Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens

«The use, or abuse, of drugs is clearly such a phenomenon, and it is not too much to say that especially now, in the midst of yet one more ‘‘War on Drugs,’’ we need far more and better information on which to base private attitudes and public policies» — Furst, en la Introduction 1990, encuadra el asunto como fenómeno social que pide investigación y no consigna.

«The chapters in this book are not about cocaine or heroin, or other addictive or dependency-creating substances that as developments of modern chemistry, unlike the botanical hallucinogens, no historic or ethnographic precedents and no models for behavior and control in ecstatic shamanism» — Furst delimita el objeto del volumen: no las sustancias de la química moderna, sino las botánicas que sí tienen precedente histórico y etnográfico y modelos de control en el chamanismo extático. El escaneo omite el verbo tras *hallucinogens*.

«The one exception 1s tobacco, an indigenous New World weed that for millennia served spiritual ends for Indian peoples, who regarded it as a gift to human beings from ancestors and gods, and that still functions as a potent shamanic intoxicant» — Furst exceptúa al tabaco: planta indígena americana que sus pueblos tuvieron por don de antepasados y dioses y que sigue funcionando como embriagante chamánico.

«It 1s in that context that tobacco belongs squarely with the hallucinogenic flora» — el lugar que Furst le asigna al tabaco en el volumen: entre la flora alucinógena, por el uso y no por la farmacología.

«The odd thing is that a phenomenon of nature that reaches back so deeply into the evolution of plants, and that has such demonstrable antiquity as a phenomenon of culture, became an issue for our times only in the nineteen sixties» — Furst señala el desfase: un fenómeno antiquísimo en la evolución vegetal y en la cultura que solo se vuelve asunto público en los años sesenta.

«Richard Evans Schultes, the noted Harvard ethnobotanist and ranking authority on New World hallucinogens, who leads off in these pages with his overview, published a monograph on the sacred hallucinogenic morning glories of Mexico as early as 1919» — Furst fecha en 1919 la monografía de Schultes sobre las glorias matutinas mexicanas; la cifra es la que imprime el escaneo.

«In the nineteen thirties the Austrian-born Mexican physician Blas Pablo Reko was a tireless crusader for recognition of the sacred mushrooms, as well as the morning glories, of which the Spanish chroniclers had written in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and which he and other field workers knew were still in use among contemporary Mexican Indians, but whose reality a prominent American botanist, William A. Safford, had stubbornly challenged» — Furst nombra a Blas Pablo Reko como defensor del reconocimiento de los hongos y las glorias sagradas frente a la negativa del botánico William A. Safford.

«Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD for short, was actually synthethized for the first time in 1938, shortly before the outbreak of war in Europe, by the brilliant Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann and his associate, W. A. Kroll» — Furst fecha en 1938 la primera síntesis del LSD y la adjudica a Albert Hofmann y a su colaborador W. A. Kroll.

«It was R. Gordon Wasson, that remarkable banker-turned-ethnobotanist, represented in these pages by two fascinating and very personal contributions (Chapters 6 and 7), who provided the seminal event that impelled ethnology toward in-depth studies of the place of ritual hallucinogens in shamanism and the religions of Native peoples» — Furst adjudica a Wasson el acontecimiento que empujó a la etnología hacia el estudio de los alucinógenos rituales.

«La Barre accounted for this startling statistical discrepancy by noting that shamanism, which the First Americans carried with them out of Asia into the Americas, remained the basis of American Indian religions, even those of the great complex civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andes, whereas it became submerged in much of the Old World by profound socioeconomic and religious transformations» — la explicación que Furst atribuye a La Barre de que el Nuevo Mundo registre muchas más especies psicotrópicas que el Viejo: allí el chamanismo siguió siendo la base de las religiones indígenas.

«Shamanism, one might say, is ‘‘programmed’’ for the ecstatic trance experience; it followed that shamans, the religious and medical specialists, would consciously explore their environments not only for therapeutic species but for those whose properties facilitated the journey of the soul» — la consecuencia que Furst saca de esa explicación: si el chamanismo está dispuesto para el trance extático, el chamán busca en su entorno lo que facilite el viaje del alma.

