Plants, Ritual, and Mediation in the Ayahuasca Shamanism of the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon

204 Pages·2013·1.36 MB·English

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PLANTS, RITUAL, AND MEDIATION IN THE AYAHUASCA SHAMANISM OF THE
PERUVIAN AND ECUADORIAN AMAZON

By

JAMES C. TAYLOR

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2013

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© 2013 James C. Taylor

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To Laurie, who believes in me when I don‟t

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Laurie Taylor, my partner and best friend, who encouraged me to take a
risk of a new direction, when I could no longer see my way forward. I thank Robin
Wright, who has been a mentor and inspiration to me, supporting my efforts with new
ideas, and challenging me to always return to the real ground of what people say, what
they do, and how they live. I thank Tod Swanson and his family at Iyarina for an
experience of the Runa way of life that changed the way I see the world. I thank Mike
Heckenberger, who has challenged me to see the implicit political-ethical responsibility
in the act of thinking and writing anthropologically. I thank my family for their support
throughout this process. I thank the Center for Latin American Studies for the
opportunity to pursue this course of study. I thank the staff of the Latin American
Collection at the University of Florida for their friendship and support. And finally I thank
the plants of the Amazonian rainforest, for their own unexpected agency in all of this.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................................. 4
LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................................... 7
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER
1 CONTEXT AND LITERATURE......................................................................................... 10
Plants and Mediation .......................................................................................................... 10
The Dissemination of a Ritual Complex .......................................................................... 11
Mediation as an Analytic Category................................................................................... 14
Social Plants ........................................................................................................................ 16
Bodies and Healing............................................................................................................. 18
2 EXCHANGE AND ETHNOGENESIS .............................................................................. 23
Networks............................................................................................................................... 23
Geographic Outline of the Region .................................................................................... 24
Contact, Rupture, and Transformation ............................................................................ 29
How to Do History in Amazonia................................................................................. 29
Contact, Disease, Missionization, and Transformation ......................................... 31
Exchange Networks in Amazonia..................................................................................... 39
Exchange Networks on the Ucayali .......................................................................... 43
Exchange Networks on the Napo.............................................................................. 46
Exchange in the Rubber Epoch ........................................................................................ 49
Ethnogenesis ....................................................................................................................... 54
Of Mediators and Brokers .................................................................................................. 60
3 ORIGINS OF AYAHUASCA .............................................................................................. 63
“Ancient Indigenous Tradition” .......................................................................................... 64
Vine, Additives, and Plant Knowledge...................................................................... 64
Ancient or Modern Origin............................................................................................ 69
A Complex of Shared Beliefs and Practices ................................................................... 73
A Space of Encounter between Worlds........................................................................... 79
A Cultural „Mezcla‟ ....................................................................................................... 80
Rivers and Ayahuasca ................................................................................................ 85
Globalization ................................................................................................................. 88
A Question of Mediation ............................................................................................. 94
4 PLANTS AND MEDIATION ............................................................................................... 96
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A Spectrum of Mediation.................................................................................................... 96
Human Plant Relationships ............................................................................................... 98
Sacha Ambi – Medicinal Plants among the Runa ................................................ 100
Plant Teachers in the Vegetalismo of the Mestizo Shamans of Iquitos ............ 103
Rao among the Shipibo-Conibo .............................................................................. 105
Tobacco .............................................................................................................................. 107
Tobacco in the Americas .......................................................................................... 108
Tobacco and Shamanism in South America ......................................................... 110
Datura ................................................................................................................................. 115
Wanduj......................................................................................................................... 116
Toé ............................................................................................................................... 119
Ayahuasca.......................................................................................................................... 120
The Vine of the Soul .................................................................................................. 123
Ayahuasca in Vegetalismo ....................................................................................... 126
The Nishi Oni of the Shipibo-Conibo ...................................................................... 129
To Be between Worlds ..................................................................................................... 133
5 OF BODIES AND HEALING ........................................................................................... 136
Song and Smoke............................................................................................................... 136
Where to Begin........................................................................................................... 136
Of Suffering and Healing .......................................................................................... 138
The Transformational Body ............................................................................................. 141
A Note on Theory ....................................................................................................... 142
The Body-as-Swarm.................................................................................................. 147
Corporeality – Smoke and Breath ........................................................................... 149
The Suffering Body ........................................................................................................... 151
Social Suffering .......................................................................................................... 151
Sorcery and Violence ................................................................................................ 154
Historical Sorcery ....................................................................................................... 159
The Space of Encounter in Ritual Healing .................................................................... 164
Song and the Suffering of the Shaman .................................................................. 164
Ritual Acts and Acts of Healing ............................................................................... 169
Of Montage and the Body......................................................................................... 173
6 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................... 178
LIST OF REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 189
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ..................................................................................................... 204

