Books about Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism

by Nicholas Breeze Wood

In the popular imagination, shamans and drums go together like bread and butter. No-one knows the historical origin of drums, but they have certainly been made and played by people for thousands of years.

Part of the way animal skins are prepared for eventual use as clothing or other items, is to stretch them on a frame so that they dry flat; if you tap such a skin drying on its frame, it sounds like a drum.

I suspect these drying skins were probably the first drums ever made, and eventually the stretching frame became the drum frame. It is now fairly well known that the word shaman comes from Siberia, and it is in this vast geographical area that shamanism proper is still to be found. Nowadays the word ‘shamanism’ has become a rather general word, applied to all sorts of practices - many of which are unrelated to the word’s original meaning.

The drum is very important to the practices of shamanism in Northern Asia, and it is seen as a living being, full of spirits.

Whether with a metal, wooden, or even a plastic frame drums occur all over the world, from the shaman’s drums of Siberia, to the bodhran of Ireland, the bendir of North Africa and the daf of Persia.

The book is an exploration of tradional Northern Asian shamanic drums, and is filled with colourful images rarely seen in the West. It provides an excellent overview of the drums of shamanic Siberia.

Available from Amazon. The link is to Amazon.com

Published 2013

Visit Amazon to read a sample.