The rattle is, with the drum, one of the two basic tools of shamanic practice, found in most places where shamanism is found and dominant in some, such as much of South America. Shaken at a steady rhythm of around four beats a second, it helps the journeyer into the shamanic state of consciousness much as the drum does. Shamans also use it to clear a space, to cleanse, and in some healing to drive an intrusionIntrusion. Something lodged in us that should not be there, having entered through the holes soul-loss and Power-loss leave. Four broad types: unhelpful thought-forms, introjects, foreign-body energetic intrusions, and entity possessions. More about this away, and in many cultures the rattle is itself a sacred, living object.
Why are rattles used in shamanism? #
Mainly to enter the shamanic trance. There are many ways into the trance state, including dancing, shaking or swaying, singing and chanting, fasting and hallucinogenic plants, but the most common are the drum and the rattle, the two basic tools of shamanic practice. Few shamanic cultures do not make extensive use of the drum or some other rhythmic instrument.1 The shamanic state of consciousness, which may be very light or very deep, is usually entered through the drum, or the rattle, at around four beats a second.2 Many recordings for journeying use a rattle, either with drums or on its own, and each adds its own flavour and mood, so it is good to try a few.3
Rattles are one of the oldest musical instruments, believed to have been made originally to imitate the sound of rain, according to the shamanic practitioner and teacher Christina Pratt. They come in three broad kinds: a vessel filled with things that rattle when shaken, such as a dried gourd or seed pod; objects hung so that they clash together, often worn when dancing; and a notched stick scraped with another stick. In her account, shamans use rattles in their healing work to induce trance and to call on particular helping spirits.4 How the rhythm itself helps is set out in What role do drumming, movement and other methods play in journeying?
Where are rattles used? #
Very widely, though not equally everywhere. The anthropologist Piers Vitebsky notes that the drum is the instrument of shamanism in Siberia, that it is joined by the rattle in North America, and that in South America the rattle takes over almost completely.5 In parts of South and Southeast Asia, he adds, shamans may enter trance by rhythmically swishing a handful of rice in a winnowing fan.6 Pratt notes that the rattle is used with the drum in most areas where shamanism is found, but in South America mainly on its own, and there together with hallucinogenic plants.7 Neither writer says how the peoples of each region lived, and many of the peoples practising shamanism today farm or herd, so these patterns may describe shamanism as it is practised now, not necessarily as hunter-gatherers practised it.
Some cultures use other rhythmic instruments in the same way. The drum does not seem to have been used extensively in Australian Aboriginal shamanic cultures, whose people were hunter-gatherers, but they use click-sticks and the didgeridoo, which can work much as the drum does.8
What does a rattle mean to the cultures that use it? #
Often much more than a sound. Vitebsky describes the South American rattle as a small model of the world. Its handle is held to symbolise the world tree, its hollow gourd is often thought to represent the cosmos, and the seeds or pebbles inside are spirits and souls of ancestors, which the shaman wakes into action by shaking it.9 Shamans’ rattles are often shaped like animals, such as a fish or a crane.10 Pratt gives much the same account of South American rattles, in which the shaman calls on the spirits inside to help with the work.11
In many cultures, then, a rattle is treated as a power object, not merely an instrument.12 In Therapeutic Shamanism what matters is the relationship and the work, not the object, and some shamans use no physical objects at all other than the drum or the rattle.13 See What are power objects, fetishes, amulets and talismans?
What else is a rattle used for? #
Clearing and cleansing. Before a journey, some practitioners use the drum, the rattle, clapping or something similar to clear the space they are going to work in, as one of many ways of preparing.14 Pratt describes the rattle being used at the start of a healing ritual to cleanse and purify the space and the patient.15
The rattle can also be part of healing. Where an extractionExtraction. Drawing a foreign body (an intrusion) out of a person and packing the hole with something healthy. The iron rule: only ever foreign bodies, never a part of the self: extracting a genuine part of self creates soul-loss. More about this is done physically, the shaman may use the sound of the drum or the rattle to drive the intrusion away. More commonly, though, the extraction is done in a shamanic journey, not in this physical world.16 Pratt adds that rattles are used to draw out energetic intrusions from a patient’s body and to disperse unwanted energies around it.15 See What is an intrusion, and what is extraction? and What is smudging?
What happened to the knowledge of the rattle? #
In the West, it was deliberately destroyed. As the sky religionsSky-religion. The vertical, hierarchical reordering of the sacred that the Fall installed, governed by the spell ‘up is good, down is bad’: transcend the body, escape matter, purify upward. The conditioning Therapeutic Shamanism works to undo. More about this spread, knowledge of how to know the Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer, including shamanic journeying, power plants, how to use the drum and the rattle, and ecstatic dancing, was rooted out. Anyone who held it was persecuted and killed with such ruthlessness that shamanism in the West was effectively eradicated, leaving a broken lineage that we are only now beginning to repair.17 See Why have shamans been persecuted, and what happened to shamanism under states and world religions?
Do I need a rattle? #
No. A recording of shamanic drumming, or of rattling, is enough to begin journeying, and it is good to experiment and find what works for us.18 A rattle can be useful for clearing a space, but like any other object it is optional. See Do I need to buy a drum, or any other equipment?
