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Common Themes in South American Indian Yage Experiences


Pages: 155 - 175

Abstract

In summary, the meager land dispersed data on the Banisteriopsis drink experience of tropical forest Indians tend to represent the following themes: (I) The soul is felt to separate from the physical body and to make a trip, often with the sensation of flight. (2) Visions of jaguars and snakes, and to a much lesser extent, other predatory animals. (3) A sense of contact with the supernatural, whether with demons, or in the case of missionized Indians, also with God, and Heaven and Hell. (4) Visions of distant persons, "cities" and landscapes, typically interpreted by the Indians as visions of distant reality, i.e., as clairvoyance. (5) The sensation of seeing the detailed enactinent of recent unsolved crimes, particularly homicide and theft, i.e., the experience of believing one is capable of divination. Other experiences which are commonly reported by the Indians include auditory hallucinations and visions of geometric designs, auroras, one's own death, and combats between demons or zoomorphic forms. In addition, the visions seem to involve very bright colors, and the constant changing of shapes as scenes dissolve one into another. Both Jivaro and Conibo-Shipibo Indians who had seen motion pictures told me that the ayahuasca experiences were comparable to the viewing of films, and my own experience was corroboratory. In conclusion, one may note that regularities are found in Banisteriopsis drink experiences between tribes as widespread as the Choco Indians west of the Andes in Colombia and the Tacana Indians east of the Andes in Bolivia. However, all of these Banisteriopsis-using peoples occupy a tropical forest environment and their cultures often share much in content. Given the relative contiguity as well as the environmental and cultural similarities of these tribes, it seems virtually impossible to isolate the nature of the yagé -induced experience from its cultural context on the basis of these ethnographic data alone.