The Mind of Plants: Book launch by Synergetic Press on December 15

  --Synergetic Press has just released The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence, edited by John C. Ryan, Patricia Vieira and Monica Gagliano, and with a foreword by Dennis McKenna. Here is the jacket blurb I wrote for the book:

From apples to Ayahuasca, from spinach to Xiang-Si, this wide-ranging collection serves up forty essays and fourteen poems that, each in its own singular voice, collectively meditate on how and why plants scratch, sting, enchant, nourish, illuminate, intoxicate and enslave us. The contributors—including biologists, ethnobotanists, chemists, physicians, anthropologists, philosophers, writers and artists from diverse cultural backgrounds—enliven the emerging field of study on plant intelligence by interweaving poetry, personal stories, scientific findings and spiritual insights, sometimes within the same entry. Authors Jeremy Narby and Prudence Gibson invite us to “vegetalize” our thinking as well as our writing, while Alex Gearin warns of the dangers of projecting human intentions onto the radical otherness that constitutes the plant mind, lest we “reckless sorcerers of the Anthropocene” leave the world a sadder place. Equal parts herbal manual and alchemical spell book, this beautifully illustrated volume will appeal to scientists, shamans and poets alike. 

Join the editors for a conversation on December 15th at 1 PM PST. 

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Unlikely Blessings: A poem on hope, despair and periwinkle

 This poem, written fifteen years ago as my youngest son began (thankfully successful) chemotherapy for a rare immune system disease, was recently published for the first time by Sapiens.

"Salvation can be danger thinly veiled"

Unlikely Blessings

Peace can be a sky-blue hospice with daffodils

a grave green lawn for innocents

bald and serene as Buddhist monks

Happiness can be written in Chinese

on a decal clinging to a jade bar of soap

at the visitors’ sink

Beauty can be simple and fragile as children laughing

the play of skin and shadow

under the unknowing sun

Fate can be exactly the size and shape of an olive

diagnosis or misdiagnosis

a surgeon squinting over a slide

Salvation can be danger thinly veiled

caustic milk of the periwinkle

halfway from malignant to benign

Faith can be a near empty chapel

waiting for you to get desperate enough

to sing with the others Ha-ha-hallelujah

Hope can be the worst kind of houseguest

hanging between the quick and the damned

counting unlikely blessings

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Listen to my reading of the poem at Soundcloud.

Learn more about the composition of this poem, and how it was inspired by the work of Paul Celan, at Sapiens.

See my previous blog post about my son's chemotherapy with vinblastine, a cancer-treating drug derived from traditional medicine: "Three Cheers for Periwinkle!"

Read the prize-winning poem "The Fish Trap" featured last year by Sapiens for World Poetry Day.

Read my coronavirus haiku, "Yellow Jessamine." 

Catching up with Glenn Shepard: Interview to launch benefit photography sale with Linda Matney Gallery

This interview launches a new partnership with Linda Matney Gallery. Proceeds from the sale of selected photographs will directly support vital health services including emergency Covid-19 prevention aid for the indigenous peoples of Manu National Park.

1. What is your connection with the Linda Matney Gallery and John Lee Matney?

I have known “Lee” since second grade and we have been friends ever since. Lee was always an avid photographer and had his own darkroom in the basement of his house. He taught me how to shoot, develop and print black and white film when I was about twelve years old. Lee’s first photos were artistic closeups of everyday objects, which his father referred to jokingly as “doorknobs.” His instinct of using the camera to look at the world in new ways was an influence on me since the very beginning.We both worked on the school newspaper and I remember he took dramatic photographs of the remarkably professional theater productions at our school’s drama department. Lee’s mother Linda was a kind and generous woman, she always had a smile on her face and a meal on her table. She had excellent taste in art and antiques, and she and my mother were dear friends. We both lost our mothers in their prime, and that has been another bond in our friendship over the years. I was happy when he opened his own gallery and named it after his mother. We went our separate ways after college, but always stayed in touch. And when Lee moved back to the Tidewater area after living many years in Athens, we renewed our friendship whenever I was home visiting my parents. We have collaborated on several creative projects over the years, including gallery exhibits of my photographs and collection of ethnographic objects from the Amazon, fund-raising events for indigenous causes and a prize-winning avant-garde film.

Taking aim. Manu National Park, 1992. 
Purchase the fine art print.

2. Give us some background about your use of photography in your work

I am an anthropologist and ethnobotanist, and I have traveled and carried out fieldwork with different indigenous peoples throughout the world, including Bedouin tribes in Jordan, hill tribes of northern Thailand, Mayan peoples of southern Mexico and numerous indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. Though I have always used photography to document the scientific aspects of my work, from indigenous healing ceremonies to medicinal plants, I always saw photography as a way to express aspects of my experiences in different cultures that don’t come across in dry, scientific studies. I especially enjoy taking portraits of people that I know. A photographic subject whom you have known for years looks at the camera in a very different way than someone who is encountering a journalistic photographer for the first time. I appreciate it when this sense of trust and familiarity comes across in my photos, such that their subjects appear first and foremost as friends, companions, fellow humans who share their experiences with a knowing glance.

