tree, the first plant grown after the Creation/ 9 A Yakut legend adds that there is an opening in the trunk of the first tree, showing a female being stripped to the waist, with bare breasts. Uno Harva was quite right in looking 35. B. MUNKÁCSI: Istenek hősi énekei, regéi és idéző igéi. Vogul Népköltési Gyűjtemény П/l. (Heroic poems, legends and spells of gods. Collection of Vogoul Folk Poetry П/l.) (Budapest 1Ш.О) p. 33*7. 36. U. HARVA: op. cit. p. 72; id.: Der Baum des Lebens. Annales Academiae Scientiairum Fennicae, Ser. В. Tom. XVI. (Helsinki l&22t— 23) p. 56. 37. H. FINDEISEN: Schamanentum (Stuttgart 1967) p. 71; U. HARVA: Die religiösen . . . pp. 49—^50, 488. 38. L. STERNBERG: loc. cit.; U. HARVA: op. cit. p. 84; M. ELIADE: Le chamanisme et les techniques airchaiques de l'extase (Paris 1952) p. 247; H. NACHTIGALL: ZfE 77 (1952) p. 196. 38. U. HARVA: op. cit. p. 84. 31
