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.

«So why do people continue to use all these substances, dangerous or not, to intoxicate themselves? And is there something about the conditions and structure of American society that makes us so dramatically more susceptible to the use of illegal substances than any other developed or developing country in the world?» — las dos preguntas con que Furst abre la sección del cuarto impulso.

«An early answer came from Andrew Weil, who argued in 1972 in The Natural Mind that the desire for periodic ‘‘high states’’ has its origin in the human nervous system, independent of any external substances» — la respuesta que Furst recoge de Andrew Weil: el deseo de estados altos nace del sistema nervioso y no de la sustancia.

«Most recently, psychopharmacologist Ronald K. Siegel, Jr., a respected research scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, has put forth a convincing argument, not unrelated to Weil’s, that the desire for the experience of intoxication 1s a fourth drive, as basic and as unstoppable as hunger, thirst, and sex» — la tesis que Furst atribuye a Ronald K. Siegel: la intoxicación como cuarto impulso, tan básico como el hambre, la sed y el sexo.

«The insight that all people everywhere share a desire, need and chemical as well as non-chemical techniques for periodically altering their states of consciousness, and that this is grounded in the biology of the brain» — cómo formula Furst el hallazgo de Weil: el deseo y las técnicas para alterar periódicamente la consciencia son universales y están fundados en la biología del cerebro.

«Its basic message, once so startling, has since been amply confirmed by the discovery, in 1975, that the brain manufactures a whole group of its own morphine-like narcotics, chiefly the endorphins (a term compounded of endogenous, originating within, and morphine) and enkephalins» — el respaldo que Furst le ve a Weil en el descubrimiento de 1975 de los narcóticos propios del cerebro.

«Why have the human brain and the poppy evolved chemicals with similar effects when they are so unlike each other? Is this fact a mere coincidence or does it suggest a deep relationship between people and plants that underlies the age-old inclination to experiment with vegetable drugs? And what does it say about the ‘‘naturalness’’ of taking drugs?» — las preguntas que Furst cita de Weil y Rosen sobre el parentesco entre el cerebro humano y la adormidera.

«Even before scientists discovered the endorphins, the essential message of The Natural Mind was that to get high is to be human, but that it 1s not necessary to turn to the products of chemical laboratories, or even intoxicating compounds naturally present in the plant world, to experience euphoria» — el mensaje de The Natural Mind según Furst, con su límite dentro: drogarse es humano y a la vez no hace falta droga externa para la euforia.

«suggest that the pursuit of intoxication with drugs is a primary motivational force in the behavior of organisms. Our nervous system, like those of rodents and primates, is arranged to respond to chemical intoxicants in much the same way it responds to rewards of food, drink, and sex. Throughout our entire history as a species, intoxication has functioned like the basic drives of hunger, thirst or sex, sometimes overshadowing all other activities in life» — la cita en bloque de Siegel que Furst reproduce: el sistema nervioso responde al intoxicante como responde al alimento, la bebida y el sexo. El verbatim se corta antes de la frase en cursiva y del número de página que el impreso mete dentro de la cita.

«It follows, he continues, that our very survival as individuals and as a society depends on the ability to understand and control this basic drive to seek out and use intoxicants, the more so because while we are neither the first nor the most experienced species to develop this passion for intoxicants, and in some ways only mimic the behavior of other animals, “‘we have become the most eager and reckless explorers of intoxication» — la consecuencia que Furst recoge de Siegel, con el juicio de que la especie humana es la exploradora más imprudente de la intoxicación.

«managed to distinguish between use and abuse, deal wisely with both the benefits and the destructive potential and consequences of intoxication, and in many instances to ritualize these practices and experiences» — lo que Furst subraya del material de Siegel: que otras sociedades distinguieron uso de abuso y ritualizaron la práctica.

«Interestingly enough, it was none other than Professor Schultes, who, having been called as an expert witness for the prosecution in some of these cases, and being a stickler for scientific accuracy, gave the testimony that set the defendant free» — el episodio que Furst consigna: llamado como perito por la acusación en juicios de marihuana, Schultes dio el testimonio que dejó libre al acusado.

«that as early as 1783 Lamarck contrasted C’. indica with C’. sativa» — la antigüedad que Furst le da a la distinción taxonómica que Emboden no recogía.

«Cannabis 1s not, contrary to the fondly held belief of some of 1ts advocates, indigenous to the New World and a favorite of the Aztec Emperor Mocetuhzoma, but a post-Conquest import from the Old World» — la negativa que Furst opone a una creencia difundida entre partidarios del cannabis: la planta no es americana ni favorita de Moctezuma, sino importación posterior a la Conquista.

«New research has expanded the number of plant hallucinogens employed in the Indian Americas beyond the eighty or so known twenty years ago. Counting the so-called ‘‘minor’’ hallucinogens the number may actually be as high as two hundred» — la cifra que Furst actualiza en 1990 sobre el panorama de Schultes, contando los alucinógenos llamados menores.

«Second, a widespread prehispanic snuffing complex has been newly identified in Mexico, where none was previously reported. The evidence consists of a number of ceramic snuffing pipes, some dating as early as the second and first millennium B.C., as well as some figurines from Colima dating between 200 B.C. and the first or second century A.D. What was snuffed is not known, but powdered Nicotiana rustica tobacco, as well as relatives of some of the South American sources of hallucinogenic snuff (see pp. 24-31), are among the candidates» — el complejo de rapé prehispánico que Furst dice recién identificado en México, con el tabaco en polvo entre los candidatos y sin certeza de qué se aspiraba.

«Whether the Maya prepared their clysters with alcohol, such as the balché (fermented honey and extract of balché bark) that is still an important ceremonial beverage in Yucatan, or, as in South America, with liquified tobacco or an extract of psychotropic mushrooms or one or more of the several other hallucinogenic species readily available in their environment remains a matter of conjecture» — y el límite que Furst le pone a ese hallazgo: con qué cargaban los mayas sus lavativas sigue siendo conjetura.

«Not so easily dismissed is a lengthy footnote, on page 153 of my chapter on peyote, because it revives the long-standing argument over whether Carlos Castaneda’s books are ethnographic truth or literary fiction. The note comes down on the side of the former, the facts as they have emerged since, the latter» — Furst retira en 1990 la nota de su propio capítulo sobre el peyote: la nota daba por etnografía los libros de Castaneda y los hechos posteriores los dan por ficción.

«Third, in the midseventies some painted Maya vases became available with very graphic scenes of the ritual use of enemas among the Classic Maya» — los vasos mayas pintados que Furst señala como novedad: escenas de enemas rituales. El verbatim se corta en el cambio de plana, y sigue en la 26 con los dioses provistos de jeringa; *midseventies* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón, que el impreso trae como *mid-seventies*.

«It was on the way back that Ramon gave his unexpected and dramatic demonstration of the meaning of shamanic balance that is described on pp. 152-53, and to which the footnote in question, which tells about a strikingly similar experience Carlos Castaneda reported having had in Oaxaca in October 1968, was intended to add interesting comparable data» — cómo cuenta Furst el episodio de 1966 con Ramón Medina Silva junto a la catarata y para qué puso la nota sobre Castaneda.

«De Mille, who stalked Castaneda for several years with the tenacity and skill of an investigative reporter as well as literary critic, in effect concluded, in two books, Castaneda’s Journey: The Power and the Allegory (1976), and The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies, originally published in 1980 and reissued this year (1990), with fresh material, that with the exception of a few early skeptics everyone had been taken in, that Carlos’ bestsellers were not even partly real ethnography but a// imagination, the product of a trickster personality who had dipped freely into a variety of sources to write his ‘‘Mexican Indian’’ renderings of nineteen sixties counter-culture Karma Kola» — la conclusión que Furst atribuye a de Mille sobre los superventas de Castaneda.

«What really happened, wrote de Miuille, is that Barbara Myerhoff had told her fellow graduate student, and then trusted friend, Carlos about Raméon’s performance when she returned from fieldwork in Mexico in August 1966 to begin writing her doctoral dissertation. Carlos immediately exclaimed, ‘‘Oh, that’s just like don Genaro!» — la reconstrucción de de Mille que Furst reproduce: Myerhoff le contó a Castaneda la actuación de Ramón al volver del campo en 1966.

«What she did not know until de Mille drew her attention to it was that in 1966 Carlos had not >?) even laid eyes on ‘‘don Genaro,’’ and that by his own published account he was not to do so for another two years, until 1968!» — el dato que, según Furst, desarmó la coincidencia: en 1966 Castaneda no conocía aún al personaje con quien la comparó.

«A sad business, that, not easy to explain or forgive, even if one allows the Castaneda bestsellers, including all his supposed experiences with peyote, Datura and transformation, de Mille’s generous characterization of ‘‘allegory» — el juicio de Furst sobre el asunto, con la caracterización de de Mille entre comillas.

«In any event, it turns out that our own analysis of what happened at the waterfall was incomplete. As Ramén’s widow, Guadalupe, now in her midsixties and in training to become a mara ’akame (shaman) like Ramon, recently told me, her late husband was doing more than just demonstrating the meaning of shamanic balance when he hopped back and forth with outstretched arms at the edge of the cataract» — Furst enmienda además su propia lectura del episodio: lo que Ramón hacía no era solo demostrar el equilibrio chamánico; *midsixties* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón.

«In fact, that aspect of the performance was secondary; what he was really doing was reenacting an incident from the primordial peyote quest of the divine ancestors. When the kakayaurixi, the ancient,ancient ones, were going to Wirikuta, one of the first places they came to after leaving the sierra was a waterfall, called Aita» — lo que Guadalupe, viuda de Ramón y en formación como mara akame, le dice a Furst: la actuación reponía un episodio de la búsqueda primordial del peyote por los antepasados divinos.

«And why had Ramon not explained all this at the time, when he told us that what he had done showed what it is to have the balance of the shaman? Why should he? Doesn’t everyone know how the story went?» — cómo cierra Furst el episodio, con la pregunta que deja sin respuesta.

«The similarity immediately struck author-philosopher Richard de Miuille (though not, at the time, Barbara or me) as “a little too striking to escape» — la objeción de Richard de Mille que Furst reproduce, y que ni él ni Barbara Myerhoff vieron entonces; el escaneo imprime el apellido como *de Miuille* y la frase se corta en el cambio de plana, donde sigue con *suspicion*.

«They came down tired, tired, from the from the Cerrito de Picachos,’’ Lupe said. ‘‘And when they came to Aita, they were looking to climb down from there, so that they could go to the peyote. T"he searched and searched and they did not know» — el relato de Guadalupe en su propia voz: los antepasados llegan cansados a la catarata de Aita y no saben cómo bajar.

«They could not fly, those poor ones, they had to go down purely on their feet. Only one who was bird could fly down there» — el cierre del relato de Guadalupe: solo el que era pájaro podía bajar volando.

«And Ramé6n was showing how this little bird, this pure little bird, spread its wings and flew down from those rocks, how it showed those ancient, ancient kakauyarixi the way how one gets down from those rocks, from Aita» — lo que Guadalupe llama el remate: Ramón mostraba cómo el pajarillo enseñó a los antepasados el camino para bajar de las rocas.

«There can be little doubt that the second half of the twentieth century will be remembered as a time when “mind-altering,” or hallucinogenic, substances came into increasing use, serious as well as frivolous, in sophisticated Western societies» — Schultes abre su panorama fechando en la segunda mitad del siglo XX la entrada creciente de las sustancias que alteran la mente en las sociedades occidentales.

«Yet Western civilization’s new-found ways of attaining the “mystic experience” by altering the chemical homeostasis of the body represents nothing new; for thousands of years, primitive societies the world over have used psychotomimetic plants for purposes of religious ritual, divination, or magic» — y la negativa con que lo acota: alterar la homeostasis química para alcanzar la experiencia mística no es nada nuevo. El verbatim conserva el término *psychotomimetic* que Schultes usa aquí.

«Unlike psychotropic drugs that act normally only to calm or to stimulate (tranquilizers, caffeine, alcohol, etc.), the hallucinogens act on the central nervous system to bring about a dreamlike state, marked, as Hofmann has noted, by extreme alteration in the sphere of experience, in the perception of reality, changes even of space and time and in consciousness of self. ‘They invariably induce a series of visual hallucinations, often in kaleidoscopic movement, usually in brilliant and rich colors, and frequently accompanied by auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory hallucinations and a variety of concomitant sensations (synesthesia)» — cómo describe Schultes el efecto, apoyándose en Hofmann: estado onírico con alteración extrema de la experiencia, de la percepción de la realidad, del espacio, del tiempo y de la consciencia de sí.

«The effects of many hallucinogens are so extraordinary that most of these plants early acquired an exalted place in _ primitive society, often becoming sacred and the object of direct worship» — Schultes traza el paso del efecto al culto: la planta se vuelve sagrada y objeto de adoración directa.

«In almost all primitive cultures, sickness and death are believed to be due to interference from supernatural spheres. For this reason, the psychic effects of drugs are often far more important in primitive medical practice than the purely physical ones. Consequently, hallucinogens above all other plants are found to be closely connected with magic and sorcery in the treatment of disease and the struggle against death, and in related religious observances» — por qué, según Schultes, el alucinógeno queda ligado a la magia y a la hechicería: en esas culturas la enfermedad y la muerte se tienen por interferencia sobrenatural, y el efecto psíquico pesa más que el físico.

«We now know that the divinity residing in these special plants is chemical in nature, but the ethnobotanist investigating the use of narcotics in primitive cultures must never lose sight of the native’s interpretation of his ‘‘magical’’ or “sacred” plants. ‘To ignore or deprecate his views may doom the most meticulously planned scientific inquiry to failure» — la regla de método que Schultes enuncia: aunque la divinidad de la planta sea química, el etnobotánico no puede perder de vista la interpretación del nativo sobre su planta mágica o sagrada.

«Along with the current resurgence of interest in astrology, the occult, and extrasensory perception» — Schultes empareja el fenómeno con el interés renovado por la astrología, lo oculto y la percepción extrasensorial. El verbatim se corta antes del folio que el escaneo mete a fin de plana.

«As is true in any fast-developing field of research, an extensive nomenclature has grown up for narcotics that are capable of inducing various kinds of hallucination. Lewin called them the phantastica, although he recognized that this term “does not cover all that I should wish to convey.” Ihese agents have also been referred to as erdetics, hallucinogens, phantasticants, psychodelics, psychelytics, psychotica, psychoticents, psychogens, psychotomimetics, psychodysleptics, and schizogens» — el censo de nombres que Schultes hace para estas sustancias, empezando por los *phantastica* de Lewin y su propia reserva sobre el término.

«The most widely used term in the United States is the etymologically unsound and biologically inaccurate word psychodelic, which, through popular usage, has now acquired secondary and tertiary meanings (e.g., ‘‘psychodelic music,” ‘“‘psychodelic colors,” etc.). Although no single word is wholly satisfactory, I prefer the term hallucinogen, which applies, it seems to me, more widely and descriptively than most of the others» — la elección declarada de Schultes: llama etimológicamente infundado y biológicamente inexacto al término más usado en los Estados Unidos, y prefiere *hallucinogen*.

«a substance which produces changes in thought, perception and mood, occurring alone or in conjunction with each other, without causing major disturbances of the autonomic nervous system—i.e., clouding of consciousness or other serious disability» — la definición de psicotomimético que Schultes toma de Hofmann y adopta para su capítulo, con la cláusula que excluye la perturbación mayor del sistema nervioso autónomo.

«society may be a temporary phenomenon, but it is nevertheless very real; here and there it recalls, at least superficially, the so-called primitive use of hallucinogenic substances. A knowledge of how primitive societies have employed these agents in their long experience with them may help us to understand their role in our own culture» — el límite que Schultes le pone a ese paralelo: el fenómeno puede ser pasajero, pero es real, y conocer el uso antiguo ayuda a entender el propio.

«High doses generally elicit hallucinations. Disorientation, memory disturbance, hyperexcitation or stupor, and even narcosis» — la continuación de esa definición, cortada por el cambio de plana: sigue en la 35 con que solo aparecen ante dosis excesivas.

«occur only when excess dosages are administered and are, therefore, not characteristic» — el cierre de la definición en la plana siguiente: esos efectos no son característicos.

«To begin with, it should be noted that of the vast number of plant species—variously estimated at from 200,000 to 800,000—only a few have ever been utilized as hallucinogens» — la proporción que Schultes fija: de entre doscientas mil a ochocientas mil especies vegetales, muy pocas se han usado como alucinógenos.

«In this connection, John Harshberger, who first employed the term ethnobotany, wrote more than seventy years ago: “It is of importance .. . to seek out these primitive races and ascertain the plants which they have found available in their economic life, in order that perchance the valuable properties they have utilized in their wild life may fill some vacant niche in our own» — la cita que Schultes trae en nota de John Harshberger, a quien adjudica el término *ethnobotany*.

«Another interesting phenomenon is that for some reason the New World cultures have employed many more species of plants hallucinogenically than the Old World. The reason certainly cannot be botanical, for there is no evidence to suggest that the floras of the Eastern Hemisphere are poorer (or richer) in plants possessing hallucinogenic constituents than those of the Western half of the globe» — Schultes plantea la disparidad entre hemisferios y niega de entrada la explicación botánica: no hay indicio de que la flora del Viejo Mundo sea más pobre.

«La Barre, in the concluding chapter of this volume, explains the interesting disparity between the two hemispheres on a cultural basis» — Schultes remite al capítulo final del volumen y adjudica a La Barre la explicación cultural de esa disparidad.

«The American Indians, he believes, basically preserved as their religion the shamanistic ideology of ancient hunting peoples, whose “epistemological touchstone for reality was direct psychic experience of the forces of nature» — cómo resume Schultes la tesis de La Barre: los indios americanos conservaron como religión la ideología chamánica de los viejos pueblos cazadores.

«In the Old World, on the other hand, the plants became progressively less important as the old shamanistic religion of the hunters became submerged and suppressed by new religious systems adapted to the demands of agricultural, feudal, and urban society, until today these formerly sacred substances are but dimly recognizable (for example, in fairy tales and folklore) as “psychedelic vehicles of divinity» — y el otro lado de la tesis de La Barre según Schultes: en el Viejo Mundo las plantas perdieron peso al quedar sumergido el chamanismo bajo religiones de sociedades agrícolas, feudales y urbanas, hasta ser apenas reconocibles en el cuento y el folclore.

«It must also be borne in mind that there are hallucinogenic plants utilized in primitive societies which have not yet been identified botanically and that there are others, botanically known, for which we have no knowledge concerning the chemical identity of the active principle» — la doble deuda que Schultes declara en su propio panorama: plantas usadas y no identificadas botánicamente, y plantas conocidas cuyo principio activo se ignora.

«The Spanish conquerors of Mexico found the Indians practicing several religious cults in which deities were worshiped with the aid of hallucinogenic plants. One of the most important—and to the Spaniards perhaps the most loathsome—was the cult of teonanacatl, the Nahuatl name for mushrooms, meaning “flesh of the gods» — Schultes da el nombre náhuatl del hongo y su traducción, que es la que da título al volumen.

«There is no doubt that the mushrooms were used or about how they were employed, since the Spanish chroniclers railed against this pagan ritual vehemently and frequently. ‘To the Indian mind, nothing that Christianity offered was comparable to this revered form of plant life, with its hallucinatory powers, so the mushrooms represented a great obstacle to the spread of the newly arrived European religion» — por qué, según Schultes, no cabe duda del uso: los cronistas españoles lo denostaron con insistencia, y el hongo fue obstáculo a la difusión de la religión llegada.

«The mushroom cult appears to have deep roots in native tradition. Frescoes have been found in central Mexico dating back to ca. a.p. 300 with designs that seem to put mushroom worship in this part of Mesoamerica back at least that far. Much more ancient—at least as far back as 300-500 sB.c.—are the remarkable archaeological artifacts now known as “mushroom stones” that have been unearthed in considerable numbers from Late Formative sites in highland Guatemala and southeastern Mexico. Some types may date even to 1000 B.c. These effigies comprise an upright stem with a manlike or animal face (often that of the jaguar), crowned with an umbrella-shaped top» — la antigüedad que Schultes le adjudica al culto del hongo: frescos del centro de México hacia el 300 de la era y las llamadas piedras-hongo del formativo tardío.

«One of the first European reports of the sacred Mexican mushrooms —in the monumental Historia de las cosas de Nueva Espana, also known as the Florentine Codex, by Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, a Spanish cleric who wrote between 1547 and 1569—refers to nanacatl in several places» — la fuente colonial que Schultes pone primero: la Historia de Sahagún, también llamada Códice Florentino, escrita entre 1547 y 1569.

«According to Sahagun, there are mushrooms “which are harmful and intoxicate like wine” so that those who eat them “see visions, feel a faintness of heart and are provoked to lust» — lo que Schultes cita de Sahagún sobre el efecto del hongo, en la voz del cronista.

«they begin to be excited by them, start dancing, singing, weeping. Some do not want to eat but sit down . . . and see themselves dying in a vision; others see themselves being eaten by a wild beast, others imagine that they are capturing prisoners of war, that they are rich, that they possess many slaves, that they had committed adultery and were to have their heads crushed for the offense . . . and when the intoxication has passed, they talk over amongst themselves the visions which they have seen» — la continuación de la cita de Sahagún que Schultes reproduce en bloque: el repertorio de visiones y la conversación posterior entre los que las tuvieron.

«For example, these sacred fungi were served at the coronation feast of Moctezuma in 1502» — el dato con que Schultes fija la importancia del hongo en la vida mexicana antigua.

«That the use of the hallucinogenic mushrooms survived ail attempts by the Spanish friars to suppress the indigenous cults is clear from the writings of such seventeenth-century clerics as Jacinto de la Serna, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcén, and others, who composed long treatises deploring the use of mushrooms and other hallucinogenic plants in pagan rites and» — cómo prueba Schultes la supervivencia del culto: por los tratados con que los clérigos del XVII, Jacinto de la Serna y Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón entre ellos, lo deploraban.

«caused not death but a madness that on occasion is lasting, of which the symptom is a kind of uncontrolled laughter . . . these are deep yellow, acrid, and of a not displeasing freshness. ‘There are others again which, without inducing laughter, bring before the eye all sorts of things, such as wars and the likeness of demons. Yet others there are not less desired by princes for their festivals and banquets, and these fetch a high price. With night-long vigils are they sought, awesome and terrifying. This kind is tawny and somewhat acrid» — la cita en bloque de Hernández que Schultes reproduce: tres clases de hongo, la de la risa incontrolable, la de las visiones de guerras y demonios y la que los príncipes pagaban cara.

«Notwithstanding these very specific historical references, no mushrooms utilized as a hallucinogen in magico-religious rites were found and identified botanically in the first four centuries after the Conquest of Mexico» — la negativa que Schultes consigna: pese a esos testimonios, en cuatro siglos ningún hongo de uso ritual se identificó botánicamente.

«In 1915, Safford suggested that teonanacatl was actually not a mushroom at all but the peyote cactus. A dried mushroom and a dried peyote, the argument went, shriveled up and looked alike. It was presumed that the botanical knowledge of both Indians and Spanish chroniclers—including a medical doctor fully trained in botany—was deficient, and that the natives had misled the Spaniards» — la propuesta de Safford que Schultes expone con su argumento: el hongo seco y el peyote seco se parecen, luego el testimonio de indios y cronistas sería deficiente.

«Field work has now established the hallucinogenic use of mushrooms in divinatory and other magico-religious ceremonies in at least nine tribes of modern Mexico, probably centered among the Mazatecs in northeastern Oaxaca. Among the Mazatecs, the mushroom ritual comprises an all-night ceremony with prayers and long repetitive chants incorporating ancient pagan and Christian elements. ‘The shaman is often a woman. There is not infrequently an elaborate curing ritual during the ceremony» — lo que el trabajo de campo registra según Schultes: uso divinatorio en al menos nueve pueblos mexicanos, con ceremonia de toda la noche que mezcla elementos paganos y cristianos y una chamana con frecuencia mujer.

«The subject, without a loss of consciousness, is rendered completely indifferent to his environment, which becomes unreal to him as his dreamlike state becomes real» — cómo describe Schultes el punto del efecto: sin pérdida de consciencia, el entorno se vuelve irreal y el estado onírico, real.

«Early missionaries to Amazonian Peru reported a “tree fungus’ as the source of an intoxicating beverage of the Yurimagua Indians. No evidence exists that mushrooms are employed hallucinogenically in South America at the present time, but Psilocybe yungensis, a species which is known to contain hallucinatory principles and which has been found in the region, has been suggested as the possible identification of this elusive narcotic» — la pista sudamericana que Schultes deja abierta como hipótesis y no como hecho: un hongo de árbol de los yurimagua.

