Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (20 page)

Self-control is, therefore, central. It is difficult to control lust and abstain
from sorcery; even experienced shamans must work hard to maintain control
over their powers, which are often conceptualized as having their own volitions.31 The pathogenic objects that are kept within the shaman's body, often
embedded in some saliva- or phlegm-like substance, are also in some sense
spirits-autonomous, alive, with their own needs and desires, including a
need for nourishment, often supplied by tobacco, and often a need to kill.

The tsentsak, magic darts, kept within the chest of a Shuar shaman, want
to kill; it is difficult to resist the urges of the darts.32 The darts acquired by an
Achuar shaman, 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.33 The magic darts can control the actions of a shaman who does not
have sufficient self-control, and it requires hard work to use them for healing
rather than attack. In this way, the pathogenic objects hidden within the shaman's body enact the Amazonian belief in innate human aggressiveness. To
be a healer is to keep this powerful force in check with great effort.

DREAM INITIATIONS

It is worth noting that a number of mestizo shamans report having had
initiatory dreams that announced-or confirmed-their healing vocation.
Strikingly, these dreams tend to share certain themes-a journey, often to a
spiritual hospital; initiation by a powerful woman, such as the Virgin Mary or
the queen of the hospital; the gift of healing or shamanic tools, flowers and a
shining crown; and the prediction of great strength or healing ability.

Dona Maria's Dream

One day in September 1958, just around her eighteenth birthday, Maria drank
a tea made from hierba luisa, lemon grass; went to bed early, about four o'clock
in the afternoon; and had a dream that was to influence her entire life-what
she calls her coronacion, her crowning or initiation. By this time, she had already been healing children for ten years with oraciones, prayer songs, and
plant remedies taught her in dreams by the Virgin Mary. The account of the
dream is lengthy and complex, made up of a number of separable episodes;
I have heard the dream told twice, and, although the two versions had considerable overlap, each telling contained episodes that were missing from the
other. There is little doubt that Maria had a compelling dream at this time,
which served to confirm her on her chosen healing path; but there is also, I believe, good reason to think that the dream episodes she narrates are a
composite of congruent dreams she has had over a period of time.

How I Became a Sorcerer

We have discussed the idea, widely held in the Upper Amazon, that human beings in general, and shamans in particular, have powerful urges to harm other
humans, and that the difference between a healer and a sorcerer comes down to
a matter of self-control. On that there hangs a story.

A while ago, I was sitting in a training seminar, and I was angry with the facilitator, a man I greatly respect and admire. I was angry for foolish and childish
reasons; I felt that I was not being paid enough attention.

Suddenly, without any apparent intention on my part, a spider flew out of my
mouth-a large, black, hairy spider, about three inches across. The spider flew
from my mouth to the face of the seminar facilitator, where it grasped and clung
to his cheek, eventually melting into his face. I was taken aback by this. Damn,
I said; I didn't realize I was that angry. And that would have been the end of it,
except that, at the next day's session, the distraught facilitator announced that
he had been told that his wife's breast cancer, thought to be in remission, had
recurred.

Now, was there any connection between my spider and his wife's illness?
Of course not. The spider touched him, not his wife. And the recurrence must
have taken place before the spider left my mouth; certainly sorcery cannot be
temporally retroactive. Of course there was no connection. Yet what I carry away
from this experience is still a sense of guilt. I did not cause the harm; I could not
have caused the harm. But what happened was a loss of control-my momentary
anger, my ego, my envidia, the worst part of me leaping from my mouth in the
form of a spider, just like the spiders and scorpions that are projected, in the
Upper Amazon, from the phlegm of a brujo, a sorcerer.

From this inconsequential incident, I have learned three things.

First, there really is no going back. Once you walk through the door into the
realm of the spirits, you cannot return to any prior state of innocence. Once you
begin la dieta, once you drink ayahuasca, once you begin to form relations of
confianza with the healing plants, the world becomes a more dangerous place.
When you have begun to realize the porosity of reality; when the world has become magical, filled with wonders, filled with the spirits, filled with meaning;
when you have begun to see what was there all along but was invisible to youthen you must accept that your childish anger is, right here and now, as it always
was, an ugly spider leaping from your lips, capable of causing great harm.

