Trail of Feathers (32 page)

Sitting there in the shaman’s
maloca
, looking at the
datura
flowers, I was naïve about the plant’s effects. Only with further research, did I find an astonishing connection, linking
datura
with Europe’s medieval tradition of flight.

The Shuar took
datura
very seriously. Everyone was aware of its ability to kill or its tendency to drive sane men mad. Despite its extraordinary potency, the Shuar have always had a place for this hallucinogen. At one time, a child who didn’t behave might first be spanked with a nettle. If he continued to be disrespectful to his father, the parent would prepare a weak solution of
datura
, called
make
, and feed it to him. Falling into a trance, the child would hang between life and death. Supposedly transported to the nether world, he’d learn that he was wrong, and his father was right. There are reports, too, that hunting dogs would be fed
datura
to imbue them with supernatural powers.

Datura
is a member of
Solanaceae
, the potato family. Occurring in both the Americas and Asia, it contains the powerful alkaloid
atropine
. The compound is credited with a sensation of flight, similar to the one provided by
ayahuasca
. So powerful is the atropine, it can be absorbed through the skin. This explains why preparations made from it are frequently taken by rubbing an ointment onto the skin.

The Algonquin once made a beverage with it, called,
wyoccan
, which they gave to those entering puberty rites. The Zuni Indians of New Mexico applied the ground-up roots of
datura
to their eyes. They said that it allowed them to see at night, and to commune with spirits and birds. Like civilisations before and since, the Incas used
datura
to fly.

The plant’s natural history is linked firmly with the Americas. But its initial arrival in Europe is both curious and intriguing. On their triumphant return to Madrid, after a long voyage of exploration, the Conquistadors brought with them all kinds of exotic species. Potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, and other
Solanaceae
were presented to the king. Among them was
datura
.

One can only imagine how the alluring trumpet flowers were received. Flirting as they do with the ignorant observer, it wasn’t long before society found a use for the flowers.

Witchcraft and magical flight have always gone together. While the tower-jumpers and the likes of Roger Bacon, and others, were trying to fly by understanding physics, European witches were resorting to magic. The battery of New World flora fuelled what was undoubtedly the most active period of witchcraft in Europe’s history.

These days, witches appear quite unaware of how their ancestors used psychotropic plants. Covens across Europe and North America still cling to the ritual and ceremony, but have lost their knowledge of hallucinogens. The besom, a twig broom, commonly ridden by witches, is today nothing more than a symbol.

Many medieval flying ointments contained
Brugmansia arborea
, a tree-like
datura
species brought from Peru. A variety of herbs and solanaceous compounds would be mixed together and rubbed on an area of the body where the skin was soft. Sometimes the salve was rubbed under the arms, on the face, or on the inner thighs. One theory is that a witch would apply the ointment liberally over her inner thighs and genital area, before climbing onto the besom. The action of riding the broom rubbed the cream into the skin.

After a few minutes, the
datura’s
potency would take effect. The witch would usually pass out. When she came to, she would assume that she had flown. Some writers in the 16th century realised that magical flight was all in the mind. A colleague of Galileo, Giovanni Porta, wrote a detailed account of a witch rubbing flying ointment on herself. She soon collapsed. When she was revived, the woman insisted that she’d actually been on a magical flight. Medieval witches habitually claimed to have transformed into a bird, such as a goose or an owl. Similarly, when the Shuar take
datura
, and even when drinking
ayahuasca
, they profess that animal transformation has occurred.

A number of recipes for medieval flying ointments survive. Some include human and animal extracts, and ingredients like, ‘the fat from a baby freshly dug from its grave’. In the early 1960s, the German anthropologist Dr Will-Erich Peuckert prepared a flying ointment from a 17th-century witch’s formula. As a folklorist, he was interested in social use of
datura
, and its role in the illusion of flight. The recipe he used contained deadly nightshade, henbane (both members of the potato family) and
datura
. Peuckert rubbed the salve on his forehead and armpits. Very soon he was experiencing a sense of flight, interspersed with falling sensations. Then he fell asleep for twenty-four hours.

