Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (32 page)

The Yagua shaman too leaves the body to travel across the different levels
of the universe, while one or more spirits take up residence to speak and act in
the absent shaman's place. This is indicated by the shaman speaking in a very
high-pitched voice, which is called the "voice of the spirits.""

It is interesting to note that several indigenous Amazonian peoples believe
that spirit possession, though no longer practiced in their group, was once
the province of great and powerful shamans in the past. The Shuar believe
that Canelos Quichua shamans are particularly powerful-the Shuar call
them banku-and that they are the only shamans in the area who are able to become possessed by and act as mediums for the spirit of a deceased person,
let it speak through their mouths; among the Shuar themselves, they say, such
shamans no longer exist.19 It is the same among the Shipibo: one woman, not
herself a shaman, says that the meraya have now all disappeared, but that they
could be possessed by the souls of dead people, who would speak through
the meraya's mouth several months after their death to name the sorcerers
who had killed them. There is thus reason to believe that the meraya-like the
banku-was distinguished from other shamans by giving voice to the dead.20

Among the Achuar, when panku-clearly the same word as banku or banco-drink ayahuasca, they receive the souls of the dead into their bodies, and
the dead speak through their mouths, "like on the radio," says the son of an
Achuar panku. Such shamans are reportedly very rare today, and very powerful; they have received darts, invisible to other shamans, directly from the
dead. Anthropologist Philippe Descola describes one such panku. "I come
from the depths of the Tungurahua volcano," the shaman said, "to see the
tsentsak hidden in your body. Nothing escapes my clairvoyance, for I am blind
in the light and exist only in the darkness. I see metal tsentsak that gleam like
the surface of the water. I see many tsentsak in your legs. 1121

Similarly, among the Napo Runa, a bancu shaman is the most powerful
type. A bancu begins when very young and, as Grandfather Alonso Andi, not
himself a shaman, expresses it, "studies and thinks for a long time. 1121 The
bancu is distinguished by spirit possession; he is the only shaman through
whom the spirits speak directly.23 Grandfather Alonso describes it this way:
"The supai takes possession of the yachaj, and those who want to can consult him.... The soul created by God leaves the body and the supai comes
into it. He speaks through the yachaj.... The yachaj looks like he's dead, and
the supai talks through him." The shaman first cleanses the patient with the
huairachina leaf-bundle rattle, and then the supai asks the assembled people
what they want to know. They say that they have called him to heal sickness;
the supai answers, "Yes, yes." These spirits live in a place called cielosiqui, the
end of the world: "When the bancu calls them, they come right away; for him
it's only a matter of calling. 1124

Anthropologist Blanca Muratorio describes such a Napo Runa ceremony.
The healer was Pablo Calapucha, a powerful shaman and son of the deceased
shaman Quillama, also a bancu; the patient was a sick girl with a fever. Pablo
began by whistling and then singing a song calling the spirit of ayahuasca,
who arrived accompanied by a powerful spirit, who took possession of Pablo
and, speaking through him, greeted those present and engaged in a dialogue
with the girl's mother. The spirit diagnosed the sickness, assured the mother of the child's quick recovery, and departed. Pablo then cleansed the patient
with the huairachina leaf-bundle rattle, blew tobacco smoke, and sucked
out the sickness. This process was repeated several times with other spirits.
When the process was completed, Pablo also called the spirit of his deceased
father, the powerful shaman, who then had a lengthy dialogue with his old
friend, Grandfather Alonso.25

CONTROL AND POSSESSION

A long-standing debate about shamanism concerns the locus of interaction between the shaman and the other-than-human persons with whom the shaman
works-between shamans who travel to the land of the spirits and shamans
whose bodies are occupied and possessed by spirits. Often the debate is expressed dichotomously as a matter of power-between the shaman being "the
master of spirits," on the one hand, and the shaman being "the instrument of
the spirits," on the other.21 Graham Harvey, a scholar of indigenous religions,
points out that "there is an almost continual conflict between those who think
shamans are, by definition, people who control spirits . . . and those who
think shamans are, at least sometimes, controlled by spirits. 1127