People in the Upper Amazon consider the darts and other pathogenic objects
in a shaman's phlegm to be autonomous, alive, spirits, sometimes with their
own needs and desires, including a desire to kill. I now believe that is profoundly
true. Our egos are as tricky and autonomous as magical darts. Our envidia, our
foolish willingness to destroy relationships of confianza with others, seems to
flair up at the slightest provocation. The popular image of the sorcerer in the
UpperAmazon reflects this truth: the figure of the evil sorcerer embodies resentment, greed, selfishness, constriction. Just like my ego.

And that is why self-control is mandatory. Since that inconsequential incident, I have been tempted to try it again-just, you know, to see if it works, just
to express my anger, just to be-somehow-powerful. And I cannot do it, ever
again.

Mosquitero

The fact that dona Maria was carried to heaven in her mosquitero, mosquito
net, has significant symbolic resonance in the Upper Amazon. In crowded
households, the impenetrable cotton mosquito net is a refuge of privacy., Mestizo communities have even refused free insecticide-impregnated nets because
they were insufficiently opaque. "The whole world will be able to see us," they
objected.

Even more, shamans of the highest order work secretly within their woven
mosquiteros-as pioneering ethnographer Robert H. Lowie says, "in complete
darkness under a mosquito net."3 The ability to enter a mosquito net and disappear, or to converse under the mosquito net with the most powerful spirits, is
one of the things-along with becoming a jaguar-that distinguishes the Shipibo meraya shaman from the lesser onanya.4 The mosquito net within which the
meraya retreats after drinking ayahuasca is called a bachi, egg .5

Don Francisco Montes Shuna says that the banco-the highest rank of shaman-enters a mosquito net in the middle of the house, lying facedown, while all
the disciples remain outside. Then the spirits come to the banco from below to
talk to him and to speak through him.' Pablo Amaringo has painted a picture of
a banco lying beneath his mosquito net while three spiritual beings-a wise old
king and two princes-descend and sit on his body. The shaman is here the banco, the bench, for the sprits descending into the mosquitero. Others wait outside the mosquito net to hear these spirits speak through the shaman's mouth .7

A mestizo who heard dona Maria's dream would understand, from the mosquito net reference, that she was experiencing an initiation of a very high order.

NOTES

i. For example, see Lagrou, 2000, pp. 153, 159.

2. Harvey et at., 2008.

3. Lowie, 1948, P. 49.

4. Ministerio de Salud del Peru, 2002, p. io6; Tournon, 1991.

5. Roe, 2004, p. 272.

6. Sammarco & Palazzolo, 2002.

7. Luna & Amaringo, 1993, p. 100.

Maria dreamed that a beautiful young woman came and sat by her side.
"Today we are going to go upward," the woman said, "and see everything that
is happening on earth." Maria and the woman went into Maria's mosquito
net, which carried them up into the clouds to a beautiful green meadow. This
was paradise, filled with angels-men and women, adults, children, and babies-wearing brilliant white robes and crowns of sweet-smelling flowers. All
the angels started to pray the Ave Maria and the Paternoster, holding hands
and dancing in a circle around her. As Maria marveled at the sight, the young woman told her she was in paraiso terrenal, the earthly paradise. There were
thousands of angels, holding beautiful brightly lit candles, holding up their
hands and saying amen in a single voice.

Maria and the young woman walked on, and they came to a mountain
from which clear crystal water was falling. In the water were piedritas, magical stones of all kinds, large and small, encantadas, enchanted, which began
to sing to her, "Welcome, welcome, maestra, doctora." But the young woman
warned Maria not to stop and pick up the stones or lower her head.

The two kept on walking and praying, until they arrived at a very large and
beautiful house, inside of which were the spirits of the abortos, babies who had
never been born, babies of all races, black and white. The souls of these babies were being boiled in a large kettle, and the young woman explained that
they had to remain there for a certain number of years of penance. They continued on, passing more magical stones, still hearing the cries of the abortos.
"From here on," the young woman said, "you may not turn around." All along
the path were stones, and among the stones were millions of babies.