*

Two days after climbing the embankment up to the village, I went down to check on the boat. Ignaeio’s wife had been trying to drag me to a special prayer reading in church. Visiting the
Pradera
was an easy excuse. Ignaeio’s family, Enrique, and the other villagers were eager to pray for their shaman’s soul. They appreciated the
ayahuasca
he made, as it took them to Jesus. But they strongly disapproved of his hostility towards the missionaries.

On board ship, Walter, Cockroach and Francisco were on the lower deck playing cards. They were surprised I was still alive. I told them that I’d prayed for their souls, for better food on board, and for an end to my constipation. My soul had been saved by the Shuars, I said, but Richard hadn’t been so lucky. His head had been chopped off by a crazed Shuar warrior. Walter cackled demonically.

‘That means I can have his Walkman,’ he said.

No words of comfort could get the crew to leave the boat. They refused even to jump down onto the river-bank, let alone come to the village. The Shuar, they said, would cut out our tongues and eat them with salt. Francisco was in charge of spreading the lies. He’d had another dream. A panther had emerged from a violet mist. Right away he’d grasped it was no ordinary cat.

‘It was
wawek’
said Francisco, ‘the bewitching shaman. He’d come to kill us with
anamuk
, the bewitching dart.’

‘Who did he kill first?’

Francisco tossed four aces onto the table.

‘We all died together,’ he said. ‘The
wawek
threw the special dart into the river, as we were going down stream. The dart was made from armadillo bone. As it touched the water, it turned into a giant boa constrictor, which flipped
Pradera
upside down.’

‘Nos ahogamos todos
, we all drowned,’ said Walter, coldly, peering up from his cards.

I am not sure what Richard said to Alberto to gain his trust. I had expected the shaman to be mistrustful of white men, especially after the destructive visitations from foreign missionaries. But Alberto agreed willingly to introduce me to his teacher, the
ayahuasquero
, who lived two days up the Corrientes. His willingness may have stemmed from the fact he would receive a free trip up river. As usual, I couldn’t establish if - by
two
days - he meant two days by dugout, or by a boat powered with a Johnson 65. In the Upper Amazon, any suggestion of time is nominal. Alberto cautioned me not to mention missionaries if we met his teacher, Ram
ó
n. The great shaman despised evangelism, a fact that endeared him to me even before we had met.

Clearing a space on the bench for Alberto, I made an announcement to the crew. We would leave at once, I said. They applauded. Walter dealt another hand of cards in celebration. Then I told them that Alberto, the Shuar shaman, would be joining us along with his sloth. Anyone who didn’t approve would be left on the river-bank.

Back in the village, Ignacio wanted to show me something. As his wife prepared a fresh batch of
masato
, he pulled a manila envelope from the eaves of the house. Inside were three colour photographs. Damp had stuck them together and, as a result, their emulsion was rubbing off. The last picture was so badly damaged I could hardly make out the central figure, a child.

It was my son,’ said Ignacio, ‘the one who died from malaria. This is the only picture we have of him. The missionaries took it with their camera.’

When a bowl of
masato
had been passed around, Ignacio suggested we say a prayer. He, his wife, Richard and I stood in a circle holding hands. Ignacio led the invocation. He prayed for the souls of the ones we love. Then he prayed for Jesus to lead us through times of uncertainty.

‘Ojo con Ram
ó
n
, beware of Ram
ó
n’ Ignacio said after the prayers. 

‘He is not an evangelist like us. He’s
wawek
, a bewitching shaman. Some people say he is
Iguachi
, the Devil.’

*

Alberto came aboard the
Pradera
with the three-toed sloth and a basket brimming with
cecropia
leaves. Zombified as before, the sloth didn’t appear disheartened at the prospect of coming along. At the end of the boat, nestled up against the fuel tanks, the crew were playing cards and sharing a pipe of
mapacho
. They pretended that the bewitching shaman’s presence didn’t bother them. Francisco had encouraged the others into a frenzy of hostility. Walter said he couldn’t be responsible for any Shuars who joined us. Cockroach was equally unfriendly. He said he would feed everyone and everything aboard, including the
Titanus giganticuses
and the chicken. But not a morsel from his pot would be served to the
wawek
or his sloth.