«By far the most trustworthy early record of hallucinogenic mushrooms is that of Dr. Francisco Hernandez (1651), physician to the King of Spain, who spent a number of years in the field studying the medicinal lore of the Mexican Indians. He wrote of three kinds of intoxicating mushrooms that were worshiped» — a qué fuente colonial le da Schultes el mayor crédito: Francisco Hernández, médico del rey de España, que estudió en campo la medicina indígena. El año entre paréntesis es de la propia fuente, no una nota cosida: el tramo se releyó entero en el crudo.

«This “identification” was widely accepted, despite several objections that teonanacatl was a dung-fungus still revered by the Indians of Oaxaca. Actual specimens associated with divinatory rites were collected in the late 1930’s, first by Roberto Weitlaner and later by B. P. Reko and myself. These proved to be Panaeolus sphinctrinus. Another mushroom that I collected as hallucinogenic was later identified and reported as Stropharia cubensis. Both were found in use among the Mazatec» — cómo cuenta Schultes el desenlace, él mismo entre los colectores: Weitlaner, Reko y él hallaron los ejemplares del rito divinatorio entre los mazatecos.

«Peyote was first fully described by Hernandez (1651), who called it Peyotl zacatecensis» — a quién le adjudica Schultes la primera descripción completa del peyote y con qué nombre.

«The root is nearly medium size, sending forth no branches or leaves above the ground, but with a certain woolliness adhering to it on account of which it could not be aptly figured by me. . . . It appears to have a sweetish and moderately hot taste. Ground up and applied to painful joints, it is said to give relief... . This root . . . causes those devouring it to foresee and predict things . . . or to discern who has stolen from them some utensil or anything else» — la cita en bloque de Hernández sobre el peyote que Schultes reproduce: de sabor dulzón, aplicado a las articulaciones alivia, y comido hace prever y adivinar quién robó.

«the Toltecas and Chichimecas had employed it for many hundreds of years and that it was a “common food of the Chichimecas,” who used it to give them courage to fight and enable them to transcend thirst, hunger, and fear; it was thought to protect them from all danger, and those who ingested it saw “visions either frightful or laughable» — lo que Schultes recoge de Sahagún sobre el peyote de toltecas y chichimecas: comida común que daba valor y permitía trascender sed, hambre y miedo.

«As early as 1591 a chronicler denounced peyote as ‘“‘satanic trickery.” All through the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth, ecclesiastical opposition raged furiously. An eighteenth-century description referred to the cactus as the “diabolic root.’’ In 1720, peyote was prohibited throughout Mexico, and all Indians within reach of the law and church were forced to practice their rituals in secret. The ecclesiastics went so far as to incorporate in a religious manual of 1760 questions in the form of a catechism that equated the eating of peyote with cannibalism!» — la serie de condenas eclesiásticas que Schultes enumera, de la embustería satánica de 1591 a la raíz diabólica, la prohibición de 1720 y el catecismo de 1760 que equiparaba comer peyote con el canibalismo.

«Today the use of peyote by the Huichol, Cora, Tarahumara, and other Indians in their religious ceremonies is no longer illegal; indeed, peyote is freely available in Mexican herb markets as a valued medicinal plant» — el estado presente que Schultes consigna en México: uso legal entre huicholes, coras y tarahumaras, y venta libre del cacto en los mercados de hierbas.

«The earliest undoubted record of the use of peyote in what is now the territory of the United States dates from 1760 in Texas. The cactus was certainly known to American Indians during the Civil War, but it did not come strongly to public attention until about 1880, when the Kiowa and Comanche tribes began actively to practice and spread a new kind of peyote ceremony, quite different from the peyote rituals of the tribes of northwestern Mexico» — cómo fecha Schultes la entrada del peyote en los Estados Unidos y el arranque, hacia 1880, de una ceremonia kiowa y comanche distinta de la del noroeste mexicano.

«The exact route of the introduction of the peyote religion* from Mexico into the United States is not known, and there may have been several routes at different periods. Raids into the Mescalero country may have been the principal method of acquainting Plains Indians with the plant and its cult. Slow and gradual diffusion northward almost certainly took place as well. At any rate, the cult was well established among the Kiowas and Comanches between 1880 and 1885 and was being spread with missionary zeal» — la abstención de Schultes sobre la vía de entrada de la religión del peyote y lo que sí da por sentado: la implantación entre kiowas y comanches entre 1880 y 1885; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«By the late 1920’s, the cult had been forced, by the strong hostility and outright untruthful propaganda of many organized Christian missionary groups, to incorporate itself into the Native American Church—a legally constituted religious sect due the protection and respect enjoyed by any other religious group» — cómo cuenta Schultes la constitución de la Iglesia Nativa Americana: forzada por la hostilidad y la propaganda de grupos misioneros cristianos.

«The Peyote Religion was nativistic but not militant. Culturally, it permitted the Indians to achieve a cultural organization in which they took pride. Socially, it provided a supernatural means of accommodation to the existing domination-subordination relation. . . . The Peyote Religion’s program of accommodation, as opposed to the Ghost Dance’s program of opposition, was the basic reason for the former’s success and the latter’s failure» — la explicación que Schultes cita de Slotkin, antropólogo y a la vez adherente de la iglesia del peyote: acomodo frente a oposición.

«In spite of the virulence of early Spanish attempts to stamp out the pagan religion in which peyote figured so prominently, the sacred cactus ritual survived in more or less pure form in the more remote deserts and mountains, while elsewhere it came to be intertwined with Christian» — cómo describe Schultes la supervivencia del culto del peyote: puro en los desiertos y montañas remotos, y entrelazado con lo cristiano en otras partes. El tramo se corta en el cambio de plana y sigue en la 43.

«ritual and belief. So strongly entrenched in aboriginal thought was this sacred cactus that even certain Christianized Indians of Mexico held that a patron saint—El Santo Nino de Peyotl—used to appear among the plants on the hillsides, a belief that still survives in Mexican folklore» — la continuación de ese entrelazamiento: hasta un santo patrón, el Santo Niño de Peyotl, que según indios cristianizados aparecía entre las plantas.

«In 1920 there were some 13,300 adherents in about thirty tribes. At present, an estimated 250,000 Indians in tribes as far north as Saskatchewan, Canada, practice this religion, which advocates brotherly love, high moral principle, abstention from alcohol, and other admirable teachings» — las cifras y los principios que Schultes le adjudica a esa religión en su extensión presente. La cifra 13,300 es la que imprime el escaneo.

«There is still disagreement about the reasons peyote use spread so fast» — el desacuerdo que Schultes deja consignado sin arbitrar sobre la rapidez de la difusión del peyote; la frase sigue en la plana 44 con el cotejo frente a la Danza de los Espíritus.

«edging out other well-established Indian “nativistic’’ movements, such as the famous Ghost Dance» — la continuación en la plana siguiente: el peyote desplazó a otros movimientos nativistas ya asentados.

«The fact that it could induce visual hallucinations undoubtedly contributed to the rapid spread of peyote through the culture of the Plains region» — el factor que Schultes da por contribuyente de la difusión, sin hacerlo único.

«The tribes of northern Mexico have long ascribed divine origin to peyote. According to the Tarahumara, when Father Sun departed from earth to dwell on high, he left peyote behind to cure all man’s ills and woes. Its medicinal powers were so great—and its psychoactive effects, of course, are to the Indians the epitome of “medicinal power’’—that it was considered a vegetal incarnation of a deity» — el origen divino que Schultes recoge de los tarahumaras: el Padre Sol dejó el peyote al marcharse, para curar todos los males del hombre.

«The legends of its effectiveness aS a supernatural medicine have kept peyote from being used hedonistically as a narcotic and have helped to maintain its exalted role as a near-divinity—a place it holds to this day, even among highly acculturated Indian groups in the United States» — la consecuencia que Schultes le saca a esa creencia: la fama de medicina sobrenatural impidió el uso hedónico del peyote.

«In the United States, the Kiowa-Comanche peyote ceremony established during the last century is still followed today, with minor alterations. It usually consists of an all-night meeting with the worshipers sitting in a circle around a peyote altar, led in prayer, chants, and meditation by a “road man» — cómo describe Schultes la ceremonia kiowa-comanche todavía vigente: reunión de toda la noche en círculo en torno a un altar de peyote, conducida por un *road man*.

«North of Mexico, it is usually the dried, discoidal top or crown of the cactus—the “mescal button’—that is chewed and swallowed during the ceremony. In Mexico, the plants are still more or less ceremonially collected where they grow. In many parts of the United States, the Indian peyotists have to purchase the buttons, which, since they are well-nigh indestructible, can be shipped long distances and stored indefinitely» — la diferencia material que Schultes señala entre las dos áreas: al norte se masca el botón seco y se compra; en México la planta se colecta aún ceremonialmente donde crece.

«Peyote intoxication, among the most complex and variable effects of all hallucinogenic plants, is characterized by brilliantly colored visions in kaleidoscopic movement, often accompanied by auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile hallucinations. Sensations of weightlessness, macroscopia, depersonalization, and alteration or loss of time perception are normally experienced» — el cuadro del efecto del peyote que da Schultes: visiones en movimiento caleidoscópico con alucinaciones auditivas, gustativas, olfativas y táctiles, ingravidez, despersonalización y pérdida del tiempo.

«There are very real differences between peyote intoxication and mescaline intoxication. Among aboriginal users, it is the fresh or dried head of the cactus, with its total alkaloid content, that is ingested; mescaline is ingested only experimentally and then produces the effects of but one of the alkaloids, without the physiological interaction of the others that are present in the crude plant material. As a consequence, descriptions of the visual hallucinations of mescaline found in such writings as those of Aidous Huxley should not be equated too closely with the visual effects experienced by Indian peyotists» — la distinción que Schultes insiste en mantener: el indígena ingiere la cabeza entera con todos sus alcaloides, y por eso las descripciones de mescalina como las de Aldous Huxley no se equiparan sin más. El escaneo imprime *Aidous*.

«Although the visual hallucinations are important in native peyote cults, peyote, as we have said, is revered in large part because of its usefulness as a ‘‘medicine.”’ Its medicinal powers, in turn, derive from its ability, through the visions, to put a man into contact with the spirit world, from which, according to aboriginal belief, come illness and even death, and to which the medicine men turn for their diagnoses» — por qué, según Schultes, se venera el peyote sobre todo como medicina: la visión pone al hombre en contacto con el mundo de los espíritus, de donde vienen la enfermedad y la muerte.

«high mental qualities are ascribed especially to all species of Mammillaria and Echinocactus, small cacti, for which a regular cult is instituted. The Tarahumara designate several as hikuli, though the name belongs properly only to the kind most commonly used by them. These plants live for months after they have been rooted up, and the eating of them causes a state of ecstasy. They are, therefore, considered demi-gods who have to be treated with great reverence» — la cita de Lumholtz que Schultes reproduce: los tarahumaras tienen por semidioses a los cactos que llaman hikuli, porque viven meses arrancados y comerlos da éxtasis.

«Certain species of the tall columnar cactus plants of the high and dry Andes in South America are likewise known to contain alkaloids, including, especially, mescaline. It is, therefore, not suprising that Peruvian Indians have discovered the vision-inducing properties of Trichocereus and prepare a hallucinogenic drink from T. Pachanoi, known locally as San Pedro,* which mestizo curanderos, or curers, administer to their patients or ingest themselves for purposes of diagnosis, divination, and confrontation with the hostile spirits causing the illness» — el San Pedro peruano según Schultes, con la remisión al capítulo de Sharon: bebida de Trichocereus pachanoi que el curandero mestizo da al paciente o toma él para diagnosticar, adivinar y enfrentar a los espíritus hostiles; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«One of the most important sacred hallucinogens among Mexican Indians at the time of the Conquest was ololiuqut, the small, round, lentil-like seed of a vine with cordate leaves known in the Nahuatl language as coaxihuitl, or ‘“‘snake plant» — el ololiuqui que Schultes pone entre los alucinógenos sagrados mayores al tiempo de la Conquista, con su nombre náhuatl de planta serpiente.

«Sahagun enumerated three plants called ololiuqui, one of which was an “herb called coatl-xoxouhqui (green snake plant), [which] bears a seed called ololiuqui.” Another early account, dated 1629, reported that “when it is drunk, this seed deprives of his senses him who has taken it, for it is very powerful» — las dos fuentes coloniales que Schultes alinea para el ololiuqui: Sahagún con el coatl-xoxouhqui y un relato de 1629 sobre la potencia de la semilla.

«these seeds . . . are held in great veneration. . . . They place offerings to the seeds . . . in secret places so that the offerings cannot be found if a search be made. They also place these seeds among the idols of their ancestors. .. . They do not wish to offend ololiuqui with demonstrations before the judges [of the Inquisition] of the use of the seeds and with public destruction of the seed by burning» — la cita colonial que Schultes reproduce sobre el culto a la semilla: ofrendas escondidas, semillas junto a los ídolos de los antepasados y el cuidado de no ofender al ololiuqui ante los jueces del Santo Oficio.

«The most reliable discussions of the hallucinogenic effects and uses of ololiuqui appear to be those of Hernandez, who, after describing in great detail its many presumed medicinal virtues, stated that . when the priests wanted to commune with their gods and to receive messages from them, they ate this plant to induce a delirium. A thousand visions and satanic hallucinations appeared to them» — lo que Schultes cita de Hernández sobre el uso sacerdotal del ololiuqui para comunicarse con los dioses.

«authorities drove it into the hinterlands, where its hallucinogenic use still persists. Still, although it represents one of the major Mexican divinatory plants to this day, it is perhaps one of the least well known; until recently, even its identity was in doubt» — el destino del ololiuqui bajo la persecución eclesiástica según Schultes: al monte, donde el uso persiste, y su identidad botánica en duda hasta hace poco. La frase arranca en la plana 47, antes de la lámina.

«It was apparently Hartwich who, in 1911, first stated that ololiuqui might be a member of the Solanaceae, a suggestion supported by Safford in 1915, when he mistakenly identified ololiuqui as Datura meteloides» — el error de identificación que Schultes le atribuye a Safford en 1915, siguiendo una sugerencia de Hartwich de 1911.

«a knowledge of botany has been attributed to the Aztecs which they were far from possessing. . . . The botanical knowledge of the early Spanish writers . . . was perhaps not much more extensive: their descriptions were so inadequate that, even to the present day, the chief narcotic of the Aztecs, ololiuchqut, which they all mention, remains unidentified» — la creencia de Safford que Schultes cita en su propia letra: atribuir botánica a los aztecas y a los primeros escritores españoles sería excesivo.

«Unjustified as was Safford’s lack of faith in the botanical knowledge of the Aztecs and of such early writers as Hernandez, it was probably very influential in his dismissal of the Convolvulaceae as a source of ololiuqui» — el juicio de Schultes sobre esa creencia y lo que le adjudica: haber descartado a las convolvuláceas.

«It was only in 1939 that unquestionably identifiable voucher specimens of Rivea corymbosa were collected. In northeastern Oaxaca, Reko and I encountered a cultivated plant in the dooryard of a Zapotec curandero who employed the seeds in his divinatory rituals» — cómo fecha Schultes la identificación firme del ololiuqui y su propia parte en ella, con Reko, en el patio de un curandero zapoteco.

«The notion that the Convolvulaceae as a family is devoid of intoxticating principles was dispelled in 1937, when Santesson reported psychoactive substances in the seeds of Rivea corymbosa. He was not able to investigate thoroughly the nature of the active constituent, but he suggested that it might be a glycoside linked with an alkaloid. His pharmacological experiments indicated that an extract induced in animals a ‘partial deadening of the mind, a kind of semi-narcosis» — el hallazgo de Santesson en 1937 que Schultes consigna con su límite: no pudo determinar el principio activo y propuso un glucósido ligado a un alcaloide.

«There was little interest in Rivea corymbosa as a hallucinogen until 1955, when a psychiatrist, Humphrey Osmond, first described an intoxication from seeds of this morning-glory. Chemists immediately became interested, but no psychoactive constituents were isolated until Hofmann, discoverer of the most powerful hallucinogen known, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD 25), announced to the unbelieving scientific world that the seeds contained lysergic acid derivatives» — cómo cuenta Schultes la incredulidad con que se recibió el anuncio de Hofmann sobre los derivados del ácido lisérgico en la semilla.

«It was difficult to accept such a discovery at first, since this class of compounds—in fact, some of the very compounds that Hofmann attributed to this morning-glory—were known in the plant kingdom only from the entirely unrelated genus of lower fungi Claviceps, the ergot parasite of rye and other grasses. Chemotaxonomically, such an occurrence would be highly unlikely» — la razón quimiotaxonómica de esa incredulidad según Schultes: esos compuestos solo se conocían en el cornezuelo, un hongo sin parentesco con la enredadera.

«Later chemical analyses and pathological studies of the morning-glory seeds, however, fully substantiated Hofmann’s work» — el desenlace que Schultes consigna: los análisis posteriores respaldaron el trabajo de Hofmann.

«in tests which he and a laboratory assistant conducted on themselves, two milligrams of an indolic extract from the seeds of Rivea corymbosa sufficed to bring about “clear-cut psychic effects: a dream-like state resulted with drowsiness and alteration in the perception of objects and colors. This showed that the indole fraction of the Rivea extract contained the psychic active principle» — el autoensayo de Hofmann que Schultes cita: dos miligramos de extracto indólico bastaron para un estado onírico con somnolencia y alteración de la percepción de objetos y colores.

«Wasson has suggested that Ipomoea violacea may be the elusive Aztec narcotic mentioned in the chronicles as tlitliltzin, a Nahuatl term derived from the word for “black,” with a reverential sufix. An early chronicler, for example, spoke of “ololiuqui, peyotl, and tlitliltzin,’ ascribing similar properties to them» — la hipótesis de Wasson que Schultes recoge sin adjudicarla como hecho: que el tlitliltzin de las crónicas sea Ipomoea violacea.

«A second vital step in the story of the sacred Mexican morning-glories was made in 1960, when MacDougall published his report of the hallucinogenic use of the seeds of Ipomoea violacea among the Zapotecs of Oaxaca» — el segundo paso que Schultes señala en la historia de las glorias matutinas sagradas: el informe de MacDougall de 1960 sobre Ipomoea violacea entre los zapotecos.

«An interesting Salvia was reported as a hallucinogen of the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca by Wasson in 1962. It was a new species, named Salvia divinorum because of its use by shamans and curers practicing divination» — la salvia que Schultes registra a partir de Wasson: especie nueva llamada divinorum por el uso adivinatorio de chamanes y curanderos.

«The plant is familiar to all Mazatec Indians. Many, if not most, families grow a supply. The plants are vegetatively reproduced from a shoot inserted into wet ground. The natives usually choose isolated mountain ravines for planting it, far from daily occupations. Salvia divinorum does not often flower, and seeds are unknown» — el cultivo de la salvia entre los mazatecos según Schultes: reproducción por esqueje en barrancas apartadas y ausencia de flor y semilla.

«The Mazatecs call Salvia divinorum hoyas de la Pastora (‘leaves of the Shepherdess”) or hojas de Maria Pastora (“leaves of Mary the Shepherdess’’) in Spanish, or ska-Pastora in Mazatec-Spanish» — los nombres con que la nombran los mazatecos, que Schultes traduce como hojas de la Pastora.

«Wasson has suggested that Salvia divinorum may represent an ancient Aztec narcotic known by the Nahuatl name prpzlzintzintli» — otra hipótesis de Wasson que Schultes recoge como tal: que la salvia sea el narcótico azteca del nombre náhuatl que el escaneo imprime *prpzlzintzintli*.

«In Oaxaca, Salvia divinorum seems to be utilized only when supplies of the mushrooms and morning-glory seeds are short. The Indians may chew the leaves fresh but more commonly crush them in a metate, dilute the plant materials in water, and strain the mixture. Formerly, according to native informants, the whole plant was employed, but the Mazatec now prefer only the leaves» — el lugar subordinado que Schultes le asigna a la salvia en Oaxaca y la preparación, con el cambio que declaran los informantes nativos.

«The Leguminosae are one of the most alkaloid-rich families of plants and consequently the potential source of a number of potent hallucinogens. Thus it is surprising that man has not found and bent to his magical uses more of the leguminous species» — la extrañeza que Schultes declara ante una familia riquísima en alcaloides y poco aprovechada mágicamente.

«One of the most famous of the New World hallucinogens is the snuff prepared from a tree of northern South America called Anadenanthera peregrina or Piptadenia peregrina. This potent snuff was so widely known in anthropological circles that until recently almost all narcotic snuffs of South America were attributed to this tree, even in regions where the species does not occur» — el rapé de Anadenanthera peregrina y el exceso de atribución que Schultes le achaca a la literatura antropológica.

«Probably the earliest report of snuff prepared from Anadenanthera peregrina dates from 1496, when Europeans first saw it in use among the Taino Indians of Hispaniola. Friar Ramon Pané, commissioned by Columbus “to collect all ceremonies and antiquities,’ wrote in detail concerning this drug and its place in Indian society. His reports were first published in 1511 in Martyr’s compilations about the New World» — cómo fecha Schultes el testimonio más antiguo del rapé: fray Ramón Pané, comisionado por Colón, publicado en 1511 por Mártir.

«of the mushroom but are of shorter duration and not so striking. Kaleidoscopic movement and three-dimensional designs characterize the intoxication induced by the ingestion of the juice of sixty-eight leaves. To date, however, no hallucinogenic principle has been isolated» — cómo describe Schultes el efecto de Salvia divinorum frente al del hongo, con la dosis de sesenta y ocho hojas y la deuda declarada: aún no se aísla su principio.

«This kohobba powder,” which Martyr described as ‘‘an intoxicating herb,” “is so strong that those who take it lose consciousness; when the stupefying action begins to wane, the arms and legs become loose and the head droops» — la descripción del efecto que Schultes cita de Pedro Mártir: pérdida de consciencia, aflojamiento de brazos y piernas y caída de la cabeza.

«one end in the nose and the other in the powder and . . . draw it into themselves through the nose.” Its action was rapid, for “almost immediately, they believe they see the room turn upside-down and men walking with their heads downwards.” The “sorcerer” took the drug with his patients, and it “intoxicates them so that they do not know what to do and . . . speak of many things incoherently,” believing all the time that they are in communication with spirits» — cómo Schultes reproduce el resto del relato: el cañuto por la nariz, el cuarto del revés, los hombres andando de cabeza, y el hechicero que toma la droga con sus pacientes creyendo comunicarse con los espíritus.

«In 1916, Safford, noting the similarities between the current use of yopo snuff in the Orinoco and the reported effects of cohoba, identified the cohoba as Anadenanthera peregrina. Up to that time, there had been much confusion in the literature, and the snuff called cohoba was commonly» — la identificación de la cohoba con Anadenanthera peregrina que Schultes le adjudica a Safford en 1916, por el paralelo con el yopo del Orinoco.

«Years earlier, however, in 1898, Uhle had concluded that ‘the extreme strength of the powder described by Petrus Martyr, exceeding that of tobacco, decides its different nature and its Piptadenia character» — la conclusión anterior de Uhle que Schultes recupera: la fuerza del polvo descrito por Pedro Mártir excedía la del tabaco y decidía su naturaleza distinta.

«The center of the use of Anadenanthera snuff is, and probably always has been, the Orinoco basin, where it is widely known as yopo. The West Indian tribes are generally thought to have been invaders from northern South America. If this is true, then the snuffing of Anadenanthera powder in the West Indies could be regarded as a culture trait imported from South America» — dónde sitúa Schultes el centro del uso del yopo y la hipótesis, planteada como condicional, de que el rapé antillano sea rasgo importado de Sudamérica.

«They have another most evil habit of intoxicating themselves through the nostrils, with certain malignant powders which they call yupa, which quite takes away their reason, and furious, they grasp their weapons» — la cita de Gumilla que Schultes reproduce de El Orinoco Ilustrado de 1741, sobre el yupa de los otomacos.

«they put their shells [large snails] into the fire and burn them to quicklime .. . [which] they mix with the yupa ... and after reducing the whole to the finest powder, there results a mixture of diabolic strength, so great that in touching this powder with the tip of the finger, the most confirmed devotee of snuff cannot accustom himself to it, for in simply putting his finger which touched the yupa near his nose he bursts forth into a whirlwind of sneezes» — la continuación de la cita de Gumilla: la cal de caracol quemado mezclada con el yupa, y la potencia que el cronista atribuye a la mezcla.

