Anna
Reid gives native Siberians a new voice Anna
Reid gives native Siberians a new voice
The Shaman’s Coat:
A Native History of Siberia
Anna Reid, Walker & Company, October 2003, 226pg, $13.00US
The Shaman’s Coat has followed me through advanced proof, hardback, and now paperback edition. Each time I read it I am convinced of its importance, especially as U.S. forces occupy Iraq. In some ways we regain our national identity by the use of imperial, military force. As we try to align Iraq's political destiny with our own, we should be full of questions about the nature of conquest and of the conquered. We can all recite examples of colonial and post-colonial oppression, but Anna Reid gives us something more complete.
The history of indigenous peoples is often lost in the books
written by those who gobbled up their lands. Indigenous people
seem to exist only in conflict with the land grabbers. These
people are moved. These people are lost. These people merge
and become indistinguishable from their conquerors. Some remain
an inexplicable tie to the past unwritten by conquerors: an
alternate history.
In The Shaman’s Coat, Anna Reid turns our attention
to the native Siberians, peoples often forgotten. She, an
outsider, deals with the subject in the most generous way.
Although the text draws from folk tales, historical documents,
KGB reports, and personal interviews with indigenous people,
she never presents us with an overly dense section. Instead
she gives us a travelogue, which is just as much about her
discovery of the Khant, Buryat, Tuvans, Chuckchi, Ainu, and
others in the vast territory held by the Russians, as it is
a cultural document.
The central conceit of The Shaman’s Coat is exploring
the remaining shamanistic practices. Her material falls short
of the original intent. The Soviets effectively stripped not
only Russian culture but forcefully eliminated the religious
elements of the people they conquered. The traditions that
had survived the onslaught of centuries of Russification disappeared
in any real way during the reigns of Lenin and Stalin. The
traces Reid found do not comprise a significant portion of
the book, even with secondary materials. When she does find
shamans, they are often coupled with Western New Age practices
or exist only in the far more interesting traces of popular
practice of native religions. However, the information she
brings us about the Siberian people is so rich and unblinking,
we understand why she was not able to fulfill her original
goal and forgive her. It is also necessary to stress that
this failure is not through any technical lacking as a writer;
perhaps a sociologist, anthropologist ,or more likely a historian
could give us a more thorough tome on Siberian shamans, but
it would lack Reid’s engaging and warm prose.
Anna Reid gives us a deadpan but never excessively dull understanding
of Russian and Native Siberian relations in her first-hand
accounts. The Russian racism is pervasive since most Russians
living in Siberia consider themselves native Siberians. They
resent any attention spent on the aboriginal, most of whom,
like the Buryat, have become Russified themselves.
There are few dreams of autonomy amongst the urbanized native
Siberians and only a distant gnawing nostalgia for the traditional
ways. When I first read this book, I thought it was particularly
exciting since it illustrates that the Russian Federation
and Soviet Union are multi-ethnic and examines the clever
and diabolical methods of alleviating the stresses caused
by living in such a state, which should resonate with any
American. This book assured me of the transparency of American
racism and oppression, both historical and contemporary, and
suggested that by acknowledging racism openly we could possiblly
deal with it. However, I now think it should also be read
as a warning against our current acceptance of forceful occupation
as well as an understanding of our past excesses.