Elena. Manu National Park, 1992.

3. Comment on how art intersects with your work and your life in Brazil and Peru.

Before the days of digital photography, I would always travel to the field with equal numbers of rolls of color and black and white film. Of course, surrounded by the lush colors of the tropical rainforest I would usually shoot up all my color film first, and then be left with only black and white for the second half of my trip. As frustrating as it was to run out of color film hundreds of miles and months away from the nearest film store, I always appreciated this forcing of black and white film upon myself when returning to develop the photos. As beautiful as the colors of the tropical rainforest are, and as useful are the chrome slides I used to present my work in the days before PowerPoint, I always found the black and white photos to have a more abstract and timeless feel to them, pushing aside all the distractions of color to get at the true essence of form, composition and human connection.

Ayahuasca vine. Manu National Park, 1992. 
Purchase the fine art print.

4. Comment on your piece in the New York Review of Books about Martin Gusinde's photography in the book The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego. What are your personal feelings about Gusinde's photographs? How does that work inspire you?

I was delighted when the New York Review approached me about reviewing a collection of Martin Gusinde’s ethnographic photographs published by Thames & Hudson. Many professional photographers don’t understand the first thing about anthropology, and most anthropologists are even worse at photography than photographers are at anthropology. Gusinde is that rare talent who was able to capture the surrealistic quality of the ritual life of native peoples of Tierra del Fuego in high-quality artistic images, while also conducting meticulous documentation of the last vestiges of their ceremonies before the people succumbed to disease and acculturation. His photographs speak to that unique dynamic of truly anthropological photography which is to capture our fundamental shared humanity while also respecting the deep and beautiful cultural differences that make human life so diverse and fascinating. 

Yanomami headman making an arrow point. Marari River, Brazil, 2004.

You also reviewed Davi Kopenawa's book The Falling Sky for the New York Review. Tell us about that book.

The autobiography of Yanomami shaman and philosopher Davi Kopenawa, The Falling Sky, is one of the great works of anthropology of the 21st century. Rather than using academic jargon, anthropologist/translator Bruce Albert takes advantage of his deep understanding of the Yanomami language and his long friendship with Davi to craft an elegant, direct, first-person narrative told in Davi’s own voice, as selected and edited from over 100 hours of audiotape that Albert had recorded over many years. The book provides a vivid account of Davi’s shamanic visions while also presenting his philosophical reflections on his own people’s world view. It also presents a passionate appeal for indigenous rights and a condemnation of the damage brought by missionaries and gold miners.


5. Comment on your own photography as art and the new works we are presenting

I was a slow convert to digital photography, precisely because I enjoyed the luminosity of color chromes as well as the abstract quality of black and white. I was always a big fan of the alchemical magic of darkroom work, and the ability to control every square inch of the print. I didn’t buy my first digital camera until 2007 when I got back from the field and literally spent three months tracking down a lab to develop my film. But once I began to get used to the new technology, I appreciated the way digital photography takes away so many constraints imposed by film photography, from rationing your film stock to missing photos in low light settings. So I am especially excited over this new collaboration with Linda Matney Gallery to go back to my old black and white negatives while also reworking some of my more recent digital images in monochrome.

Baby doll. Manu National Park, 2007.

6. Comment on your poetry and other fiction

From a young age I always wanted to be a writer. I saw a career in anthropology as a way of gathering tales and adventures to write about when I get too old to travel. But even in my academic writing I try to make use of my story-telling skills to share the experience of cultural difference in a direct way that hopefully anyone could read and appreciate. I have always tried to avoid using theoretical jargon in my writing, and won a number of anthropology writing awards for this more accessible and evocative style of writing. In 2011, I became so frustrated with the straight jacket of academic jargon that I created my blog, Notes from the Ethnoground. I had submitted an article to an anthropological journal, with the explicit intention of relating indigenous concepts through stories without using abstract jargon. The article was sent back requesting precisely the kind of theoretical discussion I was hoping to avoid, so I gave up on trying to rework the text and began writing short posts about my experiences in the field using accessible language and plenty of photos as well. In 2014, my first “ethno-fictional” short story, about a villager who turned into a jaguar, won a prize from the Society for Anthropology and Humanism. I hope to continue writing fiction that is firmly grounded in actual cultural experiences. I also wrote lots of poetry when I was younger, and occasionally produce new poems usually based on my experiences in indigenous cultures. Recently, my poem The Fish Trap was recognized by Sapiens.org to honor World Poetry Day.

Forest overlook. Manu National Park, Peru, 1995.

7. Tell me about how you have used your anthropological knowledge and photographic skills to help the indigenous communities where you have worked.

I have always felt a deep responsibility to provide practical assistance to the indigenous communities that have been so generous and patient with me through the years. When the Discovery Channel film that I worked on, Spirits of the Rainforest, won two Emmys in 1993, I worked through Peruvian and New York based NGOs to hold a fund raising event that benefited the community political organizations and health post. More recently I have worked with the non-profit organization Rainforest Flow to bring sustainable clean water, sanitation and hygiene projects to these remote communities, transforming their health status. Curiously, Nancy Santullo, director and founder of Rainforest Flow, was formerly a successful commercial photographer. For the past fifteen years, we have used our photography to document and spread the word about the project and draw attention to the health needs in these communities. We appreciate the support of Linda Matney Gallery over the years in hosting various fund-raising initiatives for this project. 

