Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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The original intent of this paper was to focus solely upon the cosmological and

anthropological evidence for the migration of humans whose cultures included the identified role

we call shaman, and to refer to the supporting data from genetics, linguistics, paleoarcheology

and paleoanthropology such as the Beriniga Theory, the Land Bridge Theory and so on. In good

conscience and as an act of ethical anthropology this is something I cannot do today, at least as

per my original intent.

This is the evidence that was to be the focus of this paper: There is no doubt that the

shaman drums from Central Asia, from the Aleutian region, from the Pacific Northwest, and

from Central America all bear striking resemblances. This is possible only if the spiritual and

religious understandings of the people for whom the drum is sacred were also very similar. So, a

wave of migration of humans from Central and Eastern Asia, where we currently identify as the

areas in which the word, shaman, and the concept of the shaman as spiritual intermediary are

first identified and codified as part of a society’s religious and spiritual expression, simply seems

to make sense.

Except when the evidence offered by linguistics, genetics, radioisotope dating, physical

anthropology and archeology is subjected to scrutiny. And, that scrutiny is especially by First

Nations/Amerindian researchers, philosophers, and writers.

Our theme for this conference is Social Justice. And, it is being taken very widely to

allow for the broadest possible expressions of research and scholarship, particularly by those of

us engaged in religious- or spiritual-based/focused research and scholarship. My training and

experience as a Social and Cultural Anthropologist compels what we used to lightly refer to in all

seriousness as, running our Po-Mo (postmodern) credits up the flagpole. This has evolved into

expressing our personal and academic intersectionality in the various discourses our lives and

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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work affect and in which we are affected. On a personal note, the concept of intersectionality,

particularly embodied intersectionality was one clarified for me by the late Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje,

who I knew mostly in the context of social media, but enhanced by our shared journey along a

Sufi path, the practice of zikr, and both being scholars who were comfortable expressing our

embodied intersectionalities. So, when this Euro-American, white, raised middle class, queer,

intersex, not-fully-able-bodied, lesbian, married, former addict, military veteran, former AIDS

activist, biker, coffee entrepreneur, hippie grandmother embarks upon researching and writing

about the subject of Beringia Theory, Land Bridge Theory, Human Migration into the Americas

she is very, very much aware that she is dangerously close to continuing the perpetuation of the

essentialist, mainstream-elite, racist, academic, and dare I say cultural genocide that has for the

last 100 years of formal scholarship discounted and dismissed evidence, claims, proofs (whatever

they are) and even basic understanding that the First Nations and Amerindian peoples have been

in this hemisphere for a whole lot longer than the 10-12 thousand years or even 20 thousand

years allowed in the Land Bridge and Beringia Theories.

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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This is something I cannot do. But, I can and will today briefly touch upon the

controversy, offer the evidence of the shaman drums, and with as much humility and respect that

I can muster suggest that we know far less than we believe we know about human migration

patterns on this planet and also that because we have fewer answers than we thought, we have

more questions to ask, mysteries to solve, and puzzles to unravel. This is good, this is very good.

Beringia and Genetics

In 1923, Coca and Diebert sampled blood from a number of Amerindians to sort out basic blood

types, categories only discovered in 1919 (Ottenberg, 1925). They found that their subjects were

very likely to have blood type O, a blood type uncommon among Asian peoples. Blood type B is

found in about one-third of Asian peoples, but almost non-existent among Amerindians. The

conclusion was reached that O is the, “mother type,” of Amerindians. However, a study in 1933

by Matson and Schrader of one tribe, the Piegan, or Blackfeet found most of them were blood

type A (Matson, Schrader, 1935). RH factors in Amerindians reveal that they are usually RH

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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Positive, while in Asian peoples RH is usually RH Negative. Matson and Shrader recognized

their results were significant and that a rethinking of the origins of Amerindians was necessary.

Further genetic mapping to sort out haplogroups revealed among Amerindians that some group

divisions occurred as long as 57 thousand years ago, long before the Bering Strait Land Bridge

Theory allowed for the peopling of the Americas. Haplogroup testing also revealed that some

Amerindian haplogroups were older than some Asian haplogroups; something that could happen

only if there were humans in the Americas who then migrated west across the land bridge or

through Beringia.

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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Linguistics Makes It Even Weirder

Very briefly, there is far greater linguistic variation among Amerindian languages than

any other grouping of peoples on the planet. If there was a single, “mother tongue,” the

beginning of changes into dialects and separate languages occurred at least 40 thousand years

ago (Nichols, 1990). While there are documented similarities between languages in Eastern Asia

and, for example, Navajo, the variations in languages seem to predate the 10-12 thousand year

date of the Land Bridge Theory. In fact, according to Nichols, the linguistic evidence indicates

the languages of Amerindians have existed for at least 50 thousand years if there was a single

wave of migration, or perhaps 35 thousand if the migration occurred in multiple waves.

Shaman Drums: Taking Us Into The Same Trance

We now look to a key marker of worldview, cosmology, and religious practices among

early human, non-monotheistic cultures for evidence that these migrated, and apparently far

earlier than we used to believe; the drums of shamans.

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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Siberia, Mongolia

Huns, Tuva, Khakas Mapuche - Chile, Argentina

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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The first grouping of drums are from Siberia and Mongolia. Even though one is elongated, the

images are what we are focusing on. The universe is divided into four parts, two upper worlds

and two lower worlds. The image of the person represents the place of the shaman as the one

who stands between the worlds and the one who can move from one world to the next.

It is the drum that represents first the heartbeat of the universe and then also the heartbeat of the

shaman, and, depending upon the matter being addressed, the heartbeat of the patient or the god

or goddess or spirit the shaman needs to engage. The drum helps the shaman move into trance.

