Then, as if on cue, the singing began. The strangest and most beautiful singing I have ever heard. Noemi and two other Ashaninka elders who also drank the broth began to intone the first of the night's many sacred chants, or icaros. The men sang in a lower register, with Noemi singing lead high-pitched melodies that flitted through the air like snakes. Visions of serpents as small dancing squiggles filled my head, whether my eyes were open or not. They would grow in size, disappear, then reappear, according to the music. The snakes were always moving with the melody. They were the melody.
This serpentine vision is the most common one in the Ashaninka Ayahuasca ceremony, and the music is meant to facilitate it. The chants' tones and rhythms were designed to influence and homogenize Ayahuasca visions among the group. "The roots of these songs go back at least 4,000 years, possibly even in close to their modern form," Dilwyn explained the next morning. "Visions of snakes are interpreted as visions of 'madre Ayahuasca,' the genie or spirit of the sacred plant, a conscious being you can talk to and learn things from."
I won't attempt the futile task of attempting to relay what I learned from the Madre. I don't know if it's even possible to bring such insights into the light of the next day. But very broadly, the Madre took me through the usual psychedelic funhouse tunnel of failed relationships, insecurities, fears, regrets, and finally into a place where all of those things are reconciled and then cease to exist. This place was green and fresh and wrapped in vines and watercress. It felt feminine and moist.
The next morning, over a breakfast of bland mantioc root, fresh grapefruit and instant coffee, we talked.
"When I first came here in 1978, the entire village took Ayahuasca on average three or four times a week," says Dilwyn. "Children participated in those days, even babies being given it from their mothers' mouths."
Noemi says she is saddened by the fact that the ceremony is not as popular as it once was, especially among the young. "Now the children take [Ayahuasca] and get scared, they don't like the jungle visions sometimes," she says. "They didn't used to get scared."
Jaime, a young male Ashaninka, attributes the change to the state teachers that are beginning to appear deeper in the jungle to teach the young. They preach Christianity and mock the traditional religion. "They make the children think that the jungle spirits are not real and are something to be feared," he says. "The new generation is pulling away from the old rituals." He also mentions that the Shining Path killed a lot of the old villagers and especially sought out shamans in an attempt to stamp out local traditions and convert the Indians to Maoism.
"The last of the real shamans in the area lives six hours away, alone in the jungle," adds Noemi.
When I ask her what separates her from a "real" shaman, she smiles and looks right into my eyes, as if to say, in her kindhearted Ashaninka way, "If you have to ask, you'll never know."
Alexander Zaitchik is a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist and AlterNet contributing writer.
© 2009 Killing the Buddha All rights reserved.
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