«The Saliva Indians and other tribes . . . also use the yupa, but as they are gentle, benign, and timid, they do not become maddened like our Otomacs who ... before a battle . . . would throw themselves into a frenzy with yupa, wound themselves, and, full of blood and rage, go forth to battle like rabid tigers» — el remate de la cita de Gumilla, con la diferencia que el cronista traza entre pueblos mansos y los otomacos antes de la batalla.

«The earliest scientific report on this narcotic appears to be that of Alexander von Humboldt, who botanically identified the plant as Acacia Niopo, stating that the Maypure Indians of the Orinoco break the long pods of this tree, moisten them, and allow them to ferment; after the softened beans turn black, they are kneaded into small cakes with Manzhot flour and lime from snail shells. These cakes are powdered when a supply of snuff is desired» — el primer informe científico según Schultes, el de Humboldt, con la identificación botánica y el procedimiento de los maipures.

«The earliest detailed scientific report is that given by the British botanical explorer Richard Spruce, who encountered the drug in the mid-nineteenth century among the Guahibo Indians of the Orinoco basin of Colombia and Venezuela» — a quién le adjudica Schultes el primer informe detallado: el explorador botánico Richard Spruce entre los guahibos.

«The literature concerning the snuffing of narcotic powders has become extraordinarily confused. There is no doubt that sundry wholly unrelated plants enter into South American snuffs. Undoubtedly the most important snufiing material was and still is tobacco, mainly from Nicotiana tabacum, and snuffing may well be the most widespread method of using it, especially in the wet, tropical lowlands areas» — la confusión que Schultes señala en la literatura sobre los rapés y lo que pone en su sitio: el tabaco fue y sigue siendo el material de rapé más importante.

«Yet the literature —especially the anthropological—has exaggerated the importance and distribution of the leguminous snuffs from Anadenanthera» — la exageración que Schultes le achaca a la literatura antropológica sobre los rapés de leguminosas.

«It seems that one of the most extraordinarily mistaken generalizations in ethnobotany—that all the intoxicating snuffs of the Amazon that were not obviously tobacco must have been prepared from Anadenanthera peregrina—has stemmed from Bentham’s conclusion» — el error de generalización que Schultes rastrea hasta una conclusión de Bentham: todo rapé amazónico que no fuera tabaco se dio por Anadenanthera.

«Even within the local range of Anadenanthera peregrina, it is not safe to assume that all narcotic snuffs are referable to this genus or species. For example, a number of erroneous identifications of narcotic snuff have attributed powders prepared from Virola bark to Anadenanthera peregrina. One reason for this confusion may be the fact that in many parts of the Amazon—especially in the Rio Negro basin—the term parica, which often does refer to leguminous trees, has been applied indiscriminately to narcotic snuff from Anadenanthera and Virola» — la reserva que Schultes mantiene incluso dentro del área del árbol, con el nombre parica aplicado sin distinción a dos rapés distintos.

«Like Gumilla, von Humboldt felt that the biodynamic activity of the snuff was attributable to the lime admixture. “It is not to be believed» — la atribución que Schultes le adjudica a Humboldt: el efecto vendría de la cal y no de la vaina. La cita se corta en el cambio de plana y sigue en la 57.

«that the niopo acacia pods are the chief cause of the stimulating effects of the snuff used by the Otomac Indians. These effects are due to the freshly calcined lime» — el cierre de la cita de Humboldt en la plana siguiente: el efecto se debería a la cal recién calcinada.

«An early report, dating from ca. 1571, stated that Inca “sorcerers” prophesied by contacting the devil through an intoxication induced by drinking chicha (maize beer) and an herb called vilca» — el testimonio colonial que Schultes cita sobre la vilca: los hechiceros incas profetizaban contactando al demonio por la chicha y la hierba.

«However weak and circumstantial the evidence that vilca and cébil were prepared from Anadenanthera, there would seem to be no phytochemical reason why this could not be so» — cómo califica Schultes la evidencia sobre la vilca y el cébil, débil y circunstancial, y qué no la impide por el lado fitoquímico.

«It is obvious that extensive research must be done on South American hallucinogenic snuffs in general and on the use of Anadenanthera in particular before we can approach understanding» — la deuda que Schultes declara sobre los rapés sudamericanos.

«In eastern Brazil] another legume—Mimosa hostilis—forms the basis of the famous ajuca or vinho de jurema, a “miraculous drink’ taken in ceremony among the Kariri, Pankaruru, Tusha, and Fulnio Indians of Pernambuco and Paraiba. The source of vinho de jurema was identified as recently as 1946 by Goncalves de Lima» — el vinho de jurema que Schultes registra en el nordeste brasileño y la fecha reciente de su identificación.

«The roots of this small tree or large shrub of the dry scrubby caatingas are prepared in a potently hallucinogenic beverage taken by priests, strong young men, warriors, and old women, who kneel with bowed heads to partake of it» — quiénes toman la jurema según Schultes: sacerdotes, jóvenes fuertes, guerreros y ancianas, que se arrodillan con la cabeza inclinada.

«glorious visions of the spirit world, with flowers and birds. They might catch a glimpse of the clashing rocks that destroy souls of the dead journeying to their goal or see the Thunder Bird shooting lightning from a huge tuft on his head and producing claps of thunder by running about» — el contenido de las visiones tal como Schultes lo cita: las rocas que chocan y destruyen las almas de los muertos, y el Pájaro del Trueno.

«It was Safford who apparently first suggested that species of Anadenanthera other than A. peregrina may be the source of narcotic snufts» — la sugerencia de Safford que Schultes sí recoge: que otra especie del mismo género sea fuente de rapés sudamericanos. La frase se corta antes de la llamada de nota y sigue en la plana 59.

«He identified the vilca or huilca of southern Peru and Bolivia and the cébil of northern Argentina with seeds of what he called Piptadenia macrocarpa, now referred to as Anadenanthera colubrina var. Cebil» — la identificación que Schultes le adjudica a Safford: la vilca peruana y el cébil argentino con la especie que hoy se llama de otro modo.

«The jurema cult is ancient and formerly was practiced by many more tribes, including the Guegue, Acroa, Pimenteira, Atanaye, and others» — la antigüedad del culto de la jurema según Schultes, con las tribus hoy extintas que lo practicaban. El tramo se corta en el cambio de plana.

«An early report dates from 1788; another from 1843. The latter asserted that jurema was taken in order to “pass the night navigating through the depths of slumber» — los dos informes antiguos sobre la jurema que Schultes cita y la fórmula con que uno de ellos describe el efecto.

«In 1946, an alkaloid named nigerine was reported from the roots of Mimosa hostilis, but later chemical studies have shown that this base is identical with N, N-dimethyltryptamine, the same constituent responsible for the hallucinogenic effects produced by Anadenanthera seeds» — el desenlace químico que Schultes consigna: el alcaloide resultó idéntico al responsable del efecto de las semillas de Anadenanthera.

«One of the most interesting New World narcotics is the mescal bean or red bean, the seed of a small tree of the American Southwest and Mexico, known botanically as Sophora secundiflora» — el frijol de mescal que Schultes presenta como uno de los narcóticos americanos más interesantes.

«The use of Sophora secundiflora goes back to archaeological times. The seeds have been found in sites dated before a.p. 1000, often with evidence that they were used ritualistically» — la antigüedad arqueológica que Schultes le adjudica al frijol de mescal, con el indicio de uso ritual.

«there “is additional archaeological evidence which does suggest the presence of a prehistoric cult that may have involved the use of the mescal bean» — la cautela que Schultes cita del arqueólogo Campbell: el hallazgo en abrigos no prueba el culto, aunque hay indicios de que existió.

«The Spanish explorer of the Texas coast, Cabeza de Vaca, mentioned mescal beans as an article of trade among the Indians in 1539. The Stephen Long Expedition in 1820 reported the Arapaho and Iowa using large red beans as a medicine and narcotic» — los dos testimonios con que Schultes fecha el uso del frijol de mescal: Cabeza de Vaca en 1539 y la expedición de Long en 1820.

«In all these ceremonies, the seeds were employed as an oracular or divinatory medicine for inducing visions in initiatory rites and as a ceremonial emetic and stimulant» — para qué se empleaba la semilla en esas danzas según Schultes: medicina oracular o adivinatoria para inducir visiones en ritos de iniciación.

«The many parallels and similarities between the peyote ceremony among the Plains tribes and the Red Bean Dance and their obvious southern origin, in Texas and northern Mexico, suggest that the much safer hallucinogen peyote more or less took the place of the dangerously toxic mescal bean» — la sustitución que Schultes propone como lectura de los paralelos: el peyote, más seguro, vino a ocupar el lugar del frijol tóxico.

«Even today, the ‘‘road man” or peyote leader in certain Plains tribes—Kiowa and Comanche, for example—wears as part of his ornamental dress a necklace of Sophora secundiflora beans and often has mescal beans sewn on his leggings» — el rastro que Schultes señala de esa sustitución en el atuendo del conductor de la ceremonia del peyote.

«Sinicuichi (the Mexican name for Heimia salicifolia) does not induce visions but is a wholly auditory hallucinogen» — el caso que Schultes destaca por singular: un alucinógeno que no da visiones sino oído.

«The natives consider sinicuichi sacred and endowed with supernatural powers. It helps them, they assert, to recall vividly events of many years earlier, even to remember prenatal events» — lo que los nativos le atribuyen al sinicuichi según Schultes: recordar con viveza hechos de muchos años atrás y aun prenatales.

«As ayahuasca, its Peruvian name, it is known as the “vine of the souls,’ and partakers often ‘‘experience’” death and the separation of body and soul» — el nombre peruano que Schultes traduce como liana de las almas, y lo que los que la toman dicen experimentar.

«Io some Colombian Indians the drinking of this preparation represents a return to the maternal womb, the source of all creation; the partakers see all the gods, the first human beings and animals, and understand the establishment of their social order. Those who take yajé “die’’ only to be reborn in a state of greater wisdom» — lo que Schultes recoge de unos indios colombianos: la bebida como regreso al útero materno, donde se ve a los dioses y a los primeros seres y se entiende el orden social propio; morir para renacer con mayor sabiduría.

«This narcotic enters deeply into almost all aspects of the life of the peoples who take it to an extent reached by hardly any other hallucinogen» — el alcance que Schultes le adjudica a esta bebida en la vida de los pueblos que la toman.

«In the northwest Amazon, caapi serves the Indian for prophetic, divinatory, and other magic purposes and to fortify the bravery of male adolescents who must undergo the painful yurupari initiation ceremony» — los usos del caapi en el noroeste amazónico según Schultes, entre ellos fortalecer el valor del adolescente en la ceremonia de iniciación del yurupari.

«The narcotic effects may be violent and with unpleasant aftereffects, especially when the drink is made by boiling the bark and most certainly when some other toxic plants enter the preparation as admixtures. Nausea and vomiting are almost always early characteristics of the effects of the drink. This is followed by a pleasant euphoria, then by visual hallucinations, initially tinged with blue or purple. Excessive doses bring on frighteningly nightmarish visions—often of jaguars and snakes—and a feeling of extremely reckless abandon, although consciousness is usually not lost nor is the use of the limbs unduly affected» — el cuadro del efecto del caapi que da Schultes, de la náusea a la euforia y las visiones, con el límite de que no suele perderse la consciencia.

«This bizarre intoxicant was discovered in 1851 by Richard Spruce, an English plant explorer on the upper Rio Negro of the Brazilian Amazon, where it was called caapi. Spruce identified the drug as a new species of the Malpighiaceae, and he named it Banisterta Caapi» — cómo fecha Schultes el hallazgo del caapi por Richard Spruce en el alto río Negro.

«an Ecuadorian geographer wrote that ayahuasca was used among the Zaparos, Angateros, Mazanes, and other Indians of Amazonian Ecuador to foresee the future; discover the truth; help deliberations on war, attack, and defense; learn the source of malevolent magic; welcome visitors from other clans; and ascertain the faithfulness of their women» — la lista de usos que Schultes cita de un geógrafo ecuatoriano: prever el futuro, descubrir la verdad, deliberar sobre la guerra, hallar el origen de la magia maléfica, recibir visitantes.

«Probably no other hallucinogenic preparation has been so fraught with confusion. Careless research and even active imaginations and outright guesswork have bedeviled studies of the malpighiaceous narcotics for a century. This confusion characterizes not only the anthropological reports about its use but also the botanical and chemical studies that have been published» — el juicio de Schultes sobre el estado de los estudios de estos narcóticos: confusión por investigación descuidada, imaginación y conjetura.

«One of the most troublesome points of confusion concerns the identification of yajé as the apocynaceous vine Prestonia amazonica (Haemadictyon amazonicum) and the inference that yajé was a different narcotic from ayahuasca and caapi. Although this identification is very widely established in the literature, recent studies have conclusively shown that it is a serious error» — el error concreto que Schultes señala: la identificación del yajé con una apocinácea y la inferencia de que fuera narcótico distinto del ayahuasca.

«Perhaps the greatest uncertainty concerns the identification of the admixtures utilized locally in the preparation of ayahuasca, caapi, or yajé. That many different plants are added to the basic drink made from the bark of Banisteriopsis Caapi or B. inebrians is well recognized. ‘The exact identity of few is known, however. Much ethnobotanical field work remains to be done, especially in the Amazon, on this problem. It is complicated because many of the admixtures are very localized, restricted in some instances even to a single shaman» — la incertidumbre mayor que Schultes declara: la identidad de los aditivos, algunos restringidos a un solo chamán.

«The Sionas of Colombia add what is probably Datura suaveolens to their yajé drink to strengthen its effects. Their neighbors, the Inganos of Mocoa, are said to employ Alternanthera Lehmanni for the same purpose. In parts of the Vaupés of Colombia, a few leaves of the apocynaceous Malouetia Tamaquarina are sometimes added to caapi. Tobacco may occasionally constitute one of the additives. It is reported that the Tukanos of the boundary region between Brazil and Colombia ’employ five vines as admixtures with caapi, but they are known only by native names» — los aditivos que Schultes enumera por pueblo, con lo que de cada uno se sabe y lo que no.

«A number of alkaloids were described under names such as telepathine, yageine, banisterine; all of them eventually were identified as harmine, an alkaloid long known and isolated from Syrian rue (Peganum Harmala), an Asiatic plant of the Zygophyllaceae» — los tres nombres con que se describieron los alcaloides del caapi y en qué resolvieron: todos eran harmina, ya conocida de la ruda siria.

«The tryptamines are ineffective in the human body unless they are taken with some monoamine oxidase inhibitor. The -carbolines act as this inhibitor, allowing the tryptamine to have its hallucinogenic effect in man» — el mecanismo que Schultes explica: la triptamina no obra sin un inhibidor de la monoaminooxidasa, y las betacarbolinas hacen de inhibidor.

«One wonders how peoples in primitive societies, with no knowledge of chemistry or physiology, ever hit upon a solution to the activation of an alkaloid by a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Pure experimentation? Perhaps not» — la pregunta que Schultes deja planteada y su propia reserva ante la respuesta fácil de la experimentación pura.

«In addition to the mode of preparing the drug, these effects depend in large measure on the social and physical environment in which the drug is taken, as well as upon the age, health, and mental state of the partaker» — los factores de los que Schultes hace depender el efecto: el modo de preparación, el entorno social y físico, la edad, la salud y el estado mental de quien lo toma.

«Ceremonial use of ayahuasca, caapi, and yajé differs greatly from tribe to tribe, but one early account will suffice as a general illustration» — la reserva de método que Schultes declara antes de citar a Spruce: el uso ceremonial difiere mucho de pueblo a pueblo.

«When sufficiently triturated, it is passed through a sieve, which separates the woody fibre, and to the residue enough water is added to render it drinkable» — de la cita de Spruce de 1852 sobre la preparación del caapi entre los tukano del Vaupés.

«The cup-bearer— who must be a man, for no woman can touch or taste Caapi—starts at a short run from the opposite end of the house, with a small calabash containing about a teacupful of caapi in each hand, muttering “Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo” as he runs, and gradually sinking down until at last his chin nearly touches his knees, when he reaches out one of his cups to the man who stands ready to receive it» — la continuación de la cita de Spruce: el copero tiene que ser hombre, porque ninguna mujer puede tocar ni probar el caapi.

«In 1948, a hundred years after Spruce’s sojourn in the same area, I discovered that the Maku Indians of the Rio Tikié, a_ Brazilian affluent of the Amazon, prepared an intoxicating drink from the malpighiaceous genus Tetrapteris: from a species called T. methystica. It is an extensive forest liana, the bark of which is utilized, with no admixtures, to make a bitter drink. The drink was yellowish, not brown, the usual color of caapi» — el hallazgo propio que Schultes cuenta entre los makú del río Tiquié: una bebida amarillenta hecha sin aditivos de otro género de la misma familia.

«I learned by experiment that it had strong hallucinogenic properties, very similar to those of Banisteriopsis Caapi itself. One wonders whether or not the ‘‘painted caapi’’ reported by Spruce could have referred to the kind of caapi that makes this unusual yellowish drink. More field work must be done before we understand the full significance of this ‘other kind” of caapi—Tetrapteris methystica» — cómo declara Schultes haber medido esa propiedad, por experimento propio, y la deuda que deja escrita sobre ese otro caapi.

«they add to the yagé the leaves and the young shoots of the branches of the oco-yagé or chagro panga. . . . The addition of this plant . . produces the “bluish aureole” of their visions. These are cinematographic views, and occur after about half a liter of the drink has been consumed in portions an eighth of a liter each at intervals of half an hour» — de la cita del colector botánico del Putumayo: el aditivo de oco-yagé produce la aureola azulada y las vistas cinematográficas, con la dosis que describe.

«Thereafter, the Indian falls into a profound sleep, during which he is in a state of complete insensibility and anaesthesia. During this period, the subconscious activity acquires enormous intensity. The dreams follow each other with extraordinary precision and clearness, giving to the intoxicated person ... the power of double vision and of seeing things at a distance, like certain mediums in their trances. Upon awakening, he retains clearly the hallucinations and fantastic visions which he experienced in unknown regions» — el resto de esa cita: el sueño profundo, la actividad subconsciente intensificada y el poder de doble visión, con los recuerdos retenidos al despertar.

«In two minutes or less after drinking it, its effects begin to be apparent. The Indian turns deadly pale, trembles in every limb, and horror is in his aspect. Suddenly contrary symptoms succeed: he bursts into a perspiration, and seems possessed with reckless fury» — el efecto tal como lo describe Spruce: palidez mortal, temblor, horror y luego furia.

«seizes whatever arms are at hand, his murucu bow and arrows or cutlass, and rushes to the doorway, where he inflicts violent blows on the ground or the doorposts, calling out all the while, ‘“Thus would I do to mine enemy ... were this he!” In about ten minutes, the excitement has passed off, and the Indian grows calm but appears exhausted. Were he at home in his hut, he would sleep off the remaining fumes, but now he must shake off his drowsiness by renewing the dance» — el remate de la escena de Spruce: los golpes en el suelo o los postes con la fórmula contra el enemigo, y la calma exhausta al cabo de diez minutos.

«In 1954, I reported the preparation and utilization of a snuff made from Virola calophylla and V. calophylloidea among sundry tribes of the Vaupés area of Colombia. In this westernmost region of its use, the snuff is taken only by medicine men or shamans, never generally and hedonistically by the male population as a whole, as in the case of Anadenanthera snuff among certain Orinoco groups today. This snuff—called ydkee by the Puinave, yato by the Kuripako—is employed by at least a half dozen tribes in the Colombian Amazon» — el uso restringido que Schultes consigna para el rapé de Virola en el Vaupés: solo lo toman médicos o chamanes, nunca la población masculina entera.

«Other Waikas follow a different procedure, at least when they are preparing the snuff for ceremonial purposes. The bark is stripped from the Vzrola tree, the strips laid over a gentle fire in the forest, and the copious blood-red resin is scraped into an earthenware pot. It is boiled down and allowed to sun-dry. Then, alone or mixed with the powdered Justicia leaves, it is sifted and is ready for use» — el segundo procedimiento que Schultes describe, reservado al uso ceremonial: la resina rojo sangre raspada, hervida y secada al sol.

«Of an especial magical importance are cures during which the medicine man inhales hak-u-dufha. This is a magical snuff used exclusively by medicine men and prepared from the bark of a certain tree which, pounded up, is boiled in a small earthenware pot, until all the water has evaporated and a sediment remains at the bottom of the pot. This sediment is toasted in the pot over a slight fire and is then finely powdered with the blade of a knife» — la cita de Koch-Grünberg de 1909 que Schultes da por el informe más antiguo del rapé de Virola: un polvo mágico reservado al médico entre los yecuana, con su preparación.

«Then the medicine man blows a little of the powder through a reed... into the air. Next, he snuffs, whilst, with the same reed, he absorbs the powder into each nostril successively. The hak-u-dufha obviously has a strongly stimulating effect, for immediately the medicine man begins singing and yelling wildly, all the while pitching the upper part of his body backwards and forwards» — el resto de esa cita: el médico sopla el polvo al aire, lo aspira por cada fosa y rompe a cantar y gritar meciéndose.

«There are a number of methods of preparing the snuff, which is called epend or nyakwana by the many “tribes’’ which I include under the generic term Waikda. Some scrape the soft inner layer of the bark of the tree, dry the shavings by gentle roasting over a fire, and store them until they are needed for making the snuff. They are then crushed and pulverized, triturated and sifted. The resultant powder is fine, homogeneous, chocolate-brown, and highly pungent» — el procedimiento del rapé epena entre los waika según Schultes, con los nombres que el propio autor agrupa bajo el término genérico waiká.

«The third, and invariable, ingredient is the ash of the bark of a rare leguminous tree, Elizabetha princeps. This tree is known as ama or amasita by the Waika. These ashes are mixed in approximately equal amounts with the resin, or resin and Justicia powder, to give a brownish-gray snuff» — el ingrediente que Schultes da por invariable: la ceniza de corteza de un árbol leguminoso raro que los waika llaman ama.

«Epena or nyakwana snuff is employed occasionally in what appears to be a nonritualistic or purely recreational context. Many tribal groups, however, utilize it only in ceremony. Often the shamans take it to induce a trance in connection with the diagnosis or treatment of disease. The ritual commemoration of death or, in some tribes, the annual endocannibalistic memorial of the dead of the preceding year, always requires considerable snuffing of epena. Dancing, chest-beating, and occasional fighting are characteristic before the onset of a long period of stupor during which, with visual and auditory hallucinations, the Indians commune with the spirit world, the hekula» — los contextos de uso del epena que Schultes distingue, del recreativo al ceremonial, hasta la comunión con el mundo de los espíritus que los waika llaman hekula; *endocannibalistic* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón, que el impreso trae como *endo-cannibalistic*.

«The dose was snuffed at five o’clock. Within fifteen minutes a drawing sensation was felt over the eyes, followed very shortly by a strong tingling in fingers and toes. The drawing sensation in the forehead gave way to a strong and constant headache. Within a half hour, the feet and hands were numb and sensitivity of the fingertips had disappeared; walking was possible with difficulty» — el autoensayo que Schultes consigna en primera persona con rapé de Virola calophylla: tirantez sobre los ojos, hormigueo, cefalea y entumecimiento.

«The pupils were strongly dilated during the first few hours of the intoxication. No visual hallucinations nor color sensations were experienced» — el cierre de ese autoensayo, con la negativa que Schultes no oculta: ni alucinaciones visuales ni sensaciones de color.

«Among the Witotos, Boras, and other tribes of the Putumayo drainage areas of Colombia, the resin of Virola theidora is ingested in the form of small pellets when shamans desire to “talk with the little people” and to work charms against malevolent magic from distant medicine men» — para qué ingieren la resina de Virola los chamanes del Putumayo según Schultes: hablar con la gente pequeña y contrarrestar la magia maléfica de médicos lejanos.

«Datura has long been one of the most widely employed hallucinogens. Species have been used in both hemispheres, but the New World can boast the greater number of species valued for their psychotomimetic properties and for the intensity of their role in aboriginal societies. For in North, Central, and South America, this well-known genus has long played a major role in divination, prophecy, sorcery, diagnosis, and curing, as well as in adolescent initiation rituals» — el lugar que Schultes le da a la Datura en América: adivinación, profecía, hechicería, diagnóstico, cura y ritos de iniciación adolescente.

