Perhaps the pinnacle of the trip came at the end, when we had the opportunity to be guests at an ayahuasca ceremony. The shaman’s visions told him that one of our colleagues had recently had a tumor removed but that part of it was still there. None of us knew anything about it, but she began to shake and cry immediately, and later medical investigation showed that he was right. Mostly what I remember is the tobacco smoke and the smell of the river. It’s been a long time now.

Anyway, your piece took me back there. Thanks.

Natalie, let me see if I can do some fine brush work to clarify details of Amazonian worldviews as I understand them. Yage provides a metaphorical trip or journey, and all journeys are educational in that on them, we encounter things we’ve never seen before. Drinkers agree that when you drink yage, spirits in the area seem to gather to observe you and see what’s happening. All those spirits have different personalities. Some are what’s called evil, and the task of a good shaman leading a ceremony includes keeping them away. Failure to do so could expose the neophyte to their temptation. A shaman teaching students will also act as a guide for the students, bringing them toward higher levels of reality–defined as the levels where the good spirits live, the Ma’temo Bai (Sky People or Heaven People), also called the Winiawai (=eternally youthful people?). These look like little multicolored humans with multiple crowns, and may be compared with angels; perhaps they’re like another tribe of angels. “Shamanic” healing among the Secoyas is often effected through their agency. A third, related task for the shaman/teacher is to sing his or her visions into the cup of yage before handing it to the initiate, enabling the student to see as the teacher sees.

I find this kind of material very interesting, partly because, as you say, it’s so far from our theories. Like everything, maybe, it raises more questions than it answers, and I hope to return to study it again one day. In the meantime, others continue to be more actively involved.