by Tahir Shah
When Enrique introduced us, I asked what would become of the sloth.
“I am taking him to Ramón,” said the shaman, “my teacher. He lives two days up the river.”
“What will he do with it?”
“Ramón needs its head,” said Alberto.
Richard silenced me before I could protest.
“Is your teacher an ayahuasquero?” he asked.
Alberto snapped a cecropia twig as he walked, stowing it under his arm.
“Of course Ramón’s an ayahuasquero,” he replied. “He’s known throughout Loreto. He’s old, with many children, but his visions are strong. When he takes ayahuasca, his spirit flies across the jungle.”
“He flies?”
“Yes,” said Alberto, “he flies... over the trees, across the water, like a bird, to the other world. To the real world. There is no greater ayahuasquezo alive. Some people say that at night he flies...”
“In his mind?”
“Not only in his mind,” said Alberto. Por el aire, through the air.”
A rush of blood warmed my back. Although I disliked the idea of taking the sloth’s head, the thought of the great ayahuasquero was uplifting.
The shaman welcomed us to his house. He led the way up the ladder onto the bamboo floor. I climbed up behind him, followed by Enrique and Richard. The sloth was deposited in one corner with the cecropia branch. He curled an arm around the leaves, drowsily hooking them up to his mouth.
No masato was served at the shaman’s maloca. He was not married and so had no one to prepare it. I thanked God for his bachelorhood. A pot had been left in the middle of the room. Inside it were a dozen or so long flowers, yellowy-orange in color. I recognized them as datura, the plant of which Cabieses had forewarned me. He had called datura’s tubular flower “The Trumpet of the Devil”. I learned later that, in Europe, they are sometimes known as “Angels’ Trumpets”.
Alberto noticed my interest in the flowers.
“The missionaries bring bottles of syrup and pink and white pills,” he said, “but they have nothing as powerful as toé, datura. Their medicine is like a child before it has learned to walk. It has hope, but is so young and frail.”
I made note of Alberto’s remarks. But it wasn’t until I read a book by Mark Plotkin weeks later, that I realized how right he was. Plotkin (in Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice) says that of the world’s 250,000 or so plant species, only about 5000 have been screened in the laboratory to determine their therapeutic potential. There are, he says, 120 plant-based prescription drugs currently on the market. They are derived from only 95 species.
The shaman picked one of the datura flowers from the pan and held it in his fingers.
“Toé,” he said, “it can give life or take life. Like ayahuasca, we trust it and have learned from it. And we have used it to travel, to fly...”
“To fly to Jesus,” said Enrique.
Alberto regarded the chief with a poisoned stare. I sensed his hatred of the missionaries, and all they had brought. He invited me to take datura with him,-he was about to prepare some. Richard, a die-hard test pilot when it came to hallucinogens, backed away. He added to Cabieses’ warning.
“Half a cup of the stuff and be dicing with the fuckin’ Devil,” he said. “It’ll send you flying up through the trees, over the clouds, to Lalaland.”
Sitting there in the shaman’s maloca, looking at the datura flowers, I was naive about the plant’s effects. Only with further research, did I find an astonishing connection, linking datura with Europe’s medieval tradition of flight.
The Shuar took datura very seriously. Everyone was aware of its ability to kill or its tendency to dAve sane men mad. Despite its extraordinary potency, the Shuar have always had a place for this hallucinogen. At one time, a child who didn’t behave might first be spanked with a nettle. If he continued to be disrespectful to his father, the parent would prepare a weak solution of datura, called maké, and feed it to him. Falling into a trance, the child would hang between life and death. Supposedly transported to the nether world, he’d learn that he was wrong, and his father was right. There are reports, too, that hunting dogs would be fed datum to imbue them with supernatural powers.
Datura is a member of Solanaceae, the potato family. Occurring in both the Americas and Asia, it contains the powerful alkaloid atropine. The compound is credited with a sensation of flight, similar to the one provided by ayahuasca. So powerful is the atropine, it can be absorbed through the skin. This explains why preparations made from it are frequently taken by rubbing an ointment onto the skin.