«This is not to say that all or most Native American peoples had recourse to hallucinogenic plants, or that all psychotropic species native to a particular environment were actually utilized. Datura was widely used in the Southwest and Southeast, but not among Plains and Prairie peoples. The vision quest was a vital component of the latter’s cultures, but 1t was achieved by non-chemical techniques — fasting, exposure to the elements, sensory deprivation, self-torture, among others» — el límite que Furst pone a su propia tesis: ni todos los pueblos recurrieron a plantas, ni se usó toda especie disponible, y la búsqueda de visión se logró también por ayuno, exposición y privación sensorial.

«It 1s not that such plants were worshipped, but always and everywhere they are treated with the greatest respect and reverently addressed 1n personal terms as sentient beings of a higher order» — cómo describe Furst el trato que reciben esas plantas: no culto, sino respeto y tratamiento personal como seres sintientes de orden superior.

«But as we were to learn much later, the military and the CIA were also conducting largescale LSD experiments that were kept secret not only from the scientific community and the public but from their unwitting subjects, most of whom were not even told what it was that was scrambling their minds» — Furst consigna los experimentos con LSD del ejército y de la CIA, ocultos a la comunidad científica, al público y a los propios sujetos.

«As Schultes noted in 1970 in a memorable exchange with Weston La Barre, Native Americans had discovered and utilized many more of these remarkable substances 1n nature than had the peoples of the Old World» — Furst recoge de un intercambio de 1970 entre Schultes y La Barre la asimetría entre continentes en el número de especies psicotrópicas descubiertas y usadas.

«It is not that Wasson was the first to talk about the mushrooms. Apart from the Spanish chroniclers and the above-mentioned Blas Pablo Reko, there was a pioneering publication by Schultes in 1939 that first identified one of the species» — el límite que Furst le pone al mérito de Wasson: antes estaban los cronistas, Reko y una publicación de Schultes de 1939 que identificó una de las especies.

«But LSD was an epochal breakthrough, one of the truly historic discoveries of the first half» — el juicio de Furst sobre el LSD, cortado por el cambio de plana: sigue en la 12 con *of the twentieth century*.

«Among other things, it led inevitably to interdisciplinary consideration of the place of psychoactive plants in traditional religions» — la continuación de ese juicio en la plana siguiente: lo que el LSD trajo fue el examen interdisciplinario del lugar de las plantas psicoactivas en las religiones tradicionales.

«The larger context for Wasson’s role in all this was a long and characteristically painstaking investigation by himself and his wife Valentina, a pediatrician by training who died in 1958, of the place of psychotropic mushrooms in human culture, which they documented in their joint book» — Furst encuadra el episodio mazateco en la investigación larga de Wasson y de su esposa Valentina, pediatra de formación, muerta en 1958.

«The crucial event was his visit to the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca and his personal account of the divinatory use of the sacred mushrooms» — el acontecimiento que Furst señala como decisivo, cortado por el cambio de plana: sigue en la 13 con el nombre azteca del hongo.

«In any event, it was in the turbulent decade of the nineteen sixties, and beginning with peyote among the Huichols, that investigators first turned their attention to the ritual hallucinogens in their cultural context» — Furst fecha en los años sesenta, y a partir del peyote huichol, el giro de los investigadores hacia el alucinógeno ritual en su contexto cultural.

«To be fair, official hysteria was fueled by irresponsible prosyletizing for LSD as the ultimate panacea of happiness by its chief prophet, Timothy Leary» — Furst reparte la responsabilidad de la histeria oficial y nombra a Timothy Leary como profeta del LSD como panacea.

«most experimentation with hallucinogenic plants went on in ignorance of their original cultural contexts, the centuries of knowledge and experience that lay behind their use, and their function not as agents of alienation, or to search for alternate realities, but to take the user through an already familiar sacred geography to a personal encounter with gods and ancestors and sacred tribal history, in which the truth and value of the traditional culture are confirmed» — la tesis central de Furst: el uso indígena no busca realidades alternas ni alienación, sino llevar al usuario por una geografía sagrada ya familiar hasta el encuentro con dioses, antepasados e historia tribal, donde se afianza el valor de la cultura propia.

«In fact, hallucinogens are non-addictive compounds, most occurring naturally in different plant species, that interact with brain chemistry, mental processes and, to a degree, with personality and social context, in such a way as to trigger temporary ‘‘altered states of consciousness» — la definición que da Furst: compuestos no adictivos, casi todos naturales, que interactúan con la química cerebral, los procesos mentales y, en cierto grado, con la personalidad y el contexto social.

