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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greybird" data-source="post: 7677198" data-attributes="member: 84152">Actually, the ancestral origin bit is rare.  Most shaman did not pass their art down to family members unless their family members were also 'chosen.'  An initiatory system following certain portents (visions and near death experiences were typical) indicating that the subject had been chosen by spirits was the most common way of new shaman being chosen for training.  They also didn't commune with nature (as such.)  Shaman were frequently from tribal cultures where everybody 'communed with nature', so while, yes, they worked with nature, so did everyone else.  It wasn't what set them apart from the rest of society.  And while they fulfilled much the same role as a priest, they weren't priests as we define them today.  Some were quite religious and prayed during ceremonies, but again, that wasn't what set them apart.  They rarely claimed that their abilities came directly from some divine source.Now bard is interesting.  Steeldragons is right - there are many bardic arts tied in with the shaman.  Not only the trance work (which he described quite accurately), but also because they were often the tribal historians, responsible for reciting and teaching all of the traditional histories and stories.  As I mentioned before, a great deal of their rites were also intentional performances.  A bard shaman would much more on target than a cleric, wizard, or druid.</blockquote>

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