YAJÈ - THE NEW PURGATORY
Jimmy Weiskopf's New Book on YAJÈ
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Jimmy Weiskopf is an New York-born
journalist, translator and investigator of yajé who graduated
from Columbia University, New York, and Cambridge University,
England. Having lived full-time in Colombia since 1977, Weiskopf
is recognized to be among the two or three top Spanish to English
translators in Colombia. He has translated more than 30 books
about Colombia for the prestigious Bogotá art book publishers,
Villegas Editores, on such subjects as fine arts, the jungle,
bamboo, history, fashion, architecture, travel, etc. Information
about my work for Villegas Editores: www.villegaseditores.com
The following are some of the books he has translated
that are on the web site. Please note that the titles in Spanish
are deceptive: everything else in these books is in English, only
the original Spanish is unaltered. It is a kind of trademark for
Villegas:
A monetary history of Colombia
Alta Colombia
Atavíos
Casa de Hacienda
Casa Moderna
Cerros de Bogotá
Luis Restrepo: architecture
Mestizo America
The Life of Costa Rica
Tropic
Wayuú
A former member of the Colombia Foreign Press
Association, he is semi-retired from journalism but continues
to be the Colombian correspondent of the International Environment
Reporter (Bureau of National Affairs, Washington, D.C.) In the
past his articles were published in the Wall Streel Journal, Time,
Americas, The Colombian Post (the Colombian English-language weekly
newspaper) and the Bogota daily, "El Tiempo".
Yajé (or ayahuasca) is a psychotropic drink, made from a jungle
vine of the same name and complementary plants, that has been
used for centuries in the shamanic ceremonies practiced by indigenous
communities of the Amazon basin. Guided by the visions it produces,
the Indian shamans diagnose and exorcize the hidden causes of
illness, which are attributed to interventions from the spirit
world. They also drink this brew to locate game, seek out lost
objects, bring rain, predict the future and wreak vengeance on
their enemies.
Sibundoy Valley, Upper Putumayo River, Colombia
Due to its sheltered setting, rich soil and abundant waters,
Sibundoy harbours a nearly unique microcosm of both the Andean
and lowland, jungle plants found in Colombia. The Valley itself
is an 8,000 hectare extension of mid-Andean savannah, enclosed
by an oval chain of mountains whose surface area is 12,000 hectares.
The valley's bed lies at 2,100 metres above sea level, while the
surrounding hills vary from 2,500 to 3,000 or more metres. The
"paramo" of Bordoncillo, which forms one flank of the confining
ridges, holds a number of streams which are the source of the
river Putumayo - one of the major tributaries of the Amazon.
According to local tradition, the valley itself was originally
the crater of an enormous volcano. The present topography of the
region lends this theory plausibility and its soils are rich and
unstable volcanic ones. Moreover, the still-active Pataskoy volcano
dominates one end of the Valley. The climate, which averages 17
degrees centigrade, is benign and the Valley is free from either
extreme heat or cold. In addition, it possesses a self-regulating
equilibrium between sun and rain that makes it a kind of natural
greenhouse. The Valley enjoys, on a nearly daily basis, intervals
of strong sun and sufficient rainfall throughout the year, without
the well-defined contrast between two dry and wet seasons, respectively,
which characterize most of the Colombian Andes. Even on the clearest,
hottest days, the gathering of mist and cloud on the confining
hills forms a protective curtain of moisture which nourishes its
vegetation and checks desertification of soils.
Sibundoy Valley, Upper Putumayo River, Colombia
Sibundoy is, above all, the home of maize, small and large plantations
of which are found throughout the region. It is almost certain
that its suitability for maize is the reason why the region has
been continuously inhabited by native-American communities since
pre-Colombian times.
