04/12/2024
Witch versus Shaman… what’s the difference?
As a professional witch, many people have asked me over the years why call myself a witch? “Why not just call yourself a shaman? Witch is so polarizing and has such negative connotations. Shaman is healing.”
There are many reasons for this. But first and foremost, it’s simply not relevant to what I do. Let me explain.
Shaman is a word that comes from Northern Asia and Siberia, out of the Tungus languages, and was originally used to refer to a holy person more related to what we might call a soothsayer or an Oracle. This was and remains an initiatory tradition passed down from elder to apprentice, generation to generation. For a long time it was a word that was held in the sacred obscurity of these tribal people, until early anthropologists came along with their armchairs and notes.
In a rushed bid to create a glossary and legitimize itself as a study, early anthropologists took a mess of words from various cultures and gave them new meaning to fit a euro-centric, academic view of the world. As anthropologists attempted to stretch and force these terms to fit new meaning, their original intent and cultural origin was lost to the public. It became especially popular from the 1960s onward as the spiritual revolution of that era began. It has since become a catch-all title for anyone and everyone associated with healing or magical arts.
Among these words was also the word, “witch”. A term already long demonized and warped. Witchcraft in early anthropology unsurprisingly became associated with practices of “black magic” and nefarious dealings, while shaman became the word related to earth-based, animistic healing practices. Neither term was accurate or used with respect to their origins.
Since then, both terms have evolved and expanded and become almost unrecognizable to their origins, encompassing an entire globe of practices and traditions, unrelated to their roots. Every healer is a “shaman”. Every magical practice is “witchcraft”. And very few know the origins of those words or their meaning. Folks don’t know what they don’t know. But, this is about *my* personal choice…
As a woman of indigenous Californian/Mexican, Western European and Mediterranean descent, “shaman” is a word that is both foreign and unrelated to my practices, my family and my traditions. While I love seeing the commonalities and similar practices and values between animist cultures, it would not only be incorrect, it would be disrespectful for me to co-opt a term stolen by white men and incorrectly assigned to the world at large. I don’t want to play a part in redefining or obscuring its meaning or the people whom still live on the margins and are oppressed by their governments. Some of whom have asked that the term no longer be appropriated and misused. That would be the opposite of my values.
I call myself a witch, a curandera, a medicine worker, a rootworker… even a bruja (despite the negative catholic influence on this term) because that is what is true and relevant to my practices, my people and my traditions. I call myself an Auntie, a priestess and a leader because these are the titles others have bestowed on me, and I accept them with honor. I choose my terms intentionally and I have chosen not to refer to myself as “shaman” with respect towards the indigenous people who birthed that lineage. I am not an initiate as a shaman in their lineage. Therefore, I am not a shaman.
But most importantly, I do not change what I call myself to make others comfortable with what I do, or to make myself more “marketable”. Their colonial attitudes are not my burden to carry and not my duty to appease. But I am here to help decolonize and deconstruct those beliefs that keep you from rediscovering your own magic, removing the obscuring thoughts and words that keep you from what your ancestors fought and bled to keep. Obscuring who we are, is the work of the colonizer. Let the voice of your own ancestors sing loudly through you.
When I release my attachment to someone else’s culture and heritage, I honor my own by coming home to it again and again.
