A Shaman's Account of Spirits

In the course of my research for this book, I had a fortune to come across a tribe of Tamijhiin encamped in the grassy steppe east of Cyiros. My guide was able to translate our conversation. For one of the lesser races, I found the shaman surprisingly charming. Although he lacked the dignity of a priest, he spoke with a certain wisdom an charisma.    The great controversy about the nature of demons or spirits is not easily understood by the Tamijhiin who see only one category of ethereal creatures. They accept that there are angry or calm spirits but do not classify them separately.   The shaman told me that the Creator is far from the world, well beyond the spirit world somewhere in the void. The spirits, his first children, are emanation of his power across the void and can sometimes spill over into the physical world. Because they believe the Creator is to distant to influence the world directly, they show reverence to the spirits instead. It would be simplistic to say that they worship the spirits; they really see the spirits as allies or leaders of their people.    The spirits cling to places where the divide between world is narrow, places of great sorrow or joy, burial sites and places of great age or beauty, amongst others. These places are holy for the shaman and he seeks them out to find spirits to communicate with and be guided by.   Of course, my rational and learned readers will recognise that fraternises with demons or spirits in this way is extremely dangerous due to their chaotic nature and disinterest in the affairs of mortals. The Tamijhiin, I suspect, confuse deceit for wisdom and mimicry for form in their dealings with these ethereal aberrations.