«The Algonkian Indians of eastern North America administered wysoccan, an intoxicating medicine containing Jimson weed, or Datura stramonium, to youths about to undergo initiation into manhood. The boys experienced a kind of violent madness for twenty days, lost all memory, unliving their former lives and starting adulthood by forgetting that they had ever been children» — el rito algonquino que Schultes describe: veinte días de locura y pérdida de memoria, con el iniciado empezando la vida adulta por olvidar que fue niño.

«The Zunis call Datura inoxia a-neg-la-kya and utilize it extensively as a medicine, narcotic, anaesthetic, and, in the form of a poultice, for treating wounds and bruises. The rain priests, who are the only ones permitted to collect the plant, put the powdered root into their eyes to see at night, to commune with the feathered kingdom, and to commune with the spirits of the dead to intercede for rain. The Zufis ascribe a divine origin to the plant» — el uso zuñi que Schultes consigna: solo los sacerdotes de la lluvia recogen la planta y se echan la raíz en polvo en los ojos para ver de noche y tratar con los muertos.

«Hernandez reported that toloatzin was a major native medicine among the Aztecs, employed as an anodyne. He warned that excessive use could drive the patient to madness and “various and vain imaginations» — lo que Schultes cita de Hernández sobre la Datura azteca, con la advertencia del propio cronista sobre el exceso.

«Among the Ecuadorian Jivaro, for example, Datura is employed to correct refractory children in the belief that ancestral spirits carry out the admonishing. The ancient Chibcha of Colombia gave women and slaves potions of D. aurea to induce stupor prior to being buried alive with their deceased husbands» — dos usos que Schultes consigna sin armonizarlos: los jíbaros corrigen a los niños haciendo que amonesten los espíritus ancestrales, y los chibcha aturdían a mujeres y esclavos antes de enterrarlos vivos.

«ployed Datura inoxia (D. meteloides) or toloache in initiation rites. The Yumas took this drug to gain occult powers during these rituals, and the Yokuts valued it in a spring ceremony to ensure future good health and long life to adolescent initiates. The Luisefio gave it to youths who danced, screaming wildly “like animals,” and finally fell into a stupor to find their adult life» — los usos de la toloache en la iniciación que Schultes enumera por pueblo, del poder oculto de los yuma al estupor de los luiseño. La frase arranca en la plana 76.

«One of the most interesting Mexican species is Datura ceratocaula, a fleshy plant, with thick, forking stems that grows in shallow waters or swamps. Ancient Mexican Indians invoked the spirits of this plant in treating certain diseases» — la especie acuática que Schultes destaca y el trato que le daban los antiguos mexicanos: invocar sus espíritus para curar.

«They are handsome trees, well known in horticulture, but they appear to be chromosomally aberrant cultigens unknown as wild plants. Their classification has long been and still remains uncertain: usually considered to represent six or seven species, the tree Daturas have recently been thought to comprise three or four species and a number of cultivars» — la rareza que Schultes señala en las daturas arbóreas sudamericanas: cultígenos aberrantes que no se conocen silvestres, y una clasificación que sigue en disputa.

«Latua pubiflora is a spiny shrub or small tree found only in the coastal mountains of central Chile. A very strict endemic, known locally as latué or adrbol de los brujos (“‘sorcerers’ tree’), it was employed formerly by sorcerers in the Province of Valdivia for nefarious purposes» — el árbol de los brujos chileno según Schultes, empleado por los hechiceros de Valdivia.

«It is a virulent poison capable of producing a state of delirium and visual hallucinations, leading often to permanent insanity. Whether or not any cult or ritual surrounded its use is not known, but it was widely recognized and feared by the native population. A madness of any duration might be induced at the will of the practitioner, and dosages were a closely guarded secret» — lo que Schultes sabe y lo que declara no saber del latué: veneno que da delirio y locura, sin que conste culto ni ritual, con las dosis guardadas en secreto.

«state of violence so furious that the partaker must be restrained until a deep, disturbed sleep overtakes him. The visual hallucinations are interpreted as spirit visitations» — el efecto de la Datura sudamericana según Schultes: violencia que obliga a sujetar al que la toma hasta el sueño, y visiones interpretadas como visitas de espíritus.

«The Kamsa and Ingano tribes of Sibundoy in the southern Colombia highlands use Datura extensively. They employ Datura candida, D. dolichocarpa, and D. sanguinea and even preserve for use and propagate vegetatively several highly atrophied named clones of D. candida. ‘These clones are propagated merely by planting a piece of stem of the parent plant in wet soil. Some of these clones or ‘‘races’’ —representing possibly incipient “varieties” as the result of mutations— are such monstrosities that their parent species has, until recently, not been known» — los clones de Datura que Schultes documenta en Sibundoy: propagados por esqueje, tan atrofiados que su especie madre estuvo sin identificar.

«The natives have names for them and employ them for different purposes, since they apparently vary in chemical composition and produce slightly different effects one from another» — y el criterio indígena que Schultes consigna: cada clon tiene nombre y uso propios por dar efectos distintos.

«The Indians of the valley—Kams4- and Ingano-speaking tribes—assert that this plant, known as culebra borrachera, is more potently hallucinogenic than Datura and more dangerous to use» — lo que los indios de Sibundoy sostienen de la culebra borrachera según Schultes: más potente y más peligrosa que la Datura.

«The chemical constitution of Methysticodendron Amesianum supports the Indians’ contention of the potency of the drug: it contains 1-scopolamine and hyoscyamine with minor amounts of other bases, but up to 80 per cent of the total alkaloid content is scopolamine» — el respaldo químico que Schultes le encuentra a la afirmación indígena sobre la potencia.

«Finally, there are a number of little-known psychotomimetics the chemistry and cultural uses of which urgently require further study before the societies that employ them disappear forever—and with them, much useful knowledge» — la urgencia que Schultes declara al cerrar su panorama: estudiar esas plantas antes de que desaparezcan las sociedades que las usan.

«In southern Mexico the Mixtecs of Oaxaca employ two puffballs, Lycoperdon mixtecorum (gi-t-wa = “fungus of the first quality’), and Lycoperdon marginatum (gi-t-sa-wa — ‘‘fungus of the second quality’) as hallucinatory divinatory agents. What makes these two gastromycetes unusual is the fact that they seem to produce auditory rather than visual hallucinations» — los dos hongos de polvo mixtecos que Schultes registra con sus nombres de primera y de segunda calidad, y lo que los hace raros: dan alucinación auditiva.

«The Erythrina is the legendary divinatory tsité tree of the Popol Vuh; its beans were also employed in the ritual patoll: game of central Mexico» — la pista que Schultes deja abierta, siguiendo a Furst: el árbol adivinatorio del Popol Vuh y el juego ritual del patolli.

«A recently discovered Mexican hallucinogen is the composite Calea Zacatechichi, widely used in folk medicine. The Chontal of Oaxaca take it to “clarify the senses» — el alucinógeno mexicano reciente que Schultes registra con la fórmula con que los chontales dicen para qué lo toman.

«El macho (‘the male’) is Coleus pumilus. El nene (“the child’) and el ahiado (‘the godson’’) are two forms of Coleus Blumet. Both are actually imports from the Old World and so could not have been used before the Conquest» — los tres coleos mazatecos con sus nombres de parentesco y la salvedad que Schultes añade: son importaciones del Viejo Mundo y no pudieron usarse antes de la Conquista.

«Another enigma is the narcotic known among the Arawakan Mojo Indians of Bolivia as mariri, taken by shamans to communicate with the spirits» — uno de los enigmas que Schultes deja consignados: el mariri de los mojo, que el chamán toma para hablar con los espíritus.

«The Tanimuka Indians of Amazonian Colombia employ an as-yet unidentified liana to brew a hallucinogenic drink for boys in an adolescent initiation ritual. The effects are said to be similar to yajé, but the liana is not the well-known Banisteriopsis Caapi» — otro enigma: la liana sin identificar con que los tanimuka preparan la bebida de la iniciación adolescente.

«by medicine men for divination, prophecy, and the practice of sorcery, and plays a role in native medicine as well» — los usos que Schultes le adjudica a la culebra borrachera entre los médicos indígenas: adivinación, profecía y hechicería, más su lugar en la medicina nativa.

«Whether or not some species of Nicotiana have chemical constituents with real hallucinogenic activity remains to be seen» — la abstención química que Schultes declara sobre el tabaco.

«In any event, the genus Nicotiana must be counted among the most important native psychotropic plants of the Western Hemisphere. At the present time, however, I prefer to leave it to qualified ethnographic investigators to assess its significance in the intellectual cultures of the New World» — cómo cierra Schultes su capítulo: cuenta al tabaco entre las plantas psicotrópicas mayores de América y remite su valoración al etnógrafo, que es el capítulo siguiente, de Wilbert.

«All discussion of tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) has been purposely omitted from this overview of New World hallucinogens» — la exclusión declarada con que Schultes cierra su panorama.

«While there are hundreds of references to the use of tobacco by American Indians in religious, magic, curing, and intoxicating practices, writers of the past have hardly begun to explore the real role and significance of the tobaccos in belief and ritual. Nevertheless, the literature from 1492 to the present leaves no doubt about the supreme ritualistic and mythological status accorded to these plants by the indigenous peoples of nearly all parts of the New World» — lo que Schultes reconoce a la vez que excluye el tabaco: estatuto ritual y mitológico supremo en casi toda América, y una literatura que apenas ha empezado a explorarlo.

«There is also ample evidence that in many areas tobacco has been employed to trigger ecstatic states very similar, perhaps even identical, to those induced by the “true hallucinogens» — lo que Schultes sí da por evidenciado del tabaco: que dispara estados extáticos muy semejantes, quizá idénticos, a los de los alucinógenos propiamente dichos.

«Tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) is not generally considered to be a hallucinogen. Yet, like the sacred mushrooms, peyote, morning-glories, Datura, ayahuasca, the psychotomimetic snuffs, and a whole series of other New World hallucinogens, tobacco has long been known to play a central role in North and South American shamanism, both in the achievement of shamanistic trance states and in purification and supernatural curing» — cómo abre Wilbert su capítulo: el tabaco no pasa por alucinógeno y aun así es central en el chamanismo americano, para el trance y para la purificación y la cura.

«Even if it is not one of the “true” hallucinogens from the botanist’s or pharmacologist’s point of view, tobacco is often conceptually and functionally indistinguishable from them» — la distinción que Wilbert traza entre lo botánico y lo cultural: conceptual y funcionalmente el tabaco no se distingue de los alucinógenos.

«We know that Indians from Canada to Patagonia esteemed tobacco as one of their most important medicinal and magical plants and that some employed it as a vehicle of ecstasy. We also know that everywhere and almost always in prehistoric and more recent historic times its use was strictly ritualistic» — lo que Wilbert da por sabido: el tabaco como planta medicinal y mágica de primer orden y su uso estrictamente ritual en tiempos prehistóricos e históricos.

«The power of the shaman is often linked with his breath or tobacco smoke, both of which possess cleansing and reinvigorating properties which play an important part in healing and in other magic practices» — la cita de Zerries que Wilbert trae para explicar el sentido esotérico del humo: el poder del chamán ligado al aliento y al humo, que limpian y revigorizan.

«from time to time to take deep drags on a long cigar made of native tobacco rolled in tawari bark. He soon becomes intoxicated from the smoke combined with the rhythm of the song and the dance. This process is known as “‘calling’’ the spirit. The spirit responds only to its distinctive songs and he himself is only prepared to receive the spirit» — la cita de Wagley y Galvão que Wilbert reproduce sobre el chamán tenetehara: el humo con el ritmo del canto y la danza es lo que llama al espíritu.

«Like smoke, snuff may be inhaled for its psychoactive effect or blown out, depending on the supernatural need. Tacana shamans in lowland Bolivia, for example, blow tobacco powder into the air to repel malevolent supernatural beings threatening a patient or the community» — la doble dirección del humo y del rapé según Wilbert: se aspira o se sopla según lo que pida el trato con lo sobrenatural.

«Often it serves its primary sacred function as the supernatural purifying, mortifying, and reinvigorating agent during the long and arduous initiatory training of novice shamans» — la función sagrada primaria que Wilbert le asigna al tabaco: agente purificador, mortificador y revigorizante en la larga instrucción iniciática del chamán novicio.

«Ihe young Indian shamans are deprived of normal food for long periods, during which they become emaciated almost to the point of skeletonization (ritual death and skeletonization are important aspects of shamanic initiation in many parts of Asia and America» — la iniciación que Wilbert describe a partir de Koch-Grünberg: privación de alimento hasta la casi esqueletización, que él enmarca como muerte ritual propia de la iniciación chamánica.

«Instead of food they are repeatedly fed large quantities of liquefied tobacco, through both nose and mouth, to induce narcotic trances. In this state the novice makes his first celestial ascent to meet face to face with the spirits inhabiting the Otherworld» — y lo que ocupa el lugar del alimento: tabaco licuado por nariz y boca para el trance en que el novicio hace su primera ascensión celeste.

«Nevertheless, ancient ritual meanings associated with native tobacco persist: in many tribes the tobacco they themselves cultivate or collect in the wild state is reserved for ritual and ceremonial use, whereas the white man’s tobacco, or ‘Virginia tobacco, a hybrid domesticate of Nicotiana tabacum, is freely smoked» — qué persiste bajo la secularización del tabaco según Wilbert: el que el indio cultiva o recoge se reserva al rito, y el del hombre blanco se fuma libremente.

«Later he begins to use other psychotropic plants as well, especially Banisteriopsis Caapi, in which, one shaman told Koch-Griinberg, “resides the shaman, the jaguar» — lo que un chamán le dijo a Koch-Grünberg y Wilbert reproduce: en el Banisteriopsis reside el chamán, el jaguar.

«This refers to the common conceptual identification of shamans with jaguars in much of Middle and South America, an identification often realized through the use of hallucinogens or psychotomimetic substances» — la identificación conceptual que Wilbert señala como común en Mesoamérica y Sudamérica, realizada a menudo por la vía del alucinógeno.

«Tobacco may be one of several vehicles for ecstasy; it may be taken in combination with other plants, as we have seen, to induce narcotic trance states; or it may represent the sole psychoactive agent employed by shamans to transport themselves into the realm of the supernatural, as is the case among the Warao of the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela» — el caso que Wilbert aísla para su capítulo: entre los warao del delta del Orinoco el tabaco es el único agente psicoactivo del chamán.

«That Warao shamans smoke enormous ‘cigars’ as much as 50 to 75 centimeters long has been known since early contact times, but the meaning of tobacco in Warao intellectual culture has often gone unnoticed» — lo que se sabía y lo que no del tabaco warao según Wilbert: los puros de cincuenta a setenta y cinco centímetros constan desde el contacto, su sentido en la cultura no.

«This is not surprising; few outsiders can expect to penetrate a culture meaningfully in the limited amount of time usually available for field work» — la razón de método que Wilbert da para esa ceguera y que aplica a su propio caso.

«Only in 1969, however, did he finally consent to lead me step by step beyond the outer fringes of Warao religion into that complex supernatural world that opens up for the shaman through the act of intensive smoking» — cómo declara Wilbert el acceso a su material: quince años de trabajo y el consentimiento del chamán en 1969 para llevarlo más allá del borde de la religión warao.

«The Warao believe they inhabit a saucer-shaped earth surrounded by a belt of water. The “‘stepped”’ celestial vault covers both earth and ocean and rests on a series of mountains situated at the cardinal and intercardinal points. Much of a Warao Indian’s life is spent in propitiating a number of Supreme Spirits (Kanobos) who inhabit these mountains at the ends of the world and who require nourishment in the form of tobacco smoke from the people» — la cosmología warao según Wilbert: tierra en forma de plato, bóveda escalonada sobre montañas cardinales y Espíritus Supremos que piden como alimento el humo del tabaco.

«The priest-shaman (wishiratu) visits these spirits in his dreams or in a tobacco-induced trance and, on returning from such a visit, transmits the message of the Supreme Spirits to the community» — la función del sacerdote-chamán warao según Wilbert: visita a los espíritus en sueños o en trance de tabaco y trae el mensaje a la comunidad.

«Sickness is believed to be caused by one or another of the deified Kanobos, who thereby expresses his dissatisfaction with man and sends his hebu (spirit) to do harm or even kill. Children especially are subject to such attacks. The priest-shaman is the only one who can intervene as curer because only he can relate directly to the Supreme Kanobos» — la etiología warao de la enfermedad que consigna Wilbert y su consecuencia práctica: solo el sacerdote-chamán puede curar, porque solo él trata con los Kanobos.

«In addition to the priest-sshaman there are two other important religious practitioners among the Warao. The “light” shaman is known as bahanarotu. He presides over an ancient cult of fertility called habisanuka» — los tres tipos de practicante que Wilbert distingue entre los warao, con el chamán claro al frente de un antiguo culto de fertilidad.

«The celestial bridge of tobacco smoke which he frequents and maintains between his community and the eastern Supreme Bahana (spirit) guarantees abundance of life on earth» — el puente celeste de humo de tabaco que, según Wilbert, el chamán claro mantiene entre su comunidad y el Espíritu Bahana del oriente.

«Only a friendly bahanarotu can assuage such misfortune, through the use of tobacco and the widespread traditional shamanic technique of sucking out the illness-causing foreign bodies magically introduced by the malevolent sorcerer» — y el remedio, en la plana siguiente: otro chamán claro amistoso chupa los cuerpos extraños que el hechicero introdujo.

«Considering that propitiation of these spirits by means of tobacco smoke is an absolute sine qua non of Warao intellectual culture, and that shamans must use tobacco to achieve the required trance state for travel to the Otherworld, one may imagine that procuring the sacred plant provided the principal impetus for Warao excursions into the hazardous frontier regions and the open ocean» — la consecuencia material que Wilbert le saca a la exigencia ritual: conseguir la planta sagrada habría sido el principal motor de las expediciones warao a la frontera y al mar abierto.

«In the old days, ordinary mortals hesitated to smoke for fear of precipitating an undesirable encounter with tobacco-craving spirits. Nowadays cigarettes and tobacco in every form are smoked freely by most Warao; even the women indulge more or less freely as evening falls. But the long indigenous “cigars” are exclusively shamanic» — el reparto que Wilbert describe entre lo profano y lo chamánico: hoy todos fuman, hasta las mujeres, pero el puro largo indígena sigue siendo solo del chamán.

«Warao shamans must never attempt to feed the Supreme Spirits with “Virginia blends,” because the foreign “perfumed” aroma is offensive to the spirits» — la prohibición que Wilbert consigna: el aroma perfumado del tabaco extranjero ofende a los espíritus.

«Unaware of this prohibition, on one ceremonial occasion I deposited a Camel cigarette as an offering in the sanctuary of the Kanobo spirits. The officiating priest-shaman immediately asked me to replace it with a piece of “black” tobacco. Not only would it be more suitable for the Kanobos, its smell would also be free of the offensive odor of the burning cigarette paper» — el episodio en que Wilbert se pone a sí mismo de ejemplo: dejó un cigarrillo de marca como ofrenda y el sacerdote-chamán le pidió cambiarlo por tabaco negro.

«At the ends of the universe (aitona) there live four supreme spirits, three male and one female, called Kanobos, ‘‘Our Grandfathers.’ The Kanobo Supreme, named Karoshimo, inhabits the world mountain of the south, Kanobo Ariawara lives on the world mountain of the east, and Kanobo Warowaro on the mountain of the north. The female Kanobo is called Daunarani, the Mother of the Forest; her serpent body lives in the southwest and her spirit in the southeast» — los cuatro Kanobos warao según Wilbert, con sus nombres, sus montañas y la Madre del Bosque de cuerpo de serpiente.

«The tobacco the spirits keep for themselves, for tobacco smoke is their proper nourishment. They appreciate it especially when it has been perfumed with incense» — por qué los espíritus se quedan con el tabaco según Wilbert: el humo es su alimento propio.

«If neglected for a long period of time by the priest-shaman, the Kanobos may become vindictive and send wishi-pains and death down to earth. Pains are invisible and yet materially conceived agents of the Kanobos, who endow the priest-shaman with the power to control them—hence his name, wishiratu, literally ‘Master of Pains» — de dónde viene el nombre del sacerdote-chamán warao según Wilbert: de controlar los dolores que el Kanobo desatendido manda a la tierra.

«To fulfill the primordial promise of abundant sacrificial tobacco smoke, wishiratus smoke incessantly. Their ‘“‘cigars,” as we have noted, are between 50 and 75 centimeters long and contain several tightly rolled leaves of black tobacco sprinkled with the fragrant resin of the Curucay or Tacamahaco (Protium heptaphyllum [Aubl.]), called shiburu tree by the Warao» — cómo cumple el chamán warao la promesa primordial según Wilbert: fumando sin parar puros de medio metro o más con resina fragante.

«The Kanobo agreed to do so—in the form of the sacred stone image. He also promised to advise the shaman in the future and to refrain from sending his pains if an initial sacrifice of ten men was made and the people agreed to continue to make offerings of tobacco smoke. By the act of residing in the cult house or temple of the community in the form of the image, the Kanobo effected the actual transfer of control over pain to the first shaman» — lo que el Kanobo concede y a cambio de qué, según Wilbert: reside como piedra y transfiere el control del dolor, a cambio de diez hombres sacrificados y de ofrendas perpetuas de humo.

«Ever since this first contract between the ancestral wishiratu and the Kanobo, Warao communities have identified themselves as “People of Kanobo Karoshimo,” “People of Kanobo Ariawara,” or “People of Kanobo Warowaro,” respectively, depending on which of the three male Kanobos was visited on the primordial pilgrimage in the tradition of the local group» — la consecuencia social de aquel contrato según Wilbert: cada comunidad warao se nombra por el Kanobo que su chamán ancestral visitó.

«The Kanobos travel over well-conceived roads: from the dancing platform in the middle of the village they ascend to the zenith. Here lives a lesser Kanobo by the name of Yaukware, who supplies them with fresh tobacco» — el camino de los Kanobos que Wilbert describe, con un Kanobo menor en el cenit que los surte de tabaco fresco.

«The roads of the major Kanobos all end on top of sacred mountains which look like giant tree trunks and which support the cosmic vault—reminiscent of the well-known Mesoamerican concept of world trees supporting the sky» — el paralelo que Wilbert traza entre las montañas sagradas warao y el concepto mesoamericano de los árboles del mundo que sostienen el cielo.

«If he wishes to confer with his Kanobo, the wishiratu travels in the smoke of his cigar to the zenith. There, after more intensive smoking, he mounts a flying horse (behoroida, literally big dog) which takes him to the attona. It is understood that only well-prepared and established wishiratus are able to do this—that is, those who carry three pairs of pains (wishis) in their breasts and who have successfully completed their initiatory trance journey to their Kanobo» — cómo viaja el chamán warao según Wilbert: en el humo de su puro hasta el cenit y de ahí en un caballo volador, y solo si lleva tres pares de dolores en el pecho y cumplió el viaje iniciático.

«Yaukware, the Kanobo of lesser rank who lives at the zenith, was once also a wishiratu, the first shaman ever to make the celestial ascent (Wilbert, 1970:184-85). This wishiratu lived peacefully on earth with his mother, brother, wife, and son, until one day he came upon his wife and brother committing adultery. Deeply grieved, the wishiratu took his shaman’s rattle, called his son, and sat with him on his shaman’s box. He lit a long shamanic cigar, and, ignoring the pleading of his mother, slowly ascended with his son to the zenith within the smoke of the shaman’s cigar» — el mito del primer chamán que ascendió, tal como Wilbert lo cuenta: el adulterio de la mujer y el hermano, el puro largo y la subida al cenit con el hijo.

«Nowadays novice wishiratus have to be taught how to ascend to Yaukware’s house in the zenith by means of smoking tobacco. After undergoing instruction in the special knowledge of wishiratus, the novice chants and fasts for several days. Then the master wishiratu hands him a long cigar charged with wishz spirits. These are to become the young wishiratu’s spiritual Kanobos and special familiars. The candidate fails into a deep trance sleep and in this state finds himself embarking on his initiatory journey across the “Road of the Wishiratus”’ to the end of the world» — la instrucción del novicio según Wilbert: canto y ayuno de varios días, y luego el puro cargado de espíritus que el maestro le entrega para el viaje iniciático.

«This maiden voyage into the Otherworld is the most crucial ecstatic flight the wishiratu will ever undertake. Not only must he overcome many obstacles, his very life is threatened by the ever-present possibility that his dream will be interrupted so suddenly that his roaming soul will not have time to return to his body. A novice suffering this fate will never get to practice and will soon die» — el riesgo que Wilbert consigna en ese primer vuelo extático: si el sueño se interrumpe de golpe, el alma no vuelve al cuerpo y el novicio muere.

