Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (25 page)

Shamans acquire a wide variety of different animals to serve as protectors.
Don Roberto said that he had two protectors of the earth-the boa negra,
black boa, and otorongo, tawny jaguar-and two of the water-the yanapuma, black jaguar, and the yacuruna, the water people, magical and sexually
seductive spirits who live in great cities below the water. At my coronacion,
initiation, don Roberto gave me, along with his flema, phlegm, two protective
animals, one each of earth and water-two jaguars, a tawny and a black.

Usually one's first protective animals stay with one for life, with additional
protectors added over time to one's armamentarium as one progresses. When
I first met dona Maria, she asked me whether, as a norteamericano, I had ever
seen a bear. She had seen, she said, a polar bear-or at least an oso blanco-in
a movie on television. In fact, Maria had two bears, one black and one white,
as protector animals. Dona Maria told me that the bear had become her protector before she had ever seen it on television.

One of dona Maria's first protective animals was the aquila, in this case probably the Andean condor rather than any of the various Peruvian species of
eagles; in fact, when she first drank huachuma, she had a vision of an aquila.
She began acquiring her protective animals when she first drank ayahuasca.
During her third ceremony with don Roberto, two macaws came and sat on
her shoulders, speaking to her in the Inca language; from that time on, she
knew, these macaws would be her protectors. Her protectors are, she said,
like "soldiers ofayahuasca." They grew in power as she smoked mapacho and
drank ayahuasca, tobacco infusions, and agua de florida. Her protectors always accompanied her; she could see them there with her while we talked.
Her protectors included wolves and two bears, black and white, and two
forms of boa constrictor-the boa negra, black boa, and boa amarilla, yellow
boa. Her protectors also included several types of bird-condors, owls, timelitos, and especially guacamayos, macaws." So, whenever Bona Maria started to
work, the macaws came and landed on her head and shoulders, to protect her.
The animals "take care of me spiritually." If someone was about to attack her,
the animals would preemptively strike on her behalf-the attacker crushed by
her boas and clawed by her ferocious birds.

These animal protectors can form complex protective barriers. Don Celso
Rojas, when dealing with sorcery, has, among other animals, a condorpishcu, a
little white bird with a red neck, flying about his head to warn him of an attack;
a lion on his right shoulder, a black jaguar on his left, and an elephant before
him; a shushupi, bushmaster, around his neck; and a school of piranha.12

Protectors may take human form as well. The protectors of don Agustin
Rivas are Indians, armed with bows, arrows, and darts, wearing feathered
crowns, with eyes in the back of their heads; they are, he says, cruel, vengeful, and very protective. Even though he himself has no intentions of harming
anyone, his protectors punish with sickness or death anyone who threatens
or hurts him.13 Don Emilio Andrade has a large Brazilian black man armed
with daggers, who follows his enemies and locks them into dark tunnels in
the Andes.14

Protectors may be angels with swords, tree spirits with guns, or a warplane
that bombs and destroys the shaman's enemies.15 Don Luis Panduro Vasquez
has songs of protection he calls icaro de electricidad, icaro de candela, icaro cubrir
con la manta, and icaro como un sombrero de piedra-icaros, respectively, of electricity, of fire, to cover with a blanket, and like a hat of stone." Don Juan Flores
Salazar has a pair of shoes made of steel, carries two swords in sheaths on
both sides of his belt, holds a sword in each hand, and wears a hat of steel on
his head.'? Among Bona Maria's protectors were, of course, Jesucristo, Jesus
Christ, and Hermana Virgen, the Virgin Mary.

There is a distinction made among various sorts of cuerpo, body. A cuerpo
daflado, harmed body, is a body attacked by sickness, usually induced by sorcery; a cuerpo sencillo, ordinary body, is one currently unaffected by sickness
but without protection; a cuerpo preparado, prepared body, is one protected by
plants and especially by mapacho, tobacco smoke, blown over the body and
into the body through the top of the head. Strongest of all, a cuerpo sellado,
sealed body, sometimes called a cuerpo cerrado, closed body, is one protected by
an arcana that prevents any penetration, that resists attack by sorcery.,'

STRONG SWEET SMELLS

The plant spirits in the Amazon love strong, sharp, sweet smells. Thus, one
way to acquire protection against malevolent persons and their pathogenic
projectiles is to acquire such a sweet smell oneself, as opposed to the ordinary human smell, including the smell of human sex, which the spirits dislike. Shamans achieve this state, and provide it for their patients, by putting
substances with sharp sweet smells either on or inside the body.

First among such substances is, of course, tobacco, which is ingested by
indigenous shamans in every conceivable way, and by mestizo shamans primarily by smoking or by drinking cold infusions of tobacco leaves in water.
Blowing tobacco smoke onto the body of a patient, or into the body by blowing the smoke into the top of the head, is part of the foundational triad of
mestizo shamanic healing-shacapar, rattling; chupar, sucking; and soplar,
blowing.

For the same reason, mestizo shamans ingest commercial cologne, mouthwash, disinfectant, and camphor. Two commercial products are particularly
common-Timolina, marketed in English-speaking countries as Thymoline, a
commercial alkaline mouthwash and gargle containing thyme oil, eucalyptol,
menthol, and pine oil, dissolved in alcohol, similar to Listerine; and Creolina,
marketed also as Creoline, Creolin, Cresyline, and similar names, a disinfectant
made of cresol or cresylic acid in soft soap solution, similar to Lysol.

