by Tahir Shah
At the end of it, the warrior was left on his knees, panting, his arms out and the girl laid across them. The applause was tremendous, as was the line of other women longing to dance with the master.
“Vamos, let’s go,” Pancho said.
“What about the other women? They love you!”
The warrior blew into his cupped hands. “The jungle is waiting,” he said.
Glossary
Achiote: plant whose oily red seeds are used as facial paints by Shuar and other Upper Amazonian peoples.
Agouti: medium-sized tropical rodent, popular as food.
Aguaje: hard-shelled fruit, high in vitamin C, with yellow-orange flesh, popular in Upper Amazon.
Alpaca: domesticated llama, prized for its wool.
Altiplano: high plateau of southern Peru and northern Bolivia.
Arriflex: brand of cinematic film camera, celebrated for its durability.
Atlantis: legendary island said to have existed in the Atlantic, only to have sunk below the ocean.
Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi): complex hallucinogen prepared in the Upper Amazon, based on the juice of a vine that allows the body to absorb alkaloids which it would normally filter out.
Banisteriopsis caapi: vine containing harmaline, used in preparing ayahuasca.
Birdmen: Term for a member of the Shuar tribe who takes a hallucinogen — generally ayahuasca — with the intention to “fly” into another spiritual plane.
Boutou: indigenous name for pink river dolphins found in the Amazon basin.
Breadfruit: tall, tropical tree of the mulberry family that produces a large starchy fruit.
Brujería: Spanish for “witchcraft”.
Campesino: Spanish for “country person”.
Cassava: long, starchy tubular root popular with tribal communities in the Madre de Dios area, especially for making masato.
Cecropia: leafy jungle plant which induces drowsiness when eaten by sloths.
Chacapa: ritualistic rattle used by Amazonian shamans.
Chatnaga: Machiguenga word for “syphilis”.
Chica: Spanish for “girl”.
Chigger fly: six-legged fly that burrows beneath the skin to lay its eggs; known to the Machiguenga as uta.
Chinani: Machiguenga word for “girl”.
Chonta: jungle palm, the heart of whose inner stem is regarded as a delicacy.
Conquistadores: Spanish conquering army that subdued the Inca empire in the sixteenth century.
Curassow: various species of large tree-dwelling birds, native to Peru, prized for their meat.
Curse Lines: invisible malevolent lines supposed by shamans to run through the jungle.
Datura (Brugmansia arbori): member of the potato family, native to the Americas, with long alluring yellow or white flowers, known as the Trumpet of the Devil. The plant is regarded highly for its strong hallucinogenic properties.
Dengue fever: infectious viral illness transmitted by mosquitoes, whose symptoms are acute aching, extreme perspiration and headaches.
El Dorado: mythical land thought to be made of gold.
El Escorial: site of a famous monastic complex in the Guadarrama mountains, north-west of Madrid, associated with several generations of Spanish royalty.
GPS: Global Positioning System, device that uses multiple satellites to locate one’s position.
Green Hell: “El Infierno Verde”, name used by Spanish conquistadores to describe the Amazon and surrounding region.
Guinea worm: long parasitic worm, indigenous to tropical regions.
Howler monkey: indigenous monkey found in Central and South America, noted for its prehensile tail and loud cry.
Huaquero: Spanish for “grave-robber”.
Inca: Quechua-speaking people of Peru, whose empire was destroyed by the invading conquistadores in the sixteenth century; also the title name of the reigning emperor.
INRENA: acronym for Peru’s National Institute of Natural Resources, responsible for giving permission for entering restricted areas.
Intihuatana: stone post at Machu Picchu to which the Incas ceremoniously tied the sun.
Kapok: tropical tree whose seed pods contain a silky fluff traditionally used for mattress stuffing, etc.
Leatherman: brand of folding knife tool, regarded as the most durable of its type.
Lifta: Quechua term for slaked lime, which is used to help absorb the cocaine in coca leaves.
Machetero: man who cuts a passage through the jungle with a machete.
Machiguenga: tribe native to the Madre de Dios jungle region of Peru.
Maestro: master; a traditional healer or shaman.
Maloca: traditional thatched hut or long-house.
Mapacho: strong jungle tobacco used in shamanic ceremonies.
Masato: masticated cassava beverage.
Matamata (Chelus fimbriatus): species of “prehistoric” turtle found in the Upper Amazon.
Mirador: vantage-point from which one can see a landscape.
Motorista: man in charge of driving a boat.
Mu: lost landmass said by some to have existed in the Pacific Ocean; possibly connected with the Mayan civilization.
Nazca: desert town on the Peruvian coast, famous for the mysterious symbols etched on the surface of the desert that are known as the “Nazca Lines”.
Paca: solitary nocturnal rodent.
Pacamama: species of rat found in the Peruvian jungle, known for its loud, dog-like bark.
Paititi: city to which the fleeing Incas are thought to have retreated, commonly believed to be in the Madre de Dios jungle in Peru.
Paka: thorny bamboo.
Palicio de Gallos: place where cock-fighting bouts are held for public entertainment.
Pampa: extensive flatlands of western Peru, as at Nazca.
Paracas: town on the Peruvian coast, and the community that flourished there fifteen centuries ago.
Peekhwayo: fibrous savoury fruit with a hard exterior, which is boiled and eaten in the Madre de Dios jungle.
Peki-peki: local name in the Peruvian Amazon for a dugout canoe driven by a crude motor.
Pemmican: a concentrated meal used on expeditions until the early twentieth century; made from fat melted over dried meat.
Petroglyph: rock carving, inscribed in ancient times.