«It is a difficult journey and he would surely fail were it not for an invisible psychopomp, or soul guide, who leads the way and advises the voung traveler» — el guía de almas que Wilbert introduce en el relato del viaje: sin él el novicio no llegaría.

«The mythic origin of the image goes back to a primordial “first time,’’ when an ancestral shaman, anguished by death and pain in his community, undertook an arduous pilgrimage to one of the sacred mountains at the end of the cosmos to ask the Kanobo for an end to the dying. He begged him to come and live in the midst of his people rather than far away on the mountain» — el mito de origen de la piedra sagrada que Wilbert recoge: el chamán ancestral peregrina a la montaña del fin del cosmos y le pide al Kanobo que venga a vivir entre los suyos.

«The first station he reaches is a manaca palm. As mentioned, it is from the epidermis of the manaca leaf stalk that the Warao make the wina, or tube, for their cigars. This palm is the shamanic tree of all wishiratus, who come here to carve their mark into its bark. The novice is advised to follow the example of his predecessors and told that his mark will remain fresh as long as he lives» — la primera estación del viaje iniciático warao según Wilbert: la palma de la que se hace el puro, donde cada chamán talla su marca, fresca mientras viva.

«Then the voung wishtratu has to clear an abyss filled with hungry Jaguars, snapping alligators, and frenzied sharks all eager to devour him. A vine hangs down over the abvss and, grasping it firmly, the novice swings himself across. But this is still not the end of his ordeal. Soon he reaches another obstacle. The path becomes extremely slippery, so that he can hardlv keep his balance. Io make matters worse, on every side are threatening demons armed with spears, waiting to kill anv novice who falls» — las pruebas del viaje que Wilbert enumera: el abismo de jaguares, caimanes y tiburones salvado por un bejuco, y luego el sendero resbaladizo con demonios armados.

«Next there are four stations where the novice is tested bv groups of people barbecuing the meat of boar, deer, tapir, and alligator, respectively. He is offered the meat of all, but no matter how hungrv he is and how strong the temptation, he must reject all of the proffered meat except the venison. Greatly tempting also are the women he meets next: he sees them making bark cloth for pubic covers but must not linger with them, much less have sexual intercourse» — las tentaciones del viaje según Wilbert: de cuatro carnes asadas solo se acepta la del venado, y no hay que demorarse con las mujeres que hacen tela de corteza.

«Finally the candidate shaman has to pass through a hole in an enormous tree trunk with rapidlv opening and closing doors. He hears the voice of his guide and companion from the other side of the trunk, for this spirit has already cleared the dangerous passage and now encourages the fearful novice to follow his example» — la última prueba del viaje iniciático warao según Wilbert: el agujero del tronco con puertas que se abren y cierran, y la voz del guía desde el otro lado.

«There he beholds a huge serpent with four colorful horns and a fiery-red luminous ball on the tip of her protruding tongue.* This serpent has a servant with reptilian body and human head whom the candidate sees carrying away the bones of novices who failed to clear the clashing gateway of the tree» — lo que el novicio encuentra dentro del árbol según Wilbert: la serpiente de cuatro cuernos con la bola ígnea en la lengua, y el servidor que se lleva los huesos de los que fallaron; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«The novice hurries outside and finds himself at the end of the cosmos. His patron Kanobo’s mountain rises before him. Here he will be given a small house of his own, where he may sojourn in his future tobacco trances to consult with the Kanobo and where eventually he will come to live forever upon successful completion of his shaman’s life on earth» — el término del viaje: la montaña del Kanobo patrono y la casita propia donde el chamán vivirá para siempre al cabo de su vida terrena.

«After this initiatory encounter with his patron Kanobo at the end of the world, the young wishiratu awakens from his tobacco trance as a new man. He carries with him six wishi spirits to assist him in curing men who suffer from spirit sickness» — cómo vuelve el novicio según Wilbert: hombre nuevo, con seis espíritus para curar la enfermedad de espíritu.

«In his shaman’s rattle, the wishiratu carries additional spirit helpers in the form of quartz crystals. These too assist him in curing by extracting sickness-causing wishi pains» — los auxiliares que el chamán warao lleva en la sonaja según Wilbert: cristales de cuarzo con que extrae los dolores.

«This is a monumental] spiritual obligation, weighing heavily on him, and involving a never-ending cycle of ritual observances and tobacco-induced ecstatic journeys to the ends of the cosmos» — cómo pesa el oficio según Wilbert: ciclo interminable de observancias rituales y viajes extáticos por tabaco.

«The “history of consciousness” of the Warao as a people has its origin in the “House of Tobacco Smoke,” created ex nihilo by the Creator Bird of the Dawn. The House of Smoke is the birthplace of “light” shamanism, called bahana» — de dónde hace arrancar Wilbert la historia de la consciencia warao: la Casa del Humo de Tabaco, creada de la nada por el Ave Creadora del Alba.

«Its materialization by means of solidified tobacco smoke took place through the conscious act of a bird spirit, who at the beginning of time arose as a young man in the East. The radiant body of this youth, his weapons, and his shamanic rattle were all made of tobacco smoke» — cómo describe Wilbert esa creación: acto consciente de un espíritu-ave cuyo cuerpo, armas y sonaja eran de humo de tabaco.

«The following is a condensation of some twenty hours of conversation on the origin of the bahanarotu shaman, in March and July, 1970, with a Winikina-Warao shaman. It is not to be taken as verbatim translation, but I have endeavored to preserve as much as possible the original forin and spirit of this remarkable tradition as I perceived it» — la cautela de método que Wilbert declara antes de dar el relato: es condensación de unas veinte horas de conversación con un chamán winikina-warao, no traducción literal.

«The thoughts of the Bird of the Dawn fell now on a house—and immediately it appeared: a round, white house made of tobacco smoke. It looked like a cloud» — el relato del chamán warao que Wilbert reproduce: la casa redonda y blanca de humo de tabaco nacida del pensamiento del Ave del Alba.

«I am the Master of this House of Smoke,’’ exclaimed the Creator-Bird. “You are my companions. Black Bee is your chief, Wasp the constable, Termite and Honey Bee are workmen.” Consenting to this, each companion approached the Master and stroked his head, shoulders, and arms so as to know him well. They chanted and smoked cigars. Thus they became the bahanarao, those who blow smoke» — el reparto de oficios en el relato warao que Wilbert reproduce, del que sale el nombre de los que soplan humo.

«On Black Bee’s dish there appeared a sparkling rock crystal. On Wasp’s dish there was a ball of white hair. On Termite’s plate white rocks appeared, and on Honey Bee’s there gathered smoke of tobacco—the fourfold set of the Game of Bahana» — los cuatro objetos del Juego de Bahana que el relato pone en cada plato: cristal, bola de pelo blanco, piedras y humo.

«Crystal, hair ball, rocks, and tobacco smoke, each identified with a specific insect and color, are the principal agents of the shaman’s power. Like arrows and other objects, they can be dispatched through the air as magical carriers of sickness» — la nota de Wilbert sobre esos cuatro objetos: son los agentes principales del poder del chamán y pueden despacharse por el aire como portadores de enfermedad.

«Then one day there appeared in the center of the earth a man and a woman. They were good people but their minds were unformed. However, they had a four-year-old* son who was very intelligent. He put his thoughts on many things. This way he came to think about the Hoebo place in the West with its stench of human cadavers, its blood, and its darkness. ‘There must be something in the East as well,’”’ reasoned the boy, “something light and colorful.” He decided to go and explore the universe» — cómo sigue el relato: el hijo de cuatro años razona que si al poniente está el hedor de los cadáveres, al oriente debe haber algo luminoso; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«Now, although the young boy’s body was relatively light, it was far too heavy for flight. TThe boy thought much about this until one day he asked his father to pile up firewood under his hammock. For four days he abstained from food and drink. In the evening of the fifth day he lit the wood with virgin fire and went to sleep. Then with the surging heat and smoke of the new fire the boy’s spirit ascended to the zenith. Someone spoke to him, saying, “Follow me. I will show you the bridge to the House of Smoke in the East» — la técnica del primer viaje en el relato warao: cuatro días de abstinencia, fuego virgen bajo la hamaca y el espíritu que asciende con el humo.

«Soon the boy found himself on a bridge made of thick white ropes of tobacco smoke. He followed the invisible spirit guide until, a short distance from the center of the celestial dome, he reached a point where marvelous flowers began meandering alongside the bridge in a rainbow of brilliant colors —a row of red and a row of yellow flowers on the left, and lines of blue and green flowers on the right. A gentle breeze wafted them back and forth. Like the bridge they adorned, the flowers were made of solidified tobacco smoke» — el puente de humo de tabaco del relato, con las flores de colores que lo bordean, también de humo solidificado.

«And emerging from below the floor of the House of Smoke the boy beheld the head of a serpent with four colored plumes: white, yellow, blue, and green. They chimed a musical note like a bell. Projecting its forked tongue, the plumed serpent produced a glowing white ball of tobacco smoke. “I know bahana!” exclaimed the youth. ‘Now you possess it,” said the Bahana. “You are a bahana-rotu» — el desenlace de la iniciación en el relato: la serpiente emplumada de cuatro colores que produce la bola blanca de humo, y el nombre que el niño recibe.

«He rejected his mother’s food for four days and more. “You will die,” she warned. But he only appeared dead. He no longer desired moriche flour, fish, and water. He longed for the food of bahana: tobacco smoke» — lo que sigue al despertar en el relato: el rechazo del alimento y el hambre de humo de tabaco, que la madre lee como muerte.

«The House of Smoke is situated to the East, halfway between the junction of earth and sky and the zenith of the cosmic vault. It came about long before there lived any Warao» — dónde sitúa el relato la Casa del Humo y desde cuándo: al oriente, a media altura entre el horizonte y el cenit, antes de que hubiera warao.

«You are pure and free of women,” he said. The boy set foot into the House of Smoke» — la condición que el Ave Creadora le reconoce al niño para dejarlo entrar.

«I take them all: the crystal, the white hair, the rocks, the smoke, and the bow and arrows as well.” The boy was very wise» — lo que el niño pide en el relato: todo el Juego de Bahana y además el arco y las flechas.

«On the fifth day the young bahanarotu experienced a strange transformation. His hands, his feet, his head began to glow. His arms and legs and finally his entire body turned brilliantly white. Then people appeared around his house: ten couples of Black Bee people, ten couples of Wasp people, ten couples of Termite people, and ten couples of Honey Bee people. And there were also many beautiful children among them. “He is alive,” they said. “My name is bahanarotu,” said the youth. This was the first time the name “bahana” was uttered on earth» — la transformación con que se cierra el relato: el cuerpo vuelto blanco, la llegada de los pueblos de insectos y el nombre dicho por primera vez en la tierra.

«Four is the sacred number of the Warao, a concept they share with numerous North and South American Indian tribes» — la nota de Wilbert sobre el número cuatro como número sagrado warao, compartido con muchos pueblos americanos.

«The bahanarotu kept his body light by eating very little. Tobacco smoke remained his principal food. His parents died, and, with no fellow Warao on earth, he married a beautiful Bee girl, a child like himself. They lived together but did not sleep together» — el régimen del primer chamán claro en el relato: comer poco, alimentarse de humo y casarse con una niña abeja sin dormir con ella.

«Had he slept with his wife while the sons were still feeble, the spirit children would have died, and bahana would have vanished from this earth» — la interdicción sexual del relato warao y lo que estaba en juego: sin ella la bahana habría desaparecido de la tierra.

«When the bahanarotu slept for the first time with his Bee wife he was very gentle. Only the head of his penis entered her vagina. The four spirit sons saw their mother and liked her. Also the mother beheld her white-smoke sons in a dream and found them pleasing and handsome. During each of the succeeding nights the bahanarotu penetrated further and deeper. Thus the first bahana family was established» — cómo el relato resuelve esa interdicción: la penetración gradual noche tras noche, con los hijos espíritu viendo a su madre.

«Walking up to the Supreme Bahana she transformed herself into a beautiful black sea bird.* She spread out her wings, shook them like rattles, and, while blowing tobacco smoke on the epileptic body of her patient, soothed him gently with her plumes. The Supreme Bahana recovered. “You are a bahanarotu indeed,” said he. “Remain here, Sinaka Aidamo, spirit of seizures» — el episodio del relato en que la mujer cura al Bahana Supremo soplándole humo y le es reconocido el oficio; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«This, in brief, is the origin tradition of the bDahanarotu shaman. It is the charter by which he orders his conscious existence and evidently also his supernatural experience. It is taught to him by his master in long and arduous initiatory training, and so firmly does it become fixed in his psyche that, when he is considered ready for his initiatory tobacco ecstasy, the novice shaman himself relives the primordial shamanic experience. In other words, he becomes culturally conditioned for a specific ecstatic experience under tobacco narcosis» — la lectura que Wilbert hace del relato: es la carta con que el chamán ordena su existencia consciente y su experiencia sobrenatural, y lo condiciona culturalmente para un éxtasis determinado.

«A young man who has decided to embark on the road of the bahanarotu takes a gift to the house of an older and respected bahanarotu whom he has chosen to be his teacher. If the gift is accepted, the master prepares a cigar charged with four wads of black leaf tobacco. “Smoke this,” he says. “It contains four bahanas who come to open your chest» — cómo empieza la instrucción del chamán claro según Wilbert: un regalo al maestro y un puro cargado con cuatro porciones de tabaco negro.

«Black Bee hits hard when the smoker inhales the first charge of tobacco. Then Wasp, Termite, and Honey Bee tear painfully into his body. It is said that the smoke does not reach the stomach. Bahana spirits reside around the heart. They cleanse the novice from polluted foods» — lo que el novicio siente según Wilbert: los cuatro espíritus desgarrándolo, que residen en torno al corazón y lo limpian de alimentos contaminados.

«The smoking of this first cigar introduces four days of fasting. After successfully completing this period of purification, the novice bahanarotu undergoes four additional days of abstinence, during which he incessantly smokes cigars lit from a virgin fire (i.e., a fire on which no cooking has been done» — el régimen de la iniciación según Wilbert: cuatro días de ayuno y otros cuatro de abstinencia fumando puros encendidos con fuego virgen.

«The novice falls into a trance; the Indians say, ‘He dies.’’ And in this state, “All of a sudden it happens.” The unconscious apprentice perceives the sonorous vibrations of the four bahana insect spirits. Louder and louder they grow, until the trees of the forest are transformed into gigantic rattles, swinging and swaying and emitting sounds that are most agreeable to his ears» — el trance del novicio tal como los propios indios lo nombran, según Wilbert: los árboles del bosque vueltos sonajas gigantes.

«Much time elapsed, and when many people appeared in the center of the earth, they knew nothing about bahana and the bridge that reached from their village to the House of ‘Tobacco Smoke. For this reason the bahanarotu rolled a cigar with two bahana inside and aimed it at a young man whom he had chosen to receive them. He sent Smoke for the right side of the youth’s chest and Rocks for his left side. Smoke became the Elder Brother, Rocks the Younger. When they struck the youth he fell over as if dead. The bahana spirits entered his body and became his helpers» — cómo el relato explica la transmisión de la bahana a la tierra: el puro con dos espíritus disparado a un joven, que cae como muerto y los recibe.

«Awakening at last from his ecstasy, the new bahanarotu clutches his chest which encloses the gift of bahana: White Smoke and White Rocks. Still small and feeble, the spirits require much care» — el estado en que despierta el nuevo chamán claro según Wilbert: con el don en el pecho, todavía pequeño y débil.

«The stick travels past the spirit in the chest and through the arm of the new bahanarotu and is “born” white through the mystical hole in the palm of the hand. A second stick is swallowed which exits as a white stick through the other hand. “Now swallow the white sticks,” orders the master. This act produces the final proof of a successful initiation. Now the white sticks travel past the bahanas in the chest and through the arms, this time to be born as white crystal beads» — la prueba final de la iniciación que Wilbert describe: el palito tragado que nace blanco por el hueco místico de la palma, y luego vuelto cuenta de cristal.

«He blows tobacco smoke over the arms of his young colleague and bids him go, with this warning: “Should you take a bath now, you would drown. Should you cohabit with your wife now, you would die. Your spirit sons would return to me, whence they came. Do not send your arrows to cause evil» — la despedida del maestro que Wilbert reproduce, con las tres interdicciones del recién iniciado.

«But of course many bahanarotus do emit magic arrows to kill or cause illness; all bahanarotus have this capacity» — la contrapartida que Wilbert consigna de inmediato: todos los chamanes claros tienen la capacidad de matar o enfermar con flechas mágicas.

«This is done in the following way: the bahanarotu ingests the chosen object and lets it pass by his bahanas in his chest and through his arms to the wrist. Here it waits, moving slowly toward the exit hole in the hand. Now the bahanarotu takes a deep pull at his cigar, lifts the hand with the magic arrow to his mouth, belches out a ball of smoke and sends the projectile on its way. A bahanarotu shooting magic arrows of sickness in this fashion is known as a hatabu-arotu, ‘‘master of the arrow» — la técnica de la flecha mágica según Wilbert, de la que sale el nombre de maestro de la flecha.

«All this, of course, is how it appears to the Indians, who see the shamanic phenomena through the eyes of faith and apprehend them as religious reality» — la reserva de método que Wilbert pone en nota: así se le aparece al indio, que ve el fenómeno chamánico con los ojos de la fe y lo aprehende como realidad religiosa.

«I am reminded of the time when I was told by Sanema Indians in Venezuela that their shamans fly, or at least walk a foot or so off the ground. When I objected that I could see shamans walking just like ordinary people, I was told, “That is because you do not understand» — el episodio que Wilbert cuenta en esa misma nota: al objetar que veía a los chamanes caminar como todos, los sanema le contestaron que era porque no entendía.

«Since bahanarotus can see bahanas in the dark, they sometimes get together for a tobacco seance to play the supernatural Game of Bahana, before the eyes of the awestruck villagers. Exhaling puffs of smoke, they send the four pieces of their Bahana Game one after the other to travel like luminous bodies through the dark house» — la sesión de tabaco que Wilbert describe: los cuatro objetos del Juego de Bahana lanzados como cuerpos luminosos por la casa a oscuras.

«If summoned to treat a patient, a bahanarotu waits until evening, when the heat of the day has cooled off. He places his hand on the affected part of the body and his bahana spirit helpers diagnose the nature of the arrow of sickness. The healer then sucks it out, inhales great quantities of tobacco smoke, and lets the magic arrow travel through his arm and through the exit hole into his hand, where it is “porn” for the patient and his relatives to see» — la cura del chamán claro según Wilbert: chupa la flecha y la hace nacer por el hueco de la mano a la vista del paciente y de sus parientes.

«During the night the malevolent Dahanarotu appears to the curer in his dream. He tells him what it was that provoked him to send an arrow of sickness and warns the victim not to offend him again. The following morning the message is conveyed to the convalescent» — el desenlace de la cura según Wilbert: el agresor se aparece en sueños al curandero, dice qué lo ofendió y advierte, y el mensaje se transmite al convaleciente.

«The people in the room are fearful of this supernatural demonstration of shamanic power. But the “fathers” of the roving bahanas always call their “sons” back if the game threatens to get out of hand. They blow tobacco smoke to intercept the flight of the spirits and put them back in their baskets» — cómo termina la sesión de tabaco según Wilbert: los padres llaman de vuelta a sus hijos espíritu soplando humo cuando el juego amenaza con írseles de las manos.

«Warao beliefs concerning the ability of shamans to shoot sickness projectiles through a tube in the arm from an exit hole in the hand with the help of tobacco smoke are closely paralleled among the Barama River Caribs of Guyana (formerly British Guiana). According to Gillin (1936:173), these techniques are taught to the neophyte shaman by his teacher, who “places a spirit stone in the novice’s mouth and draws it from the mouth through the shoulder and through the arm three times, in order to make the tube in the arm through which the shooting is done» — el paralelo que Wilbert trae en nota entre la creencia warao del tubo en el brazo y la de los caribes del río Barama según Gillin.

«The Scarlet Macaw (Ara chloroptera) is the Supreme Hoa spirit who rules over the Abode of Darkness, called Hoebo. This place is situated at the end of the world to the West. Here live all the souls of deceased “dark” shamans, the hoarotus, as beings half human and half animal» — el Morada de la Oscuridad warao según Wilbert: la guacamaya roja al poniente del mundo, donde viven las almas de los chamanes oscuros.

«It has to be endless if the Supreme Hoa and spirit companions, called hoarao, are to continue living: the former by eating human hearts and livers, the latter by devouring the bodies. All hoarao in the Hoebo drink human blood from a gigantic canoe made of human bone» — la economía de ese lugar según Wilbert: los espíritus viven de corazones, hígados, cuerpos y sangre humanos.

«No one could see this cosmic artery, nor did the Warao die after being thus drained—they felt weak but recovered» — la salvedad del relato: nadie veía la arteria y nadie moría de ella, solo se sentía débil.

«One day this arrangement was changed through a violent act of jealousy. The bridge of blood in the sky disappeared and hoarotus became the sole providers of the spirits in the western world of darkness» — el vuelco que el relato cuenta: un acto de celos rompe el puente de sangre y el chamán oscuro queda como único proveedor.

«But when he lowered himself head first from the hoa ahutu umbilicus to the dancing platform in the center of the village, a jealous rival for the girl cut off Hoebo’s head. The sphere at the end of the blood duct fell to the ground and disappeared. All the people present suddenly felt sick with a sharp pain in their stomachs. The elastic blood duct snapped back to the West» — el episodio del corte: el rival celoso decapita al hijo que bajaba por el umbilicus, y el conducto se retrae al poniente.

«Thus was severed forever the connection between the Warao on earth and the Hoebo at the end of the world in the West. Hoebo’s soul still remains above the village, a short distance in a westerly direction from the zenith. But the umbilicus has gone, and from the zenith to the Hoebo there now leads only a black road. This is the path taken by the hoarotus, who have to carry their human victims along it to the West in order to feed the hearts and livers to the Hoa Supreme and the bodies to the hoarao who inhabit the Hoebo» — la consecuencia duradera según Wilbert: solo queda un camino negro por el que el chamán oscuro lleva sus víctimas al poniente.

«The victim is always carried head down, dangling at the hoarotu’s back from his knees; this is to express extreme mockery and ridicule for the victim» — el detalle que Wilbert consigna con su sentido: la víctima se carga cabeza abajo para expresar burla extrema.

«Hoarotus dislike having to kill their fellow men with magic arrows. But what would become of mankind if they stopped providing human blood and flesh for the Hoa Supreme and the hoarao in the western world of darkness? All would come to an end. So there must be hoarotus who provide this service» — el dilema que Wilbert le adjudica al chamán oscuro: no quiere matar, pero si dejara de proveer sangre y carne todo acabaría.

«Originally the Supreme Hoa and his companions sustained themselves with human blood supplied through a long umbilicus-like artery reaching from the end of the world in the West across the water to the Warao village on earth. The artery was connected in the Hoebo to a gigantic structure of rock (or iron), where it was illuminated by one yellow and one white light» — el arreglo original que el relato warao describe: una arteria umbilical que iba del fin del mundo al poniente hasta la aldea, iluminada por dos luces.

«From there it followed the curvature of the celestial vault to the zenith and dangled down from the heavens over the dancing platform of the Warao village. The end of this duct was provided with a brilliant ball of light which at night sought out the heads of sleeping Warao in order to penetrate through the skull down to their hearts and drain their blood» — la continuación: el conducto seguía la curva de la bóveda hasta el cenit y su bola de luz buscaba de noche las cabezas de los warao dormidos.

«According to the information obtained from the Mayas in the vicinity of Valladolid, this world is now in the fourth period of its existence. In the first epoch there lived the Saiyamwinkoob, the Adjustors. These composed the primitive race of Yucatan. They were dwarfs and were the ones who built the ruins. This work was all done in darkness before there was any sun. As soon as the sun appeared, these people turned to stone. ... It was at this period that there was a road suspended in the sky, stretching from Tuloom and Coba to Chichen Itza and Uxmal. This pathway was called kusansum or sabke (white road). It was in the nature of a large rope (sum) supposed to be living (Rusan) and in the middle flowed blood. It was by this rope that the food was sent to the ancient rulers who lived in the structures now in ruins. For some reason this rope was cut, the blood flowed out, and the rope vanished forever» — el paralelo maya que la nota del capítulo trae de Tozzer: el kusansum o camino blanco, cuerda viva con sangre en el medio, por el que se mandaba alimento a los antiguos señores, cortada para siempre. La nota no lleva marca de editor.