And they ingest camphor and its strong, sweet, pungent, and penetrating odor. Camphor is a commercially prepared resin of the camphor laurel
tree, which does not grow in the Amazon. Rather, shamans purchase commercially prepared camphor at the market in two forms-small cellophanewrapped blocks of pure camphor and bibaporu, Vicks VapoRub. Shamans also
drink camphor dissolved in alcohol, and a drink called camalonga-a mixture
of camphor, alcohol, white onion, and the seeds of the camalonga plant, yellow oleander.

Bibaporu

This provides my favorite example of why ethnobotanical identification can be
tricky. Dona Maria was telling me the ingredients of grasa de b6fa(o, buffalo fat,
a liniment preparation. One of the ingredients, she said, was bibaporli. I was immediately befuddled. Was it a kind of plant? No, she said. She tried to describe
it; I couldn't follow. Finally, she showed it to me. It was Vick's VapoRub. Later,
when I told this story to my Hispanic friends in the United States, they said,
"Bibaporli? Of course! My grandmother used that for everything."

Aguardiente is, literally, agua ardiente, burning water. It is distilled from
the fermented first squeezing of sugarcane, unlike rum, which is made from
molasses, a by-product from the processing of the sugarcane into sugar. The
same drink is called cachaca in Brazil. In Colombia, aguardiente is sometimes
flavored with anise. But in the Peruvian Amazon, aguardiente is straightforward, unflavored, potent, sold in recycled bottles or by the shot in tin-roofed
bars and thatched bodegas throughout the jungle.

Aguardiente is a commonly used solvent and vehicle. In addition to being
drunk by itself by some shamans, it is used as the solvent for camalonga, camphor, and other ingredients in the camalonga drink, and for the scrapings of
ajo sacha roots, chuchuhuasi bark, and huito fruit; and it is the almost universal solvent for medicinal tinctures. Some shamans use a trago de cana for
its psychoactive effect, and some blow it over a patient's body-like tobacco
smoke or agua de florida-to cleanse and cure.19

Shamans also drink perfume, primarily the cologne called agua de florida.
There can be combinations of sweet substances: Pablo Amaringo tells of one
female shaman who drank a mixture of chopped tobacco, perfume, camphor,
aguardiente, hot pepper, lemon, and salt, together with a little arsenic. "Then
she drank everything," Amaringo says. "Large black stains appeared all over
her skin." The shaman began to sing and sing, and to blow forcefully here
and there with her perfumed breath. Dona Maria used to drink a mixture of
tobacco, camphor, camalonga seeds, and agua de florida cologne.

During the ayahuasca ceremony, don Roberto and dona Maria put crosses
of agua de florida on the forehead, chest, and back of each participant, whistling a special arcana of protection, to seal, close, and protect the body. Some
shamans blow a fine fast spray of agua de florida from their mouths over the
patient for the same purpose; some blow aguardiente, or the mouthwash
Timolina, or the disinfectant Creolina. There is a type of shaman in the Amazon called a perfumero, who specializes in the use of such scents to attack, to
heal, and to attract.

Agua de florida was first manufactured for Victorian ladies in the nineteenth century by the firm of Murray and Lanman in New York. It is remarkable that this commercial cologne should have assumed such a central role
not only in the shamanism of the Peruvian Amazon but also for magical purposes among people of African-diaspora descent in the United States and
the Caribbean: bottles of agua de florida can be found equally on the mesas
of Amazonian healers and on the altars of Vodou priestesses in Brooklyn.21
Other colognes-agua de kananga, colonia de rosas-are also widely used,
and may be found for sale in the herbal market in Belen in Iquitos." Not every
mestizo shaman uses agua de florida; anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna says
that the vegetalistas with whom he worked preferred the perfume Tabu."

Another way of acquiring a protective sweet strong smell is by taking a
limpia or bah o de flores, cleansing flower bath, using strongly scented herbs,
flowers, and commercially prepared perfumes. The fragrant plants used in
limpias include ajo sacha, wild garlic; albaca, wild basil; ruda, rue; mishquipanga, dwarf ginger; and mucura, garlic weed, as well as other plants-especially
those that are morado, purple or dark, such as pinon colorado, red pinon-which
protect from sorcery. To these may be added commercially prepared perfumes
and floral essences-agua de florida, agua de rosas, agua de kananga, rosa de
castilla-and the thyme-scented mouthwash Timolina.

The morning after an ayahuasca ceremony, especially if I had had a strong
purge, when I was still weak and shaky from the medicine, there was nothing
more pleasant than for dona Maria to pour buckets full of cool sweet-smelling water, filled with leaves and flowers, over my head and body, while she
sang some of her most beautiful oraciones to protect me from sickness and
misfortune.

Agua de florida is a teacher, just like the plantas maestras, the plants who
teach. Dona Maria told me that it gives very clear visions, especially visions of
your enemies; it is an excellent virotero, sender of magic darts; and therefore it
is an especially effective protection against sorcery. One can undertake a restricted diet with agua de florida just as one could with any healing or protecting plant. For thirty days, says dona Maria, drink a small bottle of the cologne
every night before going to sleep, then sit quietly during the day, concentrating and smoking mapacho cigarettes. At the end of this time, the genio, the
spirit, of agua de florida will come to you; he will appear in a dream or vision, she says, as an hombre buen gringo, a very European-looking man. He will
have three birds with him that serve sorcerers-the cushuri, cormorant; the
camungo, horned screamer; and the sharara, anhinga-and four spiny palms from which sorcerers make their virotes, magic darts-chambira, huicungo,
pijuayo, and huiririma. The spirit of agua de florida will ask you, "Why have
you come here? What are you seeking?" And he will offer you a choice of how
to use the power of the perfume-for attack, for defense, or for healing.

Such is the power of strong sweet smells in the Upper Amazon.