withdraw from the victim. It places the shaman in a precarious 

 position, in that any agreement by the shaman to cure is a de facto 

 admission of guiU; to agree to cure could easily end in death, so 

 the accusation of being an ido is one that is usually met with 

 defiant denial. Gi\en this belief system, it is easy to see why the ido 

 would inevitably choose to act clandestinely. 



Of particular botanical interest is the fact that this peculiar 

 cultural practise involves hallucinogenic plants, one rarely used 

 and one until now unreported. The Waorani have two hallucino- 

 gens: Banistcriopsis muricata and an as yet undeScribed basidioli- 

 chen of the genus Diciyonenia. The former is morphologically 

 very similar to other commonly used psychoactive malpighiace- 

 ous species such as ayahuasca, Banisteriopsis Caapi (Spr. ex. 

 Griseb.) Morton. On the other hand, no basidiolichen has yet 

 been reported to be employed as a hallucinogen. 



A//7. (Banistcriopsis niuricata) is the only hallucinogenic plant 

 currently used by the Waorani. Although both of our collections 

 (Davis ci Yost 967: 975) were made on the edge of chacras (culti- 

 vated plots), the Waorani maintain that the plant is not cultivated 

 and frequentl}' point it out growing wild along the river banks. 



The ido prepares the drug by scraping the bark of the liana and 

 slowly boiling the brew; a procedure not unlike that followed in 

 the preparation of B. Caapi as reported from elsewhere in the 

 Amazon. Although onl>' the shaman imbibes the drug, all adult 

 Waorani clearly associate certain powers with it. A boy's uncle or 

 grandfather may take a tiny piece of the liana and, using the 

 windpipe from a toucan, piping guan or curassow as a blowgun, 

 blow the wadded mii into the boy's lungs so that he will grow up to 

 have powerful lungs and become a great hunter. 



Banistcriopsis niuricata has never been studied pharmacologi- 

 cally (Garcia Barriga 1975), but it almost certainly contains psy- 

 choactive constituents. The Witoto of Pucu IJrquillo on the Rio 

 Ampiyacu in Peru call this species sacha ayahuasca — "wild 

 ayahuasca" — and say that it can be used in the same way as 

 ayahuasca {B. Caapi)^ but that it is weaker. 



The second hallucinogen recognised by the Waorani is a con- 

 spicuous but extremely rare species of lichenized basidiomycete. 



292 