«It may also be noted that in the Maya area and elsewhere in ancient Mexico the Scarlet Macaw is the Sun Bird, a concept that seems to survive in attenuated form in sacred mushroom rituals of Oaxaca, for which the Scarlet Macaw feathers are considered indispensable. Both the wishiratu-temple-idol complex and the hoa complex of the Warao are in fact strongly reminiscent of Mesoamerican religion and ritual. In the context of the present paper it is impossible to include an analytical discussion of these interesting and, from an ethnographic point of view, puzzling parallels» — el resto de esa nota: la guacamaya roja como Ave Solar maya y la semejanza de los dos complejos warao con la religión mesoamericana, declarada como problema abierto.

«If accepted, the novice is taken by the master to a small hut in the forest, where the two men will remain secluded for five days. Smoking incessantly, the candidate waits to be taken to the zenith to visit the Hoebo. But first he must learn the many hoa songs—one kind to cause sickness, another to cure it» — la reclusión de cinco días y el doble repertorio que el novicio debe aprender: cantos para enfermar y cantos para curar.

«Finally the master lights a long cigar, turns it around with the fire in his mouth, and blows into it. Now the cigar contains two hoa spirits ready to enter the body of the apprentice and become his “sons.’”’ The master hands the hoa cigar to the apprentice, and one after the other the two hoas tear violently into his body. The pain is excruciating» — la entrega de los espíritus en el puro según Wilbert, y el dolor con que entran en el cuerpo del aprendiz.

«Now comes the first test: do the hoas want to accept him as their father? Has he kept his body strong? Will he be a good provider?» — las tres preguntas con que Wilbert formula la primera prueba, desde el punto de vista de los espíritus.

«While he continues to sing the hoa songs, he experiences increasing pressure at the base of the sternum, where his Kaidoko, the hoarotu’s snare of tobacco smoke, begins to grow. From now on, the Kaidoko tendrils will snake from the corners of his mouth each time he begins to chant or speak ritually with a loud voice» — el lazo de humo de tabaco que crece en el esternón del chamán oscuro y le sale por las comisuras al cantar.

«To increase the effective length of his Kaidoko, the hoarotu novice has to fast and smoke incessantly for approximately one month. During this period he is repeatedly asked by his teacher, ‘Did anything happen to you last night?» — el régimen de un mes de ayuno y humo, con la pregunta que el maestro repite cada mañana.

«To become a hoarotu shaman, a young man has to submit to severe initiatory ordeals. He feels bitterness within himself for a long time» — cómo empieza la iniciación del chamán oscuro según Wilbert. La frase se corta antes de la llamada de nota y sigue en la plana 105.

«before he finally decides to ask an accomplished hoarotu to teach him to make and cure malevolent hoa magic» — la continuación: el novicio pide al maestro que le enseñe a hacer y a curar la magia maléfica.

«Finally one night something does happen. In his ecstatic dream state induced by tobacco, the novice meets a spirit who beats him across the neck with a heavy club. “I was like dead,” reports the novice. ‘But I did not die» — el primer sueño de la iniciación oscura según Wilbert: el espíritu que golpea el cuello con un garrote, y la fórmula del novicio al contarlo.

«A second dream follows. This time the murderous spirit kills the novice and places him in a hollowed-out tree.* “But I was not really dead,’ explains the novice. “I was lying there in my coffin when I discovered a small hole in the palm-leaf wrapping. Through this I escaped» — el segundo sueño: el novicio muerto y metido en un tronco ahuecado, del que escapa por un agujero; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«Then the novice hoarotu has a third dream. This time the demon leads him to a human cadaver. “Eat this,” he commands. But the novice finds it repulsive and impossible to swallow the piece of human flesh he takes to his lips. The demon proffers a cup of human blood but the novice is revolted by it also. He lifts the blood to his lips but cannot bring himself to drink it» — el tercer sueño: el demonio le ofrece carne y sangre humanas y el novicio no consigue tragarlas.

«Finally there comes a fourth dream. Sometimes weeks pass before the novice embarks on it. His body is so emaciated that he can hardly move or perform the most essential functions. He is truly near death. In his trance state the demonic spirit appears once more to lead him to his grave. [his time it 1s made of stone slabs. Inside it is very cold and pitch black. ‘The foul stench of decay and putrefaction is nearly unbearable. He feels like fainting and is terrified that he might wake up —because if that happened he really would die and remain in his grave. Day breaks and with the rising sun he discovers a crack between the stone slabs that cage him. Again he makes his escape» — el cuarto sueño según Wilbert: la tumba de losas, el frío, el hedor y el terror de despertar, con la escapada por la grieta al salir el sol.

«The master hoarotu is pleased. He calls for his wife, who feeds the novice slowly and patiently to bring him back to life. The community has a new hoarotu, who will handle the hoarao of the West with great prudence, propitiate them, and provide them with sacrifices only when absolutely necessary» — el desenlace de la iniciación oscura según Wilbert: la mujer del maestro devuelve al novicio a la vida, y la comunidad gana un chamán que proveerá sacrificios solo cuando sea indispensable.

«short white tendrils, but they continue to grow and to travel toward their victim.* Invisibly they wind themselves around his neck and begin to weaken him through strangulation. The Indian falls ill. When he has become sufficiently debilitated, the hoarotu prepares to kill him, so that his organs and his body may be fed to the spirits of the West» — cómo obra el lazo de humo según Wilbert: se enrolla invisible al cuello de la víctima y la debilita por estrangulación hasta que el chamán puede matarla; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«He smokes six long cigars while singing, and with the final word of his chant he puffs out a cloud of smoke and pulls the snare shut» — el gesto con que se cierra el lazo según Wilbert: seis puros largos y una bocanada con la última palabra del canto.

«Then, during the night, the sorcerer smokes again and throws the (living) soul of the victim over his shoulder to carry it to the zenith and from there to the Hoebo in the West. Here the soul is clubbed to death, bled, and dismembered» — lo que sigue según Wilbert: el alma viva cargada al hombro hasta el cenit y de ahí al poniente, donde se la mata a garrotazos.

«It is impossible for a hoarotu not to kill. For example, when the two hoa ‘‘sons” who live in his breast approach him in his dream and beg for food, he can delay and propitiate them at least four times with tobacco smoke and yuruma (moriche palm starch). But when they come a fifth time and demand their proper food—human blood—he can no Jonger turn them away unsatisfied» — la necesidad que Wilbert describe: los hijos espíritu se aplacan cuatro veces con humo y almidón, y a la quinta exigen sangre humana.

«The magic arrow enters below the rib cage and searches for the heart.* And the instant that the Kazdoko snare of smoke closes, the hoa enters the heart to kill» — el trayecto de la flecha mágica según Wilbert, desde las cintas de humo hasta el corazón; la llamada de nota con asterisco se conserva tal cual la imprime el troceo.

«And peopie are well aware of what is going on. They have observed the hoarotu depart alone for the forest. So, when someone in the village or in a nearby community starts complaining of a sharp pain in his breast and falls ill, he and everyone else know why» — lo que Wilbert consigna del saber común: visto partir al chamán al monte, nadie duda del origen del dolor que sigue.

«Only a friendly hoarotu can prevent death when a person has been struck by hoa. His hoa sons know all their fellow hoas. He begins to smoke and sing the curing chants, and as soon as he divines the nature of the illness-causing hoa (e.g., the hoa of a particular species of tree, an animal, or the like), his own Kaidoko snare of tobacco smoke pries it loose from the victim. The intrusive sickness-causing object jumps into the massaging hand of the curer who blows it into the forest in a puff of tobacco smoke. This effects the cure» — la cura según Wilbert: el chamán amistoso adivina de qué hoa se trata y su propio lazo de humo lo desprende de la víctima.

«In some communities there is nearly perpetual competition between hoarotus that kill and others that cure—lucky the village that can rely on a powerful hoarotu who knows how to keep the Scarlet Macaw and his spirits of the West appeased with a minimum of sacrifices, while maintaining the strength of his own group by saving his fellows from the hoa snare of malevolent hoarotus» — la competencia perpetua que Wilbert consigna y la suerte que le atribuye a la aldea con un chamán oscuro que sepa aplacar al poniente con el mínimo de sacrificios.

«So far as I have been able to determine, tobacco is the only psychotropic substance available to the three kinds of Warao shamans. The Curucay resin employed by the wishiratu, and to some extent also the bahanarotu, appears to lack any hallucinogenic properties. All three supernatural practitioners—wishiratu, bahanarotu, and hoarotu—employ tobacco extensively to put themselves in ecstatic trances» — la conclusión de Wilbert sobre su caso: el tabaco es la única sustancia psicotrópica de los tres tipos de chamán warao.

«Some hoarotus ‘kill’ a person each time their hoa “sons” come and ask for flesh and blood. This kind of hoarotu kills more people than he cures» — el desequilibrio que Wilbert consigna en algunos casos: hay chamanes oscuros que matan más de lo que curan.

«Reminiscent of the flint knife with which Aztec priests opened the breast of the sacrificial victim in order to tear out his heart, which, like the blood, organs, and bodies of hoa victims, was fed to the gods to give them strength» — el paralelo azteca que la nota del capítulo trae: el cuchillo de pedernal con que se abría el pecho de la víctima para dar de comer a los dioses. La nota no lleva marca de editor.

«Throughout their lifetime hoarotus travel often to the Hoebo in the West, always using tobacco as their means of ecstasy. ‘They too have house in the Otherworld in which they will dwell forever after death. But while the house of the bahanarotu is in the East, the land of light, that of the hoarotu is in the West, the realm of darkness» — el reparto final de las dos casas en el otro mundo según Wilbert: la del chamán claro al oriente, la del oscuro al poniente.

«tobacco smoke is clearly as essential to the healing process among the Warao as it is elsewhere in Indian America—even where some other true hallucinogen is central to belief and ritual» — lo que Wilbert generaliza a partir de su caso: el humo de tabaco es tan esencial a la cura entre los warao como en el resto de la América indígena, aun donde hay otro alucinógeno en el centro.

«In lowland South America novice shamans undergo their initiatory training with powerful infusions of liquid tobacco before they are introduced to Banistertopsis Caapi. In eastern Bolivia shamans of the Tacana employ ayahuasca (B. Caapi) to place themselves in trances but also utilize tobacco as a magical deterrent against malevolent spirits. In northern Peru liquefied tobacco constitutes an essential ingredient in contemporary folk healing with the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus» — los ejemplos con que Wilbert apoya esa generalización, de Bolivia al Perú, con remisión al capítulo de Sharon.

«Even in a society so totally committed to a single psychotropic plant as are the Huichol to peyote, we find tobacco playing a crucial role, not only in shamanic curing but in the peyote rituals themselves» — el caso huichol que Wilbert trae como prueba extrema, con remisión al capítulo de Furst.

«Tobacco belongs to Our Grandfather, the Fire Shaman, who led the first peyote hunt of the supernaturals and cured them of their ailments with its help» — a quién pertenece el tabaco en la tradición huichola según Wilbert: al Abuelo Fuego, que condujo la primera cacería de peyote y curó a los sobrenaturales.

«Preuss (1908:377) describes an important ritual, performed by the Huichol shaman at intervals of about ten years, which re-enacts the curing with tobacco smoke of the whole group of leading supernaturals. ‘The ritual takes place in early summer at the beginning of, or shortly before, the rainy season. The illness of the gods consists of the fact that they are not giving sufficient rain, and the long nocturnal song cycle recited by the mara’akdme, the shaman-priest, describes the healing process» — el ritual huichol decenal que Wilbert toma de Preuss: la enfermedad de los dioses consiste en no dar lluvia suficiente, y el canto nocturno describe la curación.

«Tatewari, the Fire Shaman and principal supernatural, lets the smoke from his tobacco pipe flow over each ailing god in turn, while his spirit helper, the Sacred Deer Kauyumarie, sucks out the intrusive disease object, or ‘“‘arrow of sickness.” In the same way shaman and tutelary deer spirit cooperate in the curing of human patients» — cómo cura el Abuelo Fuego en ese relato según Wilbert, con el Venado Sagrado chupando la flecha de la enfermedad, igual que chamán y venado en la cura de personas.

«However, since other hoarotus are almost constantly occupied with curing victims of hoa magic, a kind of equilibrium between neg» — el contrapeso que Wilbert señala: como otros chamanes están casi siempre curando, queda un equilibrio entre las fuerzas. La frase se corta antes de la nota y sigue en la plana 108.

«While tobacco thus shares curative powers with the hallucinogenic peyote among the Huichols, there is nothing in Warao tradition to indicate that any other psychoactive plants were ever used in the past, either before or since the advent of tobacco. Naturally such negative evidence cannot be taken as definitive» — la negativa que Wilbert consigna con su límite dentro: nada en la tradición warao indica otras plantas psicoactivas, pero una evidencia negativa no es definitiva.

«In any event, the ritual use of tobacco itself is of respectable antiquity in the Americas as a whole: in Mexico, for example, the earliest clay tobacco pipes date to Olmec times, ca. 1200-900 B.c.,* and it is probably safe to assume that consumption of tobacco without the aid of imperishable instruments goes back a good deal further» — la antigüedad que Wilbert le da al uso ritual del tabaco en América, con las pipas olmecas como piso y la conjetura de que el consumo sin instrumento sea anterior.

«Whether or not one accepts tobacco as one of the ritual hallucinogens —and thus far neither botanists nor pharmacologists would classify it as such—it is clear that the role of tobacco as a vehicle of the vision quest in Warao shamanism does not differ qualitatively from the role which the various psychotomimetics of plant origin play in other Indian societies» — la tesis con que Wilbert cierra: clasifíquese o no como alucinógeno, el papel del tabaco como vehículo de la búsqueda de visión no difiere cualitativamente del de los psicotomiméticos.

«Also, as with other psychotropic preparations used ritually, cultural traditions clearly influence the kinds of vision experienced by the shaman in the Warao tobacco trance. It would be too much to speak of “programming,” but there is obviously cultural conditioning toward specific ecstatic experiences that have nothing to do with the chemical action of the tobacco plant» — el peso que Wilbert le da a la tradición cultural en el contenido de la visión, con su propia reserva sobre la palabra programación.

«Through long instruction by his master, and as a child of his culture, the novice learns the precise nature of a Warao’s “non-ordinary reality» — cómo formula Wilbert ese condicionamiento: el novicio aprende, por instrucción y por cultura, la naturaleza precisa de la realidad no ordinaria warao.

«Thus there exist powerful cultural stimuli which interact with the chemistry of the tobacco plant to produce the kinds of vision required for the shaman’s vital role in his society» — cómo cierra Wilbert esa tesis: estímulos culturales que interactúan con la química de la planta para producir la visión que el papel social del chamán exige.

«It will have been immediately apparent to anyone familiar with the literature on shamanism that the Warao experience contains much that is near-universal, or at the very least circum-Pacific» — lo que Wilbert señala como paralelo mayor: la experiencia warao contiene mucho de casi universal o cuando menos circumpacífico.

«arrows of sickness, sucking, blowing, tutelary spirits, cannibalistic tests, animated “pains” as sources of power and causes of illness, almost all can be found in shamanistic initiation and the quest for shamanic power in a wide variety of native societies, from Australian aborigines through Indonesia, Japan, China, Siberia, across to the American Arctic, and southward through North America and Mexico into South America» — el repertorio casi universal que Wilbert enumera y su extensión geográfica, de los aborígenes australianos a Sudamérica, con remisión a Eliade.

«I would like to single out the initiatory celestial quest for shamanic power of Warao neophyte shamans as a case in point. That it should closely resemble the quests of other tribes in South America and even North America is perhaps not so surprising as is its remarkable correspondence to the neophyte’s quest for supernatural power among Australian aborigines—not only in general content but specific detail» — el paralelo que Wilbert destaca como más sorprendente: no el sudamericano, sino la correspondencia con la búsqueda de poder de los aborígenes australianos, hasta en el detalle.

«Among the Wiradjuri the initiatory master introduces rock crystals into the apprentice’s body and makes him drink water in which such crystals have been placed; after this the apprentice succeeds in seeing the spirits» — la cita de Eliade que Wilbert reproduce sobre la iniciación wiradjuri: cristales introducidos en el cuerpo y bebidos en agua.

«The master then leads him to a grave, and the dead in turn give him magical stones. The candidate also encounters a snake, which becomes his totem and guides him into the bowels of the earth, where there are many other snakes; they infuse magical powers into him by rubbing themselves against him» — la continuación de esa cita: la tumba, las piedras mágicas de los muertos y la serpiente que lo guía a las entrañas de la tierra.

«After this symbolic descent to the underworld the master prepares to lead him to the camp of Baiame, the Supreme Being. To reach it, they climb a cord until they meet Wombu, Baiame’s bird» — el ascenso que sigue al descenso en la cita de Eliade: la cuerda hasta el campo del Ser Supremo y su ave.

«We went through the clouds,’”’ an apprentice related, “and on the other side was the sky. We went through the place where the Doctors go through, and it kept opening and shutting very quickly.” Anyone whom the doors touched lost his magical power and was certain to die as soon as he had returned to earth» — la voz del aprendiz wiradjuri en la cita de Eliade: las puertas que se abren y cierran muy rápido, y la muerte segura del que rozan.

«Compare this Australian account with the initiatory journey of the Warao wishiratu; the candidate, we recall, has to pass through a hole in a tree with rapidly opening and closing doors. Inside is a great serpent with colored horns and a fiery-red luminous ball on the tip of her tongue; her servant is another snake whose task it is to clear away the bones of neophyte shamans who failed to clear the clashing doors» — el cotejo que Wilbert hace en persona entre el relato australiano y el viaje iniciático warao.

«As Eliade (1964) demonstrates in his classic work on shamanism, the motif of the rapidly opening and closing passage (e.g., floating islands, cliffs, icebergs, mountains, knives, snapping Jaws, spears, razor-edged dancing reeds, grinding millstones, etc.) 1s one of the characteristic themes in shamanism, found in many parts of the world in both funerary and initiatory mythologies» — el motivo del paso que se abre y se cierra tal como Wilbert lo toma de Eliade, con la lista de sus formas.

«Along with its associated motif of the narrow and perilous bridge connecting this world to the celestial regions or the underworld, it survives well beyond the limits of the shamanistic ideology in which it had its remote origin, but most characteristically in contemporary indigenous societies which retain strong vestiges of an ancient shamanism» — y el motivo hermano del puente estrecho, que según Wilbert sobrevive más allá de la ideología chamánica que lo originó.

«This multiplicity of what Eliade has aptly called the “paradoxical passage’ is characteristic also of the Warao account of the neophyte wishiratu’s ecstatic initiatory journey: the snapping jaws» — cómo aplica Wilbert al caso warao lo que Eliade llamó el paso paradójico. La frase se corta antes de la nota y sigue en la plana 113.

«Universally, the promised land lies beyond the dangerous passage, and its attainment requires that the traveler be “light” and that he have transcended the human condition—i.e., become shaman or spirit» — la regla que Wilbert enuncia sobre el paso peligroso: la tierra prometida está del otro lado, y llegar exige que el viajero sea ligero y haya trascendido la condición humana.

«It will have become apparent that the various forms of shamanism practiced today by the Warao with the aid of tobacco occupy a central position in tribal culture. They seem to me to constitute true survivals of a more ancient shamanistic stratum with roots in Mesolithic and even Paleolithic Asia, introduced into the Americas 15,000 to 20,000 or even more years ago» — la tesis de fondo de Wilbert: el chamanismo warao con tabaco sería supervivencia de un estrato mesolítico y aun paleolítico asiático traído a América hace entre quince y veinte mil años.

«Although attenuated and certainly overlaid with more recent features, including some characteristic of more advanced social systems in Mesoamerica and western South America, they seem to belong to what some anthropologists, including La Barre, Furst, M. D. Coe, and myself, have come to see as an archaic shamanistic substratum underlying and to some extent uniting all or most aboriginal American Indian cultures» — el sustrato chamánico arcaico que Wilbert dice compartir con La Barre, Furst y Coe como lectura de las culturas indígenas americanas.

«I am convinced that a true Warao community cannot exist without this very powerful shamanistic ideology. Its loss, I feel, would seriously disturb the social and psychic equilibrium of the local community, and eventually that of the entire indigenous society. Rooted in an ancient Paleo-Indian past, and beyond that in the total human experience, with its focus on tobacco as the vehicle of ecstasy, it represents a very special elaboration of Warao culture» — la convicción con que Wilbert cierra su capítulo, con el tabaco como vehículo del éxtasis en el centro de esa ideología.

«Its undermining through Creole and Mission contact would probably dislocate this axis mundi of the Warao seriously enough to put an end to one of the earliest and most successful aboriginal social and cultural systems in South America» — la consecuencia que Wilbert teme de la erosión de esa ideología, a la que llama el eje del mundo de los warao.

«Here we shall describe its use by the Tukano Indians of the Territory of Vaupés, in the northwest Amazon region of Colombia, with the object of placing this custom in its cultural context and linking it to other activities and expressions characteristic of this aboriginal population. The data presented are based for the most part on my own research among the Tukano» — el objeto declarado del capítulo de Reichel-Dolmatoff: colocar el uso tukano del yajé en su contexto cultural, sobre investigación propia.

«These differing names, sometimes synonymous but often simply generic terms which the Indians give to any hallucinogenic plant, have wrought such confusion in the literature that it is often difficult to know exactly what botanical species is being talked about» — la confusión de nombres que Reichel-Dolmatoff señala: muchos son términos genéricos que los indios dan a cualquier planta alucinógena.

«Fischer (1923) appears to have been the first to isolate a crystalline alkaloid from yajé, which he called telepatina, but he did not undertake a rigorous botanical identification of the species he used» — el primer alcaloide aislado del yajé según Reichel-Dolmatoff y el defecto que le achaca: sin identificación botánica rigurosa.

«This imprecision of botanical determinations in the laboratory analysis of materials became a serious obstacle to the identification of chemical components, especially since there was the unresolved problem of just what the Indians used in making their hallucinogenic drinks, a process that sometimes. included mixing in certain plants that had not yet been clearly identified» — la consecuencia de esa imprecisión según Reichel-Dolmatoff: se ignoraba qué usaban en realidad los indios, que a veces mezclaban plantas sin identificar.

«The terms telepatina, yajeina, and banisterina that had been employed by researchers in the past turned out to be mere synonyms for harmine» — en qué resolvieron los tres nombres de alcaloide según Reichel-Dolmatoff: eran sinónimos de la harmina.

«Generally, the ingestion of an infusion or maceration of Banisteriopsis is said to cause vertigo, nausea, and vomiting, followed by more or less clearly defined states of euphoria or even aggressive excitation. Suddenly, brilliantly colored visual hallucinations appear, which may be of sublime beauty but which may also involve anxiety or even stark terror» — el cuadro del efecto que da Reichel-Dolmatoff: vértigo, náusea y vómito, euforia o excitación agresiva, y luego visiones de belleza sublime o de terror.

«Animals sometimes appear in these visions—usually felines or reptiles. Sometimes the individual finds himself flying on the winds, visiting far-off places, or communicating with divinities, demons, or tribal ancestors» — el contenido recurrente de esas visiones según Reichel-Dolmatoff: felinos y reptiles, el vuelo, los lugares lejanos y el trato con divinidades, demonios o antepasados.

«The circumstances under which the hallucinogenic beverage is taken vary considerably among the Indians of the northwest Amazon. Some take it in conjunction with collective ceremonies of a magico-religious nature, such as initiation rites for youths, funeral ceremonies, or the rite of yurupari (described below)» — los marcos ceremoniales colectivos que Reichel-Dolmatoff enumera para la bebida: iniciación de jóvenes, funerales y el rito del yurupari.

«In other contexts it is taken only by a shaman or curer, for the purpose of diagnosing an illness or divining its cure or to establish the identity of a presumed enemy» — el otro marco de uso según Reichel-Dolmatoff: el chamán solo, para diagnosticar, adivinar la cura o identificar a un enemigo.

«Neither women nor prepubescent youths are allowed to take the drink, but both may be present while it is ingested by the men» — la interdicción que Reichel-Dolmatoff consigna con su matiz: mujeres y púberes no beben, pero sí pueden estar presentes.

