The Cosmic Serpent (5 page)

I tend not to believe this kind of story unless I have lived it myself, so I am not trying to convince anybody about the effectiveness of sanango. However, from my point of view, Abelardo had pulled off a trick that seemed more biochemical than psychosomatic.

I had several other similar experiences. Each time, I noted that the seemingly fanciful explanations I was given ended up being verified in practice—such as “a tea you drink at the new moon which turns your body to rubber and cures your back pain.”

So I began to trust the literal descriptions of my friends in Quirishari even though I did not understand the mechanisms of their knowledge.

Furthermore, by living with them on a daily basis, I was continually struck by their profound practicality. They did not talk of doing things; they did them. One day I was walking in the forest with a man named Rafael. I mentioned that I needed a new handle for my ax. He stopped in his tracks, saying “ah yes,” and used his machete to cut a little hardwood tree a few steps off the path. Then he carved an impeccable handle that was to last longer than the ax itself. He spent about twenty minutes doing the bulk of the work right there in the forest and an additional twenty minutes at home doing the adjustments. Perfect work, carried out by eye alone. Up until then, I had always thought that ax handles came from hardware stores.

People in Quirishari taught by example, rather than by explanation. Parents would encourage their children to accompany them in their work. The phrase “leave Daddy alone because he's working” was unknown. People were suspicious of abstract concepts. When an idea seemed really bad, they would say dismissively,
“Es pura teoría”
[“That's pure theory”]. The two keywords that cropped up over and over in conversations were
práctica
and
táctica,
“practice” and “tactics”—no doubt because they are requirements for living in the rainforest.

The Ashaninca's passion for practice explains, in part at least, their general fascination for industrial technology. One of their favorite subjects of conversation with me was to ask how I had made the objects I owned: tapes, lighters, rubber boots, Swiss army knife, batteries, etc. When I would reply that I did not know how to make them, nobody seemed to believe me.

After about a year in Quirishari, I had come to see that my hosts' practical sense was much more reliable in their environment than my academically informed understanding of reality. Their empirical knowledge was undeniable. However, their explanations concerning the origin of their knowledge were unbelievable to me. For instance, on two separate occasions, Carlos and Abelardo showed me a plant that cured the potentially mortal bite of the
jergón
(fer-de-lance) snake. I looked at the plant closely, thinking that it might come in useful at some point. They both pointed out the pair of white hooks resembling snake fangs, so that I would remember it. I asked Carlos how the virtues of the jergón plant had been discovered. “We know this thanks to these hooks, because that is the sign that nature gives.”

Once again, I thought that if this were true, Western science would surely know about it; furthermore I could not believe that there was truly a correspondence between a reptile and a bush, as if a common intelligence were lurking behind them both and communicating with visual symbols. To me, it seemed that my “animist” friends were merely interpreting coincidences of the natural order.

 

ONE DAY at Carlos's house, I witnessed an almost surreal scene. A man called Sabino appeared with a sick baby in his arms and two Peruvian cigarettes in his hand. He asked Carlos to cure the child. Carlos lit one of the cigarettes and drew on it deeply several times. Then he blew smoke on the baby and started sucking at a precise spot on its belly, spitting out what he said was the illness. After about three minutes, he declared the problem solved. Sabino thanked him profusely and departed. Carlos called after him, placing the second cigarette behind his ear: “Come back any time.”

At that point, I thought to myself that my credulity had limits and that no one could get me to believe that cigarette smoke could cure a sick child. On the contrary, I thought that blowing smoke on the child could only worsen its condition.

A few evenings later, during one of our taped conversations, I returned to this question:

AS I LISTENED to these explanations, I realized that I did not really believe in the existence of spirits. From my point of view, spirits were at best metaphors. Carlos, on the other hand, considered spirits to be firmly rooted in the material world, craving tobacco, flying like radio waves, and singing like tape recorders. So my attitude was ambiguous. On the one hand, I wanted to understand what Carlos thought, but on the other, I couldn't take what he said seriously because I did not believe it.

This ambiguity was reinforced by what people said about spirits; namely, that contact with spirits gave one power not only to cure, but to cause harm.

One evening I accompanied Carlos and Ruperto to the house of a third man, whom I will call M. Word had gone around that Ruperto, just back from an eight-year absence, had learned his lessons well with the Shipibo ayahuasqueros. For his part, M. boasted that he had a certain experience with hallucinogens, and said that he was curious to see just how good Ruperto was.