I think that we should subvert this dichotomy at the outset. It is based on
dualistic assumptions about power and control: either you have power over
the other or the other has power over you; either you are in control or you are
out of control. In the Amazon, the spirits-the plants-are powerful and unpredictable. The relationship between shaman and plant is complex, paradoxical, and multilayered, embodied in a recurrent phrase in Bona Maria's songs,
doctorcito poderoso, powerful little doctor, the diminutive indicating warmth
and familial affection, the adjective acknowledging power. The shaman "masters" the plants-the verb for learning a plant is dominar-by taking the plant
inside the body, letting the plant teach its mysteries, giving oneself over to the
power of the plant. As dona Maria warned me, ayahuasca is muy celosa, very
jealous. To acknowledge that the spirits can be dangerous, and then to speak,
as does anthropologist Fiona Bowie, of mastering, taming, even domesticating
them, is to gloss over the complex reciprocal interpersonal relationship between shaman and other-than-human person-fear, awe, passion, surrender,
friendship, and love .21

The dichotomy is also subverted among the Shuar. The tsentsak, magic
darts, kept within the chest of a Shuar shaman, are living spirits who can control the actions of a shaman who does not have sufficient self-control. The
magic darts want to kill, and it requires hard work to keep them under control and use them for healing rather than attack. That is why it is considered to
be much more difficult to be a healer than a sorcerer:29 it is difficult to resist
the urges of the darts. As some Shuar say, "The tsentsak make you do bad
things."3° Shuar shamans are thus, in a real sense, possessed, but not by the
soul of a deceased human person; they are possessed by their own shamanic
power, with which they are in continuous interaction.3'

Aguaruna shamans, too, when they begin to heal, call pasuk to enter into
their bodies. Pasuk are the spirits of formidable shamans who live in the forest, enter into the human shaman's chest, and tell the shaman information
about the sick person. While shamans are said to control their pasuk, the extent of this control appears to be variable.32 Similarly, the Parakana of eastern
Amazonia believe that shamans control pathogenic agents that cause sickness, called karowara. When animated by a shaman, karowara are tiny pointed objects; inside the victim's body, they take the concrete form of monkey
teeth, some species of beetle, stingray stings, and sharp-pointed bones. Karowara have no independent volition; but they have a compulsion to eat human
flesh.33 The case is the same for the Achuar. When shamans extract darts from
their patients, they store them in their wrists. Such darts, having once caused
sickness, have acquired a taste for human flesh; they seek to escape the shaman's control and go hunting on their own, and must constantly be brought
under control.34 The relationship between shaman and pathogenic agent appears complex, and control is not easily defined.

SOUL STEALING

The converse of voluntary spirit possession by the shaman is the stealing of
a soul. Mestizos believe that it is possible to lose one's soul, or part of one's
soul, through more or less natural processes-through fright, for example.
Soul loss through susto, also called manchari, is a relatively common childhood condition, treated by calling the soul to return. But one's soul may also
be stolen, especially during an ayahuasca ceremony, requiring the intervention of a shamanic healer to call it back into the body. The sorcerer who steals
a soul can throw it away, either into space or into tunnels under the earth,
often caves in the Andes.35 If the shaman does not succeed in recovering the
hidden soul, the person will sicken and inevitably die.

