Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (39 page)

The Banco

A mestizo healer of the greatest power and repute is often called a banco,
bench, seat. Bancos are credited with remarkable abilities, such as being in
two places at once.i8 A banco has the power to fly with speed and skill, has acquired powers of healing, and can transform into all sorts of animals-alligators, boas, dolphins, and birds;19 a banco puma is able to change into a jaguar.20

To become a banco, one must diet for more than forty years; that is why
most bancos are old, and most never leave their place in the jungle.21 The term
can be combined with terms for specialties: a shaman can be a banco ayahuasquero, banco tabaquero, or banco sananguero.

The term banco appears to be a loan of the word banku used among the indigenous Canelos Quichua, Lamista, and Shuar for particularly powerful shamans.22 Among the Napo Runa, the bancu is said to be the most powerful kind
ofyachac. The supai, spirits, reside within him: it is from these spirits that the
shaman derives his power; he is their seat.23 Among the Canelos Quichua, a
banco is a "living seat" for the souls of ancient shamans; among the Lamista,
a banku is a powerful shaman who keeps the souls of powerful shaman ancestors in his yachay, magical phlegm.24 The Shuar believe that bankus-who,
they say, do not exist anymore-were those shamans who could be possessed
by the spirit of a dead person and let it speak through their mouths.25 The
Achuar panku is likewise the highest form of shaman, through whose mouth
speak the spirits of the dead-able to diagnose a sickness, reveal the responsible sorcerer, and give an infallible prognosis .21

Among mestizos, it is said that when bancos go into trance they need three
apprentices to take care of them, to blow tobacco smoke on their feet, back,
and crown of their head. It is during this trance that the banco can summon
the spirits of the dead, who speak with the shaman, who is lying facedown
within a mosquito net. The dead then tell the shaman how they died, and the
shaman can convey this information to the bereaved family.27

The Muraya

Another status term found among mestizo healers is muraya. There is little
consistency in the use of this term. Don Agustin Rivas gives a status hierarchy beginning with muraillo, then muraya, then alto muraya, then altomando
muraya, and finally banco, the highest level of knowledge, which requires
a diet of a full year, living alone in the jungle with no sex and eating only
rice, plantains, and occasionally monkeys from the jungle. Don Agustin "graduated" to alto muraya in a dream about his teacher don Ramon, and to
altomando muraya in a special ceremony.28 The term muraillo appears to be
an -illo diminutive of muraya; the sequence thus is little muraya, high muraya,
high command muraya, and banco.

Just as the term banco appears to have been borrowed from the Shuar,
Lamista, and other indigenous peoples, the term muraya appears to have
been borrowed from the Shipibo-Conibo word muraya or meraya. Some consider the term muraya to be the ordinary Shipibo-Conibo term for shaman or
sorcerer;29 more likely, the term muraya or meraya refers to a special class of
shaman distinguished from-and held in higher esteem than-the ordinary
ayahuasca healer, called onanya.3°

Literally, the term onanya means one who knows, and meraya means one who
meets. One Shipibo shaman, when asked whether he was an onanya or meraya,
replied that, when he was young, he could disappear from within his mosquito net, change into a jaguar, or have a double who could travel great distances,
and thus was a meraya; but now that he had lost these powers through age, he
was an onanya.31 Indeed, there are currently very few meraya left among the
Shipibo.32

The term meraya thus seems to indicate a set of powers very similar to those
of the banco. Strikingly, one Shipibo 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 banco-was distinguished
from other shamans by giving voice to the dead and by providing a home for
the souls of powerful dead shamans.33

The Sumi

The term sumi or sume is used primarily to refer to a master shaman who has
the ability to go at will into the underwater realms. Pablo Amaringo says that
sumis are those able to go under the water; a sumiruna is "capable of entering
the water as if it were the easiest thing in the world. 1134 Luis Eduardo Luna annotates Amaringo's expression witch sumiruna as "a witch that can go under
the waters." 3 5

This is an important skill. The other-than-human persons who live under
the water are often viewed as having great knowledge of healing and magic
songs, which they may be willing to share with an intrepid shaman. In addition, these beings are sexually voracious and may kidnap humans for sexual purposes; a shaman must be able to compel them to give up their captives,
often using icaros learned from the underwater beings themselves. It is not
clear to me where the term sumi comes from. The term sumiruna-that is, sumi
person-is often used synonymously.

