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The Ecuadorian Jungle
The Cradle of Civilization
Going deep into the Amazon jungle in Ecuador is as daring a task today as it was one or two hundred years ago. Even if today’s traditions are not as wild as they were back then, time seems to have stood still. After years expended in that jungle’s terrain, space and time are not the same, not for me and not for the people around me related to the story and its different narratives. Over time, places change spatially, and the way we remember them changes too.
In 1539 Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of the Inca Empire, led an expedition toward a kingdom sought by Captain Francisco de Orellana, who had gone back to civilization, defeated after fighting against a tribe of women—the famous Amazons who were tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and not very friendly toward the opposite sex.
Pizarro and Orellana were searching for the lost golden city of Paititi, deep in the jungle, a search that would continue for five hundred years and still goes on today. According to the British historian John Dyson, Christopher Columbus was not looking for a route to the Indies, but for a land of gold that would coincide with the maps of Piri Reis, the nephew of Admiral Kemal Reis, who served under Suleiman the Magnificent.*4
THE SACRED GEOMETRY OF ECUADOR
The Ecuadorian Andes are the cradle of the mystery that begins at the equator, which guides us toward sacred sites, pyramids, tumuli—and the Tayos Caves.
There are stories from sacred history, excerpts of an intricate astrological record of the Cycles of the Ages. The policy of the Christian church was to destroy the documents of the ancient system of spiritual science in order to suppress the practice of archaeoastronomy and proper astronomy, which is derived from astrology and which studied the effects of the stars on geography and human nature.
The Chinese called these lines the lung-mei, and they extended all over the world. In Australia and North America the “dragon lines” are also creation paths, enchanted by the gods, by the primitive snake, and by the ancestral guardian of all living things. In some parts of the world these dragon lines can be seen from the air. Although their origin is very ancient, not many people who live around them recognize them.
For example, the famous Nazca lines and similar lines that extend throughout the north of Chile and Bolivia are sun-oriented paths set up in such a way that travelers walking in certain lines during the equinox or solstice could see the sun rising or hiding over the right line of the horizon.
THE MYSTERY OF THE SHUAR (JÍBAROS)
Being in Amazonian Ecuador was not a matter of mere tourism for me; it was essential. A cycle that should have ended twenty-five years before opened up before me in a green abyss, in front of an impenetrable and deadly setting. To understand the geography I was going into, I first and foremost had to understand the Shuar, a tribe who are often called the Jíbaro (a name they object to, because it is a disrespectful corruption of the indigenous noun Shuar and represents them as primitive).
Who are the Shuar? How did they come to be? It is almost impossible to answer this question of how they originated. There is an undoubted linguistic similarity of the Jíbaro language in its Shuar, Achuar, Awajún, and Wampi forms to European languages such as Hungarian (Magyar), one of the oldest languages in Central Europe. This similarity was discovered by Juan Moricz in the seventies, and it certainly is a contribution to ethnographic linguistics that cannot be denied academically, since it is studied in universities around the globe.
It is clear the Shuar have undeniable similarities with other races from the Amazon and Asia. But the Shuar did not leave behind their history in writing, and their archaeological remains are few, unless the missing metallic libraries end up being identified as creations of the ancestors of the Jíbaro race.
Official anthropologists such as Jijón y Caamaño, influenced by the European school, connected migrations to the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods. There are three clear waves during the Neolithic period:
It is possible one of these Arawak tribes merged with one of the first migration streams. This could have been the group with the Chibchan language, or the Yunga, Puruhá, or Puruhá-Mochica, which was spoken by the Puruhá groups that lived on the hillsides of the Chimborazo, and the Mochica group from the Peruvian region of Pativilca, with a language that was not extinct until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Later on, the belligerent Caribs tore apart the Arawak colonies, and the survivors traveled to eastern Ecuador, where they merged with one of the established towns of the Puruhá-Mochica. The Jíbaros were born from this convergence.
