Visions of Christ in the Amazon
The Gospel According to Ayahuasca and Santo Daime
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v3i1.66Keywords:
cosmologies, nature religions, amazonian history, new religious movements, native traditions, amazon, andes, brazil, ayahuasca, yage, jagube, santo daime, aguarico, napo, christ, native christianity, native theology, mestre ireneu, comparative myth, shamansAbstract
In the Amazon, under the influence of ayahuasca, eco revolutionary Christian visions describe how Christ’s power takes root in the Amazonian ground. The article explores the “Gospel”—the story of Christ’s life and teachings—according to ayahuasca as told by the Quichua Aguarico Runa, a native people of the Ecuadorian upper Amazon and then traces local phrasings of the Gospel according to Santo Daime, a Christian sect indigenous to Brazil. As the Christian myth transforms, these radical botanical visions reinterpret South American history, bringing healing to continental and communal memory, and to the decimated and threatened land.
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———. 2008. ‘The Brazilian Ayahuasca Religions’, Fieldwork in Religion 2.3: 177-86.
Cervantes, F. 1994. The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain (New Haven: Yale University Press).
de Arriaga, P.J. 1920 [1621]. La Extirpación de la idolatría en el Perú, in H.H. Urteaga (ed.), Colección de libros y documentos referentes a la historia del Perú 2.1 (Lima: Imprenta y Librería San Martín).
de Félice, P. 1970 [1936]. Poisons sacrés, ivresses divines: Essai sur quelques forms inférieures de la mystique (Paris: Albin Michel).
Deloria, V., Jr. 1994. God is Red: A Native View of Religion (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing).
Demarest, A. 1981. Viracocha: The Nature and Antiquity of the Andean High God (Peabody Museum Moographs, 6; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Doniger O’Flaherty, W. 1995 [1988]. Other People’s Myths: The Cave of Echoes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Foletti–Castegnaro, A. (ed.). 1985. Tradición Oral de Los Quichuas Amazónicos del Aguarico y San Miguel Jatun Comuna Runa (Quito: Ediciones Abya–Yala).
Freedman, F.B. 2000. ‘The Jaguar Who Would Not Say Her Prayers’, in L. Eduardo Luna and S.F. White (eds.), Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon’s Sacred Vine (Santa Fe: Synergetic Press): 113-19.
Goldman, J. 1999. ‘Preface’, in A. Polari De Alverga, Forest of Visions: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Spirituality, and the Santo Daime Tradition (Vermont: Park Street Press): xxiv.
Groisman, A. 2000. ‘Santo Daime in the Netherlands: An Anthropological Study of a New World Religion in a European Setting’ (PhD diss.; Goldsmiths College, University of London).
La Barre, W. 1972. The Ghost Dance: Origins of Religion (New York: Delta).
Luna, L.E., and P. Amaringo. 1991. Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books).
MacRae, E. 1992. Guided by the Moon: Shamanism and the Ritual Use of Ayahuasca in the Santo Daime Religion in Brazil. Online: http://www.neip.info/downloads/edward/ebook.htm (accessed November 2008).
Madera, L. M. 2004. Documentary video segment ‘Wine of the Souls’, in L.M. Madera (dir.), Ilha da Magia: Nature, Spirit and Belief on Santa Catarina Island (Florianopolis, Brazil).
———. 2005. ‘Native Andeans and Nature’, in B. Taylor (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (New York: Continuum International): 59-63.
McKenna, T.K. 1992. Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge—A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution (London: Rider).
Merkur, D. 2000. The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible (Rochester, VT: Park Street Press).
Mills, K. 1997. Idolatry and Its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation, 1640–1750 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Morgan, Brent. n.d. Ayahuasca, Religion, and Nature. Online: http://www.santodaime.org/archives/morgan.htm (accessed November 2008).
Muratorio, B. 1991. The Life and Times of Grandfather Alonso: Culture and History in the Upper Amazon (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press).
Nash, J. 1993. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines (New York: Columbia University Press).
Ott, J. 1995. The Age of Entheogens and the Angels’ Dictionary (Kennewick, WA: Natural Products).
Polari De Alverga, A. 1999. Forest of Visions: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Spirituality, and the Santo Daime Tradition (South Paris, ME: Park Street Press).
Ramírez de Jara, M.C., and C.E. Pinzón. 1986. ‘Los hijos del bejuco solar y la campana celeste: El yajé en la cultura urbana’, América Indígena 46: 184.
Sacks, O. 1998. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (New York: Simon & Schuster).
Salomon, F., and G. Urioste (trans. and eds.). 1991. The Huarochirí Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion (Austin: University of Texas Press).
Shannon, B. 2002. ‘Entheogens—Reflections on ‘Psychoactive Sacramentals’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 9.4: 85-94.
———. 2008. ‘Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis’, Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 1.1: 51-74.
Studebaker Robinson, S. 1979. ‘Toward an Understanding of Kofán Shamanism’ (PhD diss.; Cornell University).
Swanson, T.D. 1986. ‘A Crown of Yage: Mission Christs and Indigenous Christs in South America’ (PhD diss.; University of Chicago).
———. Unpublished manuscript. Watering the Earth with Their Tears: The Oral Tradition of the Quito Runa.
Taussig, M. 1987. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Urton, G. 1981. At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: An Andean Cosmology (Austin: University of Texas Press).
Wasson, R.G. 1968. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).
Wasson, R.G., S. Kramrisch, J. Ott, and C.A. Ruck. 1986. Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Wright, R.M. 2004. ‘The Wicked and the Wisemen: Witches and Prophets in the History of the Northwest Amazon’, in N. Whitehead and R. Wright (eds.), In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery in Amazonia (Raleigh, NC: Duke University Press): 82-109.
———. 2008. ‘The Brazilian Ayahuasca Religions’, Fieldwork in Religion 2.3: 177-86.
Additional Files
Published
2009-07-20
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Madera, L. M. (2009). Visions of Christ in the Amazon: The Gospel According to Ayahuasca and Santo Daime. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 3(1), 66-98. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v3i1.66