Don Jose Celso tells a story of how he almost became a sumi. While he
was drinking ayahuasca, a gigantic boa came to devour him, but he hesitated
to enter the creature's mouth. If he had, he says, the boa would have vomited him into the underwater world.36 The artist Elvis Luna, commenting on
a painting he made of mermaids, says that the mermaids are celebrating because soon a newly kidnapped man will be brought to their world: "They enchant the man with their sublime singing and their beauty. The moment the
man is taken underwater the mermaids encircle him as part of his welcome to
their world." But the man they have abducted is in fact an apprentice shaman;
he has just two days to establish a relationship with the mermaids in order to
get their blessings, their spiritual knowledge. During these two days he must
be rescued by a sumi, a specialized shaman of the water who is monitoring the
apprentice. "If two days have passed and he is not rescued," the artist writes,
"the man will experience an eternity in every day that he is underwater. "37

There are stories of great shamans who travel underwater, to see the great
cities of the mermaids and water people and to learn their songs and medicine. It is not clear whether these journeys are visionary, like visits to other
planets, or are intended to be physical. Don Emilio Andrade claims that juice
from the shoots of the raya balsa, water chestnut, along with the appropriate
diet, allows one to travel underwater; don Jose Coral says the same of renaco,
strangler fig.38 Don Alejandro Vasquez Zarate does not believe that it is possible to travel bodily under the water;39 but many shamans report visions of
the great cities of the water people.

Don Francisco Montes Shuna speaks of his uncle, don Manuel Shuna,
a banco sumi, who could live and work in the water realm with the mermaids, and who had a sexual relationship with a mermaid who taught him
many things; and of his grandmother, Trinidad Vilces Peso, a sumiruna who
had control over the spirits of the water, could enter the aquatic realms and
transform into a fish, and died at the age of io8 to become a doctora for the
dolphins.4°

There is little consistency among shamans about the relationship of the
terms banco, muraya, and sumi. The term banco appears to be the most general;
one can be a banco muraya or a banco sumi, meaning a muraya or sumi of
the highest level;41 on the other hand, one can apparently be a sumi muraya
as well.42 Sometimes these terms are related to mastery of the three realms of earth, water, and air. According to Ashaninka shaman don Juan Flores Salazar, the banco muraya is master of plants and animals on the land, and the
banco sumi is master of the underwater realms.43 Anthropologist Francoise
Barbira Freedman reports that among the Lamista it is, rather, the banco muraya "who has gained access to the underwater connections in the cosmos,"44
and Pablo Amaringo in his paintings frequently depicts murayas descending
into the waters and interacting with the beings who dwell there.45 Pablo Amaringo says that the banco is master of earth and sky, the muraya is master of
water and earth, and the sumiruna is master of all three realms;46 elsewhere
he says that it is the banco who is the master of the three realms.47 Clearly we
are not dealing with a system here.

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drink made from the stem of the ayahuasca
vine. The ayahuasca drink is sometimes, but rarely, made from the ayahuasca
vine alone; almost invariably other plants are added. These additional ingredients are most often the leaves of any of three companeros, companion plantsthe shrub chacruna, the closely related shrub sameruca, or a vine variously called
ocoyage, chalipanga, chagraponga, and huambisa.

Additional plants may be added to this basic two- or three-plant mixture.
One report lists fifty-five different plant species that have apparently been
used as ayahuasca "admixture plants,"' and another lists more than 120.2
Whatever plants the drink may have in addition to ayahuasca, the drink is still
called ayahuasca.