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ecome quite rich and powerful, such as one who was arrested in Pucalpa for the illegal
practice of medicine and who had to be released due to the political manifestations that
followed.
A vegetalista may often act as a moral arbiter in a community and attribute the cause of certain
common problems to certain types of misconduct and single out individuals as perpetrators of
evil deeds and, therefore, as deserving punishment. This may then occur either through
counterwitchcraft or through more direct action.
One of the aspects of shamanism that becomes obvious from these accounts is that, although it
may keep its traditional Indian roots, mestizo shamanism in the Amazon region is very dynamic
and malleable, and has been able to adapt itself admirably to the new conditions brought about
by urbanization and by the attacks on Indian culture.
Although few of the old shamans have been able to leave successors with the same degree of
knowledge about plants and the forest cosmology, the use of ayahuasca persists. New types
of shamans appear, who are less individualistic in their methods and more concerned with the
collective aspects of the shamanic experience. Luna and Dobkin de Rios briefly mention a
new generation of ayahuasqueros who no longer sing their icaros alone, but are accompanied
instead by all those taking part in the sessions, like what happens in the Santo Daime
ceremonies.
The decline of the traditional Amazonian knowledge is made up for by the borrowing of
elements taken from European, African and even Oriental traditions. Nowadays it is common to
find elements of rosacrucianism, gnosticism, Kardecist spiritism, and umbandism (an Afro-
Brazilian religion) interweaving shamanic practices. In the place of the old solitary healers, there
are now hierarchical institutionalized religions. And the old notions about forest spirits coexist
with modern ecological conceptions.
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