We’re listening to a voice from the past — a Siberian spiritual healer, or shaman, recorded on a wax cylinder 100 years ago. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
These sounds were recorded by Waldemar Jochelson as part of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Launched in 1897 and taking five years to complete, the Jesup Expedition was one of anthropology’s earliest success stories. Thomas Ross Miller is guest curator of Drawing Shadows to Stone, an exhibition currently at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, celebrating the centennial of the Jesup exhibition.
“The scientific method of that day was to try and collect complete descriptions of entire cultures. And so they collected everything. They knew that shamanism was very important aspect of these native cultures. And so they did seek them out.”
The rituals and practices of every culture change over time, so these recordings represent a glimpse of a unique moment from the past.
“The Jesup expedition took place at a key moment in Russian history just before the revolution. The peoples in this area had been subject to Russian influence already for a couple of centuries, but the Soviet-era repression of these practices and of the shamans was still in the future. So what we have from the Jesup expedition is a record of a moment in time just before these practices and these traditions went underground.”
ambience: shaman chanting
In our next program, we’ll explore the world of Siberian shamanism. Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. I’m Jim Metzner.