Some cultures also use psychotropic plants to help the trance state to arrive and some also use

dancing.

But, in those cultures which use the shaman drums, the drum is the primary means of helping the

shaman to enter the trance.

The second grouping of drums are from Tuva, on the left, and the Mapuche on the right. The

Mapuche live in an area that spans what are now Chile and Argentina in South America,

including Patagonia.

And, this is what brings us to the question of human migration, especially the Land Bridge

Theory or Beringia. Just how do two cultures, separated by thousands of miles and a vast ocean

if one travels in a straight line, or thousands of miles if one walks from Central Asia to Alaska to

Patagonia come to have almost identical religious artifacts such as shaman drums and intact

spiritual practices including the role and person of the shaman, their cosmology, and the use of

the drum to invoke the sacred trance?

Last year, I was comfortable saying the Land Bridge Theory answered that. Humans walked

across the Bering Strait land bridge at the end of the last Glacial Maximum about 10-12 years

ago. But, I read more and learned of the Beringia Theory. Genetics seems to support the idea that

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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a human population was relatively isolated for about 20 thousand years on a broad steppe until

the glaciers receded, game animals moved east and south, and humans followed their prey into

the Americas. Except we also have linguistic evidence that the indigenous humans in the

Americas have been speaking numerous separate languages, about 128 families of language, for

at least 40 thousand years. So, I am no longer comfortable with last year’s answer. I’m not even

that comfortable with this year’s answer because I have no answer.

We don’t know why the shamanic cultures in Tuva, Mongolia, and Chile, for example, seem to

have very, very similar religious artifacts and practices and spiritual functionaries. And, yet,

there are significant differences that bring up even more questions. The Mapuche shamans tend

to be older women and not third gender persons. In the Inuit, they are shape shifters who become

seals, or birds, or bears and sometimes change sex from male to female. In Eastern Siberia and

Russia, they change shape and become bears. We know these cultures also have third gender

people, the source of our inquiries into these religions and cultures. But, it is not always clear just

where third gender people fit into these cultures because it’s not always the same. Among the

Inuit, one who mates with the shaman, particularly a shaman who also changes sex in the sacred

trance gains status. This attitude and practice apparently holds in North American tribes; third

gender people are honored and are often in the role as shaman.

Did third gender people become honored because of religious practice based on the person of the

shaman? Or were they honored because they were already in the in-between space in their bodies

or inclinations?

We don’t know. But, this is my way into this topic. It is part of the ongoing research into third

gender spiritual functionaries and, as a matter of course, the source of their social and cultural

roles.

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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It is necessary as an anthropologist, a product of CIIS, an activist-scholar, to speak for my self

and my intersectionalities, and then for my subjects because I am only representing the story they

shared with me. There is nobody who really knows how humans first came to the Americas. We

know they did. We are only just beginning to understand that the process wasn’t as clear and

easy as academics once thought. We also know that there are First Nations/Amerindian

researchers and scholars who strongly disagree with even the idea that humans migrated into the

Americas. There are origin stories that say people were always here. And, while some may claim

it’s a form of Indian creationism to honor those stories, we have to respect that the stories exist

and that they are motivating the people from those cultures to determine their own origins, also

using the tools of modern science.

It may well be that the ambassadorial role of third gender people meant that some of the first

humans to enter the Americas were third gendered. It may be that later populations of people

who moved across the land bridge encountered people who were already in the Americas and

that their own third gendered people made those first contacts.

We don’t know.

I, for one, am comfortable simply presenting this part of the cultural evidence, the images

painted on shaman drums, and asking more questions, and remaining open to the stories, if not

the answers and proofs that may come.

Migrations, Cultural Genetics, Cultural Flows: Mapping Global Shamanic, Two-Spirit, and Religious Practices. Luccia Rogers, Ph.D.

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Citations

Dulik, Matthew C. et al. Mitochondrial DNA and Y Chromosome Variation Provides Evidence for a Recent Common Ancestry between Native Americans and Indigenous Altaians. The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 90 , Issue 2 , 229 – 246 Ottenberg, R. A Classification of Human Races Based on Geographic Distribution of the Blood Groups. JAMA. 1925;84(19):1393-1395. doi:10.1001/jama.1925.02660450001001. Matson, Schrader. Grupo sanguineo dos Indios Guaranys JAMA. 1935; 104(23):2121-2122. doi: 10.1001/jama.1935.02760230069036 Nichols, J. Linguistic Diversity and the First Settlement of the New World.” Language. 1990. Elias, S.A. First Americans Lived on Bering Land Bridge for Thousands of Years The Conversation. 2014 Hoffecker, J. Elias, S., O’Rourke, D. Out of Beringia? Science. 2014: Vol. 343, Issue 6174, pp. 979-980. DOI: 10.1126/science.1250768 Ewen, A. https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/18/new-discovery-confirms-native- american-views-their-ancestry-154927 Ibid. https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/06/13/bering-strait-theory-pt-1-how-dogma- trumped-science-155284 Ibid. https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/06/20/bering-strait-theory-pt-2-racism- eugenics-and-when-natives-came-america-155406 Ibid. https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/06/27/bering-strait-theory-pt-3-theory- becomes-religious-crusade-155429 Ibid. https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/07/04/bering-strait-theory-pt-4-indisputable- facts-artifacts-155659 Ibid. https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/07/11/bering-strait-theory-pt-5-theory-comes- crashing-down-155774 Ibid. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/07/19/bering-strait-theory-pt-6-dna-blood- types-and-stereotypes-155920 Ibid. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/19/how-linguists-are-pulling-apart-bering- strait-theory-154063