Everything shifts in the Caucasus, blown by some of the strongest winds on earth. Even the ground moves, splintered by fault lines. In early Georgian myths, it is said that when the mountains were young, they had legs - could walk from the edges of the oceans to the deserts, flirting with the low hills, shrouding them with soft clouds of love. (Griffin, 2001, p.2).

But what about those aspects of life which remain relatively constant - the traditional practices of the mountain people, the practices that are reflected in their folktales and their folklore? It is these constants that this study concentrates on, in particular those that relate to shamanism....

Known as the land of the mountains, Dagestan lies immediately north of the Caucasus Mountains, and stretches for approximately 250 miles along the west shore of the Caspian Sea. With its mountainous terrain making travel and communication difficult, Daghestan is still largely tribal. Despite over a century of Tsarist control followed by seventy years of repressive Soviet rule, there are still 32 distinct ethnic groups in Daghestan, each with its own language, making it unquestionably the most complex of the Caucasian republics. Shamanic practices are still prevalent in this country, where one of the ten lost tribes of Israel can be found, and in which the stories of the elders provide the people with evidence of who their ancient ancestors were and where their roots lie. In Daghestan, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia, Chechnya, and Azerbaijan, these roots lie in shamanism. This book, one of only a handful available in English on the country, contains the texts of some of these stories as well as commentaries on them....