Because of this long term work in these communities, and the established relationship of trust and collaboration, Rainforest Flow is in a unique position to help prevent the deadly Covid-19 virus from entering Manu Park. I helped Rainforest Flow mobilize early communications between communities and park authorities to institute an immediate lockdown even before the Peruvian government took preventative action. There are currently no Covid-19 infections in any of the native communities where we work. However indigenous high school students studying outside the reserve have been stranded far from their home villages and need food, protective equipment, medicine, information, support and transportation to a safe place to carry out their quarantine. Rainforest Flow is creating an emergency Covid-19 relief fund to continue this vital work with native communities and Manu Park authorities to maintain the quarantine and develop safe protocols for the delivery of badly needed equipment and assistance. 

Safe water. Manu National Park, 2015.

Proceeds from selected photographs sold will benefit a community health and hygiene project, including vital Covid-19 prevention, in the same native communities where these photos were taken.  

---Visit the benefit photography sale on Artsy---

Toé (Brugmansia suaveolens): The Path of Day and Night [excerpt]

The Path of Day

Henchi, a young man from a remote Matsigenka native community in Peru's Manu National Park, left home one morning to go hunting in the vast and preserved Amazon rainforest around his village. It rained, and towards the end of the day when he had not returned, his relatives got worried and went out to look for him. They found Henchi, half-conscious, bruised and cut by palm thorns, sprawled at the base of a large Pouteria tree, a favorite fruit of monkeys. He had climbed into the treetops to recover a monkey, fatally shot with an arrow, that had gotten stuck in the branches. But he slipped on the wet bark and fell more than fifty feet to the ground. Henchi's spine was broken in several places, he couldn’t move and was in great pain, oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness, between life and death. Everyone, including Henchi himself, thought he wasn't going to survive.

His relatives carried him back to the village, rolled up in a mat. The village's most respected shaman prepared a potent infusion made by boiling the stem-pith of a specimen of Brugmansia suaveolens from his garden. A Datura relative known in English as white angel’s trumpet, the plant is called toé or floripondio in the Peruvian Amazon. In the Matsigenka dialect of the Urubamba river it is known as saaro, while in the dialect spoken in Manu and Alto Madre de Dios the name is hayapa or jayapa, a word that seems to be a loan from the unrelated Huachipaeri language. On many occasions, especially when they are near an actual toé plant in their house patio, the Matsigekna may call it merely kepigari, which means “poison, intoxicating.” As is the case for other shamanic plants like ayahuasca, the Matsigenka refrain from using the plant's proper name when in close proximity to it as a way of showing respect for its spirit owner. The shaman offered Henchi a small gourd with a few ounces of  the toé decoction, and he entered a week-long trance of induced coma. Henchi remembers almost nothing that happened during that first dose of toé: he was “dead” (in the Matsigenka language, death and loss of consciousness are synonymous) for a week. 

"The 'mother' of the plant appeared..."
La India de los Floripondios: Alfredo Ramos Martinez, 1932.

When he woke up, the shaman asked if he was still in pain. Henchi said yes, and so the shaman made another dose of about the same size, and he spent another week in trance. This time, Henchi said that a group of small, happy people appeared, the invisible forest spirits that the Matsigenka call Saankariite, the “Invisible” or “Pure Ones.” They approached him singing and playing musical instruments. The "mother" of the plant appeared, a smiling woman dressed in a cushma, a native cotton tunic with geometric paintings. She blew tobacco smoke onto his body, sucked on his body in several places to extract palm thorns that were still inside, causing pain, and then flew with him to a distant city. There, doctors, nurses and mechanics in white uniforms took care of him, giving him medicines, healing his injuries and "welding" his spine with metalworking tools. 

When he awoke again a week later, the shaman asked if he was still in pain. Henchi said he was better, but still felt pain. The shaman made another bowl of toé tea for him, and Henchi went into a trance again and spent another week unconscious, visiting the fantastic world of the spirits and receiving their miraculous healing powers. After three doses of toé, and three weeks of psychedelic coma, Henchi was no longer in much pain, and could move a little. Over the months, he gradually regained her strength, and in less than a year had returned to his normal activities. With his spine broken and "soldered" in several places, he remains hunchbacked, but he lives a mostly normal life, taking care of his garden, hunting and fishing, raising his children and drinking his masato (manioc beer). He acknowledges that toé, with its powerful "mother" spirit, saved his life. Considering the great distance of this remote village to the nearest hospital, and the limited medical resources at the local health post, Henchi's story is truly a miracle of traditional medicine.

“With his spine broken and ‘soldered’ in several places, he remains hunchbacked, but he lives a mostly normal life… Henchi's story is truly a miracle of traditional medicine.” 

