Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (31 page)

When we watch dona Maria or don Roberto work, we see emplotment in
action, resentful social relationships not thrashed out in verbal discourse but
literally sucked from the body-the individual body, the body politic-in high
drama, gagging, spitting, rejected, healed.

SUMMONING THE SPIRITS

The shaman can see things that people who are not shamans cannot. The shaman may be able to find lost objects, know where game is plentiful, discern
who has cast a curse, and diagnose the location or cause of an illness. Many
scholars, influenced by the work of Mircea Eliade, maintain that the characteristic activity of shamanism is soul flight-celestial ascent, ecstasy, out-ofbody journeys to the spirit realm, almost always vertically, upward, toward the
sky., And it is true that, among some shamanic traditions, out-of-body flight
is the way that shamans acquire the information that is their stock-in-trade.
They travel through the air and go look.

Shamanism in the Upper Amazon is, I think, different.

As we have seen, mestizo shamans summon the protective and healing
spirits to the place of ceremony by singing the appropriate icaros, and receive
from them, often in strange or secret languages, information regarding the
diagnosis and treatment of their patients. The locus of their interaction with
the spirits is the place where the ceremony is conducted. This general rule applies even when they are retrieving a soul lost through manchari or a person
stolen away by the spirits of the underwater realms. They do not journey in
pursuit of the soul; rather, they summon the soul back to the body it had inhabited, or summon and coerce the people of the waters to bring the stolen person
back to the place of ceremony, using the icaros they have learned from the
plant spirits or from the water people themselves.

VISIONARY INFORMATION

Drinking ayahuasca can give visions of distant people and events. These visions can give both shaman and patient information about the location of a lost object, the health of a distant relative, the face of a secret enemy, the seducer of a spouse, or the source of a sickness. The third time she drank ayahuasca, dona Maria was able to see, in another house across town, people
practicing a healing ceremony, and she was surprised to find herself actually
sitting on the floor in don Roberto's house. Such visions encompass past and
future as well: dona Maria saw in her visions how her brothers had died, both
murdered. People may come to a healing ceremony and drink ayahuasca simply to gather such information.

Shamans get this sort of information from ayahuasca-and more. They can
see what is happening on distant planets and galaxies, where in the underwater realm a kidnapped fisherman is being held captive, the mountain cave
where a stolen soul is hidden, how the doctors at vast spiritual hospitals perform their surgeries. Among the Cashinahua, too, ayahuasca is taken to get information about distant places and their beings, the hiding places of game, the
real intentions of opponents in conflicts, the motives of visitors, future events,
and the causes of sickness.2 The Piro shaman drinks ayahuasca to see paths,
villages, cities, distant countries, and-particularly-sorcerers and their motives.3 Famed Shuar warrior Tukup' says that it is good to kill someone who
has murdered your relative or bewitched your child; but you must first go to
a shaman who drinks ayahuasca to make sure you have targeted the correct
person.4

We should not assume, based on our own cultural preferences, that this information is only or always conveyed visually. Consistent with the role of the
auditory in the jungle environment, such information can be conveyed verbally. Aguaruna shamans are able to know events that are distant in space and
time because their pasuk spirits bring them information from faraway places.5
The same is true for mestizo shamans: the etiology of a patient's illness can be
whispered with startling clarity, into the ear of the shaman by the plant spirits
who are in attendance at the healing.

Shamans do not drink ayahuasca to heal; they drink ayahuasca to get information-as Cocama shaman don Juan Curico puts it, "to screen the disease and
to search the treatment." Mestizo shaman don Manuel Cordova Rios says the
same thing: "Ayahuasca, it tells you how, but by itself it cures nothing directly."'

SPIRIT POSSESSION

Mestizo Practice

However, on unpredictable occasions during an ayahuasca healing ceremony,
dona Maria and don Roberto may undergo what they call transcorporacidn. When they transcorporate, they leave their body and travel to distant landscapes, other planets, great shining mountains, brightly lit cities, while their
body is occupied by the spirit of some dead healer, who performs the ceremony in their stead, speaking in a voice other than theirs, changing their physical
appearance. This state is clearly distinguished from that of gaining visionary
information.

When don Roberto transcorporates, he goes around the world, seeing
things that are happening elsewhere. It is como volando, like flying, he says,
like being in an airplane; his alma, soul, sees marvels in both this world and
others-incredibly tall crystal buildings; mountains, rivers, and lakes; huge
hospitals, where he can observe medical procedures and operations in progress. Meanwhile, his body is occupied by a plant spirit, such as ayahuasca, or
the spirit of a tree. Dona Maria transcorporates as well; her body is occupied
by a single and specific soul-that of Oscar Rosindo Pisarro, a deceased Rosicrucian healer. In both cases, when the body is thus occupied by a spirit, an
observer who is buen mareado, who is well under the influence of ayahuasca,
can see that the body has changed in observable ways.