The Valley's Indians are divided into two races - the Inganos
and the Kamsa - which form the largest nucleus, in Colombia, of
native-language speakers. They also still preserve, to a certain
extent, a traditional system of justice, land-holding, natural
medicine and craftswork.. The Inganos, as the name indicates,
are descendants of the Incas, the northernmost extent of whose
empire was the south of Colombia, and their language is related
to the Quechua which is still spoken by millions of Indians in
Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Bolivia. The Kamsa are more mysterious,
for their language and racial type is found in no other part of
Latin America.
Unfortunately the very same reasons which drew these races to
Sibundoy made them the victims of land-grabbing "white" settlers
after the Spanish Conquest. This process was greatly accelerated
at the beginning of this century, when the Catholic Church began
to intensely missionize the Valley and appropriated many of its
richest lands. This tendency, however, is reversing itself due
to recent government land reforms and laws protecting Indian ancestral
territories.
The topography and climate of the Valley, as we see it today,
are quite different to what they were up to only a few decades
ago and this change plays a critical role in its present potential
as a seedbed for new food varieties. Sibundoy was originally colder,
wetter and, literally, 150-200 metres higher. Its central bed,
which is now a well-cleared and drained extension of pasture-land
and market-garden plots, was covered by marsh and forest. Relics,
in the surrounding foothills, of pre-Colombian agricultural terraces
suggest that agriculture was formerly concentrated around this
lower rim and the Valley's bed itself was a fishing and hunting
reserve and source of building materials like reeds.
Pedro Juajibioy, a "tatsembuá" or traditional medicine man of
Kamsa Indian stock who manages the conventional western system
of plant classification and was a guide to Richard Evans Schultes,
cultivates yajé in his botanical garden in Sibundoy, along
with other medicinal plants which are either not found or at least
not known of outside of the Valley of Sibundoy, which is, perhaps,
the most important centre of shamanic healing in the country.
Don Antonio at Work
Don Antonio's Altar
Yajé Session with Don Antonio & Family
Yajé is, first of all, a strong purgative which provokes attacks
of vomiting, and diarrhea, accompanied by feelings of nausea,
dizziness, cold sweats and similar reactions which are sometimes
very frightening.. At times the loss of normal self-control is
so strong that the person who drinks yajé may feel the close presence
of death. But it generally does not hit those who are in good
physical and mental health so violently and in any case, the purgation
has a curative purpose. The cleaning out of physical or psychological
impurities effected by the purge simultaneously works to unblock
obstacles to an innate visionary capacity which all men have.
When you drink yajé, you enter into an aetherial realm where the
spirits are very real. It enables one to see and communicate with
such spirits through sharp and colourful visions.
The native shamans - or "taitas", as they are called - emphasize
that yajé is not a drug but a sacred plant which chastises the
drinker in order to reform him. In some cases, the harsh physical
reactions are not provoked by a bodily illness but a moral disequilibrium
that comes from and/or is reflected in bad conduct, negative thoughts,
psychological trauma and the like. Drinking yajé causes a total
therapeutic experience, in which the purification of the body
takes place alongside a sharpening of self-knowledge, the recognition
of a universal ethical code and ultimately, a direct contact with
the divine. It is an empirical psychotherapy, practiced in a ritual
context, that combines physical healing and a humbling of the
ego. Yajé works a magical transformation of self through a sequence
of feelings that begin in dread, lead to self-acceptance and repentance,
and climax in an ecstasy that reinforces the lesson.
Yajé, the master plant of the potion, is a nondescript vine easily
confused with many others in the jungle. But it is the only liana
there that has a genie - a strict but benevolent spirit guide
that humiliates its followers in order to teach them wisdom. One
does not simply drink the brew and receive visions. This only
happens after one has achieved certain dominion of oneself, because
these and other extra-sensorial effects only occur when one is
"drunk" with the potion and in order to take advantage of this
intoxication you have to put up with its ugly, bitter taste and
endure a state which causes distress, confusion and fear in the
beginner. Purification brings more endurance, endurance enables
one to drink more yajé and, through a cumulative proces that may
take years, the yajé drinker is able to tune into the sixth sense
which all human beings latently possess. In the traditional indigenous
apprenticeship, youngsters are initiated as adolescents and, if
they have the vocation for it, will drink yajé at least once a
week for decades before reaching the rank of a "knower", a person
with esoteric powers and the ability to heal others.