«I have seen my Huichol friends chew one peyote cactus after another for half a day without visible complications, and I have seen them act and work perfectly normally, reporting no headaches or nausea or depression or other ill effects on the morning after eating peyote all night long, in marked contrast to how they felt and behaved after an alcohol binge» — Furst da su propio testimonio de campo entre los huicholes frente al de una borrachera de alcohol.

«the oldest remains of peyote excavated in one of the ancient Desert Culture rock shelters on the Pecos River in southern Texas have been dated, by the radiocarbon method, at ca. 5000 B.C.» — la antigüedad que Furst le adjudica al peyote por radiocarbono, en los abrigos rocosos del río Pecos en el sur de Texas.

«so, for example, a remarkable Treatise composed in 1629 by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcon, a Jesuit priest assigned to a parish in Guerrero where the people spoke Nahuatl (Aztec), devotes several chapters to the ‘‘superstition of ololiuhquz’’ (the Aztec name for the seeds of the white morning glory Turbina (form. Rivea) corymbosa), whose powerful spirit he said they feared more than the wrath of the Catholic clergy» — Furst cita el tratado de 1629 de Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, cura en Guerrero, sobre la superstición del ololiuhqui, cuyo espíritu, dice, los indios temían más que a la ira del clero.

«It is quite certain that people in different parts of the world discovered these properties of their local floras long before the invention of writing, maximized their benefits and in one way or another incorporated and regularized their use and successfully channelled their intoxicating effects toward individually and socially useful ends» — lo que Furst da por cierto: que el descubrimiento de esas propiedades es anterior a la escritura y que el uso se reguló y se encauzó hacia fines útiles.

«the hallucinogens have to be seen as fundamentally different from addictive narcotics such as the opiates, especially morphine and heroin» — la distinción de fondo que sostiene Furst frente a los narcóticos adictivos.

«The fact 1s that no one died, or had his brains permanently scrambled, from peyote or morning glory seeds or Pszlocybe mushrooms, which is not to say that they should not always be approached with the care and respect they are accorded by Indian people, even if we do not share the Indians’ belief that they are sacred» — Furst acota el saldo del episodio de los sesenta y añade en la misma frase la reserva: cuidado y respeto aunque no se comparta la creencia indígena en su sacralidad.

«A great many individuals, young and old, of all social and economic strata and across ethnic or racial boundaries, were bound and determined to intoxicate themselves by one means or another, as people always had and always would, a universal phenomenon of the human condition» — cómo describe Furst el efecto de las leyes punitivas y qué da por universal: la determinación de intoxicarse por un medio u otro.

«The juice freed from the coca leaf through chewing with the addition of lime, such as powdered shell or ashes, and swallowed by Andean Indians 1s not a hallucinogen, which is why, notwithstanding its important place in social and religious ritual, it played no part in the original edition of this book or the 1970 UCLA lecture series on which it is based» — Furst declara el criterio de inclusión del volumen y, de paso, su origen: la coca queda fuera por no ser alucinógena, y el libro procede de un ciclo de conferencias de la UCLA de 1970.

«a stickler for accuracy might argue that, properly speaking, Cannabis, or marihuana, whose history and ritual use William A. Emboden, Jr., discusses in Chapter 8, is also not a true hallucinogen but a euphoriant» — la objeción que Furst se plantea a sí mismo sobre el cannabis del capítulo de Emboden: propiamente no es alucinógeno sino eufórico.

«It is clear, then, that coca and cocaine cannot and must not be equated. Cocaine is the refined product of the coca leaf, but is present in the leaf in only very small amounts» — la distinción que Furst insiste en mantener entre la hoja y su producto refinado.

«Coca leaves contain low concentrations of cocaine (usually only 0.5 percent), in combination with other drugs that modify its effects in a good way, and with valuable nutrients. The cocaine 1s highly diluted by inactive leaf material. What’s more, getting stimulation from coca takes work: you have to chew a mouthful of leaves for half an hour» — la cita en bloque que Furst toma de Andrew Weil y Winifred Rosen: la hoja diluye la cocaína entre otras sustancias y obliga a trabajar por el estímulo.