«According to Rocha (1905), who did not take yajé himself but instead reported information provided by the Indians and Mestizos of the Mocoa region, the hallucinations of the first thirty to forty-five minutes are extremely pleasurable; the individual perceives beautiful landscapes, delectable fruits, and lascivious dances performed by halfnude women, all accompanied by music» — el relato de Rocha que Reichel-Dolmatoff reproduce con su límite dentro: no tomó yajé y habla por informantes indios y mestizos de Mocoa; *halfnude* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón, que el impreso trae como *half-nude*.

«others fancy themselves consuming food and drink, after which they turn into jaguars and chase after the tapir and deer that roam the forest. Following this there is a short period of somnolence, and immediately thereafter terrifying visions appear: serpents and demonic beings attack the individual and abuse and humiliate him» — el vuelco del relato de Rocha en la plana siguiente: tras el sueño breve llegan las visiones terroríficas de serpientes y seres demoníacos.

«White men who have partaken of caapi in the proper way concur in the account of their sensations under its influence. They feel alternations of cold and heat, fear and boldness. The sight is disturbed, and visions pass rapidly before the eyes, wherein everything gorgeous and magnificent they have ever heard or read of seems combined; and presently the scene changes to things uncouth and horrible. These are the general symptoms, and intelligent traders on the Upper Rio Negro, Vaupés, and Orinoco have all told me the same tale, merely with slight personal variations» — la cita de Spruce que Reichel-Dolmatoff reproduce sobre lo que refieren los blancos que tomaron caapi como es debido.

«Spruce drank a small amount himself, but only succeeded in making himself sick» — el dato que Reichel-Dolmatoff no omite: el propio Spruce bebió poco y solo consiguió ponerse malo.

«According to what the Indians tell me, everything appears to be larger and more beautiful than it is in reality. The house appears immense and splendrous. A host of people is seen, especially women. The erotic appears to play a major role in this intoxication. Huge multicolored snakes wind themselves around the house posts. All colors are very brilliant» — la cita de Koch-Grünberg que Reichel-Dolmatoff trae: la casa inmensa y espléndida, la multitud de mujeres y las serpientes enroscadas en los postes.

«after a while, and especially when I went out of the house into the darkness, there appeared before my eyes a strange flickering and intense light, and when I attempted to write, something like red flashes passed rapidly across the page» — la experiencia propia de Koch-Grünberg que Reichel-Dolmatoff cita: la luz intensa y los destellos rojos cruzando la página.

«Although this author provides excellent descriptions of the ceremonial gatherings, he does not go into detail regarding the hallucinations or, more important, their function» — la crítica de método que Reichel-Dolmatoff le hace a Koch-Grünberg: describe bien las reuniones y no entra en la función de las alucinaciones.

«This sequence of mihi transports a man from vague and mild visions of whiteness to intense hallucinatory experiences, bursts of violence, and finally loss of consciousness» — la cita de Goldman sobre el mihi cubeo que Reichel-Dolmatoff reproduce: de las visiones vagas de blancura a la violencia y la pérdida de consciencia.

«The Cubeo do not take mihi for the pleasure of its hallucinations but for the intensity of the total experience, for the wide range of sensation. I spoke to no one who pretended to enjoy it» — lo que Goldman sostiene sobre el motivo del uso cubeo, en la cita que Reichel-Dolmatoff trae: no el placer sino la intensidad de la experiencia entera.

«At the beginning, the Indians say, the vision becomes blurred, things begin to look white, and one begins to lose the faculty of speech. The white vision turns to red. One Indian described it as a room spinning with red feathers. This passes and one begins to see people in the bright coloring of the jaguar» — la continuación de la cita de Goldman: el blanco que se vuelve rojo, el cuarto girando con plumas rojas y la gente con el color del jaguar.

«When the final strong forms of mihi are taken the hallucinations begin to assume a disturbing and fearful form. One becomes aware of violent people milling about, shouting, weeping, threatening to kill. One is seized with fear that he no longer has a home. The houseposts and trees come alive and take the form of people. There is a strong sensation that an animal is biting one’s buttocks, a feeling of the feet being tied. The earth spins and the ground rises to the head. There are moments of euphoria as well, when one hears music, the sound of people singing, and the sound of flowing water» — el final de la cita de Goldman: los postes y los árboles hechos personas, la sensación de mordida y ataduras, y los momentos de euforia con música y agua.

«the drink had a very strong psychotropic effect. Its intoxication had an initial stage of giddiness and nervousness, followed by profuse sweating and nausea. Then began a period of lassitude, during which the play of colors, at first mainly a hazy blue, increased in intensity. This eventually gave way to a deep sleep, interrupted by dreams and accompanied by feverishness. No uncomfortable after-effects save a severe diarrhea were felt the next day» — la cita de Schultes sobre el cocimiento del alto Caquetá y Putumayo que Reichel-Dolmatoff reproduce, con la diarrea del día siguiente como único resabio.

«As far as I was able to judge from six or seven experiences with caapiz, the effects differ little from those of the boiled concoction used in the Putumayo. The intoxication is longer in setting in, and much more of the drink must be taken, but the symptoms of the intoxication and their intensity seem to be very similar» — la comparación que Reichel-Dolmatoff cita de Schultes entre la maceración fría del Vaupés y el cocimiento del Putumayo.

«Of particular interest is the work of Mallol de Recasens (1963), who was able to obtain from a Siona Indian several colored drawings representing his hallucinations under the influence of yajé, together with the informant’s personal commentary and interpretations provided by the shaman to whom the informant had communicated the content of his visions» — el material que Reichel-Dolmatoff destaca: dibujos de un indio siona sobre sus visiones, con su comentario propio y la interpretación del chamán.

«In her analysis of the drawings, Mallol de Recasens observes that the yajé plant occupies a central position and symbolizes a concept of female fecundity. Other symbolic features are given a sexual interpretation as well, but some are seen as expressions of profound conflicts, involving maternal images, the authority of the shaman, and the influence of the Catholic missions» — la lectura de Mallol de Recasens que Reichel-Dolmatoff resume: la planta al centro como concepto de fecundidad femenina, y otros rasgos leídos como conflictos.

«Although the author considers her work a mere methodological contribution, it is in fact a most important attempt to place the hallucinatory experience in a wider cultural context» — el juicio de Reichel-Dolmatoff sobre ese trabajo, contra la modestia declarada de su autora.

«Several pieces of the fresh Banisteriopsis vine, about the thickness of a finger, are mashed in a wooden trough, with cold water added later. he liquid is passed through a sieve to remove fibrous material and small pieces of bark and is then collected in a decorated ceramic vessel made especially for this purpose» — la preparación de la bebida en el Vaupés según Reichel-Dolmatoff: maceración en frío, colado y vasija cerámica decorada de uso propio.

«When night falls, the men, adorned with feathers, their bodies painted, gather in the communal house (maloca) where, seated on small stools, they recite myths, converse, and sing. Sometimes groups of them rise and dance to the sound of Panpipes, rattles, and the beat of large wooden tubes pounded on the floor. One or two men distribute the drink, offering it in small calabashes to those present, who swallow it with expressions of disgust» — la escena que Reichel-Dolmatoff describe: los hombres emplumados y pintados en la maloca recitando mitos y cantando, y las calabacitas que se apuran con muecas de asco.

«The men who portion out the drink approach the others with ritualized gestures, sometimes jumping as they walk, and exclaiming rapidly, ‘“‘ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma”’ (take-take-take-take-take-take). The dancing and singing continue, and in the intervals more doses are administered, sometimes up to six or seven» — los gestos ritualizados del que reparte la bebida, con la fórmula que exclama, y el número de dosis que llega a administrarse.

«Following is an account of my own experiences, recorded on tape after I had taken six doses of yajé on the Pira-Parana» — la declaración de método con que Reichel-Dolmatoff introduce su propio testimonio: grabado en cinta tras seis dosis.

«readily explained by the easy excitability of their imagination” (1962: 230-32» — la explicación que Reichel-Dolmatoff cita del padre Brüzzi, quien no tuvo alucinaciones y atribuyó las de los indios a la fácil excitabilidad de su imaginación. La frase arranca en la plana anterior.

«The entire ceremony unfolded in an atmosphere of intense solemnity. It began with a recital of the Creation Myth, followed by dances accompanied by chants in which reference was made to the fertility of the animals and the women» — cómo describe Reichel-Dolmatoff el tono y el arranque de la ceremonia: solemnidad intensa, recitación del mito de la Creación y cantos sobre la fertilidad de animales y mujeres.

«The precision of the steps of the dancers and the beat of the music became more perfect as more yajé was consumed, and at no time was there any dissonance or false step» — lo que Reichel-Dolmatoff observa contra lo que cabría esperar: la precisión de los pasos y del compás mejoraba a medida que se bebía.

«The music, as much vocal as instrumental, did not let up for a moment, varying in intensity but maintaining a hypnotic rhythm. The whole event took place in the semidarkness of a large maloca (communal house) and in the light of but a single torch» — el entorno sonoro y lumínico que Reichel-Dolmatoff registra: ritmo hipnótico sin pausa y una sola antorcha en la maloca.

«Almost immediately when I closed my eyes I had visions of a multitude of intricate motifs of marked bilateral symmetry in spectacular colors passing slowly in oblique bands across my field of vision» — lo que Reichel-Dolmatoff consigna de su propia visión: motivos de marcada simetría bilateral en bandas oblicuas.

«The dances and songs continued until daybreak, without producing any disagreeable aftereffects in myself or in any of the other participants» — el saldo que Reichel-Dolmatoff registra de la ceremonia entera: sin secuelas desagradables para él ni para los demás.

«The drink was consumed on the occasion of the celebration of an alliance between two exogamous phratries» — el motivo de la ceremonia que Reichel-Dolmatoff presenció: la celebración de una alianza entre dos fratrías exógamas.

«I’m seeing something . . . well, like . . . it’s dark, but I see something like the tail of a peacock ... but at the same time it’s like... . everything in movement .. . like fireworks, no? Much like a... the background of, let’s say . . . of certain Persian miniatures. There’s something Oriental about all this» — la cinta de Reichel-Dolmatoff en su propia voz: la cola de pavo real, los fuegos artificiales y el fondo de ciertas miniaturas persas.

«yes, everything is curvilinear: semicircles, shapes like hearts that are intertwined and then become flowers; suddenly, shapes like a Medusa. Sometimes there are... yes... again these effects of fireworks» — el repertorio de formas que la cinta registra: semicírculos, corazones entrelazados que se vuelven flores y de pronto una medusa.

«Sometimes they are like microphotographs of butterfly wings, or of marine corals. Sometimes the colors aren’t . . . aren’t pleasant. Now there are more definite motifs: arabesques, horizontal bands. Yes, just about everything comes in parallel bands, each a different color» — otra tanda de la cinta: microfotografías de alas de mariposa o de corales, arabescos y bandas paralelas de distinto color.

«there is a Tibetan quality, blue Buddhas, and around them a yellow-red-blue halo or flames that end in little dots» — la única figura reconocible de la cinta: budas azules con halo o llamas amarillo-rojo-azules.

«All are saying that they are having hallucinations; they claim that they see the whole interior of the maloca painted in colors. But they go on dancing» — lo que la cinta registra de los demás: dicen ver el interior entero de la maloca pintado de colores, y siguen bailando.

«According to the ‘Tcukano of the Vaupés, the yajé plant was created in the mythical period at the beginning of the world and constitutes one of the most important elements of their culture» — el lugar que la planta ocupa en la cultura tukano según Reichel-Dolmatoff: creada en el tiempo mítico y entre los elementos más importantes.

«The solar deity is a fertilizing male principle, phallic in nature. This phallus, symbolized by the Sun’s rays and the shaman’s ceremonial staff, at a certain moment in time placed itself vertically upon a fixed topographic point at the equator. On the day of the vernal solstice, at midday, the vertical rays of the Sun cast no shade whatever on the upright faces of certain rocks that lay on the banks of the rivers. This portentous sign marked forever the central and sacred places where the Sun had fertilized the earth» — el mito de la Creación tukano en el resumen de Reichel-Dolmatoff: el falo solar vertical al mediodía del equinoccio, sin sombra, marcando los lugares sagrados.

«The first men took to the rivers, floating inside an enormous anaconda which served them as canoe (a mythic element that embodies as much uterine as phallic symbolism).* The long voyage of the anaconda-canoe represents the dispersal of humanity which took place along the course of the rivers wherever there were major rapids. For the rapids themselves possessed the uterine quality of gestation and spewed forth successive social groups as the canoe stopped at them» — la dispersión de la humanidad en el mito tukano: la anaconda-canoa y los raudales con cualidad uterina que van pariendo grupos sociales.

«In the course of this long voyage, the mythical divine hero who steered the canoe likewise created a series of cultural institutions and principles and established their social and moral code as he traveled along» — lo que el héroe del mito instituye durante ese viaje según Reichel-Dolmatoff: instituciones culturales y el código social y moral.

«According to a myth of the Desana, one of the Tukano phratries, at one of these way stations, called dia vii (House of the Waters), located below Ipanoré, there appeared a woman named gahpi-mahso, Yajé Woman. While the men were gathered inside the house, drinking chicha (maize beer), she gave birth to a child in front of the house. The infant turned out to be the yajé plant» — el nacimiento de la planta en el mito desana que Reichel-Dolmatoff recoge: la Mujer Yajé pare delante de la casa mientras los hombres beben chicha dentro.

«the woman suffocated them with visions. “Who is the father of this child?” she demanded. One man sitting in a corner with saliva trickling from his mouth tore off the child’s right arm and shouted, “I am!” The others followed suit; they grabbed the child and tore him limb from limb, scattering his parts. They seized the umbilical cord and .. . our ancestors obtained yajé» — el desmembramiento del Niño Yajé en el mito: cada hombre que se declara padre arranca un miembro, y del cordón umbilical vienen los antepasados a tener yajé.

«To the Tukano of the Vaupés, the yurupari rite represents the commemoration of an act of incest which the Sun Father committed with his own daughter in the time of Creation, and the principal motivation behind the ceremony in which these trumpets are played is the promulgation of the strict exogamous laws that are characteristic of the Tukano» — qué conmemora el rito del yurupari según Reichel-Dolmatoff: el incesto del Padre Sol con su hija, y la promulgación de las leyes exógamas.

«In most of the Tukano dialects, ywrupari is called muiria-pora, from miriri (to suffocate or drown oneself or to submerge oneself), and pora (children, descendants). According to my Indian informants, the term alludes to procreation or coitus, an act which the Tukano often compare to a state of drowning, drunkenness, or hallucination» — la etimología que Reichel-Dolmatoff da del nombre del rito y lo que sus informantes le asocian: el coito comparado con ahogarse, embriagarse o alucinar.

«Up to this point we have merely summarized the observations of various authors, myself included, but now we must ask, what is the significance of this custom? What is the meaning of the hallucinatory experience to the Indian? What role does it play in social organization?» — las preguntas con que Reichel-Dolmatoff da la vuelta a su capítulo: qué significa la experiencia alucinatoria para el indio y qué papel cumple en la organización social.

«In short, what is the cultural dimension of the use of this hallucinogen? In the following pages I will try to provide at least partial answers to some of these questions» — cómo formula Reichel-Dolmatoff el objeto de la segunda mitad de su capítulo, con la reserva de que solo dará respuestas parciales.

«light, it was human but it was light, it was yajé» — cómo el mito describe al Niño Yajé, en la fórmula que Reichel-Dolmatoff traduce: tenía forma humana y a la vez era luz.

«During the sexual act a man “drowns” or “sees visions.” Thus, if a person dreams he is drowning, this signifies a forthcoming inebriation» — la equivalencia que los informantes tukano le dan a Reichel-Dolmatoff: en el coito el hombre se ahoga o ve visiones, y soñar que uno se ahoga anuncia embriaguez.

«When Yajé Woman “drowns” or “‘suffocates” the men, the text actually reads, “gahpt nomért miria-vaya,” “yajé images she drowned them with» — cómo lee Reichel-Dolmatoff la escena del mito, con la frase tukano y su traducción.

«When one takes yajé, one sees red things that jump and move about. Yajé is feminine ang produces images» — la fórmula de un informante que Reichel-Dolmatoff cita: el yajé es femenino y produce imágenes.

«We are now in a better position to interpret the meaning of the yajé origin myth: intoxication under this hallucinogen is compared in the first place to a sexual act which, in the second place, has the connotation of being incestuous» — la lectura que Reichel-Dolmatoff propone del mito de origen del yajé: la embriaguez comparada a un acto sexual y este, en segundo lugar, con connotación incestuosa.

«According to another version of the Creation Myth, the origin of yajé took place near the rapids of Mihi. It was there that Yajé Woman conceived her child, having previously been fertilized through an eye. In the symbolism of the ‘Tukano, eye and vagina are frequently equivalent, and in this case the act of fertilization is designated by the word inyasaase, from inyase, to see, and saase, to deposit, in the sense of impregnating» — la otra versión que Reichel-Dolmatoff consigna sin armonizarla con la primera: la Mujer Yajé fecundada por un ojo, siendo ojo y vagina equivalentes en el simbolismo tukano.

«In the first place, to the Tukano the large communal houses have a uterine symbolism and are in fact overtly referred to as ‘‘uterus of the sib.’”’ The door of the house symbolizes the vagina, and the center, the most sacred area, is the location where on certain occasions ceremonial objects are placed» — el simbolismo uterino de la maloca según Reichel-Dolmatoff: la casa como útero del sib, la puerta como vagina y el centro como el área más sagrada.

«Secondly, the hearth itself is another uterine symbol, since it is a place where transformation occurs, where one of the most important components of life is produced— namely, food» — el segundo símbolo uterino que Reichel-Dolmatoff identifica: el fogón como lugar de transformación donde se produce el alimento.

«According to our informants, “‘to eat one’s tail’’ has the meaning of coitus, and they also report that the animals who were eating their tails were cohabiting with one another under the influence of yajé» — la lectura sexual que los informantes tukano le dan al gesto de los animales en el mito, según Reichel-Dolmatoff.

«With this staff they repelled it. Yajé was supposed to bring only pleasant sensations, but in some it produced just the opposite, and for this they drove it away. They drove it away with a penis» — el comentario tukano que Reichel-Dolmatoff cita: el yajé debía dar solo sensaciones gratas y a algunos les dio lo contrario, y por eso lo echaron con el bastón fálico.

«The myth continues: “The visions came to an end. They had found their potion. All the people thus acquired their traditions, their rituals, and their songs» — el desenlace del mito según Reichel-Dolmatoff: terminadas las visiones, los pueblos quedan con su poción, sus tradiciones, sus rituales y sus cantos.

«The narrator explains that the Tukano phratry took the second sprig of yajé and that “too mihsi kéhéa vaaro méha”’ (from there the line continued), indicating that the line of descent was to be compared with a long vine» — la imagen que el narrador tukano da de la descendencia, y que Reichel-Dolmatoff traduce: la línea comparada con un bejuco largo.

«In another myth, again narrated by the Tukano, the Yajé Child survived bodily and lived to be an old man who jealously guarded his secret of hallucinogenic power. The myth says, ‘From that old man they formed semen, since he was the Owner of Yajé. The desire to have this penis led to the creation of semen. The old man was Owner of Yajé, that is to say, of the sexual act. They are the children and he is the father» — la otra versión que Reichel-Dolmatoff consigna sin armonizarla: el Niño Yajé sobrevive y envejece como Dueño del Yajé, es decir, del acto sexual.

«Therefore, in the context of Tukano mythology, yajé has a marked sexual character. Hallucination and coitus are equivalent, not in the sense of procreation or gratification but rather as an experience full of anxiety, because of its relationship to the problem of incest» — la conclusión de Reichel-Dolmatoff sobre el carácter sexual del yajé en la mitología tukano, con su matiz: no placer ni procreación, sino experiencia cargada de angustia.

«We have observed that in these myths the yajé vine is identified with a human being and during the dismemberment of the Yajé Child each man availed himself of a certain portion of its body. This identification is important to the Tukano, since it is the basis of the criteria by which certain parts of the vine are selected over others in the preparation of the drink» — el puente que Reichel-Dolmatoff tiende del mito al rito: la identificación de la liana con un cuerpo humano funda los criterios de selección de sus partes.

«In this manner each phratry (Tukano, Desana, Pira-Tapuya, Uanano, Barasana, etc.) has its specific yajé, as chosen by its ancestor during the sacrifice of the child» — la consecuencia social que Reichel-Dolmatoff extrae del mito: cada fratría tiene su yajé propio, el que su antepasado tomó en el desmembramiento.

«The Barasana of the Pira-Parana are said to use at least three types: “yajé of the red jaguar,” used to familiarize themselves with the general effects of the hallucinogen and to have visions in yellow colors, which relate to tobacco and coca; “yajé of guamo,” taken to have hallucinations referring to the ceremonial songs; and “‘‘yajé of blood,” to have visions in red» — las tres clases de yajé que Reichel-Dolmatoff registra entre los barasana, cada una con su color de visión y su asunto.

«In this manner each Tukano phratry sees its “own” hallucinations. This does not mean, however, that they are completely exclusive, for a member of one phratry may see in his hallucinations visions that “belong” to another phratry. They are partial visions that enter into a total perspective and are immediately distinguished as “foreign” or “alien» — la regla que Reichel-Dolmatoff enuncia con su límite dentro: cada fratría ve sus propias visiones, aunque puede ver alguna ajena y la reconoce como tal.

«It goes without saying that what we are concerned with here are not different botanical species but a magico-religious classification established by the Indians» — la aclaración de método de Reichel-Dolmatoff: no son especies botánicas distintas sino una clasificación mágico-religiosa indígena.

«However, it is possible that at the base of this classificatory system there lies traditional knowledge that certain parts of the vine—roots, portions of the lower trunk, or young sprigs—contain different concentrations of the hallucinogenic component and therefore cause different visions» — la hipótesis que Reichel-Dolmatoff deja abierta bajo esa clasificación: distintas partes de la liana podrían llevar concentraciones distintas.

«As a matter of fact, one of the chief concerns in the preparation of the drink is precisely the knowledge of how to combine portions of different vines. The combination is causally related to the desired effect, and this also depends upon the occasion when the drink is taken. Each ceremony and, more important, each dance requires a specific preparation. It is therefore a question of controlling the intensity and quality of the hallucinations» — lo que Reichel-Dolmatoff señala como preocupación central en la preparación: combinar porciones de lianas distintas para controlar la intensidad y la calidad de las visiones.

«The ideal, according to the Indians, is to have only pleasurable and beautiful visions which the individual can enjoy passively, in a state of relaxation. On the other hand, a nauseating experience, or one that results in uncontrollable behavior or terrifying visions, is considered dangerous» — el ideal indígena que Reichel-Dolmatoff consigna: visiones bellas gozadas pasivamente, frente al peligro de la conducta incontrolable.

«Obviously, the effect depends on a number of factors that are difficult to control, such as the properties of the plant, means of preparation, social and psychological atmosphere of the gathering, and personality of the drug taker. The effect is therefore highly unpredictable, and the consumer of yajé runs the risk of having some extremely unsettling experiences» — los factores de los que Reichel-Dolmatoff hace depender el efecto y la consecuencia que saca: el efecto es muy impredecible.

«This fact worries the Indians, who, apart from the combination of components used, attempt to influence the effects magically to eliminate the more unpleasant aspects. ‘Io this end there is a long series of spells and songs to be recited while the drink is being prepared» — la respuesta indígena a esa impredecibilidad según Reichel-Dolmatoff: una larga serie de conjuros y cantos durante la preparación.

«We are dealing therefore with a symbolic sexual act, an insemination of a curative nature that neutralizes the danger» — cómo lee Reichel-Dolmatoff ese conjuro: un acto sexual simbólico, una inseminación curativa que neutraliza el peligro.

«In theory, the preparation of yajé is a highly formalized and complex process with a series of requisites and restrictions. The stalks should be cut by the men in a certain part of the jungle at a specified time of day, in accordance with their position on the vine. Immediately following this, the stalks should be mashed up in a wooden trough, using a heavy club or masher that strikes them with a determined rhythm and intensity of sound» — el protocolo ideal que Reichel-Dolmatoff describe para la preparación, con el ritmo y la intensidad del machaque fijados.

«The yajé pot (gahpi soro) should be made by an old woman who smooths and polishes the inner and outer surfaces with a hard, smooth yellow stone. The Tukano view this stone as ‘‘a phallus which shapes” the vessel, which in turn is considered to be a uterine receptacle» — la vasija del yajé según Reichel-Dolmatoff: la hace una anciana y la piedra que la pule se tiene por un falo que da forma al receptáculo uterino.