According to Jorge Salvador Lara, the Jíbaros came from the east, and they settled next to the Marañón River, but they also wandered into the highlands and the Loja province, where they settled as the Paltas. According to this theory, the Shuar language would be the result of the merger of an original Arawak language with one of the Puruhá-Mochica. When the Incas entered the picture, the Jíbaro groups of the Pastaza region might have been transformed into Quechuas, as was the case with the Canelos or the Alamas. The ancient Arawaks traveled along the Amazon to the east, but they left traces of their settlements throughout this ancestral route.
One theory states that once Homo sapiens stood out from the other species by our ability to use our hands and separate the thumb from the rest of the fingers to use handle tools, we dared to venture into the unknown. It is possible that in those times the distances between Asia and the Bering Strait were not as inhospitable for intercontinental travel as they are now, and that, after five thousand years as nomads, the travelers decided to venture to new horizons. It is possible that among them a group of hunters and gatherers crossed. Some scholars link them to the Koreans, but we can also call them the Proto-Shuar.
Proto-Asian migrations started to move toward America in migration waves with pauses of ten thousand years. The forefathers of the Arawaks used rafts and primitive boats to populate the Antilles, to later move toward what today is the plateau of Colombia, to Venezuela; still in rafts, they reached Marajó Island, at the mouth of the Amazon River, where they would spread through most of the South American continent. Others decided to take the rafts and canoes south, bordering the Pacific coast. (Books by Emilio Estrada and Paulina Lederberger can give you more information about this.) This is how, more than eight thousand years ago, the Shuar protorace landed on the Manabí beaches and continued south, influencing many of the coastal names.
During the screening of a documentary on the life of the Achuar, the wife of the Japanese karate fighter Kasuya Mayahira, a linguistic expert in the languages of her region (Okinawa), was surprised to discover she understood about 50 percent of the expressions, which were similar to those that had been spoken on her island since ancient days. Even the architecture of the houses was the same. Others from Moricz’s generation who supported the idea of the transoceanic migration of cultures include Thor Heyerdahl, Vito Alzar, and Betty Meggers.
THE POPULATION OF THE ECUADORIAN MESOPOTAMIA
Around the year 4000 BCE the Proto-Shuar settled in the basin of the Marañón River of the high Amazon. There, prehistoric pilgrims did not take long to move from Loja to Zamora, following the Marañón to get to what today is the Cóndor mountain range, and the great rivers: the Morona, the Santiago, and the Cenepa. Around the year 2500 BCE, in the valley of Hoang Ho or Coang Ho (note the phonetic similarities with the word “Coangos”), the Chinese civilization was being born. At the same time the Jíbaros started to go upriver to find food.
These were the times of goddess Nunkui, when the Shuar became horticulturist travelers. The use of fire, hunting, and fruit and vegetable collection were perfected. By controlling fire, the first canoes were cut and carved. The ancestral Shuar ate ùnkuch-eep leaves, a sort of wild lettuce, and wawa, a tree bark that they also used for tightening rafts.
The Shuar population multiplied, and it grew past its ability to sustain itself. This led to divisions between family groups, which slowly became tribes. These formed the four groups of the Jíbaro nation.
SHUAR MYTHOLOGY AND TRADITIONS
Nunkui was the first Shuar in the world. At first she was a human, like all of us, but then she became a goddess and chose the Tayos Cave as her home. To this cave she brought women, children, and even dogs. Sunki appeared afterward; he was divine too.
Today, the dwellers in the caves do not visit the lower paths. The Shuar and white people today live on the upper paths, where we can still observe the steps of men, women, and children, Nunkui’s followers. She inhabited the upper gallery amid luxury, gold, and precious stones. We cannot go into her lair, because we would be punished right away.
In 1976 Moricz wrote in his diary, “The Shuar inhabit the area where the Tayos Caves are located. Their religious traditions confirm that these caves are the dwelling of their god, a supreme being praised by the first inhabitants in eastern Ecuador and their descendants. Their god is eternal, but it is unknown if they believe he has a human shape with a body, or if he is simply a spirit, a soul, to whom his children, between April and June, go down to pay tribute through ceremonies of unknown nature, and also to hunt for tayo meat, which is rich in proteins.”
