Botanical Museum Leaflets Vol. 29, No. 3 



Summer 1983 



NOVEL HALLUCINOGENS 

 FROM EASTERN ECUADOR 



E. Wade Davis and James A. Yost* 



Recent ethnobotanical investigations have greatly advanced 

 the scientific understanding of the identification, distribution and 

 constituents of plant hallucinogens in the northwest Amazon. To 

 date at least nineteen species employed as' stimulants or narcotics 

 have been reported from this region — a figure that represents 

 approximately one-seventh of all known psychotomimetic plants 

 (Schultesand Hofmann 1980). Although this remarkable concen- 

 tration in part reflects floristic peculiarities, it is also a result of 

 cultural characteristics of the indigenous tribes. Throughout the 

 northwest Amazon, hallucinogenic plants are a very vital feature 

 of religious, medical and magical aspects of life. 



In the spring of 198 1 , whilst we were engaged in ethnobotanical 

 studies in eastern Ecuador, our attention was drawn to a most 

 peculiar use of hallucinogens by the Waorani, a small isolated 

 group of some 600 Indians (cf. Davis and Yost, in press). 

 Amongst most Amazonian tribes, hallucinogenic intoxication is 

 considered to be a collective journey into the subconscious and, as 

 such, is a quintessentially social event (Harner 1973, Reichel 

 Dolmatoff 1971, 1975). The Waorani, however, consider the use 

 of hallucinogens to be an aggressive anti-social act; so the sha- 

 man, or ido, who desires to project a curse takes the drug alone or 

 accompanied only by his wife at night in the secrecy of the forest 

 or in an isolated house. Under the influence oi nui{Banisteriopsis 

 muricata (Cav.) Cuatr.) the ido can call on the wenae. or malevo- 

 lent spirits, to wreak evil, but there are no spirits whom he can 

 contact to do good or to counter another /Wo A" curse. This belief is 

 an unusual exception to the Amazonian pattern in that only the 

 ido who caused the calamity can cure it, which he does by drink- 

 ing mil to communicate with his wenae to convince them to 



*Summer Institute of Linguistics 

 Dallas, Texas 



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