RAISING THE DEAD: MEDICINE WOMEN WHO REVIVE AND RETRIEVE SOULS 

I'm making this illustrated pdf download © 2013 Max Dashu available to you, as the most accessible format.

Intro:

The healing power of ecstatic healers / shamans is well known. They may lay on hands, extract negative energies from a diseased person’s body or infuse it with life essences, chant power songs and curative charms, or make journeys in the spirit to find and recover the soul of traumatized people, thus restoring them to health. Much of the written commentary about “shamanism” focuses primarily on males, so much so that they give the impression that women’s participation is negligible. Standing in contrast to this picture are many traditions that cast medicine women as the greatest healers, so powerful that they are even capable of bringing the dead back to life. Traditions that turn on this theme are found in Egypt, Mali, Greece, Finland, Korea and Tibet. Other stories from Iraq, Israel, and Italy also feature women who call up the dead, or journey to the underworld. 

This article discusses stories of resurrection by medicine women (including the goddesses Isis and Inanna presented as priestesses capable of bringing about these transformations):

AUSET / ISIS (Egypt)

PA SINI JOBU (Mali)

MEDEA OF COLCHIS (Georgia, Caucasus)

ILMATAR (Finland)

NISHAN SHAMAN (Manchuria, now in NE China)

BARI GONGJU (Korea)

LUCILLE KILLS ENEMY (Lakota Nation) 

YESHE TSOGYAL (Tibet)

INANNA (Sumeria, now Iraq)

THE SIBYL OF CUMAE (Italy)

TERESA URREA (NW Mexico)

Auset (Isis) takes the form of a kite (falcon-like bird with owlish face) to revive Ausar (Osiris).