I listened recently to a Turan Tales podcast featuring an interview with Abigail Scripka, who did her master’s thesis on “Tengrism as a youth movement” among 18-to-30-year olds in Almaty during the 80s and 90s.
Fascinating stuff. This is a wide-ranging interview that touches on a host of topics, including:
- Subtleties of the co-existence of Tengrism, Shamanism and Islam
- Revival of the Shaman in daily life
- Why the government hesitates to register Tengrism as a formal religion
- Tengrism and the ecological movement
Relates Scripka:
There seemed to be a process of re-education happening among the Kazakh public saying, these are some songs you can sing when you visit a shaman, these are the gifts you should bring, this is how you visit a shaman. And then on the other hand, you have like in the ad sections of newspapers, shamans and imams advertising their services saying, if you come to me, I’ll make it rain so your crops will grow. If you come to me, I’ll help you become pregnant. And so . . . this kind of almost cult relationship with the shaman and the way that people connect with the shaman and Tengri is something that I think started to happen in the 90s.
You can find the podcast here (Tengrism in Central Asia: From Ancient Belief to Cultural Phenomenon) hosted by Agnieszka Pikulicka. The full title of Abigail Scripka’s master thesis, which is available online in several places: Tengrism as a Lived Religion in Kazakhstan and its Role in National Identity Building
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Altaic Storytelling 