The Path of Night

Simón was one of the most talented students in his village. He had big plans to study nursing in the regional capital, Puerto Maldonado, and then return home to work in the local health post in his own community. But the course of study was difficult and highly competitive, and his family couldn’t afford to maintain him in the city, where everything has a price. He eventually returned to his community, disappointed and frustrated. Like many indigenous youth people who leave their villages during their formative years to study or work in urban centers, Simón found himself in a cultural Catch-22: lacking the appropriate academic and professional background to compete in the university setting or the urban labor market, but also no longer accustomed to the pace of village life. Simón, who was not only intelligent but also handsome and charming, married and separated several times, and had affairs and children with several women.

Feeling confused, Simón decided to prepare toé for himself. The Matsigenka use toé to resolve multiple kinds of problems in their lives, whether health disorders, social or spiritual maladjustments, or even, in some cases, to locate lost or stolen belongings. Simón's grandfather was the same shaman who cured Henchi with toé, so Simon knew how to prepare the plant. He took the medicine and spent a few days walking in trance through the forest. But instead of absorbing the plant’s lessons and solving the problems in his life, Simón became "addicted" to toé, according to family members. While Matsigenka value toé as a powerful medicine for resolving various types of health and personal problems, they show great respect for the plant and are careful to avoid overindulgence. The Matsigenka say that toé has a treacherous side, that the plant’s mother is seductive, and may take a frequent user down the dark path, tempting them with the forbidden teachings of witchcraft.

And so it was with Simón. He began taking toé frequently, alone or in combination with ayahuasca. During manioc beer drinking parties, he would rip off a toé stalk (almost every Matsigenka house has a toé plant in the backyard in case of emergencies) and chew on it until he got “crazy.” One day, his newest wife had a fit of jealousy when she heard rumors that he was seeing one of his ex-wives. They argued, and Simón fled the house saying, "I'll take ‘the poison’ [i.e., toé] until I can't see anymore." He made a strong dose of toe and disappeared into the woods. Three days passed, and his body was found in an abandoned field a few miles downstream. Witnesses say the body had a strange green color, which they attribute to his toé intoxication. Some say it was suicide, others say the toé tricked him in a dangerous game of seduction…

...A painted textile of the Shipibo people of the Ucayali basin in Peru shows the toé plant growing along the bodies of two snakes, one red and one black, connected by a rainbow. The title of the painting is “The Path of Day and Night,” highlighting the widespread perception of toé in indigenous Amazonia as a plant with astonishing but ambiguous powers, often associated with witchcraft and sorcery.... 

“A painted textile of the Shipibo people of the Ucayali basin in Peru shows the toé plant growing along the bodies of two snakes, one red and one black, connected by a rainbow.”

Hayapa: The Highest Authority

...Brugmansia is considered the strongest and most toxic (kepigari) of all the plants in the Matsigenka pharmacopoeia (Shepard, 1998, 2005a). Unlike ayahuasca, which is taken frequently, usually in groups including the healer and / or patient, Brugmansia is taken rarely, usually alone and only by the patient. Frequent use of Brugmansia is considered very dangerous, leading to death or madness. Brugmansia is the last resort, the highest medical authority reserved for the most drastic cases. The shaman, healer or a respected family member prepares the potion and is responsible for watching over the person during the course of intoxication. The potion is prepared with great care, attention and respect. A branch of the plant is broken by hand (it should not be cut with a metal tool, which would offend the spirit of the plant) and a few inches of the pith is scraped out. The scraped material is boiled in water for fifteen minutes or more, or steamed at high temperatures in a banana or other plant leaf. The potion is brewed away from the household to avoid contamination or impurities that could kill the patient. Doses are measured very carefully in drops or small gourds, as even a small dose can last from one night to three days. An overdose can make you hallucinate for weeks or months, go crazy for the rest of your life, or die.
The effects of Brugmansia and other psychoactive Solanaceae are very different from those of other shamanic preparations like ayahuasca, Psilocybe mushrooms, or peyote. The different tropane alkaloids present, which vary in their relative concentrations depending on the species or variety, plant part, and form of preparation, combine to create a unique visionary state…

“Doses are measured very carefully in drops or small gourds, as even a small dose can last from one night to three days. An overdose can make you hallucinate for weeks or months, go crazy for the rest of your life, or die.”

The person under the influence of Brugmansia looks like a somnambulist, walking and dreaming with their eyes open, unable to distinguish between the material world around them and the juxtaposed visions of the spirit world. They wander through the dark forest at night with ease, their vision illuminated by the eternal sun in the realm of spirits. The person often feels thirsty and hot, removing their clothes and leaving them strewn in the bush. A patient with a chronic or apparently incurable disease may disappear for several days, walking away to the realm of the invisible Saankariite villages. There, shamans, healers, or “Madre Toé” herself, treat the patient by massaging and sucking the body to remove intrusive objects or revealing the sorcerer or evil spirits responsible for the illness. Sometimes the patient reports being taken by car or plane to distant cities where they treated by “white” doctors and nurses who use modern tools and machinery.

