Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive beverage, 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.
A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Each culture has its own name in its language for spiritual healers and ceremonial leaders.
Banisteriopsis caapi, also known as, caapi, soul vine, yagé (yage), or ayahuasca, the latter of which also refers to the psychedelic decoction made with the vine and a plant source of dimethyltryptamine, is a South American liana of the family Malpighiaceae. It is commonly used as an ingredient of ayahuasca, a decoction with a long history of its entheogenic use and holds status as a "plant teacher" among the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest.
Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for many aspects of life, such as plants as medicines, foods, intoxicants and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", explained the discipline in this way:
Ethnobotany simply means investigating plants used by primitive societies in various parts of the world.
Anadenanthera peregrina, also known as yopo, jopo, cohoba, parica or calcium tree, is a perennial tree of the genus Anadenanthera native to the Caribbean and South America. It grows up to 20 m (66 ft) tall, and has a thorny bark. Its flowers grow in small, pale yellow to white spherical clusters resembling Acacia inflorescences. It is an entheogen which has been used in healing ceremonies and rituals for thousands of years in northern South America and the Caribbean. Although the seeds of the yopo tree were originally gathered from the wild, increased competition between tribes over access to the seeds led to it being intentionally cultivated and transported elsewhere, expanding the plant's distribution through introduction to areas beyond its native range.
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 and many others use a combination of methods. Most of the concepts related to curanderismo are Spanish words, often with medieval, vernacular definitions.
Neoshamanism refers to new forms of shamanism. It usually means shamanism practiced by Western people as a type of New Age spirituality, without a connection to traditional shamanic societies. It is sometimes also used for modern shamanic rituals and practices which, although they have some connection to the traditional societies in which they originated, have been adapted somehow to modern circumstances. This can include "shamanic" rituals performed as an exhibition, either on stage or for shamanic tourism, as well as modern derivations of traditional systems that incorporate new technology and worldviews.
The Quijos-Quichua (Napo-Quichua) are a Lowland Quechua people, living in the basins of the Napo, Aguarico, San Miguel, and Putumayo river basins of Ecuador and Peru. In Ecuador they inhabit in the Napo Alto as well as the rivers Ansuy and Jatun Yacu, where they are also known as Quijos Quechua. The Quijos Original Nation (NAOKI) has an extension of community territory of approximately 13,986, 78 hectares. It was recognized as such on March 13, 2013, by Codenpe. It is made up of dozens of groups, communities and organizations, according to their status.
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.
A machi is a traditional healer and religious leader in the Mapuche culture of Chile and Argentina. Machis play significant roles in Mapuche religion. In contemporary Mapuche culture, women are more commonly machis than men, but it is not a rule. Male machi are known as Machi Weye.
The Matsés or Mayoruna are an indigenous people of the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon. Their traditional homelands are located between the Javari and Galvez rivers. The Matsés have long guarded their lands from other indigenous tribes and struggle with encroachment from illegal logging practices and poaching.
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 Jivaroan peoples are the indigenous peoples in the headwaters of the Marañon River and its tributaries, in northern Peru and eastern Ecuador. The tribes speak the Chicham languages.
Tamshiyacu is the name of a town in the Fernando Lores District located in Iquitos - northeastern Peru.
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.
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".
Guillermo Arévalo Valera is a Shipibo vegetalista and businessperson from the Maynas Province of Peru. His Shipibo name is Kestenbetsa.
Manuel Córdova-Rios was a vegetalista (herbalist) of the upper Amazon, and the subject of several popular books.
Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas is a Peruvian shaman. Vargas is primarily known as the lead shaman for the Ayahuasca retreat center named Chimbre located in Puerto Maldonado, Peru. Vargas was featured in the award-winning documentary "Stepping Into the Fire (2011)."
Mayantuyacu is a healing retreat in Puerto Inca Province, Peru. Located near Pucallpa, the Mayantuyacu sanctuary covers 180 hectares of Amazon rainforest. In Asháninka language, Mayantuyacu means "the water and the air". According to the local guides, "Mayantu" refers to the spirit of the jungle, and "Yacu" refers to the spirit of the water.