I have seen this phenomenon. When drinking ayahuasca with don Antonio
Barrera, I observed him transcorporate, his body occupied by the spirit of an
ancient, fierce, and powerful shaman. As far as I could see in the darkness, his
body grew larger, darker, threatening; his voice changed to a deeper growl;
the icaros he sang changed in tone and rhythm. There is apparently some theatricality involved in such displays. Don Antonio, for example, smokes mapacho as the trans corporation occurs; when the process is complete, he holds
the mapacho cigarette over his head, so that its glowing tip appears, in the
dark, to be held by a much taller person. There is no doubt that the effect is
impressive, especially to one who is buen mareado.

The unforeseeable possibility that the shaman will transcorporate is an important reason for singing the preliminary arcanas of protection and calling
in the shaman's protective spirits. When the shaman's body is unoccupied by
the shaman, it is vulnerable to occupation by another; if a sorcerer steals the
shaman's body and is able to prevent the shaman's return, the shaman will
die. That is why it is vital that the shaman trust the possessing spirit to relinquish the body when the shaman returns.

The possessing spirit is thus almost always one with whom the shaman
has a relationship of confianza-a great and powerful shaman of the past, a
former teacher, a maestro de la medicina. Cocama shaman Juan Curico is possessed by his grandfather, don Jacinto Masullan, who provides healing guidance;7 Napo Runa shaman Pablo Calapucha is possessed by his father, the powerful shaman Quilluma.8 Don Jose Curitima Sangama, a Cocama shaman,
says of the spirits of dead shamans who enter his body and speak through his
mouth: "They are my teachers who show me how to heal. For that reason,
I call them and they come and teach me the music."9 Possessing spirits appear to be almost always anthropomorphic-Indian and mestizo shamans,
often venerable old men or women; famous deceased Western doctors; wise
men from distant countries; or beings from other planets, solar systems, and
galaxies.'°

The spirit who enters into Bona Maria's body is a Rosicrucian who lived
in Iquitos and, according to Maria, did many good deeds. He is buried in the
general cemetery in Iquitos; many people visit his grave and leave candles and
flowers there. She routinely calls on his spirit to help her heal people, speaks
with him, and transcorporates his spirit; she asks him to come help her in her
work, and lets him work through her, because she trusts him-as opposed,
she says, to other envious and competitive shamans.

The calling of ancient shamans, old and wise, to enter into the body and
help with healing appears to be not uncommon among mestizo shamans.Both don Jose Coral and don Santiago Murayari-like don Roberto and doiia
Maria-call upon the souls of dead shamans who live "at the end of the
world" or in the underwater realms." These souls enter their bodies during
ayahuasca healing sessions and perform the actual healing work. During the
sessions, the shamans carry on long dialogues with these souls; in addition
to questions of diagnosis and treatment, they will also ask these souls such
awkward questions as how much to charge for the work, or about personal
problems that may have arisen with their patients. The shamans speak Spanish softly and calmly, but the souls answer in a very different voice, loud and
nervous, and speak in an Indian language. Indeed, several souls may enter the
body of the shaman, one after the other, each with a distinct personality.13

There thus may be a spectrum of summoning and possession among mestizo shamans. At one end, there is a summoning of a spirit or spirits to the
place of ceremony; at the other end, the spirit or spirits may fully occupy the
body of the shaman while the shaman's spirit has departed for other realms.
In the middle there is a state in which spirits and the shaman share the shaman's body, in which a spirit or spirits speak through the shaman's mouth in
dialogue with the shaman in his or her own voice.

Indigenous Practice

Despite the mestizo practice, such possession states have reportedly been
unusual in the Upper Amazon. For example, anthropologist Gerald Weiss specifically states that "Campa culture does not include a belief in spirit
possession."14 Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff writes of the Desana and other
Tukanoan peoples in the Amazon that "the concept of spirit-possession
seems to be completely lacking.... A page is always himself; never is he seized
or invaded by a spirit; he simply interprets and transmits what this spirit
shows him and tells him. -5 Yet there is reason to believe that spirit possession is also found-or, in some cases, was found at one time-among indigenous peoples of the Upper Amazon.

Machiguenga shamans, for example, work by changing places with their
spirit helpers-or counterparts or doubles-among the unseen ones, good and
powerful spirits who reside at a distance and must be invoked by a shaman.
Working only at night, the shaman drinks ayahuasca and climbs to the roof
beams of his house; the shaman's spirit counterpart simultaneously drinks
ayahuasca, and the two change places, occupying each other's bodies. The
spirit counterpart sucks out the magic arrow embedded in the sufferer; the
work done, the spirit flies back to the land of the unseen ones, and the shaman returns to the mortal body. It is imperative that shamans return to their
bodies before dawn, or they will become so attached to the land of the unseen
ones that they will stay there, and the mortal body will die. The land of the
unseen ones is an actual place, lying at a great distance.,'

Similarly, Canelos Quichua shamans are possessed by the great shaman
spirits of the forest. Thus possessed, the human shaman is bancu-a bench or
seat-for the spirit shaman, and very dangerous; for it is through the human
shaman that the spirit shaman sings, and attacks, with killing projectiles, the
shaman and client who harmed the patient. The human shaman is the seat of
power for the powerful spirit, but here too is danger. Both human bancu and
possessing spirit are in two locations at once-in the spirit realm, the jungle
soil, or the lake of ice inside a rocky mountain, and also in the house where
the ceremony is taking place. If the human shaman loses his contact with the
place of ceremony, he will die.'7