NPPF I Am The Shadow Of The Waxwing Slain

[sZ]

...the future shaman exhibits exceptional traits from adolescence; he very
early becomes nervous and is sometimes even subject to epileptic seizures,
which are interpreted as meetings with the gods.

...shamanism exhibits a particular magical specialty, [...] "mastery over
fire," "magical flight," and so on.

...it is the shamans who, by their trances, cure them, accompany their dead
to the "Realm of the Shades," and serve as mediators between them and their
gods..."

...when a man dies, his three souls separate: one remains with the corpse,
the second goes to the Kingdom of the Shadows, the third ascends to the sky.
[...] In any case, the most important soul appears to be the one that
becomes a shadow.

But ability to turn into a bird is the common property of all kinds of
shamanism...

       --Eliade, _Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy_