Ayahuasca shamanism in the Amazon and beyond

315 Pages·2014·5.21 MB·English

by  Beatriz Caiuby Labate

Ayahuasca Shamanism
in the Amazon and Beyond
OXFORD RITUAL STUDIES
Series Editors
Ronald Grimes, Ritual Studies International
Ute Hüsken, University of Oslo
Barry Stephenson, Memorial University
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Cameroon and Northeastern Nigeria AMAZON AND BEYOND
Walter E. A. van Beek Edited by Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar
Ayahuasca Shamanism in
the Amazon and Beyond
EDITED BY BEATRIZ CAIUBY LABATE
AND CLANCY CAVNAR
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ayahuasca shamanism in the Amazon and beyond / [edited by] Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Clancy Cavnar.
p. cm. (Oxford ritual studies)
ISBN 978-0-19-934120-7 (pbk.)—ISBN 978-0-19-934119-1 (hardcover)—
ISBN 978-0-19-934121-4 (ebook)
1. Ayahuasca ceremony—Cross-cultural studies. 2. Shamanism—Cross-cultural studies.
3. Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience—Cross-cultural studies. I. Labate, Beatriz Caiuby.
GN472.4.A93 2014
201ʹ.44—dc23 2013039105
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Dedicated to Steven Rubenstein
(in memoriam)

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Contributors xi
List of Illustrations xvii
Foreword: Authentic Ayahuasca by Oscar Calavia Saéz xix
Notes on the Expansion and Reinvention
of Ayahuasca Shamanism 3
BEATRIZ CAIUBY LABATE, CLANCY CAVNAR, AND FRANÇOISE
BARBIRA FREEDMAN
1. W ill the Real Shaman Please Stand Up? The Recent Adoption of
Ayahuasca Among Indigenous Groups of the Peruvian Amazon 16
GLENN H. SHEPARD, JR.
2. Kuntanawa: Ayahuasca, Ethnicity, and Culture 40
MARIANA CIAVATTA PANTOJA
3. M aterializing Alliances: Ayahuasca Shamanism in and Beyond Western
Amazonian Indigenous Communities 59
PIRJO KRISTIINA VIRTANEN
4. Medicine Alliance: Contemporary Shamanic Networks in Brazil 81
ESTHER JEAN LANGDON AND ISABEL SANTANA DE ROSE
5. R itualized Misunderstanding Between Uncertainty, Agreement, and
Rupture: Communication Patterns in Euro-American Ayahuasca
Ritual Interactions 105
ANNE-MARIE LOSONCZY AND SILVIA MESTURINI CAPPO
viii Contents
6. Shamans’ Networks in Western Amazonia: The Iquitos-Nauta
Road 130
FRANÇOISE BARBIRA FREEDMAN
7. On the Uneasiness of Tourism: Considerations on Shamanic Tourism
in Western Amazonia 159
EVGENIA FOTIOU
8. The Internationalization of Peruvian Vegetalismo 182
BEATRIZ CAIUBY LABATE
9. From the Native’s Point of View: How Shipibo-Konibo Experience
and Interpret Ayahuasca Drinking with “Gringos” 206
BERND BRABEC DE MORI
10. Ayahuasca’s Attractions and Distractions: Examining Sexual
Seduction in Shaman-Participant Interactions 231
DANIELA PELUSO
11. Yage-Related Neo-Shamanism in Colombian Urban Contexts 256
ALHENA CAICEDO FERNÁNDEZ
Index 277
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank the German Research Council (DFG) and the Collaborative
Research Center (SFB) Ritual Dynamics—Socio-Cultural Processes from a
Historical and Culturally Comparative Perspective, for their support for the
Amazon Conference: Amazonian Shamanism, Psychoactive Plants and Ritual
Reinvention, which took place in the Institute of Medical Psychology, Heidel-
berg University, in December 2011.
We thank Prof. Dr. Rolf Verres for his avid support of the conference, and
Alexandra Heidle for her help in organizing it.
We thank Anton Bilton, Giancarlo Canavesio, Kathleen Harrison, Robert
J. Barnhart, Botanical Dimensions, and MAPS for their support for this book.
We thank all the authors of this book for their contributions.
We thank Françoise Barbira Freedman for her contributions to the introduc-
tion of the book and Oscar Calavia Saéz for writing the foreword.
We thank Andrew Dawson, Kenneth Tupper, Matthew Meyer, Renato Sztut-
man, Brian Anderson, and Tiago Coutinho for their dialogues during the pro-
duction of this book.
We also thank Alessandro Meiguins, Lou Gold, Thiago Martins e Silva, Ana
Gretel Echazú Böschemeir, Claude Guislain, Frankneile Silva, Billy Fequis,
Luana Almeida, Stephen Hugh-Jones, Pierre Urban, Sydney Solizonquehua, and
Miguel Alexiades for their permission to use photos and drawings they pro-
vided.
Finally, we offer our grateful thanks to Ute Hüsken, Roland Grimes, and
Oxford University Press for their consideration of this important topic.
ix