«South American Indians, in contrast, rarely have any problems with chewing coca leaves; the effects continue to be beneficial over time, on the mind as well as the body, as many researchers have confirmed. The fact is that millions of them rely on Mama Coca every day, as archaeology has proved they have done for thousands of years, for a wide variety of purposes: as a medicine (especially for digestive illnesses), to alleviate hunger and fatigue, to obtain the maximum food value from a high starch diet, to socialize, and to place themselves in a desirable state of mind for more intimate contact with the spirit world» — los usos que Furst enumera para la hoja en los Andes, con el contacto con el mundo de los espíritus entre ellos.

«Indeed, the Spaniards, who early on prohibited the chewing of coca leaves because of the association of the custom with the old Indian deities (“‘devils’’ to the pious clergy), were soon forced to rescind the ban because without coca the Indians simply could not, and would not, perform their heavy labors for their masters or themselves» — el episodio colonial que Furst consigna: la prohibición por la asociación de la hoja con las antiguas deidades y su revocación por necesidad de la mano de obra.

«The name Mama Coca, by which Quechua-speaking Indians respectfully, even reverently, address the plant, 1s to be taken seriously; it 1s not a joke, not a nickname or a euphemism. It means just that to the Indians, ‘Our Mother Coca» — cómo entiende Furst el nombre con que el quechuahablante se dirige a la planta: no apodo ni eufemismo.

«Is it overstating the case to equate complete eradication of coca with cultural genocide?» — la pregunta con que Furst cierra el punto, planteada como pregunta y no como sentencia.

«And although after years of agitation by anthropologists and Indian people peyote as a sacrament of the Native American Church 1s no longer criminalized in twenty-two states and under federal law, there are still plenty of places where an adherent of this pan-Indian religion could be thrown in jail when he eats a little plant that for him is comparable to the Host in the Catholic Mass» — el estado legal que Furst describe para el peyote de la Iglesia Nativa Americana y la comparación que hace del cacto con la hostia.

«Copyright © 1972 by Peter T. Furst Reissued 1990 with changes by Waveland Press, Inc.» — la página de derechos de esta reimpresión: el copyright de 1972 va a nombre de Peter T. Furst y la reedición la declara Waveland Press en 1990. La plana no imprime el pie editorial de la primera edición.

«Cover: Ceramic figurine of a man inhaling intoxicating snuff from a bottlegourd nose pipe, from a shaft-and-chamber tomb in Colima, Mexico, ca. 100 BC-AD 200. Kurt Stavenhagen Collection, Mexico City, 11” high. Photo by Peter I. Furst» — la descripción de cubierta que da el editor: una figurilla de Colima de hacia el año 100 antes de la era, con la fotografía acreditada a Furst, cuyo nombre el escaneo imprime con I en vez de T; *bottlegourd* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón que el impreso trae como compuesto.

«Flesh of the Gods 1s intended to provide the phenomenon of intoxication with psychoactive plants with some its essential cultural and historical dimensions, and coincidentally, provide some models from which our own society might — dare one hope? — pick up a few lessons» — Furst declara en 1990 para qué es el volumen: dar al fenómeno de la intoxicación con plantas psicoactivas sus dimensiones culturales e históricas, y de paso ofrecer modelos.

«Without such a perspective, any conclusions — for or against — are incomplete and to some degree irrelevant» — el límite que Furst le pone a toda conclusión que prescinda de esa perspectiva cultural, tomada partido o no.

«Of the ten chapters in this book seven were first presented as public lectures at UCLA and subsequently expanded and refined for publication. These are the essays by William A. Emboden, James W. Fernandez, Weston La Barre, Richard Evans Schultes, and R. Gordon Wasson, as well as my own chapter on peyote» — Furst deslinda el origen de cada capítulo: siete salen de conferencias públicas en la UCLA, y nombra a sus firmantes.

«The other three, by Johannes Wilbert, Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, and Douglas Sharon, were invited from their authors because each presents new and unique material of significance to our understanding of the traditional cultural context of psychotropic substances and the regulation and ritualization of the natural drive for intoxication» — y los tres restantes, que Furst dice haber encargado a sus autores por traer material nuevo.