The soul is restored by shacapar, soplar, and chupar-rattling, blowing tobacco smoke, and sucking-and by singing the icaros that call the soul, much
like any healing. Don Roberto first blows tobacco smoke into the corona, the
crown of the head, in order to clear the head for the return of the soul. He calls back the soul with icaros; he sucks from the top of the head, the pit of
the stomach, and the temples.36 The soul reenters the body through the crown
of the head, Bona Maria told me, como un viento, "like a wind"-except for the
lost souls of children, who always appeared to Bona Maria as angels. The shaman does not journey to retrieve the soul but, rather, summons the soul-as
the shaman would a spirit-to the place where the shaman is treating the victim's physical body.37

Don Emilio Andrade tells of how he once called back a stolen soul. After
drinking ayahuasca, he rattled his shacapa; blew tobacco smoke; and sucked
from the top of the patient's head, the pit of her stomach, her temples, and
her lungs. Then he began to sing the icaros that called her soul. Suddenly he
saw a road and in the center of the road, a small shadow. As he sang, calling
the soul, the shadow became larger; when the shadow was just six or seven
meters away, he saw that it was his patient. The soul entered into her through
the top of her head, and at that moment she awoke. He continued to blow tobacco smoke on her, until she was completely recovered.38

TRANSCORPORATION AND SHAMANISM

For a long time, largely under the influence of historian of religion Mircea Eliade, it was assumed that soul flight was the defining feature of shamanism.39
We read that "the characteristic feature of shamanism is not the entry of an
alien spirit into the shaman; it is the liberation of the shaman's spirit, which
leaves his body and sets off on a mantic journey."4° Or again: "The shaman's
trance is thus conceived as a journey undertaken in the company of the spirits
he embodies. The shaman's soul leaves his body and voyages through the invisible regions in order to meet the dead or the spirits. 1141 Anthropologist Michael Harner has defined the shaman as "a person who journeys to the spirits,
seeking them out in their own world and remaining in control during the time
spent there. 1141

Yet, as I have indicated above, there seem to be three modes of interaction
with the spirits: the shaman can travel to where the spirits are-the classic
soul flight; the shaman can summon the spirits to where the shaman is; or
the spirits can enter and take possession of the shaman's body. Particular cultures-or particular shamans, on particular occasions-may utilize one or
more of these modes of interaction.

The earliest scholars of shamanism focused on the first and last of these,
and researchers were quickly able to point out that shamans in many cultures
combine journeying and possession in a single shamanic performance-that soul flight trance and spirit possession can alternate in one and the same person.43 In Siberia, for example, shamanizing involves both "soul journey shamanism" and "possession shamanism," with the shaman journeying to the
other world when spirits have entered his or her body and liberated the shaman's soul from its fetters.44 Similarly, when the Greenlandic angakkoq travels
to the spirit world, the traveling soul is sometimes replaced by a spirit, which
inhabits the body of the angakkoq. As the shaman's soul is busy elsewhere,
the spirit interacts with the audience.45 Among the Kahm-Magar in the Himalayas, the shaman, in the course of the same ritual, sometimes voyages and
sometimes is possessed.46

But what about summoning? Anthropologist Ake Hultkrantz was one
of the few researchers consistently to call attention to journeying and summoning as distinct practices.47 In many shamanic performances of divination and curing, he notes, where there is "the enlightenment of the shaman
through the arrival of auxiliary spirits," the shaman's soul does not leave the
body, leading Hultkrantz to infer "two distinctive experiences"-first, "the
extracorporeal flight of the shaman" and, second, "on-the-spot information
passed to the shaman by helping spirits.1148 Further, Anna-Leena Siikala, an
expert in northern Eurasian shamanism, has pointed to evidence among Siberian shamans for all three modes-journey, possession, and summoning.49
These three ways of working could be combined sequentially: one Evenk shaman took his spirits into himself at the opening of the performance, then
questioned them, and finally flew with them.5° The threefold pattern in Siberian shamanism has been confirmed by historian Ronald Hutton in his thorough review of the literature. 5,

Interestingly, unlike the Greenlandic angakkoq, dona Maria and don Roberto do not explicitly go to the land of the spirits, nor do they interact with
plant or animal spirits on their journeys, in order to heal their patients. To do
that, they call the spirits to the place of ceremony. Rather, when they transcorporate, they journey to see-distant landscapes, far galaxies, vast hospitals,
convocations of shamans. They do not travel on business.