Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca, the visionary medicine of the Amazon, is typically used in formal ceremony by the maestro to open and close the dieta.
Tobacco
The Amazonian form of tobacco, smoked as mapacho or ingested as rapé, is often used during dietas for energetic cleansing and connecting with the spirit of the plant or tree being dieted.
Deep Healing
Each master plant or tree is characterized by its ability to offer a special type of healing. Many believe that successful completion of a dedicated plant dieta offers more healing than any other type of healing modality.
Shamanic Apprenticeship
The dieta is the process by which apprentices from the Amazonian tradition of vegatalismo (plant-based shamanism & healing) learn to become curanderos (healers).
"The world looks at the Amazon by satellite, and can only see the greenery and the rivers, but not the people who live here. To protect the trees and the rivers, you have to take care of the people who protect the trees and the rivers". - Vanda Witoto
Cuánta verdad
💛.
Selected excerpts from an article about Peru's indigenous communities in fear of rising violence from drug traffickers | Photo of indigenous land defenders taken near the Shipibo-Conibo community of Flor de Ucayali_____________
"One evening last November, hooded and masked men wielding automatic rifles walked onto the village green in the middle of Flor de Ucayali, an indigenous Amazon community in Peru."
"Firing in the air, they demanded to know the whereabouts of the village's leaders."
"Just months earlier, a young indigenous mother with her infant daughter had been surprised at her homestead by armed men who knocked her down, and threatened her. The woman was so scared that she left the community to live in a nearby city, neighbours said."
"Following that assault, Saul Martinez - the Apu or leader of the Shipibo-Konibo community of 265 people - imposed a three-month curfew, ordering the women and children to sleep in the village hall and the men to perform guard duty at night."
"Shipibo-Konibo leaders also reported ongoing invasions of their land to the prosecutor's office in Ucayali last November, but the armed men "keep appearing," Martinez said."
"They sent messages that if we did not desist (from reporting the incursions), they would take out those responsible, the leaders," he said, noting that images of dismembered bodies were sent to his mobile phone."
"Flor de Ucayali is among at least 100 indigenous communities in the central Amazon region of Ucayali that have been threatened in recent years by invading coca farmers, who grow the crop used to make cocaine for drug trafficking gangs."
__________
"Martinez, of Flor de Ucayali, said he had requested state protection for his community but was told by police to "take care of yourselves" as they did not have budget to make the boat journey from the regional capital Pucallpa, under three hours away."
"Are we living in the Peruvian state or somewhere else?," Martinez asked."
"Coca growing is a major driver of deforestation in Peru, which lost a record 2,000 sq km of forest in 2020, almost four times higher than the 2019 total."
"The environmental damage does not end there. Jungle cocaine laboratories also release toxic chemicals such as sulphuric acid, acetone and gasoline into the subsoil, streams and rivers."
_________
"While the invaders threatening Flor de Ucayali's territory are violent and better armed, the young men and women of the community are unbowed."
"Equipped with five donated bulletproof vests and a couple of shotguns, as well as bows and arrows, they patrol forest that extends to the border with Brazil."
"We'll keep on defending ourselves even if we must die," said Christian Tangui, 30, leader of the village's self-titled surveillance committee and the father of a young family."
"Tangui said he could not bear to see his children scared anymore by intruders - even if patrolling to try to stop them meant serious danger for guards."
"The community investigates newly-deforested spots with the help of state-run Programa Bosques, which updates a satellite map of their land monthly."
"Drones help them have a broader view of their land - but drug traffickers use the technology as well, to avoid military raids."
"During one recent patrol, indigenous defenders said they were forced to flee into the forest when intruders fired shots."
___________
"Robert Guimaraes, a longtime indigenous leader regionally and nationally, said that he had not seen such a level of organized crime in Ucayali before the pandemic."
"The situation is very serious because there are authorities colluding with drug trafficking," he said, citing the alleged involvement of regional officials, judges and prosecutors."
"Ucayali’s governor, Francisco Pezo Torres, is in preventive detention facing trial for allegedly leading a criminal organization in the regional government."
___________
"We are facing a whole apparatus of organized crime, of organized assassination," he said. "Our community is titled, however it does not have the protection of the state."
"As the Shipibo-Konibo people fear for their land and their lives, the Kakataibo indigenous group represent a chilling illustration of the potential dangers ahead."
"Arbildo Melendez, a Kakataibo leader, was shot dead in April 2020 in the Unipacuyacu community - 150 km from Flor de Ucayali - after having reported the presence of drug gangs to the authorities."
