Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (11 page)

Accusations of Sorcery

"Sorcerers are still murdered in the Upper Peruvian Amazon," writes Francoise Barbira Freedman. Two Lamista suspects were recently killed in revenge, shot dead at night: "`People got tired of their evil doings,' I was
told."66 Shuar shaman Alejandro Tsakimp describes the murder of an uwishin,
shaman, named Tseremp, who boasted of his power to kill and was suspected
in the illness of a relative:

Then we went to see where they killed him-they killed him in his
own bed! Everything was shot up! And my uncle, my father's own brother, Pedro, had cut Tseremp in the chest with a machete. The shotgun
hadn't killed Tseremp, so Pedro cut until the machete penetrated the
heart.

Tseremp was a powerful uwishin, Alejandro concludes, but he fell
because of the many bad things he had done.67

In 1978, anthropologist Jean-Pierre Chaumeil did a survey of Yagua shamans in eastern Peru, including which shamans had died during the preceding decade. All eleven deceased shamans reportedly had been killed, either by
other shamans, using sorcery, or by villagers, in reprisal for sorcery of their
own. Yagua shamans, he writes, are often blamed for the suffering of others,
and may be attacked at any time by the relatives of a victim or by a rival shaman. The shaman must constantly be on guard to prevent and to be instantly
aware of this type of attack.68

When I was among the Shapra Indians, about Boo kilometers up the Chapuli River in the highland jungle border area between Peru and Ecuador, I was
told that the community no longer had shamans-we used the Spanish word
chamdn-but, rather, now sought out medicos, doctors, because of the destructive blood feuds that resulted from failed healings, subsequent accusation of
sorcery, and bloody interminable headhunting vendettas between the families
of patient and shaman. The same thing has happened among the Yawanahua,
where pepper and tobacco powder have fallen into disuse because of their association with sorcery; in one village, a community meeting was organized by
the old and new village heads, where a collective agreement was made not to
practice sorcery anymore.69

Among the Shuar, when a person in the neighborhood falls ill, the shamans are the first to be blamed.7° Moreover, because shamans control spirit
darts, people fear that shamans may be tempted to use the cover of healing as
an opportunity to bewitch their own clients for personal reasons. The clients
therefore expect results; and, if such results are not forthcoming, the shaman
may be suspected of sorcery, and punished for it.7'

And failures occur, accidents happen, patients die. On April 25, 2003, in
Ontario, Canada, an Ecuadorian Shuar shaman named Juan Uyunkar pled
guilty in the death of a seventy-one-year-old woman who had died during a
three-day ayahuasca healing ceremony. In addition to the ayahuasca, participants had been given infusions of tobacco to drink, and tobacco enemas if
they wished, in order to help induce vomiting and purgation. An autopsy concluded that the woman had died of nicotine poisoning. Uyunkar was originally charged with eight offenses, including criminal negligence causing death;
he pled guilty to reduced charges of administering a noxious substance and
trafficking in ayahuasca, a controlled substance, the charges carrying a maximum penalty of two years in prison. On April 26, 2003, an Ontario judge,
seeking to balance "the conflicting principles between the spiritual and the
temporal," sentenced Uyunkar to twelve months of house arrest and i5o
hours of community service, and forbade him from conducting any further
ayahuasca rituals.72

This is exactly the sort of adverse event that could happen in any shaman's
practice, but in traditional shamanic cultures the outcome could have included the murder of the shaman by outraged relatives of the patient, convinced
that ill will and sorcery were involved. If the shaman declines to treat people,
if the shaman is reluctant to work hard at healing, if too many patients die, the
question arises: Is the shaman really a sorcerer? Is the shaman pursuing sorcery under the guise of healing?73

The Amazonian shaman is thus, in the words of anthropologist Pierre
Clastres, a person of "uncertain destiny"-a holder of prestige, but at the
same time responsible in advance for the group's sorrows, and held accountable for every extraordinary occurrence.74

Every shaman, then, is in a precarious position. As anthropologist Steven
Rubenstein reports among the Shuar, when the veteran shaman Tseremp
would not-or could not-heal Chumpi's son, Chumpi concluded that
Tseremp was a killer-a conclusion that led finally to the murder of the shaman, described above. And when Alejandro Tsakimp, as a novice shaman,
was asked to perform a healing, Tsakimp could not refuse; although he was
terrified of failing, Rubenstein writes, he was more afraid of saying no.75 Similarly, among the Desana of the Upper Rio Negro, a shaman will never propose
to attempt to heal a sick person, lest the shaman be suspected of intending
harm-indeed, will not claim to know what the illness is or how to cure it,
even to the extent of letting the sick person die. If asked, however, the shaman cannot refuse, and then, after the curing session, will explain in some detail exactly what was done and used to heal the sickness-again, to protect against suspicions of sorcery in case the sickness gets worse. 71 As shamans get older and their occasional therapeutic failures accumulate, they find
themselves increasingly vulnerable to suspicions of no longer being willing to
heal or of causing sicknesses themselves.77

