42.
Magic Darts, Bewitching Shamans, and Curing Shamans
This is a finely detailed account of the practices of Jívaro (Shuar) shamans. Michael Harner focuses in particular on their use of magic darts, which they call tsentsak. Harner also shows that curing shamans are complementary to bewitching shamans. Intriguingly, the substance of these darts bears similarities to ectoplasm, the viscous substance that Victorians reported exuded from the bodies of mediums in trance and which formed the material for the manifestation of spirits.
The Jívaro Indians of the Ecuadorian Amazon believe that witchcraft is the cause of the vast majority of illnesses and non-violent deaths. The normal waking life, for the Jívaro, is simply “a lie,” or illusion, while the true forces that determine daily events are supernatural and can only be seen and manipulated with the aid of hallucinogenic drugs. A reality view of this kind creates a particularly strong demand for specialists who can cross over into the supernatural world at will to deal with the forces that influence and even determine the events of the waking life.
These specialists, called “shamans” by anthropologists, are recognized by the Jívaro as being of two types: bewitching shamans or curing shamans. Both kinds take a hallucinogenic drink, whose Jívaro name is natema, in order to enter the supernatural world. This brew, commonly called yagé, or yajé, in Colombia, ayahuasca (Inca “vine of the dead”) in Ecuador and Peru, and caapi in Brazil, is prepared from segments of a species of the vine Banisteriopsis, a genus belonging to the Malpighiaceae. . . .
The use of the hallucinogenic natema drink among the Jívaro makes it possible for almost anyone to achieve the trance state essential for the practice of shamanism. Given the presence of the drug and the felt need to contact the “real,” or supernatural, world, it is not surprising that approximately one out of every four Jívaro men is a shaman. Any adult, male or female, who desires to become such a practitioner, simply presents a gift to an already practicing shaman, who administers the Banisteriopsis drink and gives some of his own supernatural power—in the form of spirit helpers, or tsentsak—to the apprentice. These spirit helpers, or “darts,” are the main supernatural forces believed to cause illness and death in daily life. To the non-shaman they are normally invisible, and even shamans can perceive them only under the influence of natema.
Shamans send these spirit helpers into the victim’s bodies to make them ill or to kill them. At other times, they may suck spirits sent by enemy shamans from the bodies of tribesmen suffering from witchcraft-induced illness. The spirit helpers also form shields that protect their shaman masters from attacks. The following account presents the ideology of Jívaro witchcraft from the point of view of the Indians themselves.
To give the novice some tsentsak, the practicing shaman regurgitates what appears to be—to those who have taken natema—a brilliant substance in which the spirit helpers are contained. He cuts part of it off with a machete and gives it to the novice to swallow. The recipient experiences pain upon taking it into his stomach and stays on his bed for ten days, repeatedly drinking natema. The Jívaro believe they can keep magical darts in their stomachs indefinitely and regurgitate them at will. The shaman donating the tsentsak periodically blows and rubs all over the body of the novice, apparently to increase the power of the transfer.
The novice must remain inactive and not engage in sexual intercourse for at least three months. If he fails in self-discipline, as some do, he will not become a successful shaman. At the end of the first month, a tsentsak emerges from his mouth. With this magical dart at his disposal, the new shaman experiences a tremendous desire to bewitch. If he casts his tsentsak to fulfill this desire, this means he will become a bewitching shaman. If, on the other hand, the novice can control his impulse and reswallow this first tsentsak, he will become a curing shaman. . . .
The degree of illness produced in a witchcraft victim is a function of both the force with which the tsentsak is shot into the body, and also the character of the magical dart itself. If a tsentsak is shot all the way through the body of a victim, then “there is nothing for a curing shaman to suck out,” and the patient dies. If the magical dart lodges within the body, however, it is theoretically possible to cure the victim by sucking. But in actual practice, the sucking is not always considered successful.
The work of the curing shaman is complementary to that of a bewitcher. When a curing shaman is called in to treat a patient, his first task is to see if the illness is due to witchcraft. The usual diagnosis and treatment begin with the curing shaman drinking natema, tobacco water, and pirípirí in the late afternoon and early evening. These drugs permit him to see into the body of the patient as though it were glass. If the illness is due to sorcery, the curing shaman will see the intruding object within the patient’s body clearly enough to determine whether or not he can cure the sickness.
A shaman sucks magical darts from a patient’s body only at night, and in a dark area of the house, for it is only in the dark that he can perceive the drug-induced visions that are the supernatural reality. With the setting of the sun, he alerts his tsentsak by whistling the tune of the curing song; after about a quarter of an hour, he starts singing. When he is ready to suck, the shaman regurgitates two tsentsak into the sides of his throat and mouth. These must be identical to the one he has seen in his patient’s body. He holds one of these in the front of the mouth and the other in the rear. They are expected to catch the supernatural aspect of the magical dart that the shaman sucks out of the patient’s body. The tsentsak nearest the shaman’s lips is supposed to incorporate the sucked-out tsentsak essence within itself. If, however, this supernatural essence should get past it, the second magical dart in the mouth blocks the throat so that the intruder cannot enter the interior of the shaman’s body. If the curer’s two tsentsak were to fail to catch the supernatural essence of the tsentsak, it would pass down into the shaman’s stomach and kill him. Trapped thus within the mouth, this essence is shortly caught up by, and incorporated into, the material substance of one of the curing shaman’s tsentsak. He then “vomits” out this object and displays it to the patient and his family, saying, “Now I have sucked it out. Here it is.”
The non-shamans think that the material object itself is what has been sucked out, and the shaman does not disillusion them. At the same time, he is not lying, because he knows that the only important thing about a tsentsak is its supernatural aspect, or essence, which he sincerely believes he has removed from the patient’s body. To explain to the layman that he already had these objects in his mouth would serve no fruitful purpose and would prevent him from displaying such an object as proof that he had effected the cure. Without incontrovertible evidence, he would not be able to convince the patient and his family that he had effected the cure and must be paid.
The ability of the shaman to suck depends upon the quantity and strength of his own tsentsak, of which he may have hundreds. His magical darts assume their supernatural aspect as spirit helpers when he is under the influence of natema, and he sees them as a variety of zoomorphic forms hovering over him, perching on his shoulders, sticking out of his skin, and helping to suck the patient’s body. He must drink tobacco water every few hours to “keep them fed” so that they will not leave him. . . . Shamans constantly drink tobacco juice at all hours of the day and night. Although the tobacco juice is not truly hallucinogenic, it produces a narcotized state, which is believed necessary to keep one’s tsentsak ready to repel any other magical darts. A shaman does not even dare go for a walk without taking along the green tobacco leaves with which he prepares the juice that keep his spirit helpers alert. Less frequently, but regularly, he must drink natema for the same purpose and to keep in touch with the supernatural reality.
While curing under the influence of natema, the curing shaman “sees” the shaman who bewitched his patient. Generally, he can recognize the person, unless it is a shaman who lives far away or in another tribe. The patient’s family knows this, and demands to be told the identity of the bewitcher, particularly if the sick person dies. At one curing session I attended, the shaman could not identify the person he had seen in his vision. The brother of the dead man then accused the shaman himself of being responsible. Under such pressure, there is a strong tendency for the curing shaman to attribute each case to a particular bewitcher.