by Tahir Shah
“We will leave it to cool,” he said, “and when there is darkness, we can drink.”
I asked Ramón about the rumor that he could fly.
He widened his eyes and put a hand to the nape of his neck.
“Ayahuasca is very strong,” he said. “I have already told you that. It can be used in many ways – as a purger of evil, as a medicine, a solver of problems... It can take you back in time, or into the future, show you miracles, transform you into a boa constrictor or a leopard.”
“What about flying... if you take ayahuasca can you actually fly?”
Ramón looked through me with his gaze, but said nothing.
I found myself thinking about ayahuasca and hallucinogens. I knew that my friends would give me pointed looks if they heard I was about to consume a mind altering substance. In the West there’s an extraordinary misunderstanding. Most people forget or merely ignore the link between plants and society. They may be condemning you while they’re smoking a cigarette, or drinking a bottle of beer – both, of course, are made from plants which when smoked or fermented alter the state of the mind.
In our world we have grown away from the land and scorn natural preparations. Hallucinogens have a bad reputation, and rightly so. They are constantly misused by us in societies which are almost incapable of using anything correctly. Active ingredients are stripped out from plants and taken in massive doses for stimulation’s sake. But the Shuar’s use of ayahuasca is different. It is a medicinal plant used in the context of a specific culture. It is employed in unison with a rigid structure of ritual, which supports it as a framework. It is taken for answers, not to get high.
In the West people are preoccupied with the vision or sensation they may get by taking a drug. They don’t give thought to the role of the concoction in healing, or its use as a tool. The shamans of the Amazon only take ayahuasca or any other hallucinogen when there’s a reason to take it. When I hear of people in Europe experimenting with ayahuasca, it turns my blood cold. The plant-derived experience is only part of the equation, the other part being the ritual.
Our short-sighted approach is not entirely our fault. Compared with Asia or the New World, Europe has very few plant species. North America has a wide variety of remarkable species but, tragically, when the Europeans slaughtered their way across that continent, they destroyed the Native American knowledge which understood them, and replaced it with a crippled European system, touted by snake-oil salesmen. It must have put American medicine back centuries.
On a moonless night, a clearing in the jungle is very dark indeed. Save for the glint of the fireflies, or the odd flicker of a home-made wick burning in kerosene, there is blackness. Those who are not evangelists and have late night prayer sessions, go to sleep soon after dusk. They rise long before it gets light.
Alberto sloped away to find a place to sleep. He had been feeling queasy since eating my beetle. The misunderstanding had cost me a great sum but, as I pondered it, I had got my just deserts. I should have released the insects when I’d had the chance.
Once Enrique had prayed quietly for our salvation, he followed the others to bed. Richard said to call him if I became distressed during the ayahuasca session. It struck me then that he had always appeared reluctant to talk of his own ayahuasca experiences while, at the same time, regarding the brew with the utmost gravity. I think he felt that ayahuasca was something which had to be tried to be understood. There was no point in him offering his own tales until I had been initiated. Without another word he wandered down to the tannin-brown water to swim. Only a man of Richard’s resolution would have dared swimming there in the darkness.
Ramón and I were suddenly alone. We were sitting at the far end of the maloca. It was a still night lit by a crescent moon. A pair of candles were burning before us, their flames perpendicular. In their light I saw the objects of ritual lying by the shaman’s knee. A gourd of ayahuasca, a white enamel mug, a cloth bag, and a chacapa, the dried leaf rattle which I’d seen being used near Iquitos.
Ramón lit a pipe of mapacho, and drew on it until his chest was filled to capacity. He blew the smoke at me. I tried to relax. The maestro opened up the cloth pouch and fished out a skull. It had such long, threatening fangs at the front. I recognized it as a jaguar’s skull. Sucking on his pipe a second time, Ramón blew down onto it. I watched as the swirls of gray smoke swept over the bone, before diffusing into the night.
