The Shaman's Coat : A Native History of Siberia - Softcover

Anna Reid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842126636 ISBN 13: 9781842126639

Publisher: PHOENIX PRESS, 2003

Synopsis

Steeped in history, ethnography and reportage, THE SHAMAN'S COAT tells the story of the indigenous people of Siberia. This vast expanse of land, much of it barely populated jungle and forest, has a population of just one million. One of the world’s great unexplored peoples, they have a colonial history as shocking as that of the American Indians or the Aboriginies, and live in some of the world’s harshest conditions. Until the 1950s they had no written language; the little we know about them is gleaned from outsiders’ accounts. They believed nature possesses animating spirits to be worshipped, placated or guarded against and Shamans performed appropriate ceremonies. There has been an extraordinary revival in shamanism, with many communities again carrying out dog sacrifices, imbibing hallucinogenic drugs, corpses of bears being offered food to bring good luck. Siberians are also realising how rich the land in which they live is and have embarked on a dangerous battle with Russia.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Part history, part travelogue, The Shaman's Coat vividly portrays some of the world's most unique and threatened peoples.

Anna Reid investigates the indigenous Siberians, Russia's equivalent to the Native Americans or Australian Aborigines. Drawing on interviews with shamans and reindeer-herders, camp survivors and Party apparatchiks, The Shaman's Coat travels through four hundred years of history and across a twelfth of the world's land-surface, from Mongolia to the Bering Strait.

'An enlightening study of indigenous peoples and post-Soviet geopolitics, full of unexpected insights... It is no small achievement to make the reader want to see this eerie landscape for themselves' Scotland on Sunday

'She blends history and anthropology with travel experience to create a rare cocktail of a book...The oral history she chronicles is deeply moving' Literary Review

'Thoroughly researched and often powerfully described' Times Literary Supplement

'Reid has an agreeable style and a deadpan good humour that is very engaging, and she has an economy of description that occasionally borders on the miraculous...I have travelled in Siberia myself, and the authentic flavours of the place are here present on every page' Marq de Villiers

PHOENIX NON-FICTION/HISTORY UK £7.99 CAN $17.95

Cover photograph: [Details to follow]

Isbn: 1 84212 663 6

About the Author:

Anna Reid has a master's degree in Russian History and reform economics from London University's School of Slavonic and East European Studies. She was the Kiev correspondent for the Economist and the Daily Telegraph from 1993 to 1995.

About this edition

• Publisher: PHOENIX PRESS
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1842126636
• ISBN 13: 9781842126639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240