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O Rio e a Floresta: articulações Huni kuin — Rio de Janeiro-Ayahuasca

Maicon Fecher, Elizabeth Pissolato

Revista do Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro June 6, 2019 DOI: 10.65625/qdf6m345 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Ethnography Peer reviewed
Population Huni Kuin ayahuasca masters (txanas/shamans) and Rio de Janeiro residents participating in nixi pae rituals
Topics Ayahuasca
Key findings Argues that exchanges between Huni Kuin ayahuasca practitioners and urban cariocas since the 2000s have transformed forest knowledge into a relational process, reshaping culture and generating alliances and controversies, with the city acting as an agent that blurs boundaries between forest and urban worlds.

Abstract

This paper approaches the relationship that has been built since 2000’s among ayahuasca Huni Kuin masters (Western Amazon) — singers (txanas) or shamans — and locals from Rio de Janeiro city that are interested in the set of knowledges mediated by that and other forest medicines. We briefly follow up the relationship between Huni Kuin indigenous people and ayahuasca religions in Acre 1990’s years and the culture revival process that originated the shamanism-centered Pano festivals and presence of visitors from the urban centers to village. Next, we approach the rituals of nixi pae that happen in Rio de Janeiro and in the vicinity and their unfolding in alliances and creative experiments involving personal trajectories Huni Kuin and cariocas. In this process of comings and goings, the knowledge of the forest becomes the relation with other knowledge, the culture assumes new contours, multiplies controversies and gets representation by indigenous and non-indigenous in the city. The city itself, an important actor or actante (LATOUR, 2012) in the processes under way, makes its borders leak, multiplies connections between the forest and the city, sets in motion subjects and their worlds.

Comparable studies

Other qualitative studies on ayahuasca, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The antipodes Of the mind Indigenous people, shamans, members of different religious sects using Ayahuasca, and... 2002 Qualitative study
Drug Tourism or Spiritual Healing? Ayahuasca Seekers in Amazonia Westerners participating in an ayahuasca retreat in Amazonia 2005 Qualitative study
Therapeutic Effects of Ritual Ayahuasca Use in the Treatment of Substance Dependence—Qualitative Results Therapists, expert researchers, and individuals who underwent ayahuasca-assisted... 2014 Qualitative study n = 29
Nourishing the Spirit: Exploratory Research on Ayahuasca Experiences along the Continuum of Recovery from Eating Disorders Individuals previously diagnosed with an eating disorder 2017 Qualitative study n = 16
Exploring ayahuasca‐assisted therapy for addiction: A qualitative analysis of preliminary findings among an Indigenous community in Canada Indigenous adults in Canada who participated in ayahuasca-assisted ceremonial retreats 2019 Qualitative study n = 11

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Ayahuasca Shamanism