Then, wiping his mouth with his hand, Ramón dipped the tin mess mug into the ayahuasca. He stirred the liquid with the cup, filling it almost to the top. I swallowed hard. The shaman put the mug to his lips and, taking small sips, drank the liquid. He leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment, breathing in through his nose. Stirring the cup in the brew a second time, he filled it again. I watched him in the dimness. With the brilliant macaw feather corona wrapped around his head, his face painted red with achiote, and the jaguar skull at his ankles, he made for a fearful sight.
He looked across at me, and then tipped a little of the dark liquid from the cup, back into the gourd.
“This ayahuasca is special,” he said softly. “I have made it with toé, datura. Volarás muy lejos, you will fly far.”
“But maestro,” I faltered, “datura will kill me. It is too strong.”
“I told you,” he replied, “when you take ayahuasca, you die.”
He handed me the cup. I drank it in sips, as he had done. It tasted bitter, like the sap of a tree. Although not pleasant, it was bearable. As the last drops of ayahuasca made their way down into my stomach, the shaman blew out the candles. There was no light now, only the glow of his pipe when he inhaled.
Taking up the chacapa, he rattled it; at the same time breaking into a soft whirring chant. The tone was like an old gramophone player stuck on a single note. I knew it took time for the ayahuasca to take effect. At first I tried to keep up with the chemistry of the reaction. The harmaline would be inhibiting the monoamine-oxidase, I thought, allowing the hallucinogens to enter my blood. The illusions would begin shortly.
I took a series of deep breaths, relaxing my shoulders and arms, leaning backwards. Then I focused on the sound of the leaf-rattle and the smell of the mapacho smoke. My senses were heightened. I could hear the sound of Ramón’s youngest child snoring at the far end of the maloca. The sound was almost deafening.
A few more minutes drifted by. I tried to think of the chemistry again. But I was no longer alert. The base of my spine felt warm, as if a hand was pressing on it. I could not focus my mind now, and I was losing a sense of space. A few more minutes passed, filled with the hum of the shaman’s chant, the smoke, and the rustle of dried leaves. With every second I became more disorientated. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I gazed up at the eaves of the thatch, which seemed bowed inwards and cruely distorted. So I peered out from the long-house, up at the stars. They were bright; and they were constant. I thanked the stars for being there.
Then the ayahuasca took effect.
My stomach was signaling to my mind. I was about to be violently sick. I had been poisoned and had to get out of the long-house.
Scrambling on my hands and knees, I crawled haplessly to the ladder. I was beginning to panic. My chest muscles were tense with fear. I could no longer trust my eyes. What they showed me was a distorted mess of colors and shapes. I closed them, feeling my way down the tree trunk ladder.
My bare feet were now treading in the mud. Rejoicing that I was on the ground I staggered, crawling, stumbling, into the undergrowth. Poison was in my blood. It was killing me. I was dying. The ayahuasca had tricked me. Fear took over. My chest sucked in air and I retched. I retched like I have never retched before. A flood of liquid spewed from my mouth. Panting hard, I reassured myself. The ayahuasca had been a mistake, I told myself. As soon as it was light I would hurry away from Ramón and the jungle. Within a few days I’d be back in a big city.
The reassurances did nothing to stop the reaction. I retched again, my stomach twisting its
elf in knots to purge the hideous brew. As I retched, my mind warned of more purging. This time from the rear end. In the nick of time I ripped down my shorts, just as my bowels opened.
Crouching there in the undergrowth of a Shuar village, unable to control my alimentary canal, I felt that this must be as bad as life can get. As I vomited, I crapped. And, as I crapped I vomited. All the while the undergrowth’s night-life was wondering what was going on. Frogs were jumping up, touching my buttocks with their heads. Moths and other winged insects were impaling themselves on the flow of faeces.
Yet, while in the undergrowth, I knew I was safe. There may have been frogs and moths, but I could lie low there and regroup. I coaxed myself to relax and, when the worst of the purging was over, I crawled back through the mud and up the ladder.
Ramón’s chanting hadn’t waned. The rustling of his chacapa and the low platform of his voice dispersed. I took my place again, cross-legged on the hard bamboo floor. Soon after, a second bout of purging overcame me. Scurrying fitfully across the floor, down the ladder and through the mud, I found sanctuary back with the frogs. I glanced up at the stars, drunk and off-balance, questioning how they could allow such a predicament.