They came to a cemetery where there were many wooden houses. The
houses were being built by dead people, who cried out to her, "Blessings, sister! Blessings, sister!" Maria knew some of these dead people; one was a mayor from her town, who had committed suicide. The dead were held by chains
around their ankles, for penance.

The two went on walking and saw two women. Maria remembered one of
them, who had died when Maria was fourteen. Maria tried to speak to her, and
the woman invited them into her house, but Maria's guide told her not to approach, because Maria was not yet ready to be there.

They came to the house ofMaria's grandmother, who also invited them in.
Inside, Maria saw all sorts of healing plants. Maria asked her grandmother for
something to drink; her grandmother gave her chicha morado, a dark purple
drink made of fermented maize. Maria hesitated to drink it, thinking it was
the blood of the dead. "Do not think that," said the young woman, "for here
there is no blood." So Maria drank it, but doubted; the young woman said,
"No, this is not a place for doubt," and they prayed three times.

Finally, they came to a beautiful paved highway where there was a great
hospital in which surgical operations were performed. A jeep drove by, containing four men elegantly dressed in pure white. The woman said, "Lie down
here," so Maria lay down until the jeep had passed by. "Who are these people?" Maria asked. "They are the doctors at the hospital," she was told, "who
are going to do an operation." They walked on to the hospital and stood at the door praying. People inside the hospital said, "We've been waiting for you.
We are going to crown you because you are a spiritual doctor." Maria said,
"But I don't know anything about doing operations." The door to the hospital
opened with a creaking sound-ehrrrrrrr, said dona Maria, demonstratingand the hospital was filled with brilliant white light, filled with thousands of
doctors, all dressed in white surgical scrubs, all prepared for the operation,
saying to her, "Welcome, doctora. Tonight you are going to receive the spiritual medicine."

Maria was taken to a room where she was dressed in white clothing, white
shoes, and a surgical mask, and her hands were washed with fragrant perfume. She expressed doubts that she could go through with this. "You were
brought here because you are a doctor for the earth," she was told. "Tonight
you will begin your work here and on earth." She felt poder, fuerza, luz-divine
power, shamanic force, light.

Then all the doctors disinfected their hands, took needles and sutures for
surgery, and performed their operations on their patients-operations on
their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds. Each doctor worked to heal a specific disease; when the operations were completed, all the patients who had been operated on returned to their rooms.

"Now we are going to the botica, pharmacy," she was told, "to see the many
plants that are medicines." The pharmacy was huge, with plant medicines of
all kinds-bark, stems, leaves, prepared in various ways-a botica espiritual,
spiritual pharmacy. And the woman showed Maria which plants were good
for which diseases. "Everything you see here," she told Maria, "is medicine
for the earth." And everything that Maria saw and learned in the pharmacy she
remembered when she awoke.

Finally, Maria and the woman came to two forking paths. One path was
filled with beautiful, fragrant, inviting flowers and led into the green valley;
the other path was filled with spiny and thorny plants like ufia de gato, cat's
claw, and led to the rocky and barren mountains. "Now choose a path," the
woman told Maria. "Will it be flowers or mountains?"

Maria decided to take the path to the mountains, on which she saw many
plants she recognized from the earth, as well as many that were new to her;
she wanted, she said, to see what was there. The woman-whom Maria now
understood to be the Virgin Mary-gave her a hug and kissed her forehead. "It
is the better path you have taken," she said. Maria and the woman held hands
and began to pray. Maria felt emotion through her whole body and began to
tremble. "Do not be afraid," the woman said; and Maria saw that the rocky path was in fact a carretera preciosa, a precious highway, leading far away. "As
far as you have come," the woman said, "you have a long way to go. As of this
day, you have the corona de medicina, the crown of medicine," and the woman placed a brilliant shining crown on Maria's head. "After this," the woman
said, "you are going to heal and know very important people." Which, dona
Maria added, turned out to be true. From the time of this initiation dream,
dona Maria understood that she was no longer to heal only children but adults
as well.