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true hallucinations.htm
Basilio insisted that the ayahuasca was a day upriver at his father's malloca, or house. He had a small canoe, so only two of us could go with
him. After consultation, it was decided that Ev and I should go. We left at once for the river and I took my film canister of snuff with us.
The day was calm and the sky blue. An extraordinary peace and depthless serenity seemed to touch everything. It was as if the whole earth
was softly exhaling its exhilaration. Had such a mood
developed no further it would have passed into being but a pleasant memory; in light of later events, I now look back to that afternoon of
deepening contentment and almost bucolic relaxation as the first faint stirring of a current that was shortly to sweep me toward unimaginably
titanic emotions.
When we arrived at Basilio's village late in the day, we found our new Witoto acquaintances very kind, a different sort from the Witoto of San
Jose del Encanto. We were shown a matted tangle of cultivated ayahuasca plants and given cuttings and a bundle of the vine so that we could
make our own brew. Basilio described to us his own single experience with ayahuasca when, several years before, after days of fever from an
unknown cause, he had taken it with his father. He described the ayahuasca as a cold water infusion, rare for that area, where vigorous boiling
usually plays a part in the preparation. After soaking the shredded ayahuasca for a day and a night, the unboiled water becomes
hallucinogenically potent. There had been many "fences" to cross in Basilio's visions. He had a sense of flying. The father had seen the "bad
air" that had weakened his son as coming from the mission, which was recognized as a place of ill omen. After this experience, Basilio
recovered his health and was less often at the mission, he told us. It was all very interesting, our first exposure to "field conditions," and it
accorded well with our data on ayahuasca usage and beliefs in the area.
We hung our hammocks in a small hut near the main malloca that night. I dreamed offences and the pasture back at the mission. Early the next
morning we were rowed back to the mission by Basilio. Our collections of Banisteriopsis caapi were reason enough for pride, but again I felt
the elation whose depth could not be found.
"Peculiar," I muttered to myself as we swung into sight of the mission overlooking its placid lake, with a row of date palms sweeping up from
the boat landing.
"Peculiar."
CHAPTER FIVE
A BRUSH WITH THE OTHER
In which we move to a new home, and Dennis has a bizarre experience that divides our group.
RETURNING TO OUR FRIENDS, we learned that during the day that we were gone some teachers, professores who had been expected to
arrive to teach in the mission school, had finally appeared. They had been ferried in by a bush pilot, the notorious George Tsalikas, who
served as La Chorrera's emergency link to the outside world and who brought the mail once a month. This meant that we needed new lodging,
since we had been staying in the professores' quarters. The priest offered us the temporary use of a run-down hut that stood on stilts on a small
rise below the mission, though it was well above the broad lake created by the chorro. It was in this small hut, instantly christened "the knoll
house," that we proposed to live while we made arrangements to move farther into the nearby jungle and away from the somewhat confining
atmosphere of the mission. That morning we rested, passed a joint around, and planned our next move.
Dave and Vanessa had learned in conversations with Brother Luis, a white-bearded ancient who was the only other resident representative of
the Church aside from Father Jose Maria, that there
was a quite sturdy Witoto house which was unused and lying down the trail toward the village where our hopes for oo-koo-he centered. It
normally stood empty but was now occupied by the people who had brought their children to the mission for the beginning of the school year.
It is the practice of the Witoto to leave their children in the keeping of the padres for six or more months out of the year; the times of gathering
at the mission at the beginning and end of the school year are high points of the Witoto social swirl and an excuse for soccer games and
evening bailes, for the Witoto are inveterate dancers. We were in the midst of such a gathering time, but in a few days all the families would
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