This religion, the oldest religion practiced in Mongolia, centres on beliefs and rituals associated with a shaman, a man or woman regarded as having access to the ‘spirit world’. Mongolian shamans enter an ecstatic trance state in which the shaman is empowered to engage with the spirits in order to protect and heal members of the community, to guide souls and cure illnesses. Shamanism is found in many primitive cultures like those of the Siberian Tungus, from whose language the word ‘shaman’ (saman) derives.

Shamanism is faith without books. All teaching and instruction has been given orally, passed from shaman to shaman over the centuries, and its traditions learned by heart. Shamanism went underground and almost died out during the former socialist period. Becoming a shaman involves the gift of divination, such as psychic power, and further involves initiation rites. The shaman’s dress also has symbolic significance; in same cases it is decorated with gleaming plates, bells and strips of cloth, all attached to the costume. The shaman might wear a headdress to resemble a bird with the tail of a pheasant and the body costume of a fish. Drums are used to help the shaman enter a trance-like state, as chanting begins and the shaman ‘transcends’ into another world while the body dances, swirls or totters with jerky movements.