The Algonquin once made a beverage with it, called, wyoccan, which they gave to those entering puberty rites. The Zuni Indians of New Mexico applied the ground-up roots of datura to their eyes. They said that it allowed them to see at night, and to commune with spirits and birds. Like civilizations before and since, the Incas used datura to fly.
The plant’s natural history is linked firmly with the Americas. But its initial arrival in Europe is both curious and intriguing. On their triumphant return to Madrid, after a long voyage of exploration, the Conquistadors brought with them all kinds of exotic species. Potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, and other Solanaceae were presented to the king. Among them was datura.
One can only imagine how the alluring trumpet flowers were received. Flirting as they do with the ignorant observer, it wasn’t long before society found a use for the flowers.
Witchcraft and magical flight have always gone together. While the tower-jumpers and the likes of Roger Bacon, and others, were trying to fly by understanding physics, European witches were resorting to magic. The battery of New World flora fueled what was undoubtedly the most active period of witchcraft in Europe’s history.
These days, witches appear quite unaware of how their ancestors used psychotropic plants. Covens across Europe and North America still cling to the ritual and ceremony, but have lost their knowledge of hallucinogens. The besom, a twig broom, commonly ridden by witches, is today nothing more than a symbol.
Many medieval flying ointments contained Brugmansia arborea, a tree-like datura species brought from Peru. A variety of herbs and solanaceous compounds would be mixed together and rubbed on an area of the body where the skin was soft. Sometimes the salve was rubbed under the arms, on the face, or on the inner thighs. One theory is that a witch would apply the ointment liberally over her inner thighs and genital area, before climbing onto the besom. The action of riding the broom rubbed the cream into the skin.
After a few minutes, the datura’s potency would take effect. The witch would usually pass out. When she came to, she would assume that she had flown. Some writers in the 16th century realized that magical flight was all in the mind. A colleague of Galileo, Giovanni Porta, wrote a detailed account of a witch rubbing flying ointment on herself. She soon collapsed. When she was revived, the woman insisted that she’d actually been on a magical flight. Medieval witches habitually claimed to have transformed into a bird, such as a goose or an owl. Similarly, when the Shuar take datura, and even when drinking ayahuasca, they profess that animal transformation has occurred.
A number of recipes for medieval flying ointments survive. Some include human and animal extracts, and ingredients like, “the fat from a baby freshly dug from its grave”. In the early 1960s, the German anthropologist Dr Will-Erich Peuckert prepared a flying ointment from a I7th-century witch’s formula. As a folklorist, he was interested in social use of datura, and its role in the illusion of flight. The recipe he used contained deadly nightshade, henbane (both members of the potato family) and datura. Peuckert rubbed the salve on his forehead and armpits. Very soon he was experiencing a sense of flight, interspersed with falling sensations. Then he fell asleep for twenty-four hours.
Two days after climbing the embankment up to the village, I went down to check on the boat. Ignacio’s wife had been trying to drag me to a special prayer reading in church. Visiting the Pradera was an easy excuse. Ignacio’s family, Enrique,
and the other villagers were eager to pray for their shaman’s soul. They appreciated the ayahuasca he made, as it took them to Jesus. But they strongly disapproved of his hostility towards the missionaries.
On board ship, Walter, Cockroach and Francisco were on the lower deck playing cards. They were surprised I was still alive. I told them that I’d prayed for their souls, for better food on board, and for an end to my constipation. My soul had been saved by the Shuars, I said, but Richard hadn’t been so lucky. His head had been chopped off by a crazed Shuar warrior. Walter cackled demonically.
“That means I can have his Walkman,” he said.
No words of comfort could get the crew to leave the boat. They refused even to jump down onto the river-bank, let alone come to the village. The Shuar, they said, would cut out our tongues and eat them with salt. Francisco was in charge of spreading the lies. He’d had another dream. A panther had emerged from a violet mist. Right away he’d grasped it was no ordinary cat.
“It was wawek,” said Francisco, “the bewitching shaman. He’d come to kill us with anamuk, the bewitching dart.”
“Who did he kill first?”
Francisco tossed four aces onto the table.