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure page

1-1 Map of the Napo, Iquitos, Ucayali region. .................................................................. 62

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Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School
of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

PLANTS, RITUAL, AND MEDIATION IN THE AYAHUASCA SHAMANISM OF THE
PERUVIAN AND ECUADORIAN AMAZON
By
James C. Taylor

May 2013

Chair: Robin Wright
Major: Latin American Studies

In the Amazonian indigenous and mestizo shamanic traditions located in the
geographic region beginning with the Napo River to the north, following downriver
toward Iquitos, Peru to the east, and finally back upriver along Ucayali River to the
south, plants, or plant spirits, used in ritual contexts play a unique role as mediators –
guides and gateways, paths and guardians – between one „world‟ and another. While
animals, stones, places, and humans all likewise participate in material, spiritual, social,
and cultural worlds, plants in particular aid humans as part of the shamanic ritual
traditions of this region by mediating for those who desire, for a variety of purposes, to
acquire the knowledge and power of, or relationship with, beings of these other worlds.
As suggested by Whitten for Quichua yachaj‟s, the crossing of thresholds and
boundaries, and mediating between worlds, is in many ways the defining position of the
shaman, as it is in many of the ritual and cosmological systems throughout Amazonia.
With this in mind, it is my contention that the ritual use of ayahuasca, in context with the
related uses of tobacco and Datura, is particularly suited to this mediatory function of
shamanism in this region, in historical, cultural, and religious terms; and that the
complex of ideas and beliefs described as „ayahuasca shamanism‟ found along this
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riverine cultural and geographic region owes both its form and its manner of
dissemination to this „efficacy of mediation‟ between worlds.

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CHAPTER 1
CONTEXT AND LITERATURE
Plants and Mediation
In the Amazonian indigenous and mestizo shamanic traditions located in the
geographic region beginning with the Napo River to the north, following downriver
toward Iquitos, Peru to the east, and finally back upriver along Ucayali River to the
south, plants or plant spirits used in ritual contexts play a unique role as mediators –
guides and gateways, paths and guardians – between one world and another. While
animals, stones, places, and humans all likewise participate in material, spiritual, social,
and cultural worlds, plants in particular aid humans as part of the shamanic ritual
traditions of this region by mediating for those who desire, for a variety of purposes, to
acquire the knowledge and power of, or relationship with, beings of these other worlds.
As suggested by Whitten for Quichua yachaj‟s (2008:61), the crossing of thresholds and
boundaries, and mediating between worlds, is in many ways the defining position of the
shaman, as it is in many of the ritual and cosmological systems throughout Amazonia.
With this in mind, it is my contention that the ritual use of ayahuasca, in context with the
related uses of tobacco and Datura, is particularly suited to this mediatory function of
shamanism in this region, in historical, cultural, and religious terms; and that the
complex of ideas and beliefs described as „ayahuasca shamanism‟ found along this
riverine cultural and geographic region owes both its form and its manner of
dissemination to this „efficacy of mediation‟ between worlds. I intend to accomplish three
primary goals with this paper. My first goal is to provide a thorough historical orientation
to the geographic region and cultural groups under consideration, with a specific focus
on indigenous exchange networks and the situation of particular cultural groups as
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