«So when Waveland Press approached me earlier this year with the possibility of reissuing Flesh of the Gods, the obvious first question had to be, how well do the chapters stand up after twenty years of additional studies? The answer is, remarkably well» — cómo cuenta Furst el encargo de la reedición y qué responde a su propia pregunta sobre el envejecimiento de los capítulos.

«While little can be added to the historical and ethnographic information in Emboden’s survey across time and space of the ritual use of the genus Cannabis, there is significant new taxonomic information. Cannabis has after all turned out to be not monotypic — that 1s, a single species with several varieties, as he wrote then, but polytypic, with at least three recognizable species, C. sativa, C. ruderalis, and C. indica, and probably others, as well» — la enmienda que Furst introduce en 1990 al capítulo de Emboden: el género Cannabis resulta politípico y no monotípico.

«Between 1972 and 1990, many books and innumerable scientific papers, by the contributors and other scholars, greatly expanded the literature on the ethnology, botany and chemistry of plant hallucinogens beyond the Bibliography in this volume. The following 1s a selected list of such books not yet in print when Flesh of the Gods first appeared, including several by the contributors themselves» — Furst declara qué es la sección de lecturas añadida en 1990: una lista selecta de libros posteriores a la primera edición, varios de los propios colaboradores.

«Harner, Michael J., ed. 1973 Hallucinogens and Shamanism. New York: Oxford University Press» — de la bibliografía suplementaria de 1990: Furst remite al volumen colectivo de Michael J. Harner, que el corpus ficha aparte.

«Schultes, Richard Evans, and Albert Hofmann 1973 The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. 1979 ~— Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogenic Use. New York: McGraw- Hill. Paperback reprint by Alfred van der Marck» — de la misma lista: los dos libros de Schultes con Albert Hofmann que el corpus ficha aparte.

«Wasson, R. Gordon, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck 1978 The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secrets of the Mysteries. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich» — y el Road to Eleusis de Wasson con Hofmann y Ruck, también fichado aparte.

«From the point of view of the indigenous culture, such distinctions are of course meaningless, since the drug-induced experience is regarded as neither “hallucination” nor “illusion” but as another form of reality—indeed, often the ultimate reality» — nota al pie firmada por el editor dentro del capítulo de Schultes: Furst objeta la distinción entre alucinación e ilusión desde la cultura indígena, para la cual la experiencia es otra forma de realidad. La firma que cierra la nota es *Eb.* en el escaneo, por *Ed.*.

«The Ghost Dance religion, which first arose in 1870 among the Indians of the Western Plains, and which ended in 1890 in the tragic massacre of 300 unarmed Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek, was based on the vision . . . that a great mass of mud and water would soon roll over the earth, destroying the white men and all their gear. The Indians should dance the old round dance and, as they danced, the flood would roll over them. When it was over, the earth would be green again, animals and plants would be as in the old days, and the ancestral dead would come back» — nota al pie del editor dentro del capítulo de Schultes: Furst resume la religión de la Danza de los Espíritus, de su aparición en 1870 a la matanza de Wounded Knee en 1890, apoyándose en Underhill. La firma del escaneo es *Eb.*.

«Among North American Indians, especially hunting and gathering tribes, not only shamans but also ordinary men had the capacity to experience visions and obtain the aid of supernatural spirits. This could be achieved only through a strenuous “vision quest,” involving fasting, thirsting, purification, exposure—even self-mutilation and torture. “The result would be a trance or a vivid dream in which the visionary made contact with his future guardian spirit and perhaps even received some visible token» — segunda nota del editor en la misma plana: Furst precisa que no solo los chamanes sino los hombres comunes obtenían visiones, y solo por la búsqueda penosa con ayuno, sed, purificación, exposición y hasta automutilación.

«This hallucinogenic drug is present also in the skin of poisonous toads, eg., Bufo marinus. Such toads have long played an important role in mythology and ritual art, not only in Mesoamerica (especially among the Maya) but in Central and South America, a circumstance that I suggested in a discussion at the International Congress of Americanists in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1968, might possibly be related to the hallucinogenic properties in toad and frog poisons» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Schultes: Furst recuerda que la bufotenina está también en la piel del sapo y remite a una propuesta suya de 1968 en el Congreso de Americanistas de Stuttgart. Firma *ED.* al final de la nota.