The Shuar also established within their culture the common concept of the central pole and established rites similar to the Sun Dance of the native North Americans, such as the Lakotas, Dakotas, Sioux, and Blackfeet. According to their stories, Nunkui would go up the central pole, and from there, the strength of the uwi fruit would fill the pots. This legend takes shape in the traditional descent and ascent from the Tayos Caves when the oilbirds are harvested.
The Shuar are also known as the “people of the sacred waterfalls” because of the many waterfalls in their region. The powerful spirits or souls, the Arutam, reside in those waterfalls and waters, providing energy and the warrior spirit. Their dwelling is an initiation site for the young; there they try to understand the destiny of men.
To reach the waterfalls, you need to be respectful. The uwishin (shamans) fast five days before, and walk slowly, drinking natem (ayahuasca or Banisteriopsis caapi) and simulating the sounds of birds. When they reach the waterfalls, they hit a stone behind the fall, waiting for a signal from the water. When this opens to invite them in, the Arutam initiate contact, and the rituals take place. They fast as they leave the place, and they must not look back, because if they see blood instead of water, it is certain that bad omens, or even death, will come.
The Achuar, like the Shuar, have superstitions about killing animals. Hunting when there was no need would presage the death of a child in less than a year. Killing a capybara would lead one or several women related to the killer to commit adultery.
The myths and legends depict the inner world of these tribal groups, which always moved between destruction and restoration. This is why their stories about death are also about birth. When you visit their lands, you see the futility of life: one moment you think you are in the dream of a butterfly illuminated by the rays of light, the next you are being wounded by the foliage.
Waterfalls of all shapes and sizes create sanctuaries surrounded by forest, and you reach them by following hidden paths with moss-covered stones and steep slopes. The link with the liquid element goes deep. In fact, when a Shuar dies, he dissipates into water drops until he reaches the clouds.
One of their best-kept myths explains the Shuar cosmovision fully: The world we live in is not real; it is just a step before getting to the real one, and ayahuasca or datura are the hallucinogenic plants used to reach it. These are the doors used to reach reality from our daily unreality. Using them in an appropriate dosage also helps one to be reconciled with oneself after emotional turmoil or existential distress.
The real world is also recognized as the hidden or the supernatural world, and only the uwishin or shaman knows it well, because he has seen it many times. He is a wise man who can interpret what he sees in the great beyond, thus discovering the origins of disease and how to cure it. He is a man of great strength in the community, who has achieved this power with the accumulation of the power of the Arutam.
The way to reach the Arutam is transmitted from generation to generation. Every Shuar child follows the instructions of an older and wiser man, the UTN Shuar. They venture together into the jungle for one, two, or three days. The older man tells him his life experiences, and how he lives. He shows him the teachings of the jungle, he talks to him about the plants and animals, and he shows him they have a life and soul. They hunt and fish, so the child learns the rules and the teachings of life from a master. When he turns eleven, the child must fast and enter the jungle with an uwishin, a shaman, until he finds the sacred waterfall.
When they get there, they build the uwishin hut and then prepare to drink ayahuasca. The wise man reviews everything that happened on their journey through the jungle, and he talks to the child about what he will experience in his dreams. He will see things from the past, the present, and the future. When they drink ayahuasca, the young man will tell his dreams to the uwishin, who will help interpret them and find the Arutam.
For the Shuar, an uwishin is the shaman or the person of knowledge and power. The uwishin are men who can cause fear in people because they can use the magical arts and their knowledge of ancestral plants and brews to do good or evil, to heal or kill.
The term uwishin comes from uwin, which is a palm tree commonly used as a symbol of the Amazon cultures. It was widely used for its fruit, which could serve as food or to produce chicha, a fermented beverage. Its wood could be used to build houses and to make different weapons, such as bows, arrows, and blowpipes.
A linguistic relationship could be established between the meaning of the palm arrows sent by the uwishin to their enemies to harm or even kill them and the shamanic practices of the Quechuas, who call the Shuar shamans chonteros (palmers). There is an extensive magical ritual exchange between these two groups. This is why many Shuar specialize under Quechua shamans or vice versa. The evil or disease is produced when these magical arrows are sent by the uwishins through the help of spirits, or through insects with stingers, by which they transmit their evil arrows.