"His community remains under siege from coca farmers who have cleared swathes of forest. Unipacuyacu's 86 families have retreated to just 1% of its 230-sq-km territory, and Melendez's widow and four children are in hiding, fearing more violence."
"Herlin Odicio, leader of the Kakataibo federation, also has been forced into hiding in another town after death threats mounted, and his relatives have been attacked by armed men."
"Despite this, Odicio has been elected as a town councillor and has helped to get state approval to create two new indigenous reserves for his people, who want to live in isolation in their new 1,500 sq km territory."
"Unfortunately this (death threat) is for life and this persecution will continue," he said. "I will always defend my people, the struggle of my people. I will not remain silent."
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[Full article here: news.trust.org/item/20220628080457-otmur]
Professor Pakan Meni, Wexa Metsa, and Macarena Arias will be offering a deep dive into the language of Shipibo icaros - with the purpose of gaining fluency in the understanding and singing of Shipibo medicine songs (icaros)._______
As most of you know, fluency in Shipibo (or any indigenous language of a medicine tradition) does not mean you are singing as a curandero/a (doctor-healer).
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However, it is envisioned that a single (long) icaro transmitted by a Shipibo maestro/a within the ayahuasca mareacion will be studied per month. This icaro will be carefully translated in its entirety by the teachers; lessons held every Sunday for 1.5 hours to go over the language of how Shipibo medicine unfolds; with each student given the opportunity to sing the icaro with a profound comprehension of its intent and meaning.
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This is a monthly course that is expected to continue. You should make sure that you have sufficient time to commit to the study.
If you have serious interest in participating, please email michael@plantdieta.com with your name and whether you have completed prior Shipibo language studies in the past.
Dates and further details will be announced, assuming there is sufficient interest in this unique, long-term learning opportunity.
Love this idea !
Hi is this free? And remote
A younger & healthier Benjamin Mahua, who together with his brother Pascual Mahua, were considered the trunk of Noya Rao by some, prepares medicine in the year 2002 | Photo by Howard G Charing
Curanderos Eduardo Calderón Palomino (decd. 1996, curanderismo norteño) and Agustin Rivas Vasquez circa late 1980s / early 1990s
Excerpts from a refreshing conversation between Hector Marquez and anthropologist & author Jeremy Narby:[Rough translation from Spanish into English by me from the complete interview: canamo.net/.../el-hombre-que-llevo-los-chamanes...]
[Photo is of Jeremy Narby with the Ashaninka community of Quirishari, in the Pichis Valley, Peru, in 1986, with whom he lived for two years]
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Jeremy Narby: "A psychedelic reveals the psyche. So it depends on what is inside the psyche of each person."
"For this reason, as Luis Eduardo Luna rightly said, the greatest danger of ayahuasca is the inflation of the ego."
"It must be said that Westerners already have a more inflated ego than indigenous people, which does not mean that the desire for power and the inflation of the ego are absent in Amazonian shamanism. Not at all, and there are many cases that prove it."
"But that is precisely what he is talking about as the latent danger of ayahuasca. The reason why it is even more dangerous for Westerners."
"It is interesting in the indigenous world how the concept of witchcraft operates. In our world, the equivalent would be individual psychology: the theme of Western personal development, the quest to "increase one's own power."
"So, although ayahuasca can make the ego disappear during the experience and the immediate days afterwards, it is also common that the ego become swollen disproportionately. It does not happen to everyone or always. But it happens way too often."
"And that is why you need to tread carefully. It may be interesting to see how your ego swells, but it is dangerous to let the swollen ego control your decisions."
__________
Hector Marquez: "Let us talk about the importance of community. Westerners are constantly looking for the self. However, ayahuasca arises within a setting of community where the human being is part of a much larger ecosystem, not above it or trying to subdue it."
Jeremy Narby: "Let us think about the definition of "shaman." It is a word of Siberian origin, which European intellectuals took from. The word "shaman" then went through Russian, French, German, English, and finally arrived to Spanish. We are talking about during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And then came the 20th century, where attempts were made to define this non-European cross-cultural Siberian concept throughout the world."
"In the book on shamans that Francis Huxley and I wrote, we looked for an adequate definition that would serve to unite this changing concept between different times and cultures."
"The clearest to us seemed to be that of the French anthropologist Alfred Métraux in the 1940s: "An individual who as a profession and on behalf of the community maintains a link and occasional trade with the spirits of nature."
"So the community is a fundamental part of this concept. It is not by chance. The community is to the shaman what Houston is to the astronaut. That is to say: the shaman goes to “other worlds” to seek knowledge and power, which he must put at the service of the community."
