Shadows in the Sun by Wade Davis

Author:Wade Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2020-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Plants of the Gods

MANY YEARS ago, while living among the Barasana Indians on the banks of the Río Piraparana in the Northwest Amazon of Colombia, I was invited one night to drink ayahuasca, “the vine of the soul,” the most revered and celebrated of Amazonian shamanic preparations. The tribal leader, a man named Rufino, described it as the jaguar's nectar, a magical intoxicant that could free the soul, allowing one to wander in mystical encounters with ancestors and animal spirits. He cautioned that the potion, like any sacred medicine, could be many things, but pleasant was not one of them.

We were sitting on four small wooden stools placed around the men's circle in the maloca, the community longhouse. Rufino, like his father, Pedro, was wearing a loincloth, as was a third man whose name was Pacho. All three had carefully decorated their bodies, tracing lines of red and black dye on their faces, and painting their legs with small wooden rollers that left geometric patterns on the skin. Each wore a seed anklet and a simple headdress that had a corona of green and yellow parrot feathers, tufts of eagle down, and a long tail feather taken from a scarlet macaw. In the center of the circle was a large red ceramic vessel, with swirling designs around the rim. Inside was a frothy liquid. Near the base of the pot were rattles, panpipes, and other musical instruments made from turtle shells and deer skulls. Already the men had danced, shoulder to shoulder in a line, singing as they circled the pillars of the longhouse. Now they waited quiedy. The women and children had long since retired, and the only light came from a resin torch, burning at the base of one of the house posts.

Pedro stood up and began a solemn chant. When it was over, he dipped a black calabash into the ayahuasca and passed it to his son. Rufino grimaced as he drank the potion, as did we all. The taste was bitter and nauseating. There followed more singing and dancing, high tremulous voices and the sound of rattles and anklets. Then always a hush of expectation as Pedro prepared the next allotment of the brew.

I sat quietly among them, unable to participate yet conscious of the power and authority of their ritual. The plant took them first. In soft murmurs, Rufino spoke of a red sun, a red sky, a red rain falling over the forest. Nausea came quickly, and he vomited. Immediately Pedro offered another draught of ayahuasca; Rufino took it, spitting and gasping. Until then I had felt nothing, but the sound of his retching caused me to turn aside and throw up in the dirt. Pacho laughed and then did the same. We all took more ayahuasca, several more cycles. An hour or more passed. I looked up and saw the edges of the world soften, and felt a resonance coming from beyond the sky, like the intimation of a hovering wind, pulsating with energy.

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