why are we "The Story telling apes?"

[KichigaiNeko]

The first shaman? That would be a rough one wouldn't it? It's easy to imagine that as long as we've believed in magic there have been operators.

Thank you my dear Rhythm. I knew you would be one of the "et al" to come forward with something constructive.
The fact the we (hominids) have "believed" (or desperately wanted to believe) in "magic" since we figured out that being bipedal was a good evolutionary move is why I have asked these questions

Believe there are some 12,000 year old remains in Israel though that get pegged with the distinction of "first". Trouble is, she may have been a priestess and not a shaman. The lines between what is a priest and what is a shaman are very blurry the farther back we go (it's a fuzzy sort of distinction to begin with).

I also understand that there are very old remains indicative of "shamanistic persons" all over the planet. Siberia seems to revel in them. But I was thinking along the lines of anthropology, at the "hunter gatherer stage" of development. Why invent a "shaman/ soothsayer"? Why would someone initially take up this role in the family group/ tribe?

Our best bet for what early shamans "saw" would probably be cave art. It's difficult though to say for certain whether this or that rock face was meant to be spiritual, practical, practice, or just art for art's sake. We know a little more about shamanic beliefs that survived long enough to be recorded, but often what was recorded was the interpretation of those transcribing it, and heavily influenced by their culture.

This is also my current understanding. As i said in the OP I looked up and saw a constellation evocative of the Mithras legend complete with dying Bull. What else have we told ourselves (humanity in general) ??

I supposes that's one way to look at it, course it could be that the stories we told influenced what we saw when we observed the night sky. Different cultures have different stories for the same stars.

Influenced what others saw and believed in ...is my current understanding.

The stars are something we've spent an awful lot of time staring at, and they've been immensely useful to us, so it seems an almost universal sort of urge to describe them in a divine way.

Well according to the Mithras legends the "stars" are beyond time...They don't seem to move....

Hehehe, we tell ourselves whatever we like Kichi.....it's not like the stars are going to correct us.

Looking around this board?? You betchya!!

Entertainment, navigation, time (agriculture/hunting), and divinity or magic. It's difficult to discuss something like this in it's particulars without focusing on a single culture.

thankyou Rhythm.

... but "not focusing on a single culture" I feel is what is needed. Unless you would consider all of humanity a single culture?? Which is what I am applying to our "story telling" the variations may have a few minor points of divergence but the meat of the tales are the same.

An interesting topic ...yes??