Botanical M[isei;m Leaflets Vm IQ Mr. a 



Fall 1983 ' • ^ 



SACRED PLANTS OF THE 



SAN PEDRO CULT 



E. Wade Davis 



river 



The high northern Andean valley of Huancabamba, Peru, is 

 the centre of an extraordinary moon-oriented magico-religious 

 healing cult, a fundamental feature of which is the nocturnal 

 ingestion by patients and curandero of the mescaline-rich San 

 Pedro cactus {Trichocereous Pachanoi Britton et Rose). Such is 

 the notariety of the curanderos, or maestros, of Huancabamba 

 that patients regularly arrive not only from the Peruvian coastal 

 cities and the scattered settlements of the Maronon 

 drainage area to the east, but from as far away as Argentina, 

 Chile, Colombia and Ecuador. 



The healing process at Huancabamba involves two equally 

 important phases. During the first, the maestro, under the 

 influence of the San Pedro, divines the cause of the patient's 

 predicament and prescribes a cure. The adherents of the cult 

 believe that all of life's vicissitudes result from supernatural 

 causes; hence commonly treated problems include both psycho- 

 logical and physiological disorders as well as chronic bad luck, 

 marital troubles, sorcery and malevolent curses (Sharon 1978)' 

 The second phase of the curative process includes the treatment 

 of the particular problem by means of folk remedies prepared 

 from medicinal plants, the most efficaceous of which are said to 

 grow in the environs of a number of sacred lakes known as Las 

 Huaringas. Especially problematic cases are led by the maestro 

 on pilgrimages to these lakes, located a hard day's walk above 

 Huancabamba at an elevation of approximately 10,500 feet. In 

 completing the pilgrimage and in bathing in the sacred waters, 

 the penitent believes that he or she undergoes a metamorphosis' 

 a spiritual regeneration that is profoundly curative (Schultes and 

 Hofmann 1979, Sharon 1972, 1978). 



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