section_path: Terminology/Criticism of the term
section_name: Criticism of the term
paragraph_text: Criticism of the term
  
  The anthropologist Alice Kehoe criticizes the term "shaman" in her book Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Part of this criticism involves the notion of cultural appropriation. This includes criticism of New Age and modern Western forms of shamanism, which, according to Kehoe, misrepresent or dilute Indigenous practices. Kehoe also believes that the term reinforces racist ideas such as the noble savage.
  
  Kehoe is highly critical of Mircea Eliade 's work on shamanism as an invention synthesized from various sources unsupported by more direct research. To Kehoe, citing practices such as drumming, trance, chanting, entheogen and hallucinogen use, spirit communication, and healing as definitive of shamanism ignores the fact that they exist outside of what is defined as shamanism and even play similar roles in nonshamanic cultures, for example chanting in the Abrahamic religions. She argues that these expression are unique to each culture that uses them and that such practices cannot be generalized easily, accurately, or usefully into a global religion of shamanism. Because of this, Kehoe is also highly critical of the hypothesis that shamanism is an ancient, unchanged, and surviving religion from the Paleolithic period.
  
  The term has been criticized for its perceived colonial roots, and as a tool to perpetuate perceived contemporary linguistic colonialism. By Western scholars, the term "shamanism" is used to refer to a variety of different cultures and practices around the world, which can vary dramatically and may not be accurately represented by a single concept. Billy-Ray Belcourt, an author and award-winning scholar from the Driftpile Cree Nation in Canada, argues that using language with the intention of simplifying culture that is diverse, such as Shamanism, as it is prevalent in communities around the world and is made up of many complex components, works to conceal the complexities of the social and political violence that Indigenous communities have experienced at the hands of settlers. Belcourt argues that language used to imply “simplicity” in regards to Indigenous culture, is a tool used to belittle Indigenous cultures, as it views Indigenous communities solely as a result of a history embroiled in violence, that leaves Indigenous communities only capable of simplicity and plainness.
  
  Anthropologist Mihály Hoppál also discusses whether the term "shamanism" is appropriate. He notes that for many readers, "-ism" implies a particular dogma, like Buddhism, Catholicism or Judaism. He recommends using the term "shamanhood" or "shamanship" (a term used in old Russian and German ethnographic reports at the beginning of the 20th century) for stressing the diversity and the specific features of the discussed cultures. He believes that this places more stress on the local variations and emphasizes that shamanism is not a religion of sacred dogmas, but linked to the everyday life in a practical way. Following similar thoughts, he also conjectures a contemporary paradigm shift. Piers Vitebsky also mentions that, despite really astonishing similarities, there is no unity in shamanism. The various, fragmented shamanistic practices and beliefs coexist with other beliefs everywhere. There is no record of pure shamanistic societies (although their existence is not impossible). Norwegian social anthropologist Hakan Rydving has likewise argued for the abandonment of the terms "shaman" and "shamanism" as "scientific illusions."
  
  Dulam Bumochir has affirmed the above critiques of "shamanism" as a Western construct created for comparative purposes and, in an extensive article, has documented the role of Mongols themselves, particularly "the partnership of scholars and shamans in the reconstruction of shamanism" in post-1990/post-communist Mongolia. This process has also been documented by Swiss anthropologist Judith Hangartner in her landmark study of Darhad shamans in Mongolia. Historian Karena Kollmar-Polenz argues that the social construction and reification of shamanism as a religious "other" actually began with the 18th-century writings of Tibetan Buddhist monks in Mongolia and later "probably influenced the formation of European discourse on Shamanism".