«A number of South American tropical-forest tribes are known to use frog or toad poison to induce ecstatic trance states akin to those resulting from the various botanical hallucinogens; in these cases, however, the drug is introduced directly into the bloodstream through self-inflicted burns or wounds rather than ingested orally» — la misma nota del editor: el veneno de sapo o de rana se usa para el trance extático, pero introducido por quemaduras o heridas y no por la boca.

«It should be noted that the action of bufotenine on the human brain is not as yet well understood—for example, it appears, that unlike other hallucinogens, bufotenine does not fully penetrate the blood-brain barrier» — y la reserva con que Furst cierra esa nota: la acción de la bufotenina en el cerebro humano no se entiende todavía.

«Among Europeans and their descendants elsewhere it became a habit and an addiction but played no role in religion. But after tobacco reached Siberia, probably also in the latter part of the sixteenth century or at the latest in the seventeenth century, it is astonishing how quickly the tribesmen adapted it to shamanism, thus recapturing for it the religious meaning that it has always had for the American Indians» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Wilbert: Furst trae a Wasson sobre la rapidez con que el tabaco, llegado a Siberia, se incorporó al chamanismo, frente al hábito sin religión de los europeos. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«Kaidoko-like tendrils occur also in the ceremonial art of the Maya, where they are identified as characteristics of the Sun God, and in Veracruz. Earlier still they appear on certain Olmec face masks, such as one, believed to date to a Late Olmec period, in the Peabody Museum at Harvard. Here the tendrils in the corners of the mouth are associated with a triangular toothlike projection in the center of the upper jaw. This same association is found on certain tall cylinders depicting the Sun God of the Night from the Classic Maya site of Palenque, Chiapas. Michael D. Coe, in a letter, points out that one of the Maya names for the Sun deity is Kinich Kakmoo, literally “Sun-eyed Fire” (i.e., Scarlet Macaw). Is the triangular projection perhaps a stylized frontal view of the macaw’s beak? If so, this would strengthen the correspondence between Warao and Maya» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Wilbert: Furst empareja los zarcillos del lazo warao con los del Dios Solar maya y con máscaras olmecas, apoyándose en una carta de Michael D. Coe, y deja la correspondencia como pregunta. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«An account by the Hungarian ethnologist Vilmos Didszegi (1968:66) of a Siberian shaman’s journey to the chief shaman in the Otherworld also contains remarkably close parallels to the initiatory trance journey of the Warao wishiratu. The Siberian shaman reaches the supreme spirit shaman by passing through a series of trials culminating in a clashing gateway in which the inept are crushed. Also, like the Venezuelan Indian, he comes first upon a special shamanic tree—in this case a pine-- into whose bark he and other shamans carve their symbols. ‘“‘Whoever places his marking, his tamga, upon it,” Didszegi quotes his informant, “then becomes a real shaman» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Wilbert: Furst trae de Diószegi el viaje del chamán siberiano, con la puerta que se cierra sobre los ineptos y el árbol donde se talla la marca. El escaneo imprime el apellido como *Didszegi*.

«It happens sometimes that a certain tamga ‘falls down,’ it disappears from the tree. Then its owner dies.” This is exactly the case with the wishiratu: his mark on the tree and the shaman live a parallel existence. One cannot help but wonder whether such common experiences by shamans in widely separated regions of the circum-Pacific area are to be explained in terms of real historical relationships, survivals perhaps of some ancient shamanic substratum predating the settling of the Americas from Asia, or in terms of the unconscious and the language of symbols by which it communicates (e.g., Jung’s “archetypes’’). Perhaps there is something of both here; in any event, the correspondences between Asian and American shamanism are far too close and too numerous to be explained away as mere coincidence» — el resto de esa nota del editor: la marca y el chamán viven en paralelo, y Furst deja abierta la disyuntiva entre parentesco histórico y lenguaje del inconsciente, con los arquetipos de Jung nombrados, aunque da las correspondencias por demasiado estrechas para ser coincidencia. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«Translated from the Spanish by Michael B. Sullivan» — nota al pie del capítulo tercero: Reichel-Dolmatoff escribió en español y el volumen lo publica en traducción de Michael B. Sullivan.

«An earlier Spanish version of this paper appeared in the Revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicas y Naturales, Vol. XIII, No. 51 (Bogota, Colombia: 1969» — la misma nota declara el antecedente del capítulo: una versión española anterior en la revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas.