"And that suits us as a community, but at the same time, we have to be careful that his actions do not lead to his own benefit, which can be dangerous."
"And that is the function of the community in the traditional indigenous context. Traditional, meaning how it was before the arrival of all the ayahuasca drinkers."
"Now that shamanism has become neoshamanism and there are are individuals working not with members of their own community but with clients, there are no longer communities. There is no longer Houston. There is no longer an ethics committee."
"And this is a danger. If shamanism, either with a drum or with ayahuasca, allows you to reach a place of knowledge and power and allows you to increase both, you need a counterpower."
"And if not, you get the inflation of the ego, the drunkenness of power."
"You have to learn to diet power. And, brother, people in the Western world do not know how to do that."
"It does not mean that we have to live like native Amazonians. But we can take inspiration from them, recognize the problem we have and create new solutions adapted to our culture."
___________
Hector Marquez: "In several North American native Indian communities there was the figure of the heyoka, the counter-shaman. But that figure is not so common in the Amazonian context, right?"
Jeremy Narby: "Among the Asháninka, for example, what was widely used was the use of ridicule. They mocked the shaman a lot when they wanted to tell him something important."
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Hector Marquez: "You always talk about the Asháninka, but what relationship do you have with the Shipibo-Konibo, the Amazonian people who have capitalized the most on ayahuasca culture internationally?"
Jeremy Narby: "In Peru alone there are more than fifty different Amazonian ethnic groups, and you cannot know them all well. Yes, I have collaborated with some Shipibos throughout my time in Peru. But the Shipibos were not part of the AIDESEP organization, which is the federation of indigenous organizations with which I worked."
"Historically, the Shipibos worked with the religious workers of their communities in bilingual education."
"I have worked with Kokamas, Kokamillas, Awajún, Matziguengas, Aorashawis… In the days when I did fieldwork with the Asháninka, there was a rivalry with the Shipibos."
"There was admiration, respect and fear at the same time. From afar, all indigenous people look alike, but up close, there are many differences."
"For example, Shipiba crafts are very rich, complex, full of color. That of the Asháninka is a bit rough and lacks color."
"The Shipibos, for their part, they feared the wild side of the Ashaninka. And the Ashaninka feared the Shipibos for the sophisticated level of their brujeria (witchcraft)."
"There is a bit of caricature in both but it happens everywhere that when you live with someone, they do not speak very well of their neighbors."
"I have not integrated these prejudices by the way. On the contrary, the young ayahuasquero who intiated me with the medicine had completed his apprenticeship with a Shipibo maestro."
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Hector Marquez: "I would like to know your opinion about the importance of icaros – the songs of the ayahuasca rituals. I believe the icaros are the ones that really end up doing the final job for which the plant prepares you, that work like the surgeon's scalpel, if you will use the metaphor. The icaros allows integration of the full power of the plants in a precise way within the patient."
Jeremy Narby: "Well, my opinion is the same: it is exactly like that. [laughs]
This is very interesting thank you for sharing with me Cady
Which one is jeremy.
Excellent ….
Maestro curandero Juan Flores of Mayantuyacu in the year 2001 | Photo by Martin Huaman
Quel liquido nero é ayahuasca
Maestro curandero Don Solon Tello of Peru (decd. 2010) in the year 1994 | Photo by Jaime Torres Romero
Asi se aprende | That is how you learn______
The early path of Don Benito Arevalo, the late Shipibo maestro curandero (1929-2005)
[Excerpts from Onaya - Shipibo Conibo by Guiseppe Caruso. Rough translation into English by me]
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"Don Benito Arevalo was born in the Shipibo community of Pahoyan around the year 1929. He does not have a good recollection of his childhood. He only remembers that his father soon decided to move to the community of San Jerónimo. From that period onwards, Don Benito speaks with pleasure about his childhood, fishing with a bow and arrow."
"He talks about how much he liked to fish, lying in wait for the fish, piercing it with his arrow, then returning home to receive warm congratulations from his family."
"At the age of 18, Don Benito moved with his family to Ahuaypa where he prepared and cultivated a field. But life in Ahuaypa soon became unbearable for young Benito. A woman was entrusted to him as his companion against his will. Benito could not bear the situation and when a mestizo needed someone to row a raft to Iquitos, he saw it as the chance he had been waiting for. He embarked on the journey at night."
"But shortly after beginning his journey back home, he was surprised by a military police patrol. He had no identification documents with him, which was a sign that he had not yet completed his mandatory military service. He was drafted on the spot and spent the next three years stationed at a military barracks."