The Saankariite and especially the Mother of Toé are powerful, but they are also mischievous, and sometimes treacherous. Small, “child-sized,” these beings may reveal profound knowledge, but they can also play games with the patient, tricking the person into drinking sand like water, or eating leaves like food. Wide paths through the forest open and then close in a tangle of vegetation. Great vistas illuminate and vanish. Wise, other-worldly characters appear, speak profound and mysterious words, then suddenly disappear with a sad gaze into a handful of bones, dry branches and leaves, taking the cosmic revelations back to oblivion. Jaguars, monsters, evil giants and witches block the way, threaten, chase. The Saankariite have a lot to offer, but may also ask for concessions in return. With overuse, the toé plant’s spirit “owner” may tempt the person with dangerous sorcery teachings, or deceive them with false promises or deadly challenges.

When the effect passes and one returns to the material world, very little is remembered of the fantastical experiences of the spirit world: it all seems like a vague dream…

“The title of the painting is ‘The Path of Day and Night,’ highlighting the widespread perception of toé in indigenous Amazonia as a plant with astonishing but ambiguous powers, often associated with witchcraft and sorcery”

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Excerpted and translated from chapter 6 in: 

B. Labate and S. Goulart (Eds.) O uso de plantas psicoativas nas Américas. 

Rio de Janeiro: Gramma/NEIP, 2019. 372 pgs.

This excerpt was first published by The Ethnobotanical Assembly, September 2019.

Download Portuguese and English excerpts at Academia.edu

See also the 2004 documentary film A Figueira do Inferno ("The Fig from Hell") about the use of this plant by indigenous and Afro-Brazilian healers in northeast Brazil

Cite as: Shepard, Glenn H. Jr. (2017) “Toé (Brugmansia suaveolens): o caminho do dia e o caminho da noite.” In: O Uso de Plantas Psicoativas Nas Américas, edited by Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Sandra Lucia Goulart. São Paulo: Compania das Letras, 121–136.

Full Chapter Bibliography:

BAER, Gerhard (1984) Die Religion der Matsigenka, Ost Peru. Basel: Wepf & Co. AG Verlag.

_____ (1992) “The one intoxicated by tobacco: Matsigenka shamanism,” in: MATTESON-LANGDON, Jean & BAER, Gerhard (Eds.). Portals of Power: Shamanism in South America. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, pp. 79-100.

BENNETT, Beverly Y. (1991) “Illness and Order: Cultural Transformation among the Machiguenga and Huachipaeri.”  PhD Thesis. Ithaca, NY: Dept. Anthropology, Cornell University. 

BROWN, Michael F. (1978) “From Hero’s Bones: Three Aguaruna Hallucinogens and their Uses”, in: FORD, Richard I. (Ed.). The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany. Anthropological Papers, vol. 67. Ann Arbor: Anthropology Museum, University of Michigan, pp. 119-136.

CAMINO, Alejandro (1977). “Trueque, correrías e intercambio entre los Quechas Andinos y los Piros y Machiguenga de la montaña peruana”. Amazonia Peruana, 1(2), pp. 123-140. 

CASTRO DE LA MATA et al. (2012). “Independent Advisory Panel on Development Issues in South-Central Peru – 2011-2012 Report.” Lima: Centro de Sustentabilidade Ambiental, Universidad Peruano Cayetano Heredia (relatório, 53 páginas). http://www.southperupanel.org/front/report

EDWARDS, David P. et al. (2009). “A plant needs its ants like a dog needs its fleas’: Myrmelachista schumanni ants gall many tree species to create housing.” The American Naturalist, 174(5), pp. 734-740.

FURST, Peter (Ed.) (1972). Hallucinogens and culture: the ritual use of hallucinogens. New York: Praeger Publishers.

HARNER, Michael (1972). “The role of hallucinogenic plants in European witchcraft”, in: HARNER, Michael (Ed.). Hallucinogens and shamanism. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 123-150.

JOHNSON, Allen W. (1983) “Machiguenga gardens,” in: HAMES, R. e VICKERS, W. (Eds.). Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians. New York: Academic Press, pp. 29–63.

_____ (2003). Families of the Forest The Matsigenka Indians of the Peruvian Amazon. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. 

JOHNSON, Orna R. & Allen W. Johnson (1975) “Male-female relations and the organization of work in a Machiguenga community”. American Ethnologist, 2(4), pp. 634-638.

OPAS, Minna (2001) Time and kinship: representations of temporality among the Piro women of Eastern Peru. MA thesis. Finland: Department of Comparative Religion, University of Turku. 

RENARD-CASEVITZ, France-Marie; SAIGNES T.H. e TAYLOR, A.C. (1988). Al Este de los Andes: Relaciones entre las Sociedades Amazónicas y Andinas entre los Siglos XV y XVII. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala/IFEA.

ROSENGREN, Dan (1987). In the Eyes of the Beholder: Leadership and the Social Construction of Power and Dominance among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon. Goteborg: Goteborgs etnografiska museum.

_____ (1998) “Matsigenka myth and morality: Notions of the social and the asocial”. Ethnos, 63(2), pp. 248-272.

RUDGELY, R. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances. New York: St. Martin's Press. 

SCHULTES, Richard E. & HOFFMAN, Alfred (1972). The Botany and chemistry of hallucinogens. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

_____ (1992). Plants of the Gods: their sacred. Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers. Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press. 

