" In some cultures, apprentice shamans receive a call as well as shamanic knowledge, powers, and spirit relationships from shaman elders or shamans within their own families. Benefactors may set up arduous training designed to foster specific achievements or trials and initiations that the apprentice must successfully complete. They may lead an apprentice through specific cultural rites of passage. Benefactors may also transmit knowledge, powers, and spirit relationships to the apprentice at the moment of their death. A shaman who has passed may return to an apprentice in dreams, as might that shaman's helping spirits.
Potential shamans selected by shaman elders are usually (though not always) chosen at a young age, when the elders notice something special or extraordinary about them. Sometimes something special happens during or shortly after their day of birth or the child is heard talking or seen behaving in certain ways that indicate spirit connection or possession. Sometimes the initiate experiences unique, profound visions or dreams or successfully performs healing without training. The initiate might display an undeniable compulsion to learn shamanism at a young age when other children are focused on play or learning to hunt or fight, or an initiate might be able to easily memorize long stories or songs. Elder shamans are always on the watch for individuals showing signs of contact with the spirits. "

― , The Hollow Bone: A Field Guide to Shamanism