«The myth of the origins of yajé exemplifies a cycle of widely distributed myths that deal with a bloody sacrifice in which a group of men participates and from which subsequently there emerges something of benefit to mankind. For an Old Worid example, see the myth of Dionysius. The first peyote of Huichol mythology is similarly dismembered (see P. Furst, below), as was the Pygmy who became the first hallucinogenic eboka plant of the Fang of Gabon» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Reichel-Dolmatoff: Furst empareja el desmembramiento del Niño Yajé con el mito de Dioniso, con el primer peyote huichol y con el pigmeo del que sale la eboka fang, remitiendo a sus propios capítulos. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«A strikingly familiar motif of sacred trumpets which women must neither see nor hear is found among Australian aborigines, Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Congo, and several other South American Indian populations. In all these widely separated regions and cultural contexts the trumpets have their origin in the mythical first times and in all of them the penalties for women who violate the taboo are very severe, for the survival of the social order and man’s balanced relationship to the supernatural are at stake» — segunda nota del editor en la misma plana: Furst señala el mismo motivo de trompetas sagradas vedadas a las mujeres entre aborígenes australianos, pigmeos del Ituri y otros pueblos sudamericanos, con penas severas en todos.

«The fact that other observations of the San Pedro curing ritual conform in their major features to those reported by Sharon suggests a shared tradition, though with some idiosyncratic variations or innovations. Another anthropologist, Scott Robinson (personal communication), for example, had much the same experience with another San Pedro practitioner as did Sharon with Galvaez» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Sharon: Furst coteja el rito descrito con el que otro antropólogo, Scott Robinson, observó con otro curandero, y lo lee como tradición compartida con variaciones.

«Here the pre-European shamanistic tradition is again obvious. Such trance experiences as visits to sacred lakes or water holes which belong exclusively to the supernatural practitioners (see, for example, Wilbert’s account of the supernatural initiatory journey of the shaman of the Venezuelan Warao), entering the earth or hills, spirit projection, physical combat against disease demons and ferocious animals doing the bidding of sorcerers, foreign objects magically introduced into the body to cause illness, assistance from dead shamans and benevolent supernaturals, etc., all are typically shamanistic» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Sharon: Furst enumera los rasgos del rito que da por típicamente chamánicos, con remisión al capítulo de Wilbert sobre el warao.

«Somersaulting also is a not uncommon shamanistic phenomenon, utilized especially for purposes of transformation. In neighboring Bolivia, for example, shamans of the Tacana perform somersaults in one direction to turn themselves into jaguars (their alter egos) and in the opposite direction to reassume human form» — el resto de esa nota del editor: las volteretas como fenómeno chamánico de transformación, con el ejemplo tacana de volverse jaguar y volver a hombre. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«Raza: literally race, but here meaning a people sharing a common cultural and genetic heritage. Ambiente is difficult to render into English; it is used to refer to a socio-cultural environment or milieu. Compadre, a ritual kinship term, literally “‘cofather,” defining a relationship usually established at the baptism of a child» — nota del editor al cierre del capítulo de Sharon: Furst glosa los tres términos españoles que quedan sin traducir, raza, ambiente y compadre; *cofather* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón, que el impreso trae como *co-father*.

«The case made for the origins of Christianity in a mushroom cult in John Allegro’s recent book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) has not met with acceptance among scholars, including some who are generally persuaded by Wasson’s arguments regarding the identification of Soma with the fly agaric and the role of hallucinogens generally in the religious experience» — nota del editor al cierre del capítulo de Wasson: Furst consigna que el libro de John Allegro sobre el origen del cristianismo en un culto del hongo no ha tenido aceptación erudita, ni siquiera entre quienes sí siguen a Wasson en lo del Soma. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«And perhaps Amerindian religion as well. Much the same association of world (or shamanic) tree as symbolic axis mundt, with the pool of the water of life at its base, is found in the Americas, as is the chthonic guardian, the chimereal serpent. The prehistoric shaman’s ascent of the sacred tree (and its functional counterpart in the great prehispanic religions, the ascent of the priest up the steep pyramidal stairway to the house of the god at the summit) still survives in some indigenous cultures of the New World» — nota del editor al cierre del capítulo del Soma: Furst extiende la asociación del árbol chamánico como eje del mundo, con su pozo y su serpiente guardiana, a las Américas.

