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others (Wolf 1991:58; Sharon 1978:3; Luna 1986:33;
Dobkin de Rios 1984:93).
Luna (1991:32) also distinguishes between murayas
and sumirunas, as well as bancos, according to
their mastering of the three basic realms: water, jungle
and sky. A banco according to the same author, is
master of the jungle realm, has contact with the spirits
of the sky, and understands secrets related to the
earth, but he is unable to enter the underwater realm.
Wynand Koch with another painting by Don Francisco
A muraya is, first of all, a master of the water and the
jungle realms. He is knowledgeable about plants and
animals, and is able to live for periods of time in the
subaquatic realm, finding food there. But he is unable
to ascend to the sky. To become a muraya a
practitioner needs to contact the spirits of the water,
such as mermaids, yakurunas, and dolphins.
A sumiruna is the highest degree a vegetalista may
reach, because he or she is able to master all three
realms: jungle, water, and sky. This division is not
generalized in the Peruvian Amazon (Luna 1991:32),
and many people use these three terms as more or less
synonymous. This might be the reason why, in my
conversations with informants, I only encountered the
term banco.
According to Luna (1986:36), vegetalistas are the
only reliable repositories of the Amazonian world
view. He believes that they represent a case of
transitional shamanism, who incorporate more `modern'
elements, and are between two different economic
systems: a subsistence economy (they all have
their chacras) and market economy. Many of my own
informants also made use of Western medicine, and
often prescribed pharmaceutical medicines, which in
most South American countries require no prescription
and are available to anyone who can pay the
price. The process of referring patients to medical
personnel in cases of simple organic disease has its
counterpart in the frequent referrals of patients to the
drug healers by medical doctors attached to the city
hospital and in private practice (Dobkin de Rios
1984:68).
Vegetalistas, due to their possession of an intimate
understanding of the social community in which they
are immersed, and their proficiency in the use of
medicinal plants and healing metaphors, contribute
significantly to the physical and mental health of the
people of rural areas and the urban poor, and they are
often the only help available to them in critical
situations. Illness is generally conceived as the
product of an animated source, either human or
spiritual Ð including the spirits of plants, animals,
and natural phenomena Ð and is produced by
intrusion of pathogenic objects, soul loss, contamination,
or breaching of a taboo (Luna 1991:13).
Vegetalismo is still in Peru today, a very active
practice and vegetalistas are found throughout the
cities and jungle communities. As previously mentioned,
I found a practising vegetalista in virtually
every second casarõÂo which I visited along the stretch
of the RõÂo Napo, between Llachapa and Atu n Cocha. I
visited a total of thirteen villages, over a stretch of
about 80 km. These vegetalistas accommodated an
average of ten patients per week. Only one of these
vegetalistas had someone under training, his wife.
In Iquitos the picture was more favourable with
practising vegetalistas all over the city, especially in
the poorer areas. These vegetalistas had many
patients, with curing sessions sometimes as many as
three times a week. One of my informants, Don
Umberto, even had his own little hospital in town with
twelve beds, with an average of ten patients per day.
Only two of my informants in the city had pupils, the
other five had none, and as DonÄ a Otilia put it: No hay
futuro, (There is no future).
Vocation
Shamans are called to their vocation in different ways.
For some it is a matter of ancestral lineage or
hereditary bonds establishing the person in that
position or a situation where a would-be shaman
seeks initiation from one already established in this
role. In other cases it seems almost as if the spirits
have chosen the shaman, rather than the other way
around. These are the `greater shamans' Ð those who
have been called spontaneously through dreams or
mystical visions to embody supernatural power. Those
who have simply inherited their role are regarded as
`lesser shamans' and hold a lower status in society
(Drury 1982:6).
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