*SET-U

CANONICAL LANGUAGE GRAPH

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NODE / 0362attestedPresent-Day English

shaman

PRONUNCIATION /ˈʃɑːmən/

a spiritual practitioner described in English by the generalized term shaman

DATE
1698–today
SENSE
spiritual practitioner
FAMILY
Indo-European / Germanic
CANONICAL KEY
node:1:shaman:attested:sense:spiritual-practitioner

Merriam-Webster reports English first known use in 1698 and says the word is ultimately from Evenki.

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ANCESTRAL EDGES

ROOT OF THIS ROOT

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GO DEEPERborrowing via competing routesestablished
Evenki · Evenki · evenki ritual specialist

šamān

Evenki ritual or spiritual specialist

SOUND
English shaman is ultimately from Evenki šamān; Russian and German mediation are historically discussed, but one fully specified immediate chain is not forced into this edge.
MEANING
A specific Siberian practitioner name was generalized in European scholarship across diverse traditions.
CHRONOLOGY
English record by 1698; European transmission around the turn of the eighteenth century.
SCHOLAR
Merriam-Webster Editors · Andrei A. Znamenski
CONFIDENCE
established — Merriam-Webster identifies the ultimate Evenki source; Znamenski documents its transmission and Western generalization.
Shaman — Word HistorysupportsWord History — ultimately Evenki šamān; First Known Use

Identifies the ultimate source and reports English use in 1698.

ORIGINAL ↗
The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western ImaginationsupportsAbstract and chapter 1 — Siberian term introduced and generalized by European observers

Documents the Western transmission and later expansion of scope.

ORIGINAL ↗
OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 340 ↗
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DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES

THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP

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No reviewed descendants currently reuse this node. Absence describes the graph, not the entire history of the form.

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TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE

EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE

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This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.

UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES
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REVIEWED EDGES
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DEEPEST PATH
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MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED
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No downstream edge has cleared review for this node. This is a graph-coverage statement, not a claim that the historical form produced nothing.

“Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.

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RECORDED EVIDENCE

ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE

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EDITORIAL REUSE

WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE

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01shamanshaman · established