Our perception of the spirits under the influence of yajé depends
on our physical and moral purity, previous experience of the drink
and the dosage. The shamans say that there is only one rule for
achieving mastery of yajé - apart from applying its teachings
on health and right conduct to your normal life. The "secret'
is to drink as much as you can take for as long as possible.
On the most rudimentary level you become aware of the spirits
in the way that you feel the presence of another person in a room
without being able to see him. On a more intense one, you perceive
a dense field of energy, a kind of spirit static, charged with
sparkling but undefined points of light.. In the visionary stage,
the spirits turn into concrete images. These mind pictures are
characterized by a range of brilliant, transmuting colours; repeating
geometrical forms; effects of kaleidoscopes, rainbows and fireworks;
and a whole assortment of abstract designs, among other characteristics.
This primary visual field may equally resolve itself, in a fluid
and dynamic way, into representational figures of jungle totems,
Buddhas or Christs and even scenes from past lives or encounters
with extra-terrestrials.
Such representations, however, are not merely images on an inner
movie screen. They speak to the person about his health, his life
and the meaning of existence. They embrace his body and bring
fire to his guts. They have a taste, a smell and an electricity.
Yajé Ceremony with Don Antonio, His Wife, His Son Isidoro &
Patient
Born to the Ingano race, Don Antonio was raised in the mountains
above the valley of Sibundoy and suffers discrimination from missionaries
and whites: on one occasion the parish priest tries to get him
excommunicated because Don Antonio pays his farm-labourers 3 cents
more than the priest pays his own peons. Another time, when he
is passing through a big city, dressed in the traditional cusma
(a long tunic which covers the legs like a skirt) kids run after
him the street, trying to lift it up and jeering at him for being
a woman. Orphaned (of father, who was an expert on medicinal herbs)
as a teenager, he takes up the life of a wandering trader and
yajé apprentice. He carries produce "a pie limpio" (barefoot)
back and forth between Pasto and Sibundoy and between Sibundoy
and the lower Putumayo. He roves the jungles of the Amazon in
launch as far as Brazil, doing yajé with shamans who are now legendary,
and wanders up through Panama to Central America and to some of
the Caribbean islands.
When the oil boom breaks out in Venezuela, he settles there and
winds up owning two houses and a car. Venezuelan President Romulo
Betancur summons him to the presidential palace for a protective
spell and a few weeks later, miraculously survives an assassination
attempt. Eventually Don Antonio sells out in Venezuela, builds
the biggest residential house in the valley of Sibundoy and settles
down. But only for a while. The itch to travel takes him to the
plains region of Colombia, then back to Sibundoy and just recently
to Bogotá, where he lives around the corner from my downtown apartment,
holds yajé sessions that attract people ranging from domestic
servants to rock musicians and regularly appears in the newspapers
and on television. In this photo, we see him healing Richard Blair
(with chest bared), an English musician who often gives concerts
of latino music in Colombia with his Anglo-Colombian band.
Traumatic as a yajé session may be, the "patient" is not left
to his own devices. The job of the shaman is, precisely, to guide
him through this mysterious voyage , watch out for his welfare
and ensure that he achieves a harmonious relationship with the
spirit realm. Through his own visions, which enable him to "see"
the patient's problems as though in an x-ray, he works on the
hidden causes of disease, stress, depression, bad luck and so
forth with an arsenal of traditional ritual gestures. These include
chants and harmonica music; an exorcism with tobacco smoke and
incense; and the use of a ritual leaf-fan to "blow" away of the
focal points of negative energy which the shaman detects on the
person's body.