«When applied to aboriginal beliefs and rituals in North and South America, Wasson’s exploration into the origins and symbolic meanings of the tree of life support La Barre’s recognition of powerful vestiges of the religions of Paleolithic and Mesolithic Asia in the religions of the American Indian» — el resto de esa nota: Furst lee la exploración de Wasson como apoyo al reconocimiento de La Barre de vestigios de las religiones del Asia paleolítica y mesolítica en las americanas. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«The Swiss classical scholar K. Meuli (1935) suggests that the “howling” reported by Herodotus was nothing else but the characteristic shouting by shamans in their trances and that the entire purification rite must have been a form of shamanism, related to the shaman’s role as psychopomp, the guide of the soul to the beyond. Interestingly enough, Meuli sees a relationship between the Scythian ecstatic vapor bath and the well-known curative vapor bath of Arctic peoples and American Indians» — el resto de esa nota del editor: Meuli lee el aullido de Heródoto como el grito del chamán en trance y empareja el baño de vapor escita con el de los pueblos árticos y americanos. La nota cierra con la firma *Ep.*.

«And, for that matter, of marihuana-using G.I.’s in Vietnam. CBS News in 1970 broadcast an extraordinary film of a marihuana “ritual” in which soldiers employed a shotgun—‘‘anthropomorphized” as “Ralph’’—to inhale large quantities of marihuana smoke. As depicted in the television news film, the combat unit’s leader ejected the shells from his shotgun, inserted a lighted marihuana pipe in the breech and then blew the smoke through the barrel directly into the mouth of each of his men in turn! There are some interesting implications in such a use for a weapon of death, especially since bamboo was readily available to achieve the same effect (but without the same symbolism). The use of a gun here is reminiscent of the manner in which the Waika Indians of Venezuela blow charges of a powerful hallucinogenic snuff into one another's nostrils with a long tube. This tube, though shorter than the blowgun, is otherwise similar to this deadly hunting weapon. It is unlikely that the Army unit had access to this bit of anthropological information, so that their particular communal way of ingesting the euphoriant must be regarded as spontaneous ritualization» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Emboden: Furst describe una ritualización espontánea filmada en Vietnam, con la escopeta usada para soplar el humo, y la empareja con el tubo de rapé de los waika.

«These cutout spirit figures are characteristically Otomi, attesting to the strong influence Otomian culture has had on the Tepehua. Otomi shamans use them widely for curing and sorcery as well as in connection with fertility rituals for crops and fields, as do the shamans of the Tepehua. Although the art of bark-papermaking survives in several parts of Mexico, the real center of this ancient craft is the Otomi village of San Pablito, in the Sierra de Puebla, where bark paper is traded widely. The art of bark-papermaking is an old one; stone bark beaters have been found in archaeological contexts dating to 900 B.c.» — nota del editor sobre las figuras de papel de corteza del rito tepehua: son otomíes de origen y el oficio se remonta al menos al 900 antes de la era.

«Spittle in general, but especially in a ritual context, is a symbol of transcendance» — nota del editor sobre el escupitajo en el rito tepehua: lo lee como símbolo de trascendencia. La firma es *Ep.*.

«Rudenko found metal support rods and bronze censing vessels containing not only stones which had been heated to produce hemp-seed vapors but even the seeds themselves, some of them burnt. According to Rudenko, all these objects were used for purification ceremonies after the funeral, similar to those described by Herodotus in his report on the Scythians living on the shores of the Black Sea» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Emboden: Furst trae la evidencia arqueológica de Rudenko en los kurganes del Altái, con pebeteros de bronce y simientes de cáñamo quemadas.

«ELIADE, MircEA, 1961. Images and Symbols. New York: Sheed & Ward. , 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Bollingen Series LXXVI. New York: Pantheon Books» — de la bibliografía del volumen: las dos obras de Eliade que el libro cita, entre ellas el Chamanismo que el corpus ficha aparte.

«EFRON, DANIEL, ed., 1967. Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs. U.S. Public Health Service Pub. No. 1645. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office» — de la misma bibliografía: el volumen colectivo de Efron sobre la búsqueda etnofarmacológica, también fichado aparte en el corpus.