Lewis 45: "The Tungus word shaman [...] means literally 'one who is excited, moved, or raised'"
"More specifically, a shaman is a person of either sex who has mastered spirits and who can at will introduce them into his own body"
"As Shirokogoroff, the great Russion [sic?] authority on the Tungus, puts it, the shaman's body is a 'placing,' or receptacle, for the spirits. It is in fact by his power over the spirits which he incarnates that the shaman is able to treat and control afllictions caused by pathogenic spirits in others"
Most spirits, in this tradition, "are hostile and pathogenic and are regarded as the sources of the many diseases which affect the Tungus"
it follows, then, that most diseases "are seen as having a mystical basis"