p.

dream-songs

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[Gitksan (quoted from Barbeau 1958, p. 51)] "I fell into a trance {dream!} and saw a vast fine territory. In the middle of it a house stood. I stepped into it, and I beheld ... a medicine man (halaait). He had died several years before. The another ... appeared ... . ... I heard them sing many songs. While they were singing, a Grizzly ran through the door, and went right around. Then he rose into the air

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above the clouds, describing a circle, and came back into the house. ... I beheld many fires under the house. ... From then on, I sang those chants just as I had learned them in my vision {dream}."

[Ava`-C^iripa`of eastern Paraway (reference :- Bartolome` 1979)] "A shaman ... journeyed in his sleep to the realm of the dead, ... to ... the ladder connecting heaven and earth. [He] observed the dances of the spirits from a mountaintop in the Beyond and heard their songs. ... after his journey to the Beyond, ... his celestial helpers continued to instruct him in the use of medicinal herbs."

[quoted from Rasmussen 1927, p. 34] "It was a dark winter evening, and suddenly a shining ball of fire showed in the sky. It came down to earth, directly toward the place where [she] sat. ... she was struck by the ball of fire. She became aware all at once that everything in her began to glow. She lost consciousness and from that moment on was a great summoner of spirits. The spirit of the fire ball had taken up residence within her, and it was said that this spirit consisted of two parts. One part was like a bear, the other human; the head was human, but it had fangs like a bear."

[autobiographical statement by shaman (Dio`szegi 1968, p. 142sq) :] "I also became ill when I was about to become a shaman. ... In the meantime the spirits came to visit me. While I slept, my tongue was chanting. It chanted like the shamans do. But I did not know anything about it. When I awoke, my mother and father and my sister told me, "You were chanting shaman songs." ... It went on like this, alternating every three or four months, for three years. ... One does not know anything about it, because really the spirit is chanting. ... The great spirit chants best. ... The little one, the little spirit used to come to me. He had flown into my mouth and then I used to recite shaman songs. ... finally I agreed to become a shaman."

p.

effect

160

"With me, as with every other person of whom I have heard, the keynote of the experience is the tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical illumination. ... The mind sees all the logical relations of being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity". [quoted from James 1969, p. 367]

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"that truth was that every opposition, among whatsoever things, vanishes in a higher unity in which it is based; ... that unbroken continuity is the essence of being ... the existence of which ... we can attain." [quoted from James 1969, p. 368]

The S^uar of Ecuador "feed Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) to their hunting dogs, because contact with the supernatural sharpens the hunting" ability. [reference :- Harner 1973a]

p.

effects

162

Having intaken ayawaska, the Siona-Tukano initiate "sees eveything with his soul body, which the Siona see as a parrot." [reference :- Langdon 1979]

Finally appear the mythical heroes, the gods and demons, with whom the initiate travels through the universe to fathom its secrets." [reference :- Deltgen 1978]

He perceived things for the most part with his spiritual ego ... . He say that he "saw" directly ..., not with his eyes, and that what he saw was in itself pure spirit". [reference :- Deltgen 1978, p. 69]

"The Yeba`masa distinguish among five classes of spiritual men or Kumu`. ... The taking of the drug (Caji`) [Kas^i`] is ... a test which reveals the spiritual "talent." ... The disposition toward becoming a Kumu` is innate. The five levels of spiritual master are ... :

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5. ... priest, who ... prepares the psychedelic drink ...

Va`ihino, the mythical anaconda."

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[Carib of Surinam (reference :- Andres-Bonn 1939)] "heaven was radiating wondrous light. As he set out for the celestial realm, he encountered a friendly spirit ... . In the company of another spirit he ascended a spiral {helical} staircase and, in this way, reached the first level of heaven, where he visited the villages and towns of many spirit peoples. ... He finally came to a celestial river ... . A beautiful virgin emerged from the river and invited them to go with her into the depth of the water. {cf. man’s descent into underwater realm at the behest of his wife (according to a tale in the 1001 Nights)} ... In the end he crossed the river and soon

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He woke up after this experience, because his master had placed a net filled with ants onto his forehead and belly, and the bites of the ants had brought him back to the earthly realm." {Is the reason for making use of emmets related to the journey of the [Aztec] god Xolotl to fetch maize hidden by emmets in a mythic mountain’s interior, an adventure associated with the same god’s also fetching of the bones of the antient dead from the netherworld?}

"The swiveling bench ... is another method used by the Caribs to bring about an out-of-body experience. The initiate ... is .. rotated ... with great speed. The aspirant chants, "The turning bench of Pujai Alanapali will bring me to the wall of heaven. I shall see the village of Tukajana (the spirit) from within."