"His period of military service was not entirely negative for Don Benito. He became an aide to an officer-physician, which would later help him provide medical services for his people. Don Benito considers this period of his life to be of great importance."
"Since childhood, he cultivated the dream of becoming an Onaya like his father. Indeed, from a very young age, he had asked his father to teach hom how to work like a doctor with ayahuasca."
__________
“Onaya means doctor. It is my father's inheritance. My father was Onaya because he had learned from ayahuasca and the plants."
"I used to see my father not sleeping and healing throughout the night."
"I also wanted to drink ayahuasca. But my father would not let me try because I was too young."
"But when I was 10 years old, my father, after drinking ayahuasca, went out to pee. I then secretly put some in a cup and drank it."
"Suddenly, I felt mareado and I said to my father: 'Dad, I see many visions, wonderful colors and splendid flowers.'"
"My father said: "Did you drink ayahuasca? Well, now you have to continue. Tomorrow I will give you more ayahuasca, but icarada (an icaro sung into the medicine) so that you can learn properly."
- Don Benito Arevalo
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"But the curiosity of young Benito does not stop here. Some time later in life, he hears that the leaves of a certain plant can allow one to learn the art of becoming a Meraya. He goes in search of these leaves, and with these leaves, he bathes himself and begins the dieta."
"But a few days later he is forced to set out on a raft towards Iquitos and return to the military barracks. It becomes impossible for him to continue with the iron restrictions of this dieta. He realizes that he must suspend the dieta but does not know how to close the dieta properly."
"He became serious ill on two successive occasions."
"Luckily, he meets a military sergeant who happens to be an oracionista (prayer-healer) and curandero."
_____________
"In the army, they feed you anything. This was how I got sick. All the icaros of wisdom were ruined along with all the knowledge that I had acquired up to that period. Luckily, I met a sergeant who knew a lot."
"I contracted measles and was hospitalized in the infirmary. But I did not die. The sergeant gave me water which he had prayed into. It cured me."
"I also worked with the medical captain who often gave me part of his food. This is how I ate pork which also hurt me. I came down with dysentery. The sergeant healed me from that as well."
"The sergeant told me to take bread, burn it, add the juice of half a lemon it, then bring it to him at night after curfew had begun."
"I went to his room after curfew and he was there smoking his huge tobaccco pipe."
"I gave him what I had prepared. He picked it up, said a prayer into it, and told me to take it all in one gulp."
"Then he began to massage my stomach when he suddenly said: 'Ah, you drink ayahuasca!'"
"Yes I drank ayahuasca before coming to the army," I answered.
"The sergeant continued: "Oh, now I understand. And you bathed yourself with pishcuaira leaves to try to become a meraya."
"Yes, precisely with those leaves, but four days later, I came here and could not continue the dieta," I replied."
"Yes, that is why the measles affected you. And why the pig meat affected you so badly," he explained."
"But now, with what I gave you, you will be cured soon."
"And that is how I was cured when nothing else could help me"
- Don Benito Arevalo
_______________
"Back at the Ucayali River after military service, Don Benito worked in a brick factory and, later, as a hunter of crocodiles."
"Don Benito found a place to settle down after many years of searching and eventually became an Onaya like he always wanted to be since he was a child."
I was recently informed that Peter Gorman, author of "Ayahuasca in my Blood" and "Sapo in my Soul," has passed. ________
I recall writing to him almost 10 years ago and he responded graciously to the questions that I had at the time, with the below caveat:
"I am not a curandero. I would have to do much more work to even be considered for that path."
"And while this is what I think based on what I have experienced with the medicine, I could be wrong about everything."
________
I always appreciated his written eloquence and naked honesty, and will hold him in my prayers as he makes his way home to Spirit.
<3 sweet journey <3
I loved his book. It was my first introduction to the world of psychedelic plant medicines.
Que Dios y la abuelita lo guíen en alma hacia luz...
🙏
Oh so sad 👁🙏👁
An inspiring and hopeful story of how the ayahuasca visions and insights received by sheripiaris (curanderos) have guided the path of the Ashaninka people of Aldeia Apiwtxa. Relevant excerpts below:____
"I first arrived in Apiwtxa village in 2015 to conduct research for a doctoral degree in anthropology. Getting there required four sets of clearances—from my university, two Brazilian agencies and the Apiwtxa themselves—a commercial flight to Cruzeiro do Sul, a chartered flight to Marechal Thaumaturgo and then a three-hour boat ride. Within days of arrival, I realized that it was no easy task to study the Ashaninka."
