Chamanes et bouffons (Népal et Sibérie)

Shamanic rites often include episodes during which are displayed sexual jests, ludicrous gesticulations and scatological jokes. These entail mixed feelings of amusement and fear, as well in the audience as among the spirits supposed to attend the show. These scenes are performed sometimes by a mute fool, the shaman’s ritual assistant, or by a couple of dumb people as among the Magar of Nepal, sometimes by the shaman himself when he is supposed to embody a fool-spirit as among the Yakut of Northern Siberia, and sometimes by a peculiar ritual character such as Koča Kan among the Altaian societies of South Siberia. Indigenous participants pay as much attention to this ludicrous aspect of shamanic rituals as most analysts apparently neglect it. The analysis of the Magar case suggests some hypotheses on the fool’s complex ritual role in shamanic rites.