Shamans are often hired to commit one of these attacks or to repel one. It is known that the power of the shamans was used in the wars between Shuar groups. The Amazon indigenous people claim that when these arrows hit someone, that person would be harmed, then weakened, and then would fall sick, and if not properly healed (meaning that the arrow was not removed) would die. The only one who can remove these arrows and heal the person is another uwishin.
To avoid being hurt, the Shuar take ayahuasca and datura, which are magical plants with great power, prepared in rituals to prevent disease, offer protection from attacks, and enable movement from a mundane plane to a magical healing plane.
Ayahuasca is at the heart of the shamanic ritual. The healing processes around the ingestion of this hallucinogen are directly related to the state of the uwishin, who fasts for long periods of time to locate and remove the arrows sent by enemies. The fasting lasts about ten hours; during this time they are only allowed to eat small amounts of yucca, plantain, and chicha, aside from liquid tobacco and certain amounts of alcohol.
In general, the ceremonies take place at night, because this is the ideal space for connecting to the magical world. According to Shuar beliefs, this is when the spirits and magical animals walk on our lands, so the brew should be consumed between 7 and 8 p.m., although the preparation is done earlier, because several hours of boiling are needed to activate the alkaloids in the plants.
LEGENDS SPECIFIC TO THE TAYOS CAVES
The Tayos Gorgon
The wizard Rosendo Ujukma tells the legend of the Coangos region. A Shuar woman betrayed her husband, and when he caught her red-handed, he wanted to pierce her with his spear. The woman escaped from the fury of her husband. She fled far away and wandered aimlessly through the forest until she reached a stream. She followed the water until it reached the opening of a cave. She was hungry because she hadn’t eaten at all, so she caught a tayo bird and ate it, finding its meat delicious. When she found many of these birds, she ran back to her husband with a bird in hand to give him the good news and hoping to be forgiven. The husband, excited to hear the good news his wife just brought him, told the other members of the tribe. They all went to the cave and ate to their heart’s content; afterward they celebrated the discovery by getting drunk.
Inside the cave, a young man took a sparrow hawk’s egg and ate it. The others followed, eating eggs from other species, and they were all transformed into the species of the eggs they devoured. This is why all the animals now found in the Jíbaro lands come from the cave.
The first person to enter the Tayos Cave was a woman. The Shuar go down to the cave twice a year, after an arduous climb through vines and palm trees. The men must remain silent, while the women go down singing a song that can be translated as:
Oilbird, we come visit you;
oilbird we come to catch you;
oilbird you belong to us,
because your death
gives us life.
Another story says that once, when Shuar men, women, and children went down to the cave to hunt birds, a pregnant woman was among them. She was so far along that when she wanted to get out, she couldn’t. She stayed inside the cave and turned into stone. She is the rock we find at the end of the entrance corridor or chimney.
The Tiger and the Two Brothers
Two brothers got lost in the depths of the cave because their friends cut down the vine ladder. In their efforts to find the way out, they traveled their way into the upper cave, meaning the upper corridor. Their attempts to escape were useless, and they were resigned to their bad luck. Some tayos took pity on them and helped them climb through the mouth of the cave. They were barely out when a tiger suddenly appeared and ate one of the brothers. The survivor followed the tiger to an exit, and thanks to it, he saved himself.
This story is told on both the Ecuadorian and Peruvian sides of the border. Ethnographically, the Shuar have no borders. Furthermore, the border between Ecuador and Peru has long been disputed, going back to Spanish colonial times. Most recently, the dispute led to a military confrontation in 1995. The two countries summoned international arbitrators from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and the United States. The verdict stated the border should remain in the summits of the Cóndor mountain range, and that the whole Cenepa River, and the 7,722 square miles of the Tiwinza region, belonged to Peru. It also granted 386 square miles to Ecuador for commemorative acts. Two ecological parks were created, with a larger area guaranteed for the Peruvian side.
There is no doubt that the geopolitical situation is connected to the destiny of the lost treasure of the Tayos. Through all these years of research and exploring, I came to the conclusion that no one knows exactly where the borders are between the two countries, both in relation to the caves and since the last war with Peru.