... the juice of the Takini tree {"Becoming a shaman includes drinking the latex of the takini tree ...; a period of seclusion in which the teacher attaches the benevolent takini spirits to his pupil as helpers" ("SHMRC", p. 117).} is used to make aspirants experience a journey to heaven, but the use of this substance is ... followed by ... paralysis, and uncontrollable shivering."

[Waxiro (Guajiro)] "shamans (Piache) ... eat manilla (a paste made from fermented tobacco) ... .

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[statement by Waxiro shamaness (quoted from Watson-Franke 1975, p. 202) :] "When I dream, the spirits come. ... they are always small and sit on my shoulders. The spirits ... are what is inside people. They speak through the thoughts of the Piache. ... I don’t see them, they come out of my head."

"To ... advance to the other world, known as Ahpikondia`, the ... Desana (a subgroup of the Tukano) take Yaje` and also Viho` (Piptademia), a psychoreactive powder, which they suck in through the nose. In his vision, the Paye` wanders along the Milky Way and must be able to see it {evidently in a dream} as a long road with mountains, lakes, and houses. ... A really experienced Paye` .. rises aloft to the Milky Way and consorts with the beings living there. ... The Tukano ... reach a visionary state, known as Ventu`ri, by the use of Viho` and then enter the "blue zone" where they meet Viho`-mahse:, the Lord of Snuff, who ... grants permission to the aspirant to enter the "blue zone." ... According to the Tukano ...,

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Only in this way can they reach Ahpikondia`, where everything in bathed in a yellow light. The second phase begins with their arrival in Ahpikondia`, which is inhabited by luminous beings of various colors, who continuously vary their size. The Kumu` explains to the visionaries that these figures are the daughters of the sun."

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"the Tukano ... subdivide the drug experience into several stages. They basically distinguish among three marked stages. [reference :- Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978]

1. In the first stage, after some ... bodily reactions such as vomiting, diarrhea, and profuse perspiration, the person will feel like flying ... toward the Milky Way, and will perceive, with ... closed eyes, ... luminous sensations. After a series of brilliant yellow flashes, dancing dots will appear, soon to be replaced by a multitude of small luminous images that seem to float in space and now begin to change their shapes and colors ... . These luminous sensations ... are called gahpi` ohori, "Yaje` images." The Indians explain that all these images and luminescent motifs appear in ... the everchanging patterns of ... "stars and flowers." ...

jaguar spirits and other supernatural beings that appear to reenact the Creation. ...

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But there also appear monstrous animals ... speaking a language that can be understood by humans ... . ...

3. At the third stage, ... turn into wide open scenes of placid clouds bathed in a soft greenish light. These is a coming and going of ... music".

"when I’ve taken Ayahuasca I’ve experienced dizziness, then an aerial journey ... perceiving ... great cities, lofty towers, beautiful parks ... ." [quoted from Harner 1973c, p. 156]

The Cashunahua {an alternative spelling of "Cashinahua" (Kas^inawa)} Indians take Ayahuasca with the specific aim of obtaining information about distant places and people. ... The ethnologist Kensinger was told by six ... people who participated at an Ayahuasca ceremony, that they had seen the death bof his grandfather. He was informed two days later by radio of his grandfather’s death. [reference :- Kensinger 1973] Many ethnologists have had similar experiences".

"Only someone who ... is happily capable of seeing mushrooms as living entities and at the same time has a mythological concept that allows him to understand his relationship with them, has a chance of partaking of the wisdom of the mushrooms."

[quoted from Estrada 1980, p. 46] "One has to show respect for the mushrooms. ... They were like my parents, they were ... born with my destiny".

p.

power

175

"You become a pejuta wic`as`a, because a dream tells you to do this. {"Wichasa wakan were dreamers -- ... holy men were dreamers." (L&Sh, quoted in DP, p. 209) -- /wic^asa/ ‘man’, /wakan/ ‘holy/, /pejuta/ ‘medicine’} No one dreams all the medicines. You doctor where you know you have the power. You don’t inherit it; you ... dream it up". [quoted from Erdoes 1972, p. 159 :]

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"The medicine men (Xon) of the Patagonian Selk>nam transfer their power to the novice by rubbing his body in circular movements with open hands. The Selk>nam speak of an immaterial power (Wa`iyuwen) which a shaman can pass on to his apprentice. ... .

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... the apprentice develops extrasensory skills, in that he is able to see over long distances as well as into human beings. He can also tell with great accuracy the dwelling places of other Xon, because he can see the brightness they radiate." [reference : Gusinde 1931, vol. 1]

[Gros Ventre shamaness] "He ... told me to look into my hand, and when I did I saw a round object there. It was the size of an

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ordinary marble and it was crystal clear. Inside it I saw the image of a baby. The whole body was red. ... the object was a hailstone, he said."