Thus, shamans need explanations for their failures to cure. Among the
Cashinahua, sickness may be caused by a sorcerer materializing the muka,
the bitter shamanic substance, within the sorcerer's body and shooting it as
an invisible dart into the victim. The healing shaman can see this substance
and suck it out of the victim's body, but only if it has not yet spread out, in
which case the victim's death, the shaman will explain, was inevitable.78 In
the same way, a Cubeo shaman cannot cure where the darts are simply too
numerous.79 The Sharanahua believe that the Culina are particularly powerful
shamans, who kill by throwing the dori that is inside their bodies. If enough
dori is thrown, the sickness can be cured only by a Culina shaman; the Sharanahua shaman is helpless.80

The Revenge of Sorcerers

The shaman's role is not limited to healing; the shaman also identifies the
enemy shaman who caused the illness.', This identification is conveyed to the
shaman as visionary information supplied by ayahuasca. Achuar shamans, for
example, can see the pathogenic darts in the patient's body connected by very
long silvery threads to the one who sent them. But naming that person creates
a mortal enemy, and Achuar shamans may decline to do so, or require high
payment, commensurate with the risk.82

Indeed, the person the shaman names as the sorcerer runs a real risk of
being killed.83 Michael Brown worked with an Aguaruna shaman named
Yankush. When a respected elder died suddenly of unknown causes, Yankush
came under extraordinary pressure to identify the sorcerer responsible. From
an ayahuasca vision he concluded that the sorcerer was a young man from a
distant region who happened to be visiting a nearby village. The young man
was killed within a few days. Because Yankush was widely known to have
named the sorcerer, he became the likely victim of a reprisal raid by members
of the murdered man's family. "Yankush's willingness to accept this risk in
order to protect his community from future acts of sorcery," Brown writes,
"was a source of his social prestige, but it was also a burden. I rarely saw him
leave his house without a loaded shotgun.1184 Such a dilemma is profound.
Failure to identify another as the responsible sorcerer is to bring suspicion on
oneself.

Fickle Spirits

The spirits can be fickle; ayahuasca, dona Maria warned me, is muy celosa, very
jealous. The spirits hate the smells of human sex, menstrual blood, and semen; they may abandon the shaman for many reasons or no reason at all. Shamans can be made "worthless," "drunk-like," reduced to a sorry state through
the loss of their power in spirit attacks, a fate greatly feared among mestizo
shamans. There is no tenure in shamanism; spirit helpers are imponderable
and can desert powerful shamans from one day to the next.85

Envious Competitors

Rivalry, jealousy, and mutual accusations of sorcery are integral features of
shamanism;86 a shaman must always be on guard against the evil attacks of
vengeful foes.87 The shaman lives in a world filled with danger. Shamans envy
other shamans who are more successful, have more clients, and heal more
sickness; shamans seek revenge on other shamans who have thwarted their
attacks or attacked their friends. Sorcerers will attempt to destroy their competition, and, if they cannot kill the shaman, they will concentrate on the
more vulnerable members of the shaman's family.88 One Colombian woman
recalls the days of the great shamans: "They could become tigers and parrots.
They could fly. Now they are finished. They ate one another. They fought each
other. They were consumed with envy. They would turn into a tiger to eat the
whole family of their enemy. "19

Indeed, even admitting that one is a shaman opens the door to such attacks; despite economic or social benefits of the shaman role, many prefer to
conceal their gift and remain hidden, at least until they are sufficiently powerful to resist attack.9° To declare oneself a shaman is in itself a boast of one's
powers. And every healing is potentially a contest between shamans, defense
and attack, revenge, turning magical darts back upon the one who sent them.
A shaman is at constant risk of being killed by other more powerful shamans.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DIET

To learn the plants-the term used is dominar, master-means to create a
relationship with the plant spirits, by taking them into the body, listening to
them speak in the language of plants, and receiving their gifts of power and
song. To win their love, to learn to sing to them in their own language, shamans must first show that they are strong and faithful, worthy of trust. To do
this, they must go into the monte, the wilderness, away from other people, and
follow la dieta, the restricted diet. Indeed, some plants, such as catahua and
pucalupuna, want to deal only with the strongest and most self-controlled of
humans, those willing to undertake a dieta fuerte, a lengthy and rigorous diet.
Other humans they kill.

The restricted diet is the key to a relationship with the plants. Apprentice
shamans learn the plants by dieting with them, ingesting them, studying their
effects, awaiting the appearance of the plant spirit in a vision or dream to
be taught their uses and their songs. La dieta is vital during apprenticeship;
and shamans continue to observe la dieta from time to time throughout their
careers, when treating difficult patients, when preparing certain medicines,
to revitalize their shamanic power, or to learn new plants. According to don
Guillermo Arevalo, a Shipibo shaman, such ongoing diets throughout one's
lifetime are the sign of a real shaman.,

The plant spirits reveal themselves, their uses, and their icaros, sacred
songs, only to one who follows la dieta. Don Roberto insists on periodicand often lengthy-dietas for his apprentices. Don Roberto is a good example:
during his apprenticeship, he dieted for ten days before drinking ayahuasca
for the first time, fifteen days before drinking it for the second time, and twenty days before drinking it for the third time. While on la dieta, he could have no salt, no sugar, and no sex. He could eat pldtanos, plantains, grilled in their
skins, and pescaditos, little fish, all without salt; he could drink a little lemon
juice in water, but nothing sweet; he could eat no rice. He drank the ayahuasca
in the monte, the jungle, alone with his maestro and three other apprentices.
Some shamans, such as don Agustin Rivas, have their apprentices drink the
latex of oje, which causes a violent purge, before beginning the diet.2