“We all died together,” he said. “The wawek threw the special dart into the river, as we were going down stream. The dart was made from armadillo bone. As it touched the water, it turned into a giant boa constrictor, which flipped Pradera upside down.”
“Nos ahogamos todos, we all drowned,” said Walter, coldly, peering up from his cards.
I am not sure what Richard said to Alberto to gain his trust. I had expected the shaman to be mistrustful of white men, especially after the destructive visitations from foreign missionaries. But Alberto agreed willingly to introduce me to his teacher, the ayahuasquero, who lived two days up the Corrientes. His willingness may have stemmed from the fact he would receive a free trip up river. As usual, I couldn’t establish if – by two days – he meant two days by dugout, or by a boat powered with a Johnson 65. In the Upper Amazon, any suggestion of time is nominal. Alberto cautioned me not to mention missionaries if we met his teacher, Ramón. The great shaman despised evangelism, a fact that endeared him to me even before we had met.
Clearing a space on the bench for Alberto, I made an announcement to the crew. We would leave at once, I said. They applauded. Walter dealt another hand of cards in celebration. Then I told them that Alberto, the Shuar shaman, would be joining us along with his sloth. Anyone who didn’t approve would be left on the river-bank.
Back in the village, Ignacio wanted to show me something. As his wife prepared a fresh batch of masato, he pulled a manila envelope from the eaves of the house. Inside were three color photographs. Damp had stuck them together and, as a result, their emulsion was rubbing off. The last picture was so badly damaged I could hardly make out the central figure, a child.
“It was my son,” said Ignacio, “the one who died from malaria. This is the only picture we have of him. The missionaries took it with their camera.”
When a bowl of masato had been passed around, Ignacio suggested we say a prayer. He, his wife, Richard and I stood in a circle holding hands. Ignacio led the invocation. He prayed for the souls of the ones we love. Then he prayed for Jesus to lead us through times of uncertainty.
“Cuidado con Ramon, beware of Ramón,” Ignacio said after the prayers. “He is not an evangelist like us. He’s wawek, a bewitching shaman.
Some people say he is Iguachi, the Devil.”
*
Alberto came aboard the Pradera with the three-toed sloth and a basket brimming with cecropia leaves. Zombified as before, the sloth didn’t appear disheartened at the prospect of coming along. At the end of the boat, nestled up against the fuel tanks, the crew were playing cards and sharing a pipe of mapacho. They pretended that the bewitching shaman’s presence didn’t bother them. Francisco had encouraged the others into a frenzy of hostility. Walter said he couldn’t be responsible for any Shuars who joined us. Cockroach was equally unfriendly. He said he would feed everyone and everything aboard, including the Titanus giganticuses and the chicken. But not a morsel from his pot would be served to the wawek or his sloth.
Just before we pushed off from San José, Enrique hastened down the embankment. A pair of hunting dogs were tearing alongside. His prized blowpipe was at hand, held like a javelin above his head. He asked if he could join us, as the hunting was better further upstream.
Enrique and the dogs scrambled aboard. A few seconds later the engine was fired up, and we pushed off into the dazzling waters of the Corrientes. Behind us, the village rang out with another evangelist ballad. The God-fearing community had met in church to pray for our journey.
Leaning into his rocking-chair, Richard inhaled on a fat mapacho cigar, back in position on the roof. Down below, the deck had become Noah’s Ark. The beetles, Rosario the chicken, the three-toed sloth, and the ferocious hunting dogs, all had their assigned places. There were three rats, too, which I had reintroduced from the village. They set to work hunting the wolf spiders. The only problem now was that Enrique’s dogs tore about in a whirlwind of teeth and claws, trying to kill the rats.
Francisco curled up in his hammock, muttering under his breath. He loathed having competition, especially from a Shuar. As Cockroach had refused to cook for the guests, I ripped open a few packets of Lancashire Hot Pot and served them up. The chief bowed his head to say grace before starting. He and Alberto liked the food so much they requested seconds. After the meal, Enrique took one of the empty packets. He said he’d tell the missionaries to bring lots of Lancashire Hot Pot, when they next visited San José.
I asked Richard what we could do to break the ice between the two shamans.
