Reindeer – Many Arctic cultures (including the Saami and the Chukchi) subsist by reindeer herding. Not surprisingly, reindeer play a role in their shamanic narratives, rituals, and cosmologies. Among the Siberian Chukchi, for example, shamans sometimes ascend to the upper world by riding a reindeer. A modern myth has developed that Santa Claus was originally a shaman.
SOURCE:
Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis 2007