is identifiable botanically as cfmadenanthera colubrina, 
with the long, bean-like seed pods characteristic of the 
hallucinogenically rich family Leguminosae. The seeds 
of this tree, called vilea or willka in the Andes, are made 
into a potent psychotomimetic snuff; they are also in- 
gested in a beverage and, in some highland Quechua 
villages, play an important role in the making of //ampu, 
a sacred substance used in cattle increase ceremonies and 
other rituals the origins of which lie far back in Andean 
prehistory (Billie Jean Isbell, personal communication). 
In any event, the deer is often a semi-divine celestial 
animal for American Indians, connected with Sun, Fire, 
sky beings, and shamans. Among the Warao of the 
Orinoco Delta, its flesh is still strictly taboo for shamans, 
suggesting at least a former sacred relationship (Johannes 
Wilbert, personal communication). Among the Huichol, 
it is the shaman’s spirit helper and companion: a pair of 
feathered ceremonial arrows that he wears on his head 
in certain ritual contexts symbolize deer antlers; the 
oblong basket of shamanic power objects (takwatsi) 1s 
identified with the divine Deer Person, MKauyumarie; 
certain deities are deer and vice versa; the deer is mount, 
guardian and guide on the shaman’s celestial quests and 
fights, especially on the peyote hunt; the ‘*Principal 
Deer’, Elder Brother Waiwatsari, is peyote, and vice 
versa, etc. 
Such concepts remind one at once of the role of the 
deer in Paleo- Asiatic or Siberian shamanism. In Siberia, 
too, the deer is the celestial mount that carries the sha- 
man to the Upperworld and its spirit rulers. In parts of 
Siberia, moreover, there is direct association between 
deer and the divine inebriant 
used by shamans to attain the ecstatic trance states in 
which they embark on their supernatural journeys—the 
in this case the reindeer 
Amanita musearia, or fly agaric mushroom, for which 
[22] 
