Seven-year-old sacrificed to the gods for good harvest in India

[tama]

50. Ah, dictionary definition!

By all means, you can stick with a dictionary definition and stop with that, or you can seek better comprehension of the phenomenon. The word 'shamanism' goes back to Eliade:
"Eliade (1972) states: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy."[3]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism

In modern methodology of anthropology, study of world views among human cultures, it is considered very important to not to impose one's own cultural background over the object study - as far as that is possible. So a good scholar questioning the relation between shamanhood and religions (<- a word of Latin origin) starts by questioning informants of tribal people relying on a shaman, how they see the relation between these phenomena.

So, Eliade's approach has been criticized for good reasons:
"Certain anthropologists, most notably Alice Kehoe in her book Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking, are highly critical of the term. Part of this criticism involves the notion of cultural appropriation.[citation needed] This includes criticism of New Age and modern Western forms of Shamanism, which may not only misrepresent or 'dilute' genuine indigenous practices but do so in a way that, according to Kehoe, reinforces racist ideas such as the Noble Savage.
A tableau presenting figures of various cultures filling in mediator-like roles, often being termed as "shaman" in the literature. The tableau presents the diversity of this concept.

Kehoe is highly critical of Mircea Eliade's work. Eliade, being a philosopher and historian of religions rather than an anthropologist, had never done any field work or made any direct contact with 'shamans' or cultures practicing 'shamanism', though he did spend four years studying at the University of Calcutta in India where he received his doctorate based on his Yoga thesis and was acquainted with Mahatma Gandhi. According to Kehoe, Eliade's 'shamanism' is an invention synthesized from various sources unsupported by more direct research. To Kehoe, what some scholars of shamanism treat as being definitive of shamanism, most notably drumming, trance, chanting, entheogens and hallucinogenics, spirit communication and healing, are practices that

* exist outside of what is defined as shamanism and play similar roles even in non-shamanic cultures (such as the role of chanting in Judeo-Christian and Islamic rituals)
* in their expression are unique to each culture that uses them and cannot be generalized easily, accurately or usefully into a global ‘religion’ such as shamanism.

Because of this, Kehoe is also highly critical of the notion that shamanism is an ancient, unchanged, and surviving religion from the Paleolithic period.

Mihály Hoppál also discusses whether the term "shamanism" is appropriate. He recommends using the term "shamanhood"[187] or "shamanship"[188] for stressing the diversity and the specific features of the discussed cultures. This is a term used in old Russian and German ethnographic reports at the beginning of the 20th century. He believes that this term is less general and places more stress on the local variations,[49] and it emphasizes also that shamanism is not a religion of sacred dogmas, but linked to the everyday life in a practical way.[189] Following similar thoughts, he also conjectures a contemporary paradigm shift.[187] Also Piers Vitebsky mentions, that despite really astonishing similarities, there is no unity in shamanism. The various, fragmented shamanistic practices and beliefs coexist with other beliefs everywhere. There is no record of pure shamanistic societies (although, as for the past, their existence is not impossible).[190]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism#Criticism_of_the_term_.22shaman.22_or_.22shamanism.22

And that's just wikipedia, of course there is much much more...