SHEPARD, Glenn H. Jr. (1987). “Ancient Visions of Healing, Hopes for Modern Health: A Medical Ethnography of Rival Peruvian Villages.” Senior Thesis. Princeton University. 

_____ (1998). “Psychoactive Plants and Ethnopsychiatric Medicines of the Matsigenka.” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 30(4), pp. 321-332.

_____ (1999). “Shamanism and diversity: A Matsigenka perspective”, in: POSEY, D.A. (Ed.). Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity. London: United Nations Environmental Programme and Intermediate Technology Publications (Supplement to the U.N.E.P. Global Biodiversity Assessment), pp. 93-95.

_____ (2002). “Primates in Matsigenka subsistence and worldview”, in: FUENTES, A. & L. Wolfe (Eds.). Primates Face to Face. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, pp. 101-136.

_____ (2004a). “A sensory ecology of illness and therapy in two Amazonian societies.” American Anthropologist, 106(2), pp. 252-266.

_____ (2004b). “Native Central and South American shamanism”, in: WALTER, M.N. & E.J.N. Fridman (Eds.). Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture, vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, pp. 365-370.

_____ (2005a). “Venenos divinos: plantas psicoativas dos  Machiguenga do Peru”, in: LABATE, Beatriz C. & GOULART, Sandra L. (Eds.). O Uso ritual das plantas de poder. Campinas: Editora Mercado de Letras, pp. 187-217.

_____ (2005b) “Psychoactive botanicals in ritual, religion and shamanism.” Chapter 18 in: ELISABETSKY, E & N. Etkin (Eds.), Ethnopharmacology. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Theme 6.79. Oxford, UK: UNESCO/Eolss Publishers (http://www.eolss.net).

_____ (2010). “The return of the secret shaman,” in: EEDE, J. (Ed.). We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples. London: Quadrille/Survival International, pp. 130-31. http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-of-secret-shaman.html.

_____ (2015a). “Agony and Ecstasy in the Amazon: Tobacco, pain and the hummingbird shamans of Peru.” Broad Street, 2, pp. 5-20. Richmond, VA: Virginia Commonwealth University. 

_____ (2015b). “Will the real shaman please stand up?: The recent adoption of ayahuasca among indigenous groups of the Peruvian Amazon”, in: LABATE, Beatriz C. & CAVNAR, Clancy (Eds.).  Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 16-39.

_____ & CHICCHON, Avecita (2001). “Resource use and ecology of the Matsigenka of the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Vilcabamba,” in: ALONSO, L.E. et al. (Eds.). Biological and Social Assessments of the Cordillera de Vilcabamba, Peru. Washington, D.C: Conservation International, pp. 164-174.

VARGAS, Eduardo V. (2008). “Farmacos e outros objetos socio-técnicos: Notas para uma genealogia das drogas”, in: LABATE, Beatriz C. et al. (Eds.). Drogas e Cultura: novas perspectivas. Salvador: EDUFBA, pp. 41-64. 

VOEKS, Robert A. (1997). Sacred Leaves of Candomblé: African Magic, Medicine, and Religion in Brazil. Austin: University of Texas Press. 

WILBERT, Johannes (1987). Tobacco and shamanism in South America. New Haven: Yale University Press.

The Awakening of the Waters: Clean water, health and village sanitation in the Peruvian Amazon

So it was, long ago, people had no clean water to drink. Instead, they drank from muddy swamps and stagnant puddles of algae and slime. One day, Shigentiri, the Dragonfly, watched a man hauling gourds of filthy water.  

"Wouldn't you prefer to have clean water to drink?" asked Dragonfly.
 
"Yes!" answered the man. "All we have to drink is this muck."  

"So be it," said Dragonfly, "I will awaken the waters. Follow me."

The man followed Dragonfly through the forest and soon they came upon a new spring, gurgling and splashing on the rocks. 

"Don't fill your gourds yet," said Dragonfly. "Wait 'til tomorrow, and never again will you have to drink swamp water."

The man obeyed Dragonfly's words, and when he awoke he saw that the spring had filled the stream basin. People have had fresh, clear water to drink ever since. And so it was. 

This myth was told to me by a Matsigenka elder named Tito in the mixed Matsigenka/Huachipaeri community of Santa Rosa de Huacaria on the fringes of Manu Biosphere Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon. In the first place, the story makes a specific association between dragonflies and clean water sources. As is the case for other Matsigenka tales, such mythical references often emerge from accurate ecological observations. Dragonflies, aquatic species that spend much of their life cycle underwater, are indeed considered by scientists to be important indicator species of environmental health, especially water quality. 

The story also highlights a number of important traditional concepts about water use and purity. Water that is stagnant or muddy is unpleasant and unhealthy to drink, while spring water that is clear, running and free of sediment (sanaari in Matsigenka) is considered pure, safe and drinkable. The story also makes clear the importance of restraint and respect in peoples’ relationship with natural resources: by obeying Dragonfly’s warning and resisting greedy thirst through the night, the man allows clean water to flow eternally. Indigenous mythology is replete with such lessons in restraint and balance in the use of natural resources. 

