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PLANTS, RITUAL, AND MEDIATION IN THE AYAHUASCA SHAMANISM OF THE PERUVIAN AND ECUADORIAN AMAZON By JAMES C. TAYLOR A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2013 1 © 2013 James C. Taylor 2 To Laurie, who believes in me when I don‟t 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Laurie Taylor, my partner and best friend, who encouraged me to take a risk of a new direction, when I could no longer see my way forward. I thank Robin Wright, who has been a mentor and inspiration to me, supporting my efforts with new ideas, and challenging me to always return to the real ground of what people say, what they do, and how they live. I thank Tod Swanson and his family at Iyarina for an experience of the Runa way of life that changed the way I see the world. I thank Mike Heckenberger, who has challenged me to see the implicit political-ethical responsibility in the act of thinking and writing anthropologically. I thank my family for their support throughout this process. I thank the Center for Latin American Studies for the opportunity to pursue this course of study. I thank the staff of the Latin American Collection at the University of Florida for their friendship and support. And finally I thank the plants of the Amazonian rainforest, for their own unexpected agency in all of this. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................................... 7 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1 CONTEXT AND LITERATURE......................................................................................... 10 Plants and Mediation .......................................................................................................... 10 The Dissemination of a Ritual Complex .......................................................................... 11 Mediation as an Analytic Category................................................................................... 14 Social Plants ........................................................................................................................ 16 Bodies and Healing............................................................................................................. 18 2 EXCHANGE AND ETHNOGENESIS .............................................................................. 23 Networks............................................................................................................................... 23 Geographic Outline of the Region .................................................................................... 24 Contact, Rupture, and Transformation ............................................................................ 29 How to Do History in Amazonia................................................................................. 29 Contact, Disease, Missionization, and Transformation ......................................... 31 Exchange Networks in Amazonia..................................................................................... 39 Exchange Networks on the Ucayali .......................................................................... 43 Exchange Networks on the Napo.............................................................................. 46 Exchange in the Rubber Epoch ........................................................................................ 49 Ethnogenesis ....................................................................................................................... 54 Of Mediators and Brokers .................................................................................................. 60 3 ORIGINS OF AYAHUASCA .............................................................................................. 63 “Ancient Indigenous Tradition” .......................................................................................... 64 Vine, Additives, and Plant Knowledge...................................................................... 64 Ancient or Modern Origin............................................................................................ 69 A Complex of Shared Beliefs and Practices ................................................................... 73 A Space of Encounter between Worlds........................................................................... 79 A Cultural „Mezcla‟ ....................................................................................................... 80 Rivers and Ayahuasca ................................................................................................ 85 Globalization ................................................................................................................. 88 A Question of Mediation ............................................................................................. 94 4 PLANTS AND MEDIATION ............................................................................................... 96 5 A Spectrum of Mediation.................................................................................................... 96 Human Plant Relationships ............................................................................................... 98 Sacha Ambi – Medicinal Plants among the Runa ................................................ 100 Plant Teachers in the Vegetalismo of the Mestizo Shamans of Iquitos ............ 103 Rao among the Shipibo-Conibo .............................................................................. 105 Tobacco .............................................................................................................................. 107 Tobacco in the Americas .......................................................................................... 108 Tobacco and Shamanism in South America ......................................................... 110 Datura ................................................................................................................................. 115 Wanduj......................................................................................................................... 116 Toé ............................................................................................................................... 119 Ayahuasca.......................................................................................................................... 120 The Vine of the Soul .................................................................................................. 123 Ayahuasca in Vegetalismo ....................................................................................... 126 The Nishi Oni of the Shipibo-Conibo ...................................................................... 129 To Be between Worlds ..................................................................................................... 133 5 OF BODIES AND HEALING ........................................................................................... 136 Song and Smoke............................................................................................................... 136 Where to Begin........................................................................................................... 136 Of Suffering and Healing .......................................................................................... 138 The Transformational Body ............................................................................................. 141 A Note on Theory ....................................................................................................... 142 The Body-as-Swarm.................................................................................................. 147 Corporeality – Smoke and Breath ........................................................................... 149 The Suffering Body ........................................................................................................... 151 Social Suffering .......................................................................................................... 151 Sorcery and Violence ................................................................................................ 154 Historical Sorcery ....................................................................................................... 159 The Space of Encounter in Ritual Healing .................................................................... 164 Song and the Suffering of the Shaman .................................................................. 164 Ritual Acts and Acts of Healing ............................................................................... 169 Of Montage and the Body......................................................................................... 173 6 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................... 178 LIST OF REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 189 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ..................................................................................................... 204