«As a matter of fact, the yajé pot represents the uterus, the matérnal womb, and hence is a cosmic model of transformation and gestation. On the outside the vessel is decorated with a series of polychrome designs in white, yellow, and red. The first two colors represent the principle of fertilization, while the third symbolizes fecundity. On the cylindrical base there is sometimes a painted vagina and clitoris, symbolizing the “door» — el sentido que Reichel-Dolmatoff le da a esa vasija: modelo cósmico de transformación y gestación, con los colores de la fertilización y de la fecundidad.

«Before use, the pot 1s purified with tobacco smoke, as is the stick with which the drink 1s stirred shortly before consumption. When the pot has been filled with the liquid it is brought inside the house and placed in a dark corner» — la purificación de la vasija y del palo de remover con humo de tabaco, según Reichel-Dolmatoff.

«We should add at this point that there is a definite possibility that the ‘Tukano increase the potency of the hallucinogen by the addition of other ingredients. In a description of the ritual obtained from the Desana, we find that members of this phratry as well as the Pira-Tapuya sometimes add a plant called bayapia, which ‘‘makes us nauseous” (ird ya bayapia arika irita soyaro ahpaka). Unfortunately we lack further details on this interesting practice» — la deuda que Reichel-Dolmatoff declara sobre los aditivos tukano: una planta que, según los desana, los pone nauseosos, y de la que faltan detalles.

«Of course all this corresponds to ideal behavior, as promulgated in the myths and narratives which explain ritual norms» — la salvedad con que Reichel-Dolmatoff cierra el protocolo: es la conducta ideal de los mitos. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«The Creation Myth and the genealogies of the phratries are recited. The origins of humanity are commemorated with the phallic staff, which, equipped with a small sound chamber, serves as a rattle» — cómo se abre la ceremonia según Reichel-Dolmatoff: recitación del mito de la Creación y de las genealogías, con el bastón fálico convertido en sonaja.

«the man drinking the liquid assumes expressions of displeasure, purses his lips, and spits in an exaggerated manner, indicating that he has to force himself to get the drink down» — los gestos ritualizados del que bebe, según Reichel-Dolmatoff: muecas, labios fruncidos y escupitajos exagerados.

«As the effects of the yajé increase, so does the precision of the dancers’ movements. The general rhythm and individual movements of the dancers become ever more coordinated until, at a certain point, the entire group appears to become one body, moving in a highly controlled and precise rhythm» — lo que Reichel-Dolmatoff observa a medida que crece el efecto: el grupo entero parece volverse un solo cuerpo.

«Another ritualized activity consists of heaping abuse on the yajé vessel. The men shout, “I’m going to drink your contents, but then I’m going to kick you around! When you are empty I’m going to urinate on you! I’m going to fill you with excrement!” The men address themselves to the vessel as they would to a female being who had defied them, presenting a danger they are ready to confront» — el insulto ritual a la vasija que Reichel-Dolmatoff registra y cómo lo interpreta: se le habla como a un ser femenino que los ha desafiado.

«The hallucinations are referred to by the generic term gahpi-gohori, yajé images.* According to our informants, the word gohori derives from gohsisé, reflection, aureole. Gohori is “something which is seen,” but they add that it is neither tangible nor imaginary—it is a projection» — el término tukano para las visiones y la precisión que dan los informantes: ni tangible ni imaginario, una proyección.

«The Indians say that the order of the hallucinations is fixed and that certain images are seen only after the third cup, others after the fourth» — lo que los informantes sostienen sobre el orden fijo de las visiones según la copa.

«They also emphasize that to have hallucinations that are bright and pleasant, it is essential that one abstain from sexual intercourse and eat only a light diet on the days immediately preceding the ceremony, and that one must participate actively in the dances and be covered with sweat during the ritual drinking» — las condiciones que los informantes ponen para tener visiones claras: abstinencia sexual, dieta ligera y sudar bailando.

«In each of these “rounds” the individual does not know ahead of time what will happen to him. Some see colors and jumbled forms, some experience an entire mythological scenario, others vomit and see nothing at all. There is a sense of chance, an intense expectation that hangs over the men» — la incertidumbre que Reichel-Dolmatoff subraya: nadie sabe de antemano qué le tocará, y unos ven un escenario mitológico entero mientras otros vomitan y no ven nada.

«there are no pelvic or any other movements suggestive» — la negativa que Reichel-Dolmatoff consigna pese a toda la lectura sexual del rito: en la danza de los hombres no hay movimientos pélvicos. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«On some occasions an old man or anyone who lays claim to esoteric knowledge explains his hallucination as though all were seeing the same thing. He says, for example, “This trembling which is felt are the winds of the Milky Way,” or “That red color is the Master of the Animals» — la voz que fija el sentido común de la visión según Reichel-Dolmatoff: un viejo explica su alucinación como si todos vieran lo mismo.

«these exclamations are not directed at individual women or at anyone present in the maloca—rather, they are aimed in an impersonal way at the feminine element of the phratries with which there exists an exogamous relationship» — la precisión que Reichel-Dolmatoff añade sobre esas réplicas: no van contra mujeres presentes sino, de modo impersonal, contra el elemento femenino de las fratrías con que hay relación exógama.

«The strict ritualization described above is not, of course, adhered to on every occasion. Sometimes it is simply a group of men who get together to take yajé and hum and chat in a corner. Even on important occasions many of the traditional gestures and ritual words are held in abeyance» — la salvedad con que Reichel-Dolmatoff cierra la descripción del rito: a veces es solo un grupo de hombres que se junta a tomar yajé y charlar en un rincón.

«The objective reason for which an individual or a group habitually takes a hallucinogen is naturally of great interest to anthropologists. Does it consist of an escape from reality? a religious rite? a philosophical experience whereby one attempts to attain a state of sublimation, of equilibrium, of integration? Or is it a quest for a new life-dimension, another “reality,” or simply a search for a Dionysian orgiastic experience?» — las preguntas con que Reichel-Dolmatoff abre la sección simbólica: huida de la realidad, rito religioso, experiencia filosófica de sublimación o busca de otra realidad.

«According to our informants of the Vaupés, the purpose of taking yajé is to return to the uterus, to the fons et origo of all things, where the individual “sees” the tribal divinities, the creation of the universe and humanity, the first human couple, the creation of the animals, and the establishment of the social order, with particular reference to the laws of exogamy» — la respuesta que Reichel-Dolmatoff recoge de sus informantes: el fin del yajé es volver al útero, al origen de todas las cosas, donde se ve la creación y el orden social.

«During the ritual the individual enters through the ‘‘door” of the vagina painted on the base of the vessel. Once inside the receptacle he becomes one with the mythic world of the Creation. In evidence of this, the drawing on the vessel is called gorosirt, place of origin, uterus, and, what is particularly significant, place of return, place of death» — cómo entra el individuo a ese origen según Reichel-Dolmatoff: por la puerta vaginal pintada en la base de la vasija, cuyo dibujo se llama a la vez lugar de origen y lugar de retorno y de muerte.

«This return to the uterus also constitutes an acceleration of time and corresponds to death. According to the Indians, the individual “dies” but 1s later reborn in a state of wisdom, because on waking from the yajé trance he is convinced of the truth of his religious system, since he has seen with his own eyes the personifications of the supernaturals and the mythic scenes» — la equivalencia que Reichel-Dolmatoff consigna: el retorno al útero es muerte, y de ella el individuo renace sabio porque ha visto con sus propios ojos lo que su religión sostiene.

«On the other hand, a return to the womb is considered an incestuous act, since the person becomes identified with a phallus which enters into the maternal cavity, where he now passes through an embryonic stage to a state of rebirth. ‘The transformation occurring during these hallucinations is considered to be an extremely dangerous process, for not all know that to comprehend it as a purification the individual must completely surrender that which is corporeal and earthly. Some continue to keep ties with the profane world, and when they enter into the sacred one, they suffer the terrifying consequences of an unnatural act» — el otro lado de esa equivalencia según Reichel-Dolmatoff: el retorno es también incesto, y quien no entrega lo corporal sufre las consecuencias terroríficas.

«According to the Tukano, after a stage of undefined luminosity of moving forms and colors, the vision begins to clear up and significant details present themselves. ‘The Milky Way appears and the distant fertilizing reflection of the Sun. The first woman surges forth from the waters of the river, and the first pair of ancestors is formed. The supernatural Master of the Animals of the jungle and waters is perceived, as are the gigantic prototypes of the game animals, the origins of plants— indeed, the origins of life itself» — el orden de la visión tukano según Reichel-Dolmatoff: tras la luminosidad indefinida aparecen la Vía Láctea, la primera mujer saliendo del río y los prototipos de los animales.

«The division into phratries is witnessed, and the yurupari flutes promulgate the laws of exogamy» — lo que la visión instituye según Reichel-Dolmatoff: la división en fratrías y las flautas del yurupari promulgando las leyes de la exogamia.

«Beyond these visions new “doors” are opening, and through their apertures glimmer yet other dimensions, which are even more profound. One crosses over cosmic levels, perceiving more and more strongly each time the fertilizing energy of the Sun, in an atmosphere of yellow light» — las puertas sucesivas que la visión abre según Reichel-Dolmatoff, con los niveles cósmicos atravesados hacia la energía fertilizante del Sol.

«However, not everything is seen in one hallucination, nor, for that matter, at all times» — el límite que Reichel-Dolmatoff le pone a esa descripción: no todo se ve en una sola alucinación ni siempre.

«On some occasions the individual awakens from his trance in a state of great calm and profound satisfaction; on others he is nearly overcome by the nightmare of the jaguar’s jaws or the menace of snakes that draw near while he, paralyzed with fright, feels their cold bodies winding themselves around his extremities» — los dos extremos del despertar según Reichel-Dolmatoff: calma profunda o la pesadilla de las fauces del jaguar y las serpientes.

«Man needed supernatural communication and for that reason searched for yajé (igu duharagu trtkoa amart arimit gahpi koapure» — la fórmula de un informante que Reichel-Dolmatoff cita en nota, con su original tukano: el hombre necesitaba comunicación sobrenatural y por eso buscó el yajé.

«To take yajé is a spiritual coitus; it is the spiritual communion which the priests speak of» — la formulación con que Reichel-Dolmatoff cierra la sección, en boca de un indio educado por misioneros: un coito espiritual, la comunión espiritual de la que hablan los curas.

«The women are seated in the gloom of the other end of the house. Their function is to keep up the men’s spirits by laughing shrilly every» — la función que Reichel-Dolmatoff les asigna a las mujeres en la ceremonia: animar a los hombres, sentadas en la penumbra del otro extremo de la casa. La frase se corta antes de la llamada de nota.

«origins of Evil also manifest themselves, jaguars and serpents, the representatives of illness, and the spirits of the jungle that lie in ambush for the solitary hunter. At the same time their voices are heard, the music of the mythic epoch is perceived, and the ancestors are seen, dancing at the dawn of Creation» — la otra mitad de esa visión: el origen del Mal, los jaguares y las serpientes, y la música de la época mítica con los antepasados bailando.

«For the Indian the hallucinatory experience is essentially a sexual one. To make it sublime, to pass from the erotic, the sensual, to a mystical union with the mythic era, the intra-uterine stage, is the ultimate goal» — la tesis de Reichel-Dolmatoff sobre el fin último: pasar de lo erótico a la unión mística con la época mítica y el estadio intrauterino. La frase se corta antes de la llamada de nota y sigue en la plana 134.

«The interpretation of these ideas belongs in the realm of psychology and psychiatry. For the anthropologist, it is most intriguing that the Indians maintain that everything we would designate as art is inspired and based upon the hallucinatory experience. This idea is of course of paramount importance and presents us with a surprising problem» — el problema que Reichel-Dolmatoff deja planteado para el antropólogo: los indios sostienen que todo lo que llamaríamos arte se inspira y se funda en la experiencia alucinatoria.

«These are the things we see when we take yajé; they are the gahpi gohori—the yajé images» — la respuesta que los tukano le dan a Reichel-Dolmatoff sobre sus pinturas murales.

«This was the same answer we were given when we asked about other artistic expressions, such as the ornaments used to decorate various utensils. ‘These decorated objects are mainly pottery, bark cloths, benches, calabashes, rattles, trumpets, and the sounding tubes used in dances» — el alcance de esa respuesta según Reichel-Dolmatoff: vale para toda la ornamentación de utensilios, cerámica, telas de corteza, bancos, sonajas y trompetas.

«When they noticed our interest in these decorative motifs, the Indians explained in the most natural way that these were simply designs they had observed in their hallucinations, while under the influence of yajé» — cómo los indios explicaron esos motivos a Reichel-Dolmatoff: del modo más natural, eran diseños vistos en las alucinaciones.

«The Indians contend that they do not simply witness visual hallucinations but also hear music and see dances. They say that both their present-day dances and their music are based on hallucinations» — la nota de Reichel-Dolmatoff que extiende esa afirmación a la música y a la danza actuales.

«It is practically routine for an ethnologist to give drawing materials to members of the group he is studying and invite them to draw whatever comes to their mind. In this manner drawings can be obtained that usually show elements of the social or natural environment—e.g., a house, a tortoise, a fish. Many such examples of ‘“‘primitive art’’ have been published. But these cannot be considered representative of a personal creative artistic expression, for they are little more than replicas of a real model, manufactured in accordance with the manual abilities of the painter» — la objeción que Reichel-Dolmatoff le hace al arte primitivo recogido de la manera corriente: réplicas de un modelo real, no expresión creativa personal.

«We offered the men a choice of twelve colored pencils and some sheets of white paper 28 by 22 centimeters, mounted on a wooden tablet. They | were all adult males who frequently took yajé; further, all were nonacculturated Indians who did not live in contact with civilization and none of whom spoke Spanish» — el método que Reichel-Dolmatoff declara para obtener los dibujos, con el perfil exacto de sus informantes; *nonacculturated* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón, que el impreso trae como *non-acculturated*.

«The colors they selected spontaneously were exclusively red, yellow, and blue, on very few occasions adding a shade of hazel brown. There were comments that there was not a good choice of the various tones of the basic colors, since the Tukano discriminate carefully between a number of shades of the same pigment, such as clear yellow, orange yellow, reddish yellow, etc., and evidently would have preferred to execute the drawings in a wider range than allowed by each of the basic colors» — la paleta que los indios eligieron y la queja que Reichel-Dolmatoff registra: los tukano distinguen matices que los lápices no cubrían.

«Once we had obtained a short series of drawings, we observed that they consistently repeated certain design elements. We therefore prepared a series of numbered cards. On each we painted a motif, selected and copied from the large drawings. We then showed these cards to a large number of men who had not done drawings for us and asked for their interpretation of each. We found that in the majority of cases their interpretations coincided. We could therefore conclude that these motifs were codified, each having the fixed value of an ideographic sign» — el control que Reichel-Dolmatoff monta con tarjetas y la conclusión que saca: los motivos están codificados con valor fijo de signo ideográfico.

«At the same time we observed that the interpretation of these signs often made reference to aspects of sexual physiology and, in direct relation to this, to the laws of exogamy» — a qué remiten esas interpretaciones según Reichel-Dolmatoff: a la fisiología sexual y, en relación directa, a las leyes de la exogamia.

«The color red, on the other hand, signifies the opposing complementary principle, since it symbolizes female fecundity. It is the color of the uterus, of fire, of heat. ‘These two colors, one “cold,” the other “‘hot,’’ one male, the other female, are essentially beneficent» — el rojo como principio complementario opuesto según Reichel-Dolmatoff: color del útero, del fuego y del calor, y ambos colores esencialmente benéficos.

«The third fundamental color is blue. Blue is considered sexually neutral and morally ambiguous. Above all, it symbolizes a principle of communication, which is expressed by thought, by the smoke of tobacco that is smoked ritually, and by songs and spells» — el azul como tercer color fundamental: sexualmente neutro y moralmente ambiguo, principio de comunicación.

«Since communication can have motivations or results as much beneficent as injurious, the color blue can be good or evil, its character depending to a large extent on its significative combination with other colors» — por qué el azul puede ser bueno o malo según Reichel-Dolmatoff: porque la comunicación misma puede serlo, y su carácter depende de la combinación.

«However, when red appears with the color blue, there appears a component of opposition which, although it can be institutionalized (as in the case of two exogamous phratries), can also symbolize a principle of conflict, in which the “evil’’ attempts to impose itself on the “good» — la combinación de oposición según Reichel-Dolmatoff: el rojo con el azul puede quedar institucionalizada como exogamia o significar conflicto.

«A spiral symbolizes incest and represents women who are forbidden. It is the yurupari sign. It is said that this motif is derived from the imprint of a yurupari flute when it is placed mouth down on the ground. These flutes consist of a tube of bark rolled into a spiral. Because of the similarity of forms, it is associated with the snail» — el motivo tukano del incesto según Reichel-Dolmatoff: la espiral, signo del yurupari, derivada de la huella de la flauta puesta boca abajo.

«A motif resembling a fleur de lis symbolizes exogamy and women who are potential marriage partners. It is said to have derived from the look of two fish traps placed back to back. These traps, which are woven from thin canes, have a sexual character and are compared to a vagina into which the fishes, here considered phallic symbols, swim» — el motivo de la exogamia según Reichel-Dolmatoff, derivado de dos nasas de pesca opuestas, con los peces como símbolos fálicos.

«Undulating vertical lines symbolize creative thought and, on some occasions, the energy of the solar creator himself» — el motivo del pensamiento creador según Reichel-Dolmatoff, que a veces es la energía del creador solar.

«This series of twenty symbols could be expanded upon, since there are other motifs that appear to have ideographic meaning, but this sample will suffice to present the problem» — el límite que Reichel-Dolmatoff le pone a su propia lista: es una muestra para plantear el problema, no un inventario.

«The colors yellow and off-white symbolize a seminal concept and are always associated with the idea of male or solar fertilization» — el simbolismo cromático tukano según Reichel-Dolmatoff: el amarillo y el blanco roto como concepto seminal. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«Yellow and off-white are also the colors of natural materials which have a markedly seminal character for the Tukano and which symbolically are the equivalents of semen virile: saliva, dew, the juice of certain plants, the gelatinous component of certain fruits, the starch from yuca (manioc), cotton, bees’ honey, the rays of the Sun, and other phenomena» — la lista de equivalentes simbólicos del semen viril que Reichel-Dolmatoff recoge: saliva, rocío, jugo de ciertas plantas, almidón de yuca, algodón, miel y los rayos del Sol.

«These are simply considered as “things which are seen» — lo que queda fuera de la codificación según Reichel-Dolmatoff: manchas y motivos sin significado preciso, que los indios llaman simplemente cosas que se ven.

«Our informants report that the motifs described above appear mainly in an initial stage of the hallucination, and that in later stages they see mythic scenes and the shapes of men and animals, less stylized and well-defined than the visions of the first stage» — el orden en dos etapas que Reichel-Dolmatoff recoge de sus informantes: primero los motivos codificados y luego las escenas míticas, menos estilizadas.

«In the first place, it is evident that when the Indian interprets his visions, certain projective and feedback processes are at work, as well as earlier cultural experiences; he is therefore influenced by his visual and circumstantial memory» — la primera explicación que Reichel-Dolmatoff propone: procesos proyectivos y de retroalimentación, con la memoria visual y circunstancial de por medio.

«Even the adolescents who have not yet taken yajé already have a vague idea of the more common signs: male, female, incest, exogamy» — el dato que apoya esa explicación: el adolescente que aún no toma yajé ya conoce vagamente los signos más comunes.

«It would seem, therefore, that in a state of hallucination the individual projects his cultural memory on the wavering screen of colors and shapes and thus “sees” certain motifs and personages» — cómo formula Reichel-Dolmatoff esa hipótesis: el individuo proyecta su memoria cultural en la pantalla oscilante de colores y formas.

«There is nothing secret or intimate about the hallucinations the individual ‘Tukano experiences. On the contrary, these are discussed openly, and, what is more striking, one individual will describe his visions to another even while he is undergoing the hallucinatory experience and will ask for an explanation of its significance!» — lo que Reichel-Dolmatoff señala como más llamativo: las visiones se comentan abiertamente y uno pide explicación de la suya mientras la está teniendo.

«This open communication of experiences could lead to a consensus, to a fixation of certain images; in this manner, no matter what the vision, its interpretation could be adapted to a cultural pattern» — la consecuencia que Reichel-Dolmatoff le saca a esa comunicación abierta: un consenso que fija ciertas imágenes.

«Paintings and drawings executed by individuals under the influence of LSD, mescaline, peyote, and other drugs, or attempting to fix the hallucinogenic visions after the primary effect has worn off, frequently have common characteristics. It would be difficult to attribute this commonality solely to the cultural experiences held in common by these artists. There exists an element of rhythm, of pulsation, that seems more likely to be organically based than determined only by a visual and culturally molded memory» — el argumento con que Reichel-Dolmatoff apoya esa segunda vía: un elemento de ritmo y pulsación que parece más orgánico que cultural.

«It is amazing to note how frequently the design motifs dealt with above appear in the petroglyphs and _ pictographs of the region and areas far beyond it (Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1967). It would not be difficult to find parallels to these motifs in other prehistoric artifacts, such as the decorations of ceramics or the rock carvings of ancient indigenous cultures» — el problema que Reichel-Dolmatoff abre desde la inspiración artística: los mismos motivos aparecen en petroglifos y pictografías de la región y mucho más allá.

«It could be argued that we are dealing with such elementary motifs that they could have evolved independently in any place and any era, for they are simply circles, diamonds, dots, and spirals, and nothing more. But are they really that elementary? It would be difficult to claim that the sign of the “door” or that for exogamy are basic forms» — la objeción que Reichel-Dolmatoff se plantea a sí mismo y cómo la contesta: el signo de la puerta o el de la exogamia difícilmente son formas elementales.

«In the second place, it could also be that certain motifs or images are produced more or less consistently by the biochemical effects» — la segunda explicación que Reichel-Dolmatoff propone sin descartar la primera: ciertos motivos podrían venir del efecto bioquímico. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«Motifs such as rainbows, stars, circles or bright dots, undulating multicolored lines, all figure in a wide range of hallucinations, related to the taking of other drugs as well as B. Caapi, thus constituting a common base for the hallucinatory experience» — los motivos que Reichel-Dolmatoff da por base común de la experiencia alucinatoria, más allá del yajé.

«Instead, it might be possible to conceive of vast cultural zones wherein, since time immemorial, a certain hallucinogen had been consumed and where, based on its use, traditional interpretations had been formed that thus created a certain artistic style» — la hipótesis mayor que Reichel-Dolmatoff deja planteada: zonas culturales vastas donde el uso antiguo de un alucinógeno habría formado interpretaciones tradicionales y, con ellas, un estilo artístico.

«Could archaeology lead us to a zoning of these symbolic systems? If we suppose that the use of hallucinogens by the American aborigines is a very ancient practice, and that in general it is related to the magico-religious sphere, we may also assume that ceremonial objects were manufactured and decorated by specialists, or at least by persons who were thoroughly immersed in the religious symbolism of their culture» — la pregunta que Reichel-Dolmatoff le pasa a la arqueología y el supuesto con que la acompaña.

«It is interesting also in this connection to bear in mind those subjective images that appear in our field of vision in darkness or half-light, independent of any external light source, and that, originating in the eyes or brain, constitute a perceptual phenomenon common to all human beings» — los fosfenos que Reichel-Dolmatoff introduce: imágenes subjetivas que nacen en el ojo o en el cerebro y son comunes a todos los humanos.

«Recently Max Knoll, in a study performed on 1000 individuals, was able to establish a series of fifteen of these images which largely conform to the codified motifs of the Tukano» — el estudio de Max Knoll que Reichel-Dolmatoff trae: quince de esas imágenes se corresponden en buena parte con los motivos codificados tukano.

«The problem of incest preoccupies the Tukano greatly and, like many other societies, they have devised a considerable elaboration of rules which, of course, go far beyond the narrow biological meaning of the term. For the most part, their mythology and rituals revolve around these themes and conflicts, groping for a solution to the dilemma. The return to the uterus thus might be seen to constitute a means of alleviating the tension» — la lectura que Reichel-Dolmatoff propone del retorno al útero: una manera de aliviar la tensión del problema del incesto en torno al cual giran mito y rito.

«Both animals (or groups of animals, since we are dealing with felines and reptiles in general) appear not only in the most menacing forms but frequently as inoffensive and even beneficent to man. This ambivalence of their symbolic value makes their interpretation difficult» — la ambivalencia del jaguar y de la serpiente en las visiones según Reichel-Dolmatoff: no solo amenazