The present chapter is devoted to a description of various forms of shamanistic performances and to special cases which we shall need later. Indeed, I bring first these facts which perhaps will not be fully understood without reading the following chapters; but as I have no other means to expound the facts, I have to follow the chosen way, namely, to proceed from facts to their analysis. Thus the present chapter will deal only with the statement of facts. It should be noted that I shall not give all cases observed, for a great number of facts are subject to a classification, and it will be sufficient to give only some typical cases, and some special cases which cannot easily be classified. In exposing the facts I shall not give all details in every case, but shall give only schemes, for the details are repeated and recombined, according to single cases of shamanizing and to the shaman's personal choice.
The verbal forms for «to shamanize» may be derived in the various dialects from saman. Thus we have in RTM sama (+suff.), in Mank. sama+da, in Bir. samda, in Turn. xamal, in Lam. xamandal, and in Manchu samdamb'i all of which may be translated — «to shamanize». However, this term is lacking in several dialects, e.g. in Barg. Nerc. Khin., apparently also in Kum. In Bir. samda is certainly a loanword from the Manchu samda, which is a contracted form of sama+(n)+da, where da is a common suffix, n and a of the stem have been contracted. It should be noted that the final n is subject to omission in all cases except Lam., where the stem saman is increased by two suffixes (+da+l). It is also curious that in Mank. the stem samal is a plural form of saman. These facts complete my discussion of the etymology of saman in Tungus. Besides these terms there are other various terms used by the Tungus and Manchus for «to carry out such and such a shamanistic performance». As far as I know, there is no special and general term. These terms will be analysed in due course.