“Teamwork!” he yelled, “get them on some exercises together. In “Nam,” he said, “you learned to look after the next guy’s butt. It was as simple as that. You watch his butt and he’ll watch yours. I learned that on Hamburger Hill.”
“Was it anything like the movie?”
Richard cupped his head in a camouflage bandanna.
“Fuckin’ movie,” he said. “They made it seem as though the Vietcong really wanted the hill. The fact was they were trapped up there like rats. They had no place to fuckin’ go.”
“What about the battle?”
“It took thirteen days,” he said. “There was rain, logistical problems, casualties, all that shit. But we kicked ass. You never saw a bunch of Americans lying around dead like in the movie. It didn’t happen like that. We hammered their asses.
“Hamburger Hill was a mountain which straddled the line between Laos and Vietnam,” he continued. “I was in the 1st Brigade LRRPS – Long Range Reconnaissance, 101st Airborne Division. Before the actual battle, we got intelligence that the place was crawling with Commies. Six guys from our team were put on the hill. Picture it. They can’t move. There’s trails with Gooks all around them, like they fuckin’ own the place. When our team radios in, they’re told to hold still.
“During the night there’s a severe fuckin’ storm. On an operation like that you sit back to back, put up trip wires and Claymore mines. So in the night, lightning hits the fuckin’ radio. Blows the fuckin’ thing up, igniting the grenades on some of the guys’ belts. Kills three of them right off. The other three are deaf, they’ve got broken bones, these guys are fucked up.”
“Did they die?”
“No, no, no,” said Richard sharply. “We sent in another LRRP unit and got their asses out of there.” He inhaled on the crude cigar, staring out across the jungle. “That, my friend, was teamwork.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Love the Jungle
Morale on the Pradera had never been high, but when the Shuar came aboard, it plummeted. There was hostility in the air. The crew had become so embittered that they shunned me as well as our guests. Sensing mutiny to be a real possibility, I dug out my Alaskan moose knife and strapped it to my thigh. For the first time, the crew had started complainin
g about the boat’s miserable living conditions. I was just as uncomfortable as everyone else. The Pradera stank of human, dog, chicken, sloth and now rat excrement.
Enrique’s incessant praying was getting on everyone’s nerves. When he wasn’t thanking Jesus for saving our souls, he was spitting over the edge. His dogs went for the heels of anyone trying to cross the middle area of the deck. It had become their territory. Getting to the loo in the night was now far too dangerous to attempt.
From time to time the craft came under fire from a barrage of pebbles, thrown no doubt by wicked boys. Enrique shouted out at the invisible attackers. He blamed their parents for not instilling in them Christian morals. If they were his children, he said, he’d feed them datura.
Two days after pushing off from San José, Cockroach said we needed fresh meat. Enrique volunteered to hunt a monkey or two, but the others didn’t want anything caught by a Shuar’s hand. In the early evening, as the cacophony of bird cries rang out over the canopy, Cockroach and Francisco jumped down and scurried off in search of meat.
Richard and I had no faith in their ability to hunt. So the surprise was all the greater when they returned with the body of a young capybara. The creature, which had short brown hair and a blunt-ended snout, must have weighed more than fifty lbs. It’s said to be the biggest rodent in existence, thriving near the water on aquatic vegetation. Cockroach hacked up the animal and washed its meat in the river. He said that he’d speared the creature, having spotted it hiding at the base of a tree. I found this strange, particularly as he hadn’t had a spear with him. It was far more likely that Cockroach had discovered the creature already dead – jungle road kill. Francisco, too, had found something in the jungle. It was a dark resin, scraped from a tree. He said it was curare.
He assumed I didn’t know what the substance was. But my enthusiasm for detective thrillers had introduced me to curare long before. One of the tranquilizers most favoured by Amazonian tribes, Indians have smeared it over the tips of their arrows and blow-darts for millennia. By interfering with electrical impulses, it stops the muscles from working, causing the diaphragm to relax. Coma through suffocation follows. Hunters prize the resin for hunting monkeys. Hit one with a curare dart, its grip loosens, and it falls from the tree. The animal, which is only tranquilized with a speck of curare, is quite fit to be eaten.