Back on the bamboo floor, as Ramón’s smoke enveloped me, I sensed the ayahuasca moving on to the next phase. The hallucinations had begun. I leaned back, my eyes closed, my lungs breathing the dastardly mapacho smoke. It began with my arms sensing warmth, as the base of my spine had done. I questioned how anyone could take ayahuasca for pleasure. As I lay there, wondering, my body changed.
My shoulder sockets were growing warmer, as my arms evolved. They transformed from being feeble, feckless limbs. The bones altered first. I could see them. I watched astounded, as they grew more delicate, shedding themselves of my sunburnt skin. After the bones, came the muscles – colossal ones, like those of a body builder. Only then, when my arms were fleshed with tremendous arteries and veins, did the final covering emerge – feathers. White, fluffy feathers.
I might have panicked, but the shaman’s chanting gave a framework to the experience. His song was mournful, like the dirge at a funeral. Appropriate, for I was dead. I could not distinguish the words, the individual sounds. But, despite this, they made perfect sense. The incantations were beyond a language. They were protecting me... comforting, teaching. I breathed in the sound, inhaling it until my diaphragm was taut.
The song was speaking to me in a language without a voice. It was ordering me to thrust my wings outwards, to soar up, high into the air. I called back that I did not know how to fly. The sound of the chacapa touched my wings and dragged them up on a cushion of air. I laughed maniacally. I was flying. My wings moved with unequalled ease. There was none of the frantic, feverish motion of a man emulating a bird in flight.
This flight was natural, an obvious sensation. Glancing down, I saw the desert far below. I saw el colibrí, the hummingbird. I was at Nazca. Circling round the symbols on that plain I understood the stupidity of the Western mind. Ayahuasca was the key which decoded the etchings, just as datura explained the witches’ flight. Without one, the other had no meaning.
I flew on, guided by the chacapa’s sound, soothed by a spray of saliva from the shaman’s lips. The colors were bright – purples and blues, yellows and pinks. I was on the far side of a magnificent wall, flying in a no man’s land of illusion. I felt the rush of air on my face, and learned to control my wings by tilting their edges up and down. Ramón was with me. He said this was no illusion, but was the real world. We had died and come to life. I was alive for the first time. I was meant to fly, to be a part of the air. I sensed the shaman’s energy, the force of his knowledge. I could not see him, but I knew he was there. I was Icarus and he Daedalus. But our wings were not made of wax and feathers. They were living. We were birds, yet we were men, we were men, but birds.
*
We flew for many hours. I do not remember when the journey ended, or the moment I awoke. Sunlight streamed through the morning rain. I strained to open my eyes, retched and rolled onto my back. The maloca’s chonta palm floor was as hard as quartz. At my sides, my arms ached, as if they had been flayed with a whip. I roused the fingers of my left hand. They were grasping something. Still lying on my back, I raised the hand to my face. In its grip was a long feather. Three triangular notches were missing from the leading edge. It had been dipped in blood.
Appendix 1
AMAZONIAN FLORA-BASED HALLUCINOGENS
Few native medicinal preparations have caught the West’s imagination so strongly as ayahuasca. The deluge of recent publications on the use of this mysterious hallucinogenic decoction, reflects its unique role in an Amazonian shaman’s arsenal. Traditional healers revere the Banisteriopsis caapi vine for its ability to transport them to another spiritual dimension. They brew it up with a mixture of leaves from other plants, using it to provide answers to questions and to effect cures. The Western preoccupation with ayahuasca is derived less from its curative capacity, and more from its extraordinary pharmacological formula.
The Banisteriopsis caapi vine is not itself a hallucinogen. Rather, it is a matrix which allows hallucinogens and other compounds to be absorbed by the body. The active ingredient contained beneath the vine’s woody surface is harmaline. It’s not dissimilar to mescaline, the active ingredient in the peyote cactus, the psilocybe mushroom and LSD. The harmaline alkaloid is a monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor. Essentially, this means that it stops the digestive tract from screening out a range of toxic chemicals and, as a result, allows the hallucinogens to enter the body.
For the anthropological community, the main question regarding ayahuasca is how a supposedly primitive people could have ever deciphered the harmaline alkaloid. The range of admixtures added to the ayahuasca brew varies enormously in the Upper Amazon. Most contain tryptamine derivatives, such as DMT. The number of admixtures implies that considerable experimentation must have taken place throughout history.
Western chemists are interested in the possible uses for ayahuasca in formulating consumer drugs. A number of ayahuasca analogues have been prepared in the laboratory, most of which are free from the severe side-effects existent in the majority of ayahuasca brews. They contain DMT or similar alkaloid, together with an MAO-inhibitor, such as harmaline. One popular analogue is pharmahuasca. Other pharmaceutical corporations are attempting to take control of Banisteriopsis caapi itself. On 17 June 1986, a patent was granted to Loren S Miller of Palo Alto, California, for Banisteriopsis caapi. The patent’s citation, which alludes to Loren as the “inventor”, notes that the plant is a “new and distinct Banisteriopsis caapi plant named Da Vine which is particularly characterized by the rose color of its flower petals which fade with age to a near white, and its medicinal properties”.
Generally speaking, ayahuasca is a shamanic concoction used in the Upper Amazon – encompassing jungle regions of Peru, Colombia, western Brazil and northern Bolivia. More than 22 species are known, the two most common being Banisteriopsis caapi and Banisteriopsis inebrians. In addition, species have been found to occur in southeastern parts of the United States, as well as in Mexico. The vine is usually cultivated, although rarely grown in the vicinity of residential dwellings. It is customarily boiled to form a tea-like drink with a variety of admixtures. The vine can also be chewed by itself. But adding a variety of other leaves is thought to make the decoction more potent, and to bring on hallucinations.
Through my research, I have found myself wondering whether the Spanish chroniclers, or their assistants, might have tried ayahuasca. I think it’s more likely that a general devolution and mis-translation took place, occurring over centuries. Their research-gathering process must have led to gross inaccuracies, especially with the endless rewritten drafts and so forth. Perhaps an informant had told the chroniclers’ assistants that there existed people who could actually fly, just as I was told by the shaman Alberto that Ramón could fly through the air. The chroniclers, like me, may well have not believed the c
laim. To the informant there could have been little or no difference between true and allegorical flight. After all, historically, flight meant different things to different people.
Ayahuasca is one of the best known hallucinogenic compounds used by shamans in the New World. It is, without doubt, one of the strongest and easiest ways to embark on a spiritual journey. Plotkin (1993) has made note of the “giant leap” between chewing an individual leaf, and mixing it with one or more leaves to alter the specific effect. The scope for a shaman to manipulate the range of visions, by altering the combination of admixtures, is another reason for its popularity. Visions depend on the chemicals present in the ayahuasca. Common admixtures include chacruna (Psychotiia viridis), Lantana flowers (Lantana camara), bobinsana, and tobacco.
Some people experience bright colors and frequently gain a strong sensation of flight or levitation. Many of the hallucinogenic sensations incorporate a sense of the mind being detached from the body. Some see wild creatures, or sense themselves transforming into a particular animal. Others see places or people they are acquainted with at a great distance; others see their own death, or are taken back in time. Some users have mentioned seeing places or people which they have not encountered before, but which do exist. After viewing a place, or “meeting a person in their vision”, they encounter it for real soon after. We must, of course, remain skeptical with regard to such assertions.
Manuel Villavicencio (1858), the Ecuadorian geographer, was the first “outsider” to study ayahuasca and to publish a report on it. He speaks of the ability to give the sensation of flight, of having been “lifted into the air”, saying, “I’ve experienced dizziness, then an aerial journey in which I recall perceiving the most gorgeous views, great cities, lofty towers, beautiful parks, and other extremely attractive objects.” Harner (1973) writes of the Conibo-Shipo Indians of Peru’s Ucayali River, who take ayahuasca before turning into a bird and flying away with the intention of killing a victim. Before committing the murder they return to human form. Harner himself wrote of meeting “bird-headed” people when under the influence of ayahuasca.