Just before we pushed off from San Jose, Enrique hastened down the embankment. A pair of hunting dogs were tearing alongside. His prized blowpipe was at hand, held like a javelin above his head. He asked if he could join us, as the hunting was better further upstream.

Enrique and the dogs scrambled aboard. A few seconds later the engine was fired up, and we pushed off into the dazzling waters of the Corrientes. Behind us, the village rang out with another evangelist ballad. The God-fearing community had met in church to pray for our journey.

Leaning into his rocking-chair, Richard inhaled on a fat
mapacho
cigar, back in position on the roof. Down below, the deck had become Noah’s Ark. The beetles, Rosario the chicken, the three-toed sloth, and the ferocious hunting dogs, all had their assigned places. There were three rats, too, which I had reintroduced from the village. They set to work hunting the wolf spiders. The only problem now was that Enrique’s dogs tore about in a whirlwind of teeth and claws, trying to kill the rats.

Francisco curled up in his hammock, muttering under his breath. He loathed having competition, especially from a Shuar. As Cockroach had refused to cook for the guests, I ripped open a few packets of Lancashire Hot Pot and served them up. The chief bowed his head to say grace before starting. He and Alberto liked the food so much they requested seconds. After the meal, Enrique took one of the empty packets. He said he’d tell the missionaries to bring lots of Lancashire Hot Pot, when they next visited San Jose.

I asked Richard what we could do to break the ice between the two shamans.

‘Teamwork!’ he yelled, ‘get them on some exercises together. In ‘Nam,’ he said, ‘you learned to look after the next guy’s butt. It was as simple as that. You watch his butt and he’ll watch yours. I learned that on Hamburger Hill.’

‘Was it anything like the movie?’

Richard cupped his head in a camouflage bandanna.

‘Fuckin’ movie,’ he said. ‘They made it seem as though the Vietcong really wanted the hill. The fact was they were trapped up there like rats. They had no place to fuckin’ go.’

‘What about the battle?’

‘It took thirteen days,’ he said. ‘There was rain, logistical problems, casualties, all that shit. But we kicked ass. You never saw a bunch of Americans lying around dead like in the movie. It didn’t happen like that. We hammered their asses.

‘Hamburger Hill was a mountain which straddled the line between Laos and Vietnam,’ he continued. ‘I was in the I
st
Brigade LRRPS -Long Range Reconnaissance, 101
st
Airborne Division. Before the actual battle, we got intelligence that the place was crawling with Commies. Six guys from our team were put on the hill. Picture it. They can’t move. There’s trails with Gooks all around them, like they fuckin’ own the place. When our team radios in, they’re told to hold still.

‘During the night there’s a severe fuckin’ storm. On an operation like that you sit back to back, put up trip wires and Claymore mines. So in the night, lightning hits the fuckin’ radio. Blows the fuckin’ thing up, igniting the grenades on some of the guys’ belts. Kills three of them right off. The other three are deaf, they’ve got broken bones, these guys are fucked up.’ 

‘Did they die?’

‘No, no, no,’ said Richard sharply. ‘We sent in another LRRP unit and got their asses out of there.’ 

He inhaled on the crude cigar, staring out across the jungle. 

‘That, my friend, was teamwork.’

Morale on the
Piadeia
had never been high, but when the Shuar came aboard, it plummeted. There was hostility in the air. The crew had become so embittered that they shunned me as well as our guests. Sensing mutiny to be a real possibility, I dug out my Alaskan moose knife and strapped it to my thigh. For the first time, the crew had started complaining about the boat’s miserable living conditions. I was just as uncomfortable as everyone else. The
Pradera
stank of human, dog, chicken, sloth and now rat excrement.

Enrique’s incessant praying was getting on everyone’s nerves. When he wasn’t thanking Jesus for saving our souls, he was spitting over the edge. His dogs went for the heels of anyone trying to cross the middle area of the deck. It had become their territory. Getting to the loo in the night was now far too dangerous to attempt.