Sak Shamanism

Sak Shamanism is the dominant religion of the Sak people, therefore of the six Sak tribes - Ryung, Shit, Räl, Gyô, and Mô. The religion itself is known as Dalmut (Faith of the Ancestors) or Gôsat (Way of the Gods) in the Sak language.

A male shaman - or priest - is known as Rêbí, a female shaman - or priestess, or shrine maiden - is known as Yutê in the Sak language - they were originally Räibis and Yutai in Old Sak.

Theology
The Sak religion distinguishes between two types of gods: the Gô and the Dal. The earlier are "natural" gods in the sense that they have "always existed", while the latter are virtuous men who have became deities, deified ancestors. This distinction is important in the sense that the Gô and Dal both represent past and present in their unique ways: the Gô are endless, ever-present, they rule both past and present, therefore if one wants to rule the future, that person must turn to the Gô. The Dal represent past in the sense that they are all deified heroes and virtuous people who have attained divinity through their virtuous acts, but they also represent the future in the sense that new Dal are being canonized as part of the religion every day, while all the Gô gods are already set in stone for ever - since the Gô transcend the standard definition of time, one must turn to the Dal if looking to draw inspiration from the past.

Another source of distinction is worship: all the Gô are worshiped by every practitioner of Sak Shamanism, but Dal are usually worshiped by their own descendants and their friends, the local communities: pretty much all families have their own patron Dal, all tribes have their own tribal ancestor Dal that every member of the tribe worships, a lot of professions have patron Dal that people of that profession worship.

According to the religion, spirits are the most basic units of life and that everything has a spirit - including plants and animals. Spirits must overcome challenges to strengthen themselves and people should often spend a day completely alone to mediate and unlock his "spiritual potential". It also believed that the Limjiang have bodies that can accept and adapt to any kind of spirits, and that there is no such thing as a Limjiang-spirit - all Limjiang people have either a wolf's spirit, a cat's spirit, a fish's spirit, a goat's spirit, and so on, which is why people are usually named after animals or plants with whom they share stereotypical traits, and why nearly all Dal have either animal motifs or plant motifs. It is also during these one-day lasting periods of isolation and meditation that one finds it the easiest to come in contact with the Dal and the Gô.