"A centuries-long history of dispossession and exploitation by non-Indigenous people has made them wary of outsiders. It was only after some months of their observing me that I was allowed to stay."
"My willingness to collaborate with their projects, my empathy with their principles, and my deep respect for their courage and wisdom all guided their decision."
"I ended up living and working with the Ashaninka for two and a half years. It was a transformative experience."
________
"I had worked with various Indigenous groups since the early 2000s, as a researcher, consultant on the environmental impact of development projects, and later as an employee with FUNAI, Brazil's National Foundation for Indigenous Affairs. I was well aware of the devastation that the Global North's hunger for oil, minerals, timber and other resources wreaked on forest peoples."
"I found the Ashaninka remarkable, however, for their penetrating analysis of the assaults they faced, as well as the farsightedness with which they devised responses to them."
"They were not “modern,” in that they did not seek a state of development modeled on a Western ideal of progress and growth that many aspire to but only few can reach. Instead they were exceptionally “contemporary,” in the sense of finding their own solutions to present-day problems."
_______
"We, the Ashaninka, have been massacred by loggers; we have been massacred by rubber dealers; we have been massacred by colonizers.... We were taken as a workforce to serve patrons who told us to cut down the forest and hunt the animals for them so they could live well; we were massacred by the missions who told us that we knew nothing,” Benki Piyãko, an Ashaninka leader, told me. “But then we decided to give a different response: we began to study.”
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"The first “student,” as Benki tells it, was his grandfather, Samuel Piyãko, who sought to understand the economic imperatives that drove outsiders to exploit nature and Indigenous peoples. Born in Peru, he was a shaman who worked on cotton plantations in conditions of debt peonage, a system by which Indigenous peoples were forced to work for a pittance, purchasing their necessities from their oppressors at extortionate prices, rendering them permanently indebted."
"Sometime in the 1930s Samuel escaped the plantations and trekked down the Andes slopes to the rain forest in Brazil. There, too, he encountered colonizers who were entering the forest via the great Amazonian rivers."
“I do not have anywhere to escape,” Samuel thought, according to Benki. “I will have to adapt here. I will stay here and look with my spirit to see how I will be able to remain connected” to other people and beings."
_________
"Samuel's descendants say he used his shamanic powers to envision the transformation his people have since achieved."
“What is happening here is my grandfather's dream,” Moisés, Benki's brother, said. “Here we are, his grandchildren, accomplishing what he thought would guarantee the continuity of the people and build the best path for us all.”
_________
"The Apiwtxa designs for living, drawn from shamanic visions and informed by interactions with the non-Indigenous world, are predicated on the protection and nurturing of all life in their territory."
"The Ashaninka hold that their well-being depends on the maintenance of the Amazon's incredible biodiversity. This awareness comes largely from their intimate relationships with the plants, animals, celestial bodies and other elements of their landscape, which they regard as their close relatives."
"These beings, especially the plant ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi), which the Ashaninka call kamarãpi, help treat their diseases and guide their decisions through visions."
“Our life is an enchantment,” shaman Moisés Piyãko said to me in July 2015. “What we live in Apiwtxa is all lived beforehand in the world of kamarãpi.”"
________
"Since 1992, when a community of Ashaninka people obtained legal title to some 870 square kilometers of partially degraded forest along the Amônia River, they have achieved an astonishing transformation."
"Once a people undergoing flight, fight or subjugation ever since European missionaries and colonizers arrived in their homeland three centuries ago, the 1,000-odd residents of Apiwtxa village in the Kampa do Rio Amônia Indigenous Land have become an autonomous, self-assured and largely self-sufficient community."
"They have regenerated the forest, which had been damaged by logging and cattle ranching, restored endangered species, enhanced food security through hunting, gathering, agroforestry and shifting cultivation, and otherwise shaped a way of life they hope will ensure the continuation of their community and principles. These achievements, as well as their support for neighboring communities, have earned them several awards, including the United Nation's Equator Prize in 2017."
________
"The Apiwtxa constructed the new village by the Amônia River, on two former cattle pastures of around 40 hectares. They reforested the area, mostly with indigenous species, which they nurtured in nurseries."
"They built the huts in the traditional manner—close to the river, on raised platforms to keep out snakes, and mostly without walls to let in the breeze. Around their homes they planted fruit, palm and timber trees, and medicinal plants."
"They established banana groves and multicropped fields with corn, manioc and cotton, dug ponds to breed fish and turtles to replenish the fishing resources in the Amônia River, and set up no-go areas, which shifted periodically, to prevent overhunting."
