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(which are strictly shamanic in character: magical
flight, swallowing hot coals, and such) (Eliade
1989:323±324).
However, it is rather to his ecstatic capacities than
to his exploits as a magician that the South American
shaman owes his magico-religious position and his
social authority. For his ecstatic capacities enable him,
in addition to his usual prerogative of healing, to make
mystical journeys to the sky to meet the gods directly
and convey men's prayers to them (Eliade 1989:324).
As in Mexico, shamanism in South America tends to
be psychedelic, making frequent use of tropical plants
which contain hallucinogenic alkaloids. Banisteriopsis
spp. vine is widely utilized by South American
shamans in the forests of the Upper Amazon, for the
visions it produces are believed to represent encounters
with supernatural forces (Drury 1982:16±17).
As everywhere else, the essential and strictly
personal function of the South American shaman
remains healing. It is not always wholly magical in
character. The South American shaman knows the
medicinal virtues of plants and animals, employs
massage, and so on. But since, in his view, the vast
majority of illnesses have a spiritual cause Ð that is,
involve either the flight of the soul or a magical object
introduced into the body by spirits or sorcerers Ð he
is obliged to have recourse to shamanic healing
(Eliade 1989:326±327).
The conception of disease as a loss of the soul,
either strayed away or abducted by a spirit or a ghost,
is extremely widespread in the Amazonian and
Andean regions, but appears to be rather rare in
tropical South America. When a soul carried off by
spirits or the dead is sought, the shaman is believed to
leave his body and enter the underworld or the regions
inhabited by the abductor (Eliade 1989:327).
The shaman's ecstatic journey is generally indispensable,
even if the illness is not due to the theft of
the soul by demons or ghosts. The shamanic trance
forms part of the cure; whatever interpretation the
shaman puts on it, it is always by his ecstasy that he
finds the exact cause of the illness and learns the best
treatment (Eliade 1989:328).
The morphology of shamanic cures is almost the
same throughout South America. It includes fumigations
with tobacco, songs, massage of the affected
area of the body, identification of the cause of the
illness by the aid of the helping spirits (at this point
comes the shaman's `trance', during which the
audience sometimes ask him questions not directly
connected with illness), and, finally, extractions of the
pathogenic object by suction (Eliade 1989:329).
South American shamanism still displays a number
of extremely archaic characteristics: initiation through
which ritual death and resurrection of the candidate is
enacted, insertion of magical substances into his
body, celestial ascent to lay the wishes of the whole
society before the supreme god, shamanic healing by
suction or search for the patient's soul, the shaman's
ecstatic journey as psychopomp, the `secret songs'
revealed by God or by animals, more especially birds
(Eliade 1989:331±332).
According to Joralemon (1993:4), the curanderos
of Peru are now referred to as shamans, because their
vocation fits well with classical definitions of shamanic
healers as religious specialists who undergo
controlled trances in a community context. Mestizo
shamanism is a direct continuation of shamanism as it
is found among ethnic groups. It is still an integral part
of peasant religion (Luna 1986:31).
Mestizo shamans are called vegetalistas. The term
would mean, to any person not familiar with the belief
system of these practitioners, an `expert in the use of
plants' (vegetales). This term indicates, however, not
so much the fact that they frequently use plants in
their practice, but refers to the origin of their knowledge:
it comes from the spirit of certain plants
(vegetales), which are the shaman's real teachers
(Luna 1986:14±15). As already mentioned, shamanism
in South America tends to be psychedelic.
Vitebsky (1995:49), mentions in this regard that
mestizo shamans are called vegetalistas because of
their skill with hallucinogenic plants.
The term vegetalista should not be confused with
that of herbalist, which denotes a person knowledge
in the use of medicinal plants. All vegetalistas are
usually also herbalists, in that they know a great deal
about medicinal plants and frequently use them. But
not all herbalists may be called vegetalistas (Luna
1986:15). Wolf (1991:103) points out that vegetalistas
are also versed in the use of medicinal herbs and
plants, but herbalists do not use the psychotropic
plants, nor do they learn from the plant by consuming
the plant during rigorous dietary deprivation.
Vegetalismo and Vegetalistas
A vegetalista is a person who has acquired his
knowledge from a plant, usually referred to as his
doctores, and who uses this plant in his diagnosis and
sometimes also in his healing of patients. Many of
these plants are hallucinogenic. Most vegetalistas
have in common the use of tobacco (also a
hallucinogenic) and ayahuasca, with the purpose of
diagnosing and/or curing illnesses, or of performing
other shamanic tasks such as communicating with the
spirits of plants, animals and human beings (dead or
alive), travelling to distant places, finding lost objects,
divining, and so forth (Luna 1986:16).
When asked why they consume plant-teachers,
vegetalistas say that they do it to `cure' themselves
(curarse). This implies that they consume plantteachers
not only to heal themselves of illness or to
recover the energies of their youth, but also to
`awaken' their minds (McKenna 1995:354).
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