Foreword -- Introduction -- Part I: Themes and concepts -- A new look at the world pillar in Arctic and sub-Arctic religions -- C. G. Jung's appropriation of aspects of shamanism -- Game and games, fortune and dualism in Siberian shamanism -- Body and soul in ancient Greenlandic religion -- Part II: Northern Europe -- Freyja and Frigg - two aspects of the Great Goddess -- The perception of the Saamis and their religion in Old Norse sources -- Some aspects of the Christianization of Central Sweden -- The wizards of Lapland and Saami shamanism -- Rationality and mythological foundations of calendar symbols of the ancient Komi -- Materials on Komi-Zyryan mythology: Notions of the soul -- Part III: Ugric People -- Khanty shamanism today: Reindeer sacrifice and its mythological background -- Similarities and differences in Eastern Khanty shamanism -- Ugric mithraism -- Khanty and Mansi: the contemporary linguistic situation -- Part IV: Central and East Asia -- Some remarks on the myths of the Flower Contest -- The concept of gods in Korean shamanism -- Recent East Mongolian shamanistic traditions -- Shamanistic elements in early Confucianism -- Mythology as an areal problem in the Altai-Sayan area: the sacred holes and caves -- Archaic rites in Nanaian shamanic ceremonies -- Part V: North Western Pacific -- Ainu worldview and bear hunting strategies -- Some shamanistic features of Ainu religion -- Salmon in myth and ritual in the Northern Pacific area -- Part VI: Encounters between ethnic and -- A dialogue between a shaman and a missionary in West Greenland in the 18th century: the sociology of a text -- A Christian Dene Tha shaman? Aboriginal experiences among a missionized aboriginal people -- The effect of the confessional factor on ethnicity -- Christianization = Russification? On preserving the religious and ethnic identity of the Ob-Ugrians.