433 Chapter Seven Cosmos For the Matsigenka of Shimaa, kameti ...

and much desired consequence of drinking ayahuasca, since they associate vomiting with
cleansing and seek it as a property in many medicines:
Among the Matsigenka, observation and experimentation with plants has led to empirically-based
perceptions of bitterness, toxicity poison, purging, dizziness, and hallucinogenesis, which are
linked with symbolically laden notions of purification and shamanistic ecstasy in the term kepigari.
(Shepard 1991: 8)
The Matsigenka also include datura (saaro) in their pharmacopoeia. Datura grows
along trails and in housegardens, but the people I spoke to were nervous about datura and used
it in carefully controlled ways. This is because datura is seen as too powerful for regular use.
Most men I spoke to had tried it but once, or not at all (nopinkake, “I am afraid”). Their usual
description of datura was, pogemparora pishiganaka, “You take it, you run away.” Many men
told me about how they took datura and lost control, running disoriented in the forest for several
days until they came out of it or were found and guided back home by relatives. None of the
men I spoke to had taken it more than once.
They prepare datura by boiling the leaves into a thick syrup (seri, “tobacco”). They
soak cotton balls in it and, when dry, store them. When they are ready, they chew and swallow
many of the cotton balls (perhaps 15 to 20). People in Shimaa avoided datura root, which they
regarded as too powerful. They regard datura as a poison (okepigate), and described two
cases of suicide (irogamagakempara ikiro) employing it. For this reason, datura is most likely to
be used in milder preparations. Leaves may be boiled and the steam allowed to bathe the eyes
of a sufferer of conjunctivitis. A single seed of datura may be chewed for headache.
Preparations of leaves are used for fever and for rubbing on body sores.
496