Shamanism is a type of religion in which all social control is cantraized in a single control structure.
In a small hunter-gatherer society religion was almost exclusively represented by a single person, named differently in different societies shaman or kahuna, for instance. Such a religious leader often exerted all types of social control. So a single person was responsible for health care, education, rituals, division of labor, and many many others.
Of note, the adaptation of culture in such a system was either through the shaman's cognitive functions or by means of replacing the shaman by someone else.
