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Music Alone Can Alter a Shaman’s Consciousness, Which Itself Can Destroy Tape Recorders
American ethnomusicologist Dale A. Olsen studied shamanic curing among the Warao Indians of the Orinoco Delta in the Venezuelan tropical forest. In this insightful piece, he points out that certain shamans modify their consciousness with music alone. He also tells an intriguing story about the fate of his tape recorders.
Is it possible that music alone, without the aid of hallucinogens, is capable of causing the religious leader, the shaman, to reach an altered state of consciousness in which he has contact with the supernatural world? I believe it is, at least within the curing context of Warao shamanism. Although several scholars including Barral (1964) and Wilbert (1972) mention tobacco as a trance-inducing intoxicant among the Warao, there are many examples of apparent trance states without its use. True hallucinogens have not been known in the Orinoco Delta, and even tobacco, which is not a true hallucinogen, was originally absent from Warao culture. . . .
Certainly during initiation rites there is an excessive inhaling and ingesting of tobacco smoke which undoubtedly has a chemical effect on the shaman. During curing, however, so much emphasis is placed upon singing and, in some instances, upon shaking a large rattle with both hands that the excessive use of tobacco does not occur. Cultural conditioning, however, is the important anthropological deep structure within which the magical use of music for curing among the Warao is placed. Music, combined with cultural conditioning, produces, I believe, a “pure” trance, similar to the meditative trance state achieved by Buddhist monks while using music to reach enlightenment. Music is the vehicle, or the shamanic tool, among the Warao that induces this so-called “pure” trance state during the shaman’s benevolent curing role and even, perhaps, during his malevolent role as an inflictor of destruction and illness.
The shamanic trance state of the Warao shaman while inflicting illness, destroying material objects, or curing is not a wild affair. There is no yelling, no rolling on the ground, and no loss of physical control as among the narcotic-using Yanomamo Indians of the Venezuelan and Brazilian Amazon, who are culturally, linguistically, and musically related to the Warao. Likewise, the Warao shamans do not become possessed, nor do they lose consciousness as do many other tropical forest Amerindians of South America. The Warao shamanic trance state is, rather, deeply meditative, during which the shaman is experiencing maximum contact with his supernatural helping spirits and the illness-causing spirits over which he, as owner of the spirits, has control. This deep meditative trance state, in which the shaman is completely involved with the supernatural world, is unthinkable and indeed impossible without music. And I would like to emphasize again that such a trance state is possible without the aid of tobacco. . . .
Three types of shamans officiate in Warao cosmology: the wisiratu, the priest/shaman and owner of the hebu spirits; the bahanarotu, the so-called “white” shaman and owner of the bahana spirits; and the hoarotu, the so-called “black” shaman and owner of the hoa spirits. Almost always when the wisiratu cures, and occasionally when the bahanarotu cures, a large gourd rattle called hebu-mataro is used. The hoarotu never uses a rattle. Each religious practitioner begins his trance state as soon as he begins to sing, and upon completion of his song or song cycle he returns completely and immediately to his former, pre-trance state. Unlike the narcotic-induced trance states of many other Amerindian cultures which usually require considerable time for the effects of a drug to wear off, the Warao shamans are once again “normal” Warao as soon as they have finished their curing or inflicting task. This, I believe, is an example of “pure” trance as expounded by Eliade. A wisiratu shaman explained to me that while he is singing he is not a person like other Warao; he is a supernatural being. As the wisiratu speaks, through song, to the hebu spirits and the hebus answer through him, he becomes transformed into a hebu himself. In another instance a bahanarotu shaman refers to his transformation into a powerful supernatural being as he sings “I am the hebu.” He later explained that his helping spirit, who lives within his chest, is himself speaking in the second half of the song. The hoarotu shaman also experiences a similar transformation into a powerful supernatural being, as noted in the following inflicting song text. In order to record this complete “bewitching” song I had to pay the shaman the equivalent of the price he had paid his teacher. After the proper price was agreed upon the shaman began a song directed at completely destroying UCLA’s Nagra III tape recorder and my inexpensive Concord cassette recorder. Toward the end of the lengthy song, he sang the following passage about a great scissors in the spirit world of Hokonamu, in the east where the sun rises, and about his transformation into a being with scissors-like sharp teeth: “Oh great scissors in Hokonamu, you will destroy the machines of the foreigner. . . . With all of the body of the scissors, with the sharp blades and the handle, I am going to destroy the high quality machines of the foreigner. . . . With my sharp and filed teeth, I will destroy all of the cables and wires of the machines. Inside of you, oh foreign machines with the good voices, I am going to place the Hoa.” These few examples of transformation emphasize the following belief in Warao shamanism: the shaman becomes the spirit about which he sings. This contact with the supernatural world and the shaman’s ultimate transformation into a powerful being is facilitated and hastened by the ritual music which he sings. The shaman of the last example explained that “this song is so powerful that both tape recorders will be completely destroyed within two weeks.” During his ecstatic state the shaman did not smoke, but only sang. He continued to explain that had he desired to destroy the machines immediately, he would have smoked a long cigar, called wina in Warao, and at the end of the song glared and growled at the machines, all the time blowing tobacco smoke at them. Fearful, however, that I would be destroyed as well, because of the power of the additional magical arrows and my proximity to the machines, he refrained from doing so.
[Editors’ note: Twenty-four years after this text was published, we asked Dale Olsen if the shaman’s song had affected his tape recorders. He reported that several weeks after the event, the batteries contained in the UCLA Nagra III tape recorder leaked acid into the machine’s wires and destroyed it. His inexpensive tape recorder fared little better: It began to mangle tapes and broke beyond repair when he attempted to fix it.]