"And they established a school of their own design, teaching children in the Ashaninka language for the first four years and imparting both traditional skills such as weaving and mainstream knowledge such as arithmetic."
"A few of the young people went away to attend university and study the outside world—in particular, its economic and political systems—before returning with their skills to the Apiwtxa."
_________
"At Apiwtxa, the day revolves around living—bathing in the river, washing clothes, tending crops, fishing, cooking, repairing huts and implements, playing."
"By the time it draws to a close, everyone is tired. The villagers eat dinner just before sunset, after which the children might enjoy a storytelling session before going to bed. Some of the women spin cotton; the spiritual leaders, mostly men, sit under starry skies to chew coca leaves in silent communion."
"Among the Ashaninka, a great deal of communication happens without speech, through subtle shifts in expression and posture. We would go to sleep by 7 or 8 P.M., waking up early to birdsong and other forest sounds, feeling deeply rested."
________
"The regulations that the Apiwtxa decided on in the 1990s have since developed into a complex system of governance. The community's leaders, several of whom are Samuel's close relatives, comprise shamans, warriors and hunters who deal with internal issues, alongside people with formal education or experience in building social movements, who serve as interlocutors with the outside world."
"With such a diversity of skills, the Apiwtxa have also become adept at raising funds from governmental and nongovernmental agencies for projects, such as reforestation."
_________
"A second key principle of Ashaninka design is autonomy—independence from systems of oppression and the freedom to determine how to live in their territory."
“Not be led by others” is essential, Francisco declared."
"Autonomy requires a large measure of self-sufficiency, to which end the Apiwtxa have enhanced their food sovereignty and implemented economic and trading practices that minimally impact the environment."
"The ancient ayõpare system of exchange, which goes beyond material exchanges to the creation and nurturing of relationships of mutual support and respect, guides all transactions within and without the community."
"I experienced it while living there: someone might ask me for, say, batteries, and a few days or months later I would find a bunch of fruit or some other gift on my doorstep."
"One manifestation of this system is the Ayõpare Cooperative, which trades only products that do not deplete nature and only with outsiders who support Apiwtxa's objectives."
"“The forest is our wealth,” as Moisés explained. “Our project is to sustain this wealth.” The cooperative's most successful products are handicrafts; they help to maintain traditions and protect the forest while providing relative economic autonomy. The cooperative also enables the Apiwtxa to communicate its principles— by, for example, selling native seeds for reforesting other parts of the Amazon."
"Reducing physical threats from the outside world enhances autonomy as well. To this end, the Apiwtxa have tried to create a physical and cultural “buffer zone” around their territory by helping neighboring Indigenous communities to also bolster their traditions and protect biodiversity. Prolonged subjugation by mainstream society has led several Ashaninka groups, especially those in Peru, to adopt outsiders' unsustainable modes of living or succumb to market pressures to sell timber or other forest resources, Benki and Moisés observed."
"Changing this state of affairs requires restoring ancestral ways of interacting with nature, the shamans believe. Indeed, Apiwtxa leaders hold that this ancestral knowledge is a vital resource for all of humankind. “It is not enough to only work on our land,” Benki said, “because our land is only a small piece of this big world that is being destroyed.”
________
"The Ashaninka reject the idea that humankind is separate from nature and that the latter is subject to the former. According to their creation myth, the original creatures were all human, but Pawa, their Creator, turned many of them into birds, animals, plants, rocks, celestial bodies, and others."
"Despite being different in form, these beings retained their humanity and are all related to the Ashaninka. Many other Indigenous traditions similarly hold that plants, trees, animals, birds, mountains, waterfalls and rivers, among others, can speak, feel and think and are tied to other beings in reciprocal relationships."
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"Ayahuasca taught them about the intimate connections among beings, the Ashaninka say. In their mythology, the ayahuasca vine sprouted from the place where a wise ancestral woman, Nanata, was buried; it possesses her wisdom. A japo bird (genus Cacicus) then explained to the Ashaninka how to unite the ayahuasca vine with a particular leaf (Psychotria viridis) to brew the sacred drink, kamarãpi. “They drank it and took it to their people, bringing light and conscience to them,” Benki said."
________
"As Moisés sees it, kamarãpi helps people develop their conscience by leading them toward self-knowledge and gradually to a deep knowledge of other people and other kinds of beings. Once developed, this wisdom will help guide their actions and relationships."
"Apiwtxa's shamans even attribute their capacity to design their society to kamarãpi visions. Moisés, Benki and other shamans actively seek guidance from ayahuasca, with whose help they attain, sustain and explore an altered state of consciousness that enables them to envision the future and find solutions to challenges."