I gathered this story during anthropological fieldwork in Huacaria as a consultant for the non-profit organization Rainforest Flow, in preparation for a water and sanitation project that was implemented initially in Huacaria, and expanded more recently to remote native communities in the heart of Manu Biosphere Reserve.

Despite appearances, even limpid tributary streams in the Amazon can have significant levels of bacterial contamination

 
You might ask, "But what do anthropologists know about sanitation engineering?" And to be honest, I'd have to answer, "Not much." But anthropologists can apply their cultural insights, observational habits and research skills in order to help community development projects understand the local social context, translate complex concepts between languages and cultures, and avoid (or at least minimize) gaffes, misunderstandings and general gringo cluelessness.

You might also ask, "But I thought the Amazon was the largest body of fresh water in the world. Why do indigenous people living in a huge, pristine rainforest park at the headwaters of the Amazon need tap water?"

That, in fact, was the first question I posed to Rainforest Flow director Nancy Santullo when she approached me about being part of the project: "Isn't their stream water good enough? Prove to me they actually need a new water system!"

Conducting fieldwork in Huacaria

So on my first trip to Huacaria with Rainforest Flow, among my top priorities was carrying out laboratory testing of the drinking water sources available to the village. The results were shocking even to me.

All drinking water sources in the community had moderate to extreme levels of contamination with fecal bacteria. Some households in the community already had a government-installed tap water system, which fed raw stream water to cement tap stands near the houses. However analysis revealed that the tap water in Huacaria was actually more contaminated, on average, than water from fresh streams that some households used(!). Furthermore, the existing tap stands had no drainage system, depositing waste water directly onto the ground around houses, generating even more contamination. House-to-house health interviews revealed that 83% of children under five in Huacaria had experienced at least one episode of diarrhea during the prior month. Frequent diarrhea episodes in the early years of life can have a lasting impact on a child's health, and hence it was no wonder that 39% percent of children in Huacaria showed some degree of malnutrition according to World Health Organization standards.

The previous tap water system in Huacaria brought contaminated water to households and had no drainage system

 
In addition to measuring water quality and observing water use patterns, I also analyzed health data being gathered by the project team and conducted interviews with community members about their views on water, health and sanitation.

The Matsigenka concept of well-being is summarized in the verb shinetagantsi, which means to be happy, productive, and well-fed as well as free of illness.  Concepts antithetical to well-being include illness (mantsigarentsi), suffering (tsipereagantsi), "skinniness" or weight loss (matsatagantsi), sorrow or worry (kenkisureagantsi), anger (kisatsi), and soul loss (gasuretagantsi). Health and well-being and, conversely, illness and malaise, embrace physical, emotional, and spiritual states as well as harmony (or lack thereof) in productive, social, and environmental interactions. Their classification of illness categories and their theories about illness etiology and treatment reflect these complex notions. In the Matsigenka cosmos-as-ecosystem, illness, misfortune, and death are often interpreted through the ecological metaphor of predation: just as humans hunt for sustenance, so do demons, illnesses, dangerous animal spirits—and more recently, human sorcerers—look on human beings as game animals to be killed and eaten.

Juan Coshante once gave me a very effective treatment for an excruciating caterpillar sting: The pain stopped instantly

The Matsigenka are respected by neighboring indigenous groups for their detailed knowledge of medicinal plants addressing a wide range of ailments. In the past, and in some communities through the present, shamans have practiced a special variety of spiritual and cosmological healing that depends on esoteric connections with forest spirits and the celestial realm. Through today in many communities, traditional medicine is still practiced in various forms and by various specialists and non-specialists. Matsigenka theories of illness are highly cosmopolitan and dynamic, often combining empirical, social and spiritual understandings of illness, and treatments likewise can combine herbal, shamanistic, Andean and biomedical treatment methods.

Amazon rainforest peoples such as the Matsigenka and Huachipaeri lived traditionally in widely dispersed, semi-nomadic settlements composed of a few related families. However throughout the 20th century, attracted by missionary outposts and government schools and health clinics, many indigenous families now live in permanent, centralized communities. Increasing population density and more sedentary lifestyles have generated a number of problems including decreasing stocks of fish and game near communities, social conflicts between families, fecal contamination of the water supply and high incidence of intestinal parasites and other gastrointestinal disorders. Although the Matsigenka maintain their rich knowledge of medicinal plants for treating a wide range of traditionally recognized conditions, their pharmacopeia is insufficient for addressing the full range of health conditions they face today, especially gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses.

As I observed throughout the course of my field study, families in Huacaria who had tap stands used water much more frequently, whether for washing themselves, their clothes and utensils, or for cooking and drinking. Families without taps had to carry water from nearby streams, and thus used it much more sparingly. In order save water, these families would re-use waste water for hand-washing and cleaning utensils, increasing the chances of contamination. Despite the contaminated tap water, sanitary conditions were better in houses with taps than those without them because of the ease of access. Based on these observations, an overhaul and expansion of the existing tap water system seemed warranted.

Slow sand filters use locally available rock and sand loaded into portable geomembrane tanks to purify water in remote communities

Rainforest Flow carried out a complete renovation of Huacaria’s tap water system, using a technology known as "slow sand filtration" to purify the water. This simple but effective technology, used worldwide in remote communities and disaster relief situations, harnesses natural processes, both mechanical and biological, to remove 99.99% of disease-causing microorganisms. Locally-occurring rock and sand are loaded into portable geomembrane filtration tanks that purify water and make it safe for consumption. Water is distributed to households from a flexible geomembrane storage tank (it looks like a huge waterbed) through hygienic plastic tubing to durable, practical tap stands that incorporate local materials and design concepts. By taking advantage of the hilly terrain in the Andean foothills, the water system in Huacaria is entirely gravity-fed, requiring no external power sources (pumps, engines, solar panels) to distribute or treat the water. Portable geomembrane filtration and storage tanks greatly reduce the need for cement, rebar and other construction materials that are difficult to transport to remote communities. 

Community members participate in all stages of construction and maintenance of the water system to guarantee sustainability. A special stand-alone tap design using local river stones was developed after studying community needs and use patterns.

After this baseline research, I carried out a five-year follow-up study of the project impacts in Huacaria (2002-2007). More recently, I have evaluated the initial phase of the project's expansion (2007-2014) to the communities of Tayakome and Yomibato in Manu National Park.

Ongoing biomedical monitoring in collaboration with the Peruvian health ministry suggests a significant impact of the water purification system on child and overall community health. The prevalence of diarrhea among children saw a 45% reduction over a three year period after the water system was renovated (see report for complete health data). Prior to the water system renovation, over half (54%) of Huacaria’s children and youths suffered from multiple parasite infections (two or more parasite species simultaneously). After three years of access to purified water, only 20% had multiple infestations, while 23% of children were parasite-free, up from only 9% parasite-free prior to the water system renovation, a nearly threefold improvement. 

Height and weight measurements suggest a trend in improving nutritional status for Huacaria's children during just the three initial years of the project. The percentage of children considered of "normal" weight (according to WHO standards) increased from 83% to 90%, while the percentage of children considered to have normal stature doubled from 35% to 70%. A concomitant trend is noted in decreasing numbers of children considered malnourished because of being underweight (from 17% to 10%) and undersized (from 39% to 30%) for their age. Though it is difficult to assign causality for such a small population, the drastic reduction in episodes of infant and child diarrhea, and the notable reduction in intestinal parasites certainly appear to be relevant in reducing malnutrition rates.

Microbiological analysis shows the progressive reduction of fecal bacterial colonies (red-brown dots) in samples taken at different stages of purification, from stream source water (left), to the output of the gravel pre-filter (top), to the safe drinking water emerging from the slow sand filter and taps (right). No chlorine or other treatments were added.

After witnessing the health improvements in Huacaria, observing the community empowerment generated by Rainforest Flow's programs and attesting to the organization's socially and environmentally sustainable practices, I suggested to Nancy Santullo that she expand the project to include the much more remote communities of Tayakome and Yomibato within the core zone of Manu National Park, where I have worked for almost thirty years. She accepted the challenge and now, after arduous years of even more difficult work, both communities have sturdy tap stands delivering clean, safe water to every household where it is technically possible. The schools in Tayakome and Yomibato also have utility sinks and hygienic, well-ventilated bathrooms with a sealed, composting septic system. 

Getting to Yomibato is an extreme sport: the narrow stream is an obstacle course of fallen trees, submerged trunks, shallow rapids and sandbars.

Spacious, well-ventilated, eco-friendly bathrooms at the community schools in Tayakome and Yomibato

The water systems and sanitary installations brought by Rainforest Flow have delivered far superior results to those found in communities of the adjacent Camisea region, outside Manu Biosphere Reserve, where a gas pipeline has caused serious social and environmental impacts, while generating over one billion dollars in royalties that have been invested in mostly failed community development projects, with particularly dismal results in the areas of health and community sanitation, at least so far. Rainforest Flow's project design and results have been shared with indigenous associations and government representatives in the Camisea region in the hope that better use will be made with gas royalties and other community investments in the future.

To learn more about Rainforest Flow's projects, programs, and mission, visit rainforestflow.org

Proceeds from the sale of selected artworks at Linda Matney Gallery in Williamsburg, Virginia, support Rainforest Flow and other community projects in the Amazon

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The following reports and publications on water projects, health status and ethnomedical practices in native communities of Manu Biosphere Reserve and the Camisea region are available for download:

Matsigenka: Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology (2003)

Huacaria Hygienic Center: Summary of goals and results of field research carried out in June, 2003 (2003).

Rainforest Flow/House of the Children’s “Project Huacaria”: Five-Year Evaluation (2002-2007) of Social and Health Impacts of an Integrated Water Purification/Health Education Project (2008)

Revenge, Envy and Sorcery in an Amazonian Society: Revenge in the Cultures of South America (2008). 

Rainforest Flow’s “Manu Expansion Project”: Preliminary Evaluation of Social and Health Impacts of an Integrated Water Purification/Health Education Project in the Native Communities of Tayakome and Yomibato in Manu National Park, Peru (2014).

Social and Environmental Evaluations in the Lower Urubamba: Health Status and Fisheries (2014).

The Vampire Pipeline: Unhealth and undevelopment in the lower Urubamba (2014).