The present volume contains fifty texts of the Desana Indians. Refering to the mythical and historical origins of this rain forest tribe of the Colombian Northwest Amazon. The texts were recorded by me in the field , between 1966 and 1969, from four Desana shamans. Among all Tukanoan peoples the use of such powerful psychotropic plants as Ballisteriopsis is a collective ritual occasion. During their trance states the men see themselves returning to the mythical Time of Creation: they see themselves travelling inside the anaconda canoe, visiting falls and pools, hills and caves, all the sacred landmarks of Time and Space. They will relive the Creation of Man in the turbulent womb of the Lake of Milk ; they will die and be reborn at Ipanore , and over the din and confusion of dance and song they will hear the Sun Father's stick rattle, on his search for the center, for the precise spot where mankind would at last find its dwelling place. In their night they will leave behind the sublunary sphere and penetrate beyond the Milky Way, into other landscapes and time dimensions. The importance of hallucinatory drugs is aII-pervading in Desana society and in shamanistic ideology. The drug experience is not only a personal quest for transcendancy, but it is a dimension of existence which is just as valid as that of our so-called everyday reality.