________
"Dreaming is essential but not enough, Benki adds. It is also essential to plan—to think consciously and rationally—and act in the present."
"When a shaman reports a significant vision, the community discusses it and develops a plan of action."
________
"After Benki dreamed about a center for disseminating forest peoples' philosophy—a place that would be rooted in ancestral knowledge while reaching out to the world with a message of caring for all beings—the Apiwtxa acted on it, founding the Yorenka Atame (Knowledge of the Forest) Center in 2007."
"They constructed the building on a cattle pasture across the river from Marechal Thaumaturgo, a small town three hours downstream of Apiwtxa. Its creators intended Yorenka Atame as a demonstration to the townspeople of an alternative way of living and turned the pasture into a forest full of fruit trees."
"Earlier, while serving as environment secretary for the town, Benki had sought to lead its youth away from drug trafficking by training them in agroforestry and inviting them to kamarãpi ceremonies."
"Using ayahuasca is risky: its impact depends crucially on the brew and the skill and ethics of the person supervising the session. Benki hoped that with his guidance, the ritual would help the young people feel connected to nature—and it did."
"They helped him plant around Yorenka Atame and went on to establish a settlement called Raio do Sol, or Sunshine, where they grow their own food using agroecology."
"Yorenka Atame is a place for exchanging knowledge about the forest and discussing what true development might mean. It has hosted many gatherings of Indigenous peoples and scholars from around the world.
“We do not have enemies; we have partners and allies and the ones with whom we disagree,” Francisco said—the Apiwtxa wish to engage everyone in dialogue."
"Exchanges at Yorenka Atame and in the field have helped local rubber tappers to reforest their region and stimulated the cultural revitalization of many Indigenous groups, such as the Puyanawa peoples, who had been enslaved and almost killed off by rubber barons."
"Such activities have given the Apiwtxa community a huge presence and influence in the region despite its small size. Isaak Piyãko, another of Antônio and Piti's sons, became the first Indigenous mayor of Marechal Thaumaturgo in 2016. That he is among the leaders of the Apiwtxa, a community whose achievements are widely respected, probably helped his election."
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"In 2017 Benki and others established a related project, Yorenka Tasori (Knowledge of the Creator), with its own center. It facilitates the diffusion of Indigenous spiritual and medicinal knowledge among forest peoples and beyond."
"Yorenka Tasori also includes an effort to protect Ashaninka sacred sites, which are often places of great natural beauty but are threatened by roads, dams and extractive industries. As much a political as a spiritual endeavor, Yorenka Tasori seeks to revitalize traditional links among the Ashaninka as a way of restoring their historically powerful cohesiveness. In such manner—by protecting their ancestral knowledge, especially the awareness of interconnectedness with all other beings, and passing these gifts on to younger generations—the Apiwtxa hope to ensure the Ashaninka's continuity as a people."
______
"I accompanied Benki and other Apiwtxa representatives on visits to Ashaninka sacred sites in Peru and was struck by how people were drawn to them. They had an aura of serenity and power that attracted many others, so that our group grew inexorably as we traveled. The Apiwtxa leaders inspired hope wherever they went, to the extent that the chief of one Indigenous community said, “It must have been Pawa who sent you here to open our eyes.”
"The Apiwtxa hope to open our eyes as well—to reach out to us with their message of unity and interrelatedness of all beings. They believe that a spiritual awareness of the underlying unity of creatures shows a way out of our epoch, marked as it is by ecological and societal crises—a time that is increasingly referred to as the Anthropocene."
"This geologic era derives from the relentless expansion of humankind's destructive activities on Earth, impacting the atmosphere, oceans and wildlife to the point that they threaten the integrity of the biosphere. The anthropos least responsible for the Anthropocene—people inhabiting the land in traditional ways—are suffering its worst consequences, however, in damage to their environments, livelihoods and lives."
"The Apiwtxa propose in place of permanent economic growth and extractive industry a social and economic system in which collaboration ranks above competition and where every being has a place and is important to the whole."
"By looking after human and other-than-human beings and cultivating diversity through protecting, restoring and enriching life, they are pointing to a pathway out of the Anthropocene."
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“This message comes from Earth, as a request for humanity to understand that we are transient beings here and one cannot just look at one's own well-being,” said Benki in an appeal to the world in 2017."
“We have to look toward future generations and what we will leave for them. We have to think of our children and of Earth. We cannot leave the land impoverished and poisoned, as is happening now. Today we can already see great disasters beginning to happen, people emigrating out of their countries in search of water to drink and food to eat. We see a war going on for wealth now, and soon we will see a war for water and for food."