The esoteric insights of the shaman may sound like a case of
delusion or hysteria, but the fact is that his technique works,
aided by the physical purgation and inner illumination of his
patient. There is a strong body of empirical evidence to show
that a "traditional doctor" who employs yajé can heal a variety
of physical and psychological ailments for which conventional
medicine is not so effective.. Not always - for there are, frankly,
elements of folklore and superstition in the indigenous beliefs
that do not satisfy our rationality. But often enough to have
won the increasing attention and respect of western doctors, botanists,
biochemists, psychiatrists, etc.
An equally wide variety of intellectuals, artists, philosophers
and religious figures - and ordinary people on a spiritual quest
- are also fascinated by the experience of yajé and its significance
for the human condition. Many of these, after trying yajé, believe
that any superficial intent to demythify its therapy runs up against
the problem of explaining where the visions come from. Such enthusiasts
employ the word "visions" deliberately, instead of talking about
"hallucinations". It may be that both are the product of the imagination,
but "hallucination" implies madness, that is, the work of a sick
imagination, while it would seem that the visions of yajé come
from an inspired and healthy one.
The world one penetrates through such exaltation is sufficiently
different to that of dreams, fantasies, dementia or drugged states
to warrant its being placed in a category of consciousness for
which there is still no convincing scientific explanation. It
is much more original, complex, coherent and colourful, to the
point where many believe that the visions come from a realm that
is distinct from and much wider than the ego and its personal
experience.
With yajé, one's intuition becomes much more acute and effective
than in normal life. It removes the continual screen of idle thought
which fogs one's true awareness. By purging the body of physical
impurities, it appears to awaken those paranormal capacities which,
according to mythology, pre-literate tradition and a growing body
of scientific investigation, were given to primitive man as a
mechanism of survival.
Yajé fascinates those who have lost contact with their own spiritual
roots. In recent decades a virtual renaiisance of yajé practices
has taken place, characterized by a recognition of its importance
on the part of western thinkers and visits by "white" intellectuals
to remote jungles in search of a dying shamanic knowledge held
by a few native medicine men. This book is the story of such a
pilgrimage, carried out by the author. Born in New York, he has
lived for the past quarter century, full-time, in Colombia and
, for more than a decade, has been a disciple of two of the country's
best-known Indian shamans.
Isidoro Leads an Ingano Carnival, Upper Putumayo River, Colombia
In Colombia the modern, mestizo cult of yajé originated
in the frontier regions to which yajé is native, especially the
Putumayo, which is the gateway between the Andes and the Amazon
basin. For one thing, the "raw materials" (the plants) and "know
how" (of cooking and healing with yajé) were at hand in the Putumayo
and, for another, there was a long tradition of exchange between
the yajéceros of its jungles and highlands, especially,
among the latter, the Inganos of the Andean valley of Sibundoy
The contact was strengthened by ethnic, family and trade links
between the two geographical groups. The Inganos, in turn, had
relations with indigenous groups in other regions.
For centuries the Inganos of Sibundoy have travelled to the jungle
to obtain yajè and learn from the taitas of "el bajo"- "the lower"
Putumayo. There has always been a latent antagonism between the
two bands, even though they do the rituals together, exchange
visits and consider themselves to be colleagues: in some cases
they may belong to the same ethnic group or even the same family.
On the surface these links are amiable, but there are tensions
between the two that go back to missionary times or even before.
The mountain Indians were the first to be indoctrinated and they
were then used as peons, porters and guides on expeditions to
"civilize" the lowlanders.
Don Antonio's Family Carnival
Those in the jungle secretly regard the highlanders as opportunists
who do not have their intimate relationship with the vine and
basically go there to buy yajé and commercialize it in other parts.
The highlanders themselves fear and respect the jungle people's
mastery of yajé: they consider them to be the purest source of
shamanic knowledge, because they are closest to the raw energy
stored in the plant and traditionally learned how to convert it
into psychic energy.
Yet the Inganos also have a reputation amongst the lowlanders
for being dangerous sorcerers. Some of them pridefully say, in
effect, that "the people in the jungle grow the yajé, but
we put the magic into it". With some reason, because they are
heirs to the great pan-Andean Inca culture and its extraordinary
science of plants. The widespread use, throughout the Amazon basin,
of Quechua terms for plants, foods and elements of yajé rituals
is one evidence of this use.
It is futile to take sides in this rivalry, knowing that chauvinism
is not limited to the white nations.
Don Antonio's Family Carnival
The 1998 Colombian senatorial campaign poster of Benjamín Jacanamijoy,
another son of the famous ayahuasquero shaman Don Antonio. His
campaign slogan was “Preserva tu cultura, revive la tradición.”
He was narrowly defeated, and expects to win next time. In addition
to doing ayahuasca with Benjamín Jacanamijoy, Jimmy Weiskopf served
as his official witness when he registered as a senatorial candidate
and played an active part in his campaign.
Ingano Carnival, Sibundoy Valley, Upper Putumayo River, Colombia
A Group of Ingano Women
The Putumayo knocked away the props of the urban person, but
it gave you the recompense of seeing that they were not that indispensable.
It was easier to understand the absurdity of such expectations
- success, esteem, stability or the chimera that haunts every
would-be artist, posterity - in a place where life is precarious
and the city, with all its totems, is far away. The great majority
of people there had never heard of Plato or Beethoven, a lack
of culture that made the educated person feel superior and misunderstood
but which gave me a sense of relief - it was a symbol of being
released from the aspirations which weighed me down. You learned
that practical talents, putting up with difficulties and a willingness
to help your neighbour were what most counted there, qualities
which were not precisely my own, so that I was forced to recognize
the relativity of values which, in other circumstances, would
have seemed absolute to me. It was not a place were faggy fashion
becomes an idol, as in my home town of New York.
Jimmy Weiskopf and his son with Huitoto Shaman Oscar Roman and
his wife in Jimmy's Bogotá apartment. Oscar and his wife are from
the Department of Amazonas, Colombia
The difference between our mechanistic approach and the more
integral indigenous one is particularly seen in the way the Amazonian
cultures draw analogies between human conduct and observations
of nature. We do this as well, but they are only a figure of speech,
whereas the Indians, who rely on understanding their environment
for their survival, really believe in this as a nearly literal
truth: they know that they must live in harmony with the spirits
of the natural world. They know because they are in daily communication
with them, not in an exalted way, as with yajé, but rather because
they are saturated with nature.
A concrete example of these analogies is the way the Huitotos
classify yajé vines: if the liana has a smooth form, it is female
and if it is knotty, it is a man, as are the respective bodies
of human beings. On this analogy are then superimposed a host
of related or derivative ones which wind up forming an indigenous
mandala, that is, a map of terrestrial reality. You can equally
see it as a series of concentric circles, with the vine at the
centre.
The vine is, again from its physical shape, the umbilical cord.
Through this cord we receive food from our mother, that is, nutrition
to fight off disease and to strengthen our conduct, wisdom and
growth. By the same reasoning, since this cord is the only physical
link we have with the great void that is the world before birth
and after death, it connects us to the realm of the spirits.
Equally, the growth of our knowledge with yajé is like the growth
of the embryo, a very slow gestation. In the words of taita Oscar
Román, a reknowned Huitoto shaman, drinking yajé constantly you
spend seven years in suffering and illusion and then another five
years to get to a minimum enlightenment. Unlike the cultures of
the Putumayo and Caquetá, where yajé is a community happening,
the Huitoto yajé drinker is an exceptional and solitary explorer,
as the embryo is.