Piri-piri: indigenous root found in the Madre de Dios jungle, believed to be a strong antidote for snake-bite.
Pisco: grape brandy made in the coastal town of Pisco.
Pollería: restaurant in which grilled chicken is prepared.
Pongo: indigenous word for rapids.
Pont-neuf potatoes: fried, chipped potato in the shape of a wedge.
Psilocybe (Psilocybe mexicana): mushroom from which is derived a hallucinogen called psilocybin.
Quechua: ancient Andean language, supposedly predating the Incas.
Quellca: fabulous embroidered patterns made at the time of the Incas, used for recording or passing on information.
Sachavaca: local name for tapir — nocturnal tropical animal with a short snout, prized for its meat.
Sachsayhuaman: massive Inca fortress on the edge of Cusco, which was never completed.
Selva: Spanish for “jungle”.
Sendero Luminoso: Shining Path, Marxist organization that terrorized Peru from about 1980 until 1992.
Seventh Day Adventist: millennialist Christian sect that believes in the second coming of Christ, and keeps the Sabbath sacred.
Shuar: native tribe residing in the Pastaza region, near the Peruvian-Ecuadorian border. Formerly known as Jívaro, which means “savage”. Until the arrival of missionaries in the 1950s, they shrank the heads of their enemies.
Sinicuichi (Heimia salicifolia): an auditory hallucinogen, from a shrub, usually found in Mexico.
Sol (pl., soles): currency of Peru.
Spider monkey: agile South American monkey with slender limbs and long prehensile tail.
Tapir: see Sachavaca.
Tarapa: tropi
cal flowering plant found in the Peruvian jungle, sight of which is believed by indigenous peoples to blind a man.
Tia: Spanish for “aunt”.
Tigre: literally “tiger”, used to describe jungle cats, as well as the idea of the malicious spirit of the jungle.
Tsantsa: trophy head taken in a Shuar raid and shrunk to the size of an orange.
Uta: Machiguenga word for the wound caused by the chigger fly.
Vicuña: wild member of the llama family, prized for the softness of its wool.
Warango: species of tree that grows in the desert of the Peruvian coast; its hard wood was favoured in ancient times for the construction of tombs.
Yuca: see Cassava.
Zodiac: French brand of inflatable dinghy.
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SORCERER’S APPRENTICE
TAHIR SHAH
SECRETUM MUNDI PUBLISHING
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Sayed Idries Shah
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Some names and locations have been changed in order to respect privacy
Foreword
I never planned to write Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Setting down my experiences amid the underbelly of Indian magic was the furthest thing from my mind. The haphazard journeys I had made through the subcontinent on the heels of illusion were very personal adventures – adventures I never expected to share with anyone.
They were part of my preoccupation with the kind of stage magic that was pioneered by Harry Houdini, and by others, more than a century ago.
From the first moment I reached India, I was transfixed by the intense cultural color. It hit me like a bucket of ice water, and was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Whereas Europe is so often little more than thin consumé, India is a mesmerizing, intoxicating goulash of a land.
I found that I couldn’t help but drink it all in – feasting on the details and the interwoven layers of life. For the first time ever I felt that I had arrived at a place with a full spectrum. There was more life in a few feet of the Calcutta sidewalk than in entire cities elsewhere. And, as I was to learn, the most ordinary-looking people were the gatekeepers into a world of mystery and marvel, the kind of place that has bewitched Occidental travelers for centuries.
When I wrote Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the critics were kind but rather disbelieving. Some of them even implied that I’d made the whole thing up. What I have been trying to explain ever since the first copies hit bookshop shelves is that this is a story of India – a land where the unbelievable is the norm.
I wish people who don’t get this point would leave their tedious lives in Europe, North America or wherever, and would travel to the Indian subcontinent. If they left right away, they could be having breakfast there tomorrow morning… and they’d understand that India is a realm crafted in a magic of its own.
As for myself, I was well aware tha
t the idea of writing of my experiences with the incomparable magician, Hakim Feroze, would be extremely unpopular with him.
And they were.
Feroze telephoned me one Monsoon night. I could hear the rain coming down in sheets behind him. And, I can remember the quavering anger in his voice. As soon as I had heard the click click of the international line, I’d known it was Feroze. He was fuming. As far as he was concerned, I had denigrated my time with him to fodder for a travel book.
It is a view that upset me greatly.
I have always held Feroze in the highest respect. When he died in 2001, I felt an emptiness that I have rarely experienced. It was a sense that a life had ended that could never be lived again.
Hindsight is the most remarkable privilege.
I can now look back with some amusement at the trials and tribulations to which I was subjected, a sadistic pleasure for the Master. And, I can smile at it all.
But, far more importantly, I can see that what Feroze had wanted was for me to be exposed to levels of thought and understanding that pass almost everyone else by. He reduced me to the raw mettle and, only then, began the laborious process of building me up.
The quest for illusion was what had kept my attention, and was the catalyst that had got me started. But it wasn’t the thing of real value. The value was in learning to see what I thought I understood with fresh eyes.
My favorite axiom is from Arabia – Much travel is needed before the raw man is ripened. There is no place better for ripening rawness than India. And, there’s no better way at opening oneself to being ripened than following a quest. It’s a theme which has run through much of my work, because I have learned that a quest – however inane and zigzag – can open doors that had been invisible before.
I spend my life encouraging young people to head off into the wild unknown without preparing, or giving a journey too much thought. We live in a society that’s obsessed with preparation, with planning, and with analyzing, but one that is blinkered to the Oriental concept of absorbing through cultural osmosis.
Stand on a street corner in any Indian city, with the maelstrom of traffic swirling around you.