M. lived on the crest of a little hill surrounded by forest. We arrived at his house around eight in the evening. After the customary greetings, we sat down on the ground. Ruperto produced his bottle of ayahuasca and placed it at the bottom of the ladder leading up to the house's platform, saying, “This is its place.” Then he passed around a rolled cigarette and blew smoke on the bottle and on M. Meanwhile, Carlos took my hands and also blew smoke on them. The sweet smell of tobacco and the blowing feeling on my skin were pleasurable.

Three months had gone by since my first ayahuasca session. I felt physically relaxed, yet mentally apprehensive. Was I going to see terrifying snakes again? We drank the bitter liquid. It seemed to me that Ruperto filled my cup less than the others. I sat in silence. At one point, with my eyes closed, my body seemed to be very long. Ruperto started singing. M. accompanied him, but sang a different melody. The sound of this dissonant duo was compelling, though the rivalry between the two singers implied a certain tension. Carlos remained silent throughout.

I continued feeling calm. Apart from a few kaleidoscopic images, I did not have any particularly remarkable visions, nor did I feel nauseated. I started to think that I had not drunk enough ayahuasca. When Ruperto asked me whether I was “drunk,” I answered “not yet.” He asked me whether I would like some more. I told him that I was not sure and wanted perhaps to wait a bit. I asked Carlos in a whisper for his opinion. He advised me to wait.

I spent approximately three hours sitting on the ground in the dark in a slightly hypnotic, but certainly not hallucinatory state of mind. In the darkness, I could only make out the shape of the other participants. Both Carlos and M. had told Ruperto that they were “drunk.”

The session came to a rather abrupt end. Carlos stood up and said with unusual haste that he was going home to rest. I got up to accompany him and thanked both our host and Ruperto, to whom I confided that I had been slightly fearful of the ayahuasca. He said, “I know, I saw it when we arrived.”

Carlos and I had only one flashlight. He took it and guided us along the path through the forest. I followed him closely to take full advantage of the beam. After covering approximately three hundred yards, Carlos suddenly yelped and scratched at the back of his calf, from which he seemed to extract some kind of sting. In the confusion, what he was holding between his fingers fell to the ground. He said, “That man is shameless. Now he is shooting his arrows at me.” I was relieved to hear his words, because I was afraid a snake had bitten him, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked questions, but he interrupted, saying, “Later. Now, let's go.” We marched over to his house.

On arrival, Carlos was visibly upset. He finally explained that M. had shot one of his arrows at him, “because he wants to dominate, and show that he is stronger.”

For my part, I was left with a doubt. How could one really aim a little sting in total darkness across three hundred yards of forest and touch the back of the calf of a person walking in front of someone else?

Nevertheless, Carlos was ill the following day, and the tension between him and M. continued to the end of my stay in Quirishari. These suspicions of sorcery gave rise to a network of rumors and counterrumors that partially undermined the community's atmosphere of goodwill.

Contact with the spirits may allow one to learn about the medicinal properties of plants and to cure. But it also gives the possibility of exploiting a destructive energy. According to the practitioners of shamanism, the source of knowledge and power to which they gain access is double-edged.

 

TOWARD THE END of my stay in Quirishari, I read over my fieldnotes and drew up a long list of questions. Most of them concerned the central subject of my investigation, but several dealt with the shamanic and mythological elements that had mystified me. In one of my last taped conversations with Carlos, I asked him about these matters:

During my last interviews with Carlos, I had the impression that the more I asked questions, the less I understood his answers. Not only was ayahuasca the mother of tobacco, which I already knew, but the mother of ayahuasca was a snake. What could this possibly mean—other than that the mother of the mother of tobacco is a snake?

On leaving Quirishari, I knew I had not solved the enigma of the hallucinatory origin of Ashaninca ecological knowledge. I had done my best, however, to listen to what people said. I had constantly tried to reduce the nuisance of my presence as an anthropologist. I never took notes in front of people to avoid their feeling spied on. Mostly, I would write in the evening, lying on my blanket, before going to sleep. I would simply note what I had done during the day and the important things that people had said. I even tried thinking about my presuppositions, knowing that it was important to objectify my objectifying gaze. But the mystery remained intact.