In that village, there is a custom of having a shaman heal you when you get sick.
He performed a ritual to drive out evil spirits as an exorcist.
祈祷師 refers to a Japanese folk-religious prayer healer, whereas シャーマン is the broader, cross-cultural anthropological term for such figures.
Standard modern spelling.
Contains outdated kanji 禱; rarely used today.
Compound of 祈祷 (prayer, incantation) and 師 (master, specialist). The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but the term has been used for ritual healers in Japanese folk religion and esoteric Buddhism.