Botanist Richard Schultes with Huitoto shaman Oscar Román. Note
yajé vine growing in the rustic plastic-covered greenhouse near
Oscar´s home in Araracuara, Caquetá, Colombia. Taken around 1982,
when Schultes was supervising a field course for Colombian university
students.
The Famous Siona Shaman Taita Pacho
Those who had gone to Buenavista to do yajé had spoken to me
of a "shaman" but the word, being a romanticized one, completely
misled me. Expecting a mythical character, I discovered a very
actual man - humble, poor, flawed, funny, irreverent and shrewd
- who is nevertheless a man of power, yet displays his wisdom
in the most unpretentious way.
Now that I am far from Buenavista, the picture I have of Pacho
dissolves into a series of dispersed images. I see a roguish,
benevolent smile beneath a peaked forage cap; delicate fingertips
weaving a palm-leaf sieve; eyes of no particular colour; broad
Indian features, folded and worn, which mark out the five continents
of pre-history.
I watch him in the chagra, weeding his yuca grove in the midday
heat, so absorbed in his work that he doesn't notice the cloud
of insects around his body - a being of chonta wood, strong, elemental,
indestructible. Yet fluid as water and often disguised by masks.
I hear his voice, deep, hoarse and ingenuous, talking of adventures
in the jungle: he pauses in the middle of a sentence, scrutinizing
my reaction, and finishes the tale with an ironical question mark
that makes me wonder whether what he has said is entirely true.
I see him in the ecstasy of yajé, chanting from the wild, tangled
depths of the spirit world. In an instant, he changes into a tranquil
grandfather who watches the sunset from the wharf as he revises
his sinkers and hooks and later stretches out on the floor of
the kitchen to eat his dinner. "Mamañapa, Mamañapa my little girl,"
he says to his granddaughter, caressing her, "is that really your
name ?"
And now the kindly old man is belligerently drunk, the seer has
become the instant best friend of a crude stranger who is paying
for booze in the local canteen. He has been up all night with
yajé and is tired, angry and incoherent: he boasts and rants and
no one pays attention to his words. And then, to no one in particular,
he suddenly lets slip a flash of self-recognition which no one
but myself catches: " I am . . . the last . . of the knowers.
Y'hear me ? The last !"
Jimmy with yajè vines
Yajè's capacity of growth never ceased to amaze me. In the chagra
there were some yajé plants, sown some months before, about a
metre and a half high, made up of a set of opposite leaves whose
shape was between a long heart and an oval, with down-curving
veins and a distinct tip at the point. In the older leaves the
top side was a darker green than the under one, which was emerald:
in the younger ones the same light colour was seen on both sides.
These leaves grew off slender vines that were merely tendrils
but with a tremendous capacity to reach out laterally into space
to seek a support. They bore little relation to the strong, twisted
columns of rope reaching to a height of 20 or more metres that
I later saw when I harvested the vines that Pacho had planted
in the depth of the jungle. Vines that were so tangled into the
upper layers of vegetation of the gigantic trees that supported
them that as I looked up and tried to follow their course I would
feel a weird sort of vertigo. It was like trying to trace the
eddies and flows of a torrential stream: the eye takes you so
far and then the mind collapses before the liquid green confusion."
I was told that while you can use yajé after about three years,
you usually have to wait five years before harvesting the vine
you plant and that thereafter it has a long useful life. Depending
on the informant, I was told you may use yajé that is 20 or 30
or even 50 years old.
A rose on fresh cut yajè vines
Jimmy with a rare sight - yajè vines in flower. Taken in the jungle
settlement of Dadelandia
In practice, the figures on the lifespan of the plant mean little
because no indigenous shaman is going to measure the age of his
vines and in any case yajé is, in a sense, immortal. White friends
who grow yajé tell me that they rarely see it seed or flower and
Wade Davis describes yajé as "an inedible nondescript liana that
seldom flowers."
Aterciopelado Shaman Taita Manuel & Apprentice; Teusaquillo,
Colombia