“Shall we wait, or shall we change history? Join us!”
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Full article can be viewed here: www.scientificamerican.com/.../this-amazonian.../
| Photo by Andre Dib
Love and hope and blessings to all the wise and beautiful indigenous forest peoples! 🙏
Ko Engelander dit is de oorspronkelijke bron. Geen commerciële shit!!
"People talk about how much healing they received during ceremony.""Yet many of them do not even bother to clean up their own purge buckets or the ceremony space around them afterwards, leaving it for others to do."
"It sometimes makes me wonder: "Exactly what kind of healing have you received?"
- Maestro curandero with over 20 years of experience serving ayahuasca in ceremony
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"I could also observe that many white shaman apprentices in Peru were surprisingly uninterested in the lived world of the “non-ayahuasca-drinking” locals, who still constitute the vast majority of Indigenous or Mestizo populations, and their situation of marginalization and often extreme and illness causing poverty."
"One shaman apprentice even believed that “they are happy living in that way.”
"There are many people who do care, of course, but I was harshly surprised that this attitude occurred among all (randomly selected) white shaman apprentices I interviewed in hostels and “albergues” during my fieldwork in 2019."
- Bernd Brabec de Mori
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[Photo of an indigenous woman protesting for the demarcation of indigenous territory by Jornalistas Livres]
Maybe it's not up to the medicine to teach respect but up to the facilitators of the ceremony to model it and draw attention of the participants to the simple acts of showing it?
A Daughter of Muka[As told by Araceli, Yawa Kutashi Sahu, and re-counted by me]
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"I was in Aldeia Yawarani (deep within the Brazilian Amazon) when during an uni (ayahuasca) ceremony, I was visited by the spirit of Muka [the sacred plant dieted by serious students of Huni Kuin and Yawanawa spirituality]."
"It was something beyond words, something I had never encountered in any ayahuasca ceremony before. That night, Muka opened a portal into what I felt to be the realm of universal wisdom. I was left stunned and very moved."
"Ten days after that ceremony, Pajé Nani took me to the sacred site of Muka, where their isolation dietas take place."
"We were travelling there on a boat when I saw something very strange swimming towards us on the river. When I told the others, they became very excited. It was a deer with antlers. They told me it was a blessing for me since I was the first one who had seen it."
_____
"After we arrived at the sacred site of Muka, Pajé Nani told me that he had received a direct message from Spirit: he was to open the one year Muka dieta for me. I was shocked. I was not expecting it, and it was definitely something I did not feel prepared for."
"I saw his eyebrows twitching very quickly as he told me this. Pajé Nani then smiled and said: "See, my eyebrows twitch like that whenever Spirit is speaking through me."
"I told him that I could not enter into the Muka dieta right away. I had to go home and arrange my affairs before I could return."
"That is when he told me that I had to begin my Muka dieta now."
"He felt something approaching that would make it impossible for me to enter the dieta in the near future."
____
"I returned to the jungle as soon as I could. The Muka dieta was opened for me."
"I also found out that the other Yawanawa leaders were against the Muka dieta being opened for me."
"But Pajé Nani went against the decision of others within his tribe because he had been instructed directly by Spirit."
"He believed that it is ultimately Spirit who decides, not men."
_____
"Some time after my dieta was opened, the COVID crisis began to spread around the world. FUNAI (the Brazilian agency for Indian affairs) forbid foreigners from entering indigenous territory. Travel into Brazil became very restricted."
"This was what Pajé Nani had felt coming, long before anyone knew about the pandemic."
"I began my one year Muka dieta with two other members of the Yawanawa tribe and completed my dieta. One of the other dieteros was a dear sister of mine who was dieting to heal a serious health condition. She sadly died during her dieta. The other dietero was only able to continue dieting for 7 months."
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"For me, it is very important to convey that Westerners should not enter the jungle thinking they can choose and buy whatever initiation or dieta is on offer. I believe this can de-sacralize what is the most profound path of our existence."
"And while the indigenous elders may open the lines to this spiritual world for us, our direct relationship to Spirit is the most pure, and the one we must always cherish and follow."
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[Photo is of Pajé Kate Yuve Nani of the Yawanawa tribe | Photo by Diego Gurgel
Ko Engelander
Could you please tell me (us) which was the result of your dieta in terms of spiritual vision increase?
Artwork of the Shipibo-Conibo artist Robert Rengifo, who sadly passed away in the year 2019