| There are two variants of the shamanic sects of Iboga healing. In this entheogenic area we have the MBiri, led by women and the Bwiti which is led by men. (75) The subtle differences between the rituals can be seen in the seating positions that the initiates take. In MBiri the members sit facing the entrance with a mirror positioned there while they wait for their ancestors to appear. In Bwiti the members sit with their backs to the entrance, waiting for the manifestations. In MBiri the women are dominant, but in Bwiti there is no hierarchy, though it is led by men and they honor the female as the creator of the universe. (76) Ayahuasca: The Vine of Telepathy The tribal use of Ayahuasca in the area of South America is well known. What is not so well known is how the natives figured out how to mix and brew this combination of plants. It takes both the plant with DMT in it and the plant with harmaline in it, to make the proper mixture and when asked about how they discovered this, the natives say, “the plants told us.” A combination of Mimosa Hostilis (DMT) and Banisteriopsis Caapi (harmaline) would work as well as Acacias (DMT) with Syrian Rue (harmaline). There are other combinations as well. These can have slightly differing effects also. The other combination would logically be Acacias (DMT) combined with Banisteriopsis Caapi (Harmaline). There are many other combinations too, but these are the most popularly known with the highest potential for alkaloids available. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff writes about the origin of ayahuasca in a myth of the Desana of the Tukano clan, at a place called the House of the Waters where yage was born: “There appeared a woman named gahpi-mahso, Yaje Woman. While the men were gathered inside the house, drinking chichi (maize beer), she gave birth to a child in front of the house. The infant turned out to be the Yaje plant. The woman brought the child into the house, which caused great consternation among the men. It had a human shape, but, according to the myth, ‘the child had the form of light, it was human but it was light, it was yaje.’ When they saw the child, the men stood as if intoxicated, because ‘… the woman suffocated them with visions,’ ‘Who is the father of this child?,’ she demanded. One man sitting in the corner with saliva trickling from his mouth tore off the child’s right arm and shouted, ‘I am!’ The others followed suit; they grabbed the child and tore him limb from limb, scattering his parts. They seized the umbilical cord and … our ancestors obtained yaje.” In his notes, Dolmatoff writes, “The myth of the origin of Yaje exemplifies a cycle of widely distributed myths that deal with a bloody sacrifice in which a group of men participates, and from which subsequently there emerges something of benefit to mankind. For an Old World example, see the myth of Dionysius. The first Peyote of Huichol mythology is similarly dismembered, as was the Pygmy who became the first hallucinogenic eboka plant of the Fang of Gabon.” (77) |
As I mentioned previously, the vessel is considered the womb and the liquid carried in it is thought to be fertile. Dolmatoff writes about the Tukano people and their use of ritual vessels for yaje: “The Tukano view this stone as a ‘phallus which shapes’ the vessel, which in turn is considered to be a uterine receptacle. As a matter of fact, the Yaje pot represents the uterus, the maternal womb, and hence is a cosmic model of transformation and gestation. On the outside the vessel is decorated with a series of polychrome designs in white, yellow, and red. The first two colors represent the principle of fertilization, while the third symbolizes fecundity. On the cylindrical base there is sometimes a pained vagina and clitoris, symbolizing the ‘door’.” (78) The Tukano still to this day cover the fronts of their houses with large geometric paintings made with mineral pigment painted onto walls of bark. They tell us that these are the visions they see when they take ayahuasca. They call them the gahpi gohori, “the yage images.” The Tukano decorate their utensils, pottery, benches, rattles, drums and trumpets with them as well. (79) In Ecuador the Jivaro are familiar with the traditional use of this entheogen. They believe that the reality created by the use of the mixture is the only true reality. In other words, we have our waking state of consciousness and the altered state of the shaman in the other world. The Jivaro believe the “other world” is the true reality and this waking state of consciousness is “a lie” or a false reality. The world of the supernatural to them, is the natural world. (80) Some people refer to this place or space as “dreamtime.” What people experience on DMT and Ayahuasca-like entheogens is shaped by factors such as their environment and cultural background, but certain themes can be said to be constantly recurring. Kenneth M. Kessinger documents the familiarity of “brightly colored, large snakes,” “jaguars and leopards,” “spirits of the plant,” “large, and often falling trees,” “lakes, usually with anacondas and alligators,” “villages of other natives,” “traders and their goods” and “gardens” among the native Jivaro of Ecuador. Particular hallucinations tend to wax and wane with time and time and space are greatly distorted. (81) (75) Flesh of the Gods, p. 241 (76) ibid, p. 246-47 (77) ibid, p. 94 (78) Flesh of the Gods, p. 99 (79) ibid, p. 104 (80) Hallucinogens and Shamanism, p. 6 (81) ibid, p. 12 |