HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/sound.of.rushing.water

Text File | 1996-05-06 | 25KB | 401 lines

               The Sound of Rushing Water by Michael J. Harner

                  "A hallucinogenic drug gives the Jivaro
                   shaman entrance to the "real" world and
                   gives him the power to cure or bewitch."

                         Natural History, July 1968

(comments from illustration boxes included, sans images, for completeness)

     He had drunk, and now he softly sang. Gradually, faint lines and forms
began to appear in the darkness, and the shrill music of the tsentsak, the
spirit helpers, arose around him. The power of the drink fed them. He
called, and they came. First, pangi, the anaconda, coiled about his head,
transmuted into a crown of gold. Then wampang, the giant butterfly, hovered
above his shoulder and sang to him with its wings. Snakes, spiders, birds
and bats danced in the air above him. On his arms appeared a thousand eyes
as his demon helpers emerged to search the night for enemies.

     The sound of rushing water filled his ears, and listening to its roar,
he knew he possessed the power of tsungi, the first shaman. Now he could
see. Now he could find the truth. He stared at the stomach of the sick man.
Slowly, it became transparent like a shallow mountain stream, and he saw
within it, coiling and uncoiling, makanchi, the poisonous serpent, who had
been sent by the enemy shaman. The real cause of the illness had been
found.

     The Jivaro Indians of the Ecuadorian Amazon believe that witchcraft is
the cause of the vast majority of illnesses and non-violent deaths. The
normal waking life, for the Jivaro, is simply "a lie," or an illusion,
while the true forces that determine daily events are supernatural and can
only be seen and manipulated with the aid of hallucinogenic drugs. A
reality view of this kind creates a particularly strong demand for
specialists, who can cross over into the supernatural world at will to deal
with the forces that influence and even determine the events of the waking
life.

     These specialists, called "shamans" by anthropologists, are recognized
by the Jivaro as being of two types: bewitching shamans and curing shamans.
Both kinds take a hallucinogenic drink, whose Jivaro name is natema, in
order to enter the supernatural world. This brew, commonly called yage, or
yaje, in Colombia, ayahuasca (Inca "vine of the dead") in Ecuador and Peru,
and caapi in Brazil, is prepared from segments of a species of the vine
Banisteriopsis, a genus belonging to the Malpighiaceae. The Jivaro boil it
with the leaves of a similar vine, which probably is also a species of
Banisteriopsis, to produce a tea that contains the powerful hallucinogenic
alkaloids harmaline, harmine, d-tetrahydroharmine, and quite possibly
dimethyltriptamine (DMT). These compounds have chemical structures and
effects similar, but not identical to LSD, mescaline of the peyote cactus,
and psilocybin of the psychotropic Mexican mushroom.

     When I first undertook research among the Jivaro in 1956-57, I did not
fully appreciate the psychological impact of the Banisteriopsis drink upon
the native view of reality, but in 1961 I had occasion to drink the
hallucinogen in the course of field work with another Upper Amazon Basin
tribe. For several hours after drinking the brew, I found myself, although
awake, in a world literally beyond my wildest dreams. I met bird-headed
people, as well as dragon-like creatures who explained that they were the
true gods of this world. I enlisted the services of other spirit helpers in
attempting to fly through the far reaches of the Galaxy. Transported into a
trance where the supernatural seemed natural, I realized that
anthropologists, including myself, had profoundly underestimated the
importance of the drug in affecting native ideology. Therefore, in 1964 I
returned to the Jivaro to give particular attention to the drug's use by
the Jivaro shaman.

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Washikta, an outstanding Jivaro shaman, quietly listens to a visitor's
request for assistance. As is customary when dealing with strangers,
he keeps a shotgun in readiness during the consultation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

     The use of the hallucinogenic natema drink among the Jivaro makes it
possible for almost anyone to achieve the trance state essential for the
practice of shamanism. Given the presence of the drug and the felt need to
contact the "real," or supernatural, world, it is not surprising that
approximately one out of every four Jivaro men is a shaman. Any adult, male
or female, who desires to become such a practitioner, simply presents a
gift to an already practicing shaman, who administers the Banisteriopsis
drink and gives some of his own supernatural power - in the form of spirit
helpers, or tsentsak - to the apprentice. These spirit helpers, or "darts,"
are the main supernatural forces believed to cause illness and death in
daily life. To the non-shaman they are normally invisible, and even shamans
can perceive them only under the influence of natema.

     Shamans send those spirit helpers into the victims' bodies to make
them ill or to kill them. At other times, they may suck spirits sent by
enemy shamans from the bodies of tribesmen suffering from witchcraft
induced illness. The spirit helpers also form shields that protect their
shaman masters from attacks. The following account presents the ideology of
Jivaro witchcraft from the point of view of the Indians themselves.

     To give the novice some tsentsak, the practicing shaman regurgitates
what appears to be - to those who have taken natema - a brilliant substance
in which the spirit helpers are contained. He cuts off part of it off with
a machete and gives it to the novice to swallow. The recipient experiences
pain upon taking it into his stomach and stays on his bed for ten days,
repeatedly drinking natema. The Jivaro believe they can keep magical darts
in their stomachs indefinitely and regurgitate them at will. The shaman
donating the tsentsak, periodically blows and rubs all over the body of the
novice, apparently to increase the power ofthe transder.

     The novice must remain inactive and not engage in sexual intercourse
for at least three months. If he fails in self-discipline, as some do, he
will not become a successful shaman. At the end of the first month, a
tsentsak emerges from his mouth. With this magical dart at his disposal,
the new shaman experiences a tremendous desire to bewitch. If he casts his
tsentsak to fulfill this desire, he will become a bewitching shaman. If, on
the other hand, the novice can control his impulse and swallow this first
tsentsak, he will become a curing shaman.

     If the shaman who gave the tsentsak to the new man was primarily a
bewitcher, rather than a curer, the novice likewise will tend to become a
bewitcher. This is because a bewitchers magical darts have such a desire to
kill that their new owner will be strongly inclined to adopt their
attitude. One informant said that the urge to kill felt by bewitching
shamans came to them with a strength and frequency similar to that of
hunger.

     Only if the shaman is able to abstain from sexual intercourse for five
months, will he have the power to kill a man (if he is a bewitcher) or cure
a victim (if he is a curer). A full year's abstinence is considered
necessary to become a really effective bewitcher or curer.

     During the period of sexual abstinence, the new shaman collects all
kinds of insects, plants, and other objects, which he now has the power to
convert into tsentsak. Almost any object, including live insects and worms,
can become a tsentsak if it is small enough to be swallowed by a shaman.
Different types of tsentsak are used to cause different kinds and degrees
of illness. The greater variety of these objects that a shaman has in his
body, the greater his ability.

     According to Jivaro concepts, each tsentsak has a natural and
supernatural aspect. The magical dart's natural aspect is that of an
ordinary material object as seen without drinking the drug natema. But the
supernatural and "true" aspect of the tsentsak is revealed to the shaman by
taking natema. When he does this, the magical darts appear in new forms as
demons and with new names. In their supernatural aspects, the tsentsak are
not simply objects but spirit helpers in various forms, such as giant
butterflies, jaguars, or monkeys, who actively assist the shaman in his
tasks.

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The drawings shown here depict figures seen by the shaman Mashu, while under
the influence of the powerful Banisteriopsis drink, natema. At left is the
head of a jaguar that appeared in one of Mashu's visions. The shaman, who
had never drawn before, used pencil and paper supplied by the author.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Bewitching is carried out against a specific, know individual and thus
is almost always done to neighbors or, at the most, fellow tribesmen.
Normally, as is the case with intratribal assassination, bewitching is done
to avenge a particular offense committed against one's family or friends.
Both bewitching and individual assassination contrast with the large-scale
headhunting raids for which the Jivaro have become famous, and which were
conducted against entire neighborhoods of enemy tribes.

     To bewitch, the shaman takes natema and secretly approaches the house
of his victim. Just out of sight in the forest, he drinks green tobacco
juice, enabling him to regurgitate a tsentsak, which he throws at his
victim as he comes out of his house. If the tsentsak is strong enough and
is thrown with sufficient force, it will pass all the way through the
victim's body causing death within a period of a few days to several weeks.
More often, however, the magical dart simply lodges in the victim's body.
If the shaman, in his hiding place, fails to see the intended victim, he
may instead bewitch any member of the intended victim's family who appears,
usually a wife or child. When the shaman's mission is accomplished, he
returns secretly to his own home.

     One of the distinguishing characteristics of the bewitching process
among the Jivaro is that, as far as I could learn, the victim is given no
specific indication that someone is bewitching him. The bewitcher does not
want his victim to be aware that he is being supernaturally attacked, lest
he take protective measures by immediately procuring the services of a
curing shaman. Nonetheless, shamans and laymen alike with whom I talked
noted that illness invariably follows the bewitchment, although the degree
of the illness can vary considerably.

     A special kind of spirit helper, called a pasuk, can aid the
bewitching shaman by remaining near the victim in the guise of an insect or
animal of the forest after the bewitcher has left. This spirit helper has
his own objects to shoot into the victim should a curing shaman succeed in
sucking out the tsentsak sent earlier by the bewitcher who is the owner of
the pasuk.

     In addition, the bewitcher can enlist the aid of a wakani ("soul," or
"spirit") bird. Shamans have the power to call these birds and use them as
spirit helpers in bewitching victims. The shaman blows on the wakani birds
and sends them to the house of the victim to fly around and around the man,
frightening him. This is believed to cause fever and insanity, with death
resulting shortly thereafter.

     After he returns home from bewitching, the shaman may send a wakani
bird to perch near the house of the victim. Then if a curing shaman sucks
out the intruding object, the bewitching shaman sends the wakani bird more
tsentsak to throw from its beak into the victim. By continually resupplying
the wakani bird with new tsentsak, the sorcerer makes it impossible for the
curer to rid his patient permanently of the magical darts.

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Many times the Christian missionary had told Mashu of the devil feared by
white men, But since he had never seen the spirit, Mashu remained
skeptical. Some time later, after drinking natema, Mashu was confronted by
this figure of the "white man's devil." Since that time, Mashu has remained
convinced of this spirit's reality.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

     While the wakani birds are supernatural servants available to anyone
who wishes to use them, the pasuk, chief among the spirit helpers, serves
only a single shaman. Likewise a shaman possesses only one pasuk. The
pasuk, being specialized for the service of bewitching, has a protective
shield to guard it from counterattack by the curing shaman. The curing
shaman, under the influence of natema, sees the pasuk of the bewitcher in
human form and size, but "covered with iron except for its eyes." The
curing shaman can kill this pasuk only by shooting a tsentsak into its
eyes, the sole vulnerable area in the pasuk's armor. To the person who has
not taken the hallucinogenic drink, the pasuk usually appears to be simply
a tarantula.

     Shamans also may kill or injure a person by using magical darts,
anamuk, to create supernatural animals that attack a victim. If a shaman
has a small, pointed armadillo bone tsentsak, he can shoot this into a
river while the victim is crossing it on a balsa raft or in a canoe. Under
the water, this bone manifests itself in its supernatural aspect as an
anaconda, which rises up and overturns the craft, causing the victim to
drown. The shaman can similarly use a tooth from a killed snake as a
tsentsak, creating a poisonous serpent to bite his victim. In more or less
the same manner, shamans can create jaguars and pumas to kill their
victims.

     About five years after receiving his tsentsak, a bewitching shaman
undergoes a test to see if he still retains enough tsentsak power to
continue to kill successfully. This test involves bewitching a tree. The
shaman, under the influence of natema, attempts to throw a tsentsak through
the tree at the point where its two main branches join. If his strength and
aim are adequate, the tree appears to split the moment the tsentsak is sent
into it. The splitting, however, is invisible to an observer who is not
under the influence of the hallucinogen. If the shaman fails, he knows that
he is incapable of killing a human victim. This means that, as soon as
possible, he must go to a strong shaman and purchase a new supply of
tsentsak. Until he has the goods with which to pay for this new supply, he
is in constant danger, in his proved weakened condition, of being seriously
bewitched by other shamans. Therefore, each day, he drinks large quantities
of natema, tobacco juice, and the extract of yet another drug, piripiri. He
also rests on his bed at home to conserve his strength, but tries to
conceal his weakened condition from his enemies. When he perchases a new
supply of tsentsak, he can safely cut down on his consumption of these
other substances.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whenever the shaman is curing or bewitching, his head remains covered by
this halo-like crown. The crown can be seen by those drinking natema, but
remains hidden from other onlookers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

     The degree of illness produced in a witchcraft victim is a function of
both the force with which the tsentsak is shot into the body, and also of
the character of the magical dart itself. If a tsentsak is shot all the way
through the body of a victim, then "there is nothing for the curing shaman
to suck out," and the patient dies. If the magical dart lodges within the
body, however, it is theoreticall possible to cure the victim by sucking.
But in actual practice, the sucking is not always considered successful.

     The work of the curing shaman is complimentary to that of a bewitcher.
When a curing shaman is called in to treat a patient, his first task is to
see if the illness is due to witchcraft. The usual diagnosis and treatment
begin with the curing shaman drinking natema, tobacco juice, and piripiri
in the late afternoon and early evening. These drugs permit him to see into
the body of the patient as though it were glass. If the ilness is due to
sorcery, the curing shaman will see the intruding object within the
patient's body clearly enough to determine whether or not he can cure the
sickness.

     A shaman sucks magical darts from a patient's body only at night, and
in a dark area of the house, for it is only in the dark that he can
perceive the drug-induced visions that are the supernatural reality. With
the setting of the sun, he alerts his tsentsak by whistling the tune of the
curing song: after about a quarter of an hour, he starts singing. When he
is ready to suck, the shaman regurgitates two tsentsak into the sides of
his throat and mouth. These must be identical to the one he has seen in the
patient's body. He hold one of these in the front of the mouth and the
other in the rear. They are expected to catch the supernatural aspect of
the magical dart that the shaman sucks out of the patient's body. The
tsentsak nearest the shaman's lips is supposed to incorporate the
sucked-out tsentsak essence within itself. If, however, this supernatural
essence should get past it, the second magical dart in the mouth blocks the
throat so that the intruder cannot enter the interior of the shaman's body.
If the curer's two tsentsak were to fail to catch the supernatural essence
of the tsentsak, it would pass down into the shaman's stomach and kill him.
Trapped thus within the mouth, this essence is caught by, and incorporated
into, the material substance of one of the curing shaman's tsentsak. He
then "vomits" out this object and displays it to the patient and his family
saying, "Now I have sucked it out. Here it is."

     The non-shamans think that the material object itself is what has been
sucked out, and the shaman does not disillusion them. At the same time, he
is not lying, because he know that the only important thing about a
tsentsak is its supernatural aspect, or essence, which he sincerely
believes he has removed from the patient's body. To explain to the layman
that he already had these objects in his mouth would serve no fruitful
purpose and would prevent him from displaying such an object as proof that
he had effected the cure. Without incontrovertible evidence, he would not
be able to convince the patient and his family that he had effected the
cure and must be paid.

     The ability of the shaman to suck depends largely on the quantity and
strength of his own tsentsak, of which he may have hundreds. His magical
darts assume their supernatural aspect as spirit helpers when he is under
the influence of natema, and he sees them as a variety of zoomorphic forms
hovering over his, perching on his shoulders, and sticking out of his skin.
He sees them helping to suck the patient's body. He must drink tobacco
juice every few hours to "keep them fed" so that they will not leave him.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This snake tsentsak was seen by Mashu, coiled within the stomach of one of
his patients. To work his cure, Mashu then sucked this supernatural essence
from the patient's abdomen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

     The curing shaman must also deal with any pasuk that may be in the
patient's vicinity for the purpose of casting more darts. He drinks
additional amounts of natema in order to see them and engages in tsentsak
duels with them if they are present. While the pasuk is enclosed in iron
armor, the shaman himself has his own armor composed of his many tsentsak.
As long as he is under the influence of natema, these magical darts cover
his body as a protective shield, and are on the lookout for any enemy
tsentsak headed toward their master. When these tsentsak see such a missle
coming, they immediately close up together at the point where the enemy
dart is attempting to penetrate, and thereby repel it.

