Last updated The chakapa used by a Peruvian curandero at Takiwasi Center
Chakapa (sometimes spelled shakapa or Latinized to shacapa) is a Quechua word for a shaker or rattle constructed of bundled leaves. Bushes of the genus Pariana provide the leaves for the chakapa. Chakapa is also the common name for these bushes.[1]
In an ayahuasca ceremony, for example, a curandero may shake the chakapa around the patient while singing an icaro (healing song). The sound of the chakapa is said to comfort patients in an ayahuasca ceremony and "cleanse" the energy surrounding the patient. Shamans have a large variety of chakapa movements that create different sounds and energy waves; these movements match the coinciding icaro and healing that is being done at the time.
Some people report seeing green, blue, and gold ribbons of light form around the chakapa, and then move in tendrils about the room.[3] The chakapa is also an important cleansing tool used during venteadas and arcanas. In the Amazon, once the shaman catches the bad spirits in a chakapa, it is then blown out of the leaves into the forest. The spirits are distributed and taken in by all nature such as trees and plants.[4] A chakapa is made by tying together the leaves from the bush in a fashion that forms a fan shaped instrument. (See picture)
Folklore
The Woodland Cree have a legend about a great hunter named Chakapas. The legend talks about how Chakapas trapped the moon so that it did not shine anymore. Since the brightness of the moon was gone, the Indians had problems with traveling between seasons because they could not see as easily. They begged Chakapas to let the moon go, but Chakapa could not get close enough to the moon to release it. He used the help of mice to set it free. A brave mouse chewed the cords that tied the moon. It left him burned which is the Indians explanation for mice having a light grey belly. The moon was eventually set free and the shadow of Chakapas remains on the moon to this day.[5]
Notes
↑ Beyer, Steve (30 January 2008). "The Leaf-Bundle Rattle". Singing to the Plants. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive brew, traditionally used by Indigenous cultures and folk healers in the Amazon and Orinoco basins for spiritual ceremonies, divination, and healing a variety of psychosomatic complaints. Originally restricted to areas of Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, in the middle of the 20th century it became widespread in Brazil in the context of the appearance of syncretic religions that use ayahuasca as a sacrament, like Santo Daime, União do Vegetal and Barquinha, which blend elements of Amazonian Shamanism, Christianity, Kardecist Spiritism, and African-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda, Candomblé and Tambor de Mina, later expanding to several countries across all continents, notably the United States and Western Europe, and, more incipiently, in Eastern Europe, South Africa, Australia, and Japan.
Shamanism or samanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world for the purpose of healing, divination, or to aid human beings in some other way.
Entheogens are psychoactive substances, including psychedelic drugs, used in sacred contexts for inducing spiritual development among other reasons.
A curandero is a traditional native healer or shaman found primarily in Latin America and also in the United States. A curandero is a specialist in traditional medicine whose practice can either contrast with or supplement that of a practitioner of Western medicine. A curandero is claimed to administer shamanistic and spiritistic remedies for mental, emotional, physical and spiritual illnesses. Some curanderos, such as Don Pedrito, the Healer of Los Olmos, make use of simple herbs, waters, or mud to allegedly effect their cures. Others add Catholic elements, such as holy water and pictures of saints; San Martin de Porres for example is heavily employed within Peruvian curanderismo. The use of Catholic prayers and other borrowings and lendings is often found alongside native religious elements. Many curanderos emphasize their native spirituality in healing while being practicing Catholics. Still others, such as Maria Sabina, employ hallucinogenic media. Most of the concepts related to curanderismo are Spanish words, often with medieval, vernacular definitions.
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Santo Daime is a syncretic religion founded in the 1930s in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Acre by Raimundo Irineu Serra, known as Mestre Irineu. Santo Daime incorporates elements of several religious or spiritual traditions including Folk Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, African animism and indigenous South American shamanism, including vegetalismo.
Icaro is a South American indigenous and mestizo colloquialism for magic song. Today, this term is commonly used to describe the medicine songs performed in vegetal ceremonies, especially by shamans in ayahuasca ceremonies.
Yachay is a special type of phlegm generated by shamans and sorcerers of the Peruvian Amazon Basin which is believed to contain the essence of their power in the form of virotes, tsentsak, darts, arrows, or splinters of bone that are believed to be contained in the phlegm. It is believed that these may be fired from the mouth, and that being pierced by virotes causes various conditions. These may be removed by a shaman, who sucks them out of the victim's body.
The Nahua of La Huasteca is an indigenous ethnic group of Mexico and one of the Nahua peoples. They live in the mountainous area called La Huasteca which is located in north eastern Mexico and contains parts of the states of Hidalgo, Veracruz and Puebla. They speak one of the Huasteca Nahuatl dialects: western, central or eastern Huasteca Nahuatl.
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Vegetalismo is a term used to refer to a practice of mestizo shamanism in the Peruvian Amazon in which the shamans—known as vegetalistas—are said to gain their knowledge and power to cure from the vegetales, or plants of the region. Many believe to receive their knowledge from ingesting the hallucinogenic, emetic brew ayahuasca.
Shamanism among Alaska Natives was particularly important as it served to construct their special connection to their land, and a kinship with the animals with whom they share that land. Before the introduction of western culture and the religions that are now practiced in Alaska, there was a common spiritual connection made with the people to the land they occupied. The most common name for this connection is shamanism. Shamanism differs in every culture where it is practiced, in Alaska it is centered in the animals that are common in the area. Through the use of many myths, stories, and ceremonies these animals are personified and their spirits made tangible and in turn are deeply woven within the Native Alaska people today. It was through the shaman that the spirit world was connected to the natural world. A shaman in Alaska Native culture was a mediator, healer and the spirit worlds’ mouthpiece. Although shamanism is no longer popularly practiced, it was and continues to be the heart of the Native Alaskan people.
Chris Kilham is an author, educator, and researcher of plant-based medicines. He is known for his appearances on Fox News as the "Medicine Hunter".
Tsentsak are invisible pathogenic projectiles or magical darts utilized in indigenous and mestizo shamanic practices for the purposes of sorcery and healing throughout much the Amazon Basin. Anthropologists identify them as objects referenced in emic accounts that represent indigenous beliefs. Tsentak are not recognized in scientific medicine.
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