     If the curer find tsentsak entering the body of his patient after he
has killed pasuk, he suspects the presence of a wakani bird. The shaman
drinks maikua (Datura sp.), an hallucinogen even more powerful than natema,
as well as tobacco juice, and silently sneaks into the forest to hunt and
kill the bird with tsentsak. When he succeeds, the curer returns to the
patient's home, blows all over the house to get rid of the "atmosphere"
created by the numerous tsentsak sent by the bird, and completes his
sucking of the patient. Even after all the tsentsak are extracted, the
shaman may remain another night at the house to suck out any "dirtiness"
(pahuri) still inside. In the cures which I have witnessed, this sucking is
a most noisy process, accompanied by deep, but dry, vomiting.

     After sucking out a tsentsak, the shaman puts it into a little
container. He does not swallow it because it is not his own magical dart
and would therefore kill him. Later, he throws the tsentsak into the air,
and it flies back to the shaman who sent it originally into the patient.
Tsentsak also fly back to a shaman at the death of a former apprentice who
has originally received them from him. Besides receiving "old" magical
darts unexpectedly in this manner, the shaman may have tsentsak thrown at
him by a bewitcher. Accordingly, shamans constantly drink tobacco juice at
all hours of the day and night. Although the tobacco juice is not truly
hallucinogenic, it produces a narcotized state, which is believed necessary
to keep one's tsentsak ready to repel any other magical darts. A shaman
does not even dare go for a walk without taking along the green tobacco
leaves with which he prepares the juice that keeps his spirit helpers
alert. Less frequently, but regularly, he must drink natema for the same
purpose and to keep in touch with the supernatural reality.

     While curing under the influence of natema, the curing shaman "sees"
the shaman who bewitched his patient. Generally, he can recognize the
person, unless it is a shaman who lives far away or in another tribe. The
patient's family knows this, and demands to be told the identity of the
bewitcher, particularly if the sick person dies. At one curing session I
attended, the shaman could not identify the person he had seen in his
vision. The brother of the dead man then accused the shaman himself of
being responsible. Under such pressure, there is a strong tendency for the
curing shaman to attribute each case to a particular bewitcher.

     Shaman's gradually become weak and must purchase tsentsak again and
again. Curers tend to become weak in power, especially after curing a
patient bewitched by a shaman who has recently received a new supply of
magical darts. Thus, the most powerful shamans are those who can repeatedly
purchase new supplies of tsentsak from other shamans.

     Shamans can take back tsentsak from others to whom they have previously
given them. To accomplish this, the shaman drinks natema, and using his
tsentsak, creates a "bridge" in the form of a rainbow between himself and
the other shaman. Then he shoots a tsentsak along this rainbow. This
strikes the ground beside the other shaman with an explosion and flash
likened to a lightning bolt. The purpose of this is to surprise the other
shaman so that he temporarily forgets to maintain his guard over his
magical darts, thus permitting the other shaman to suck them back along the
rainbow. A shaman who has had his tsentsak taken away in this manner will
discover that "nothing happens" when he drinks natema. The sudden loss of
his tsentsak will tend to make him ill, but ordinarily the illness is not
fatal unless a bewitcher shoots a magical dart into him while he is in this
weakened condition. If he has not become disillusioned by his experience,
he can again purchase tsentsak from some other shaman and resume his
calling. Fortunately for anthropology some of these men have chosen to give
up shamanism and therefore can be persuaded to reveal their knowledge, no
longer having a vested interest in the profession. This divulgence,
however, does not serve as a significant threat to practitioners, for words
alone can never adequately convey the realities of shamanism. These can
only be approached with the aid of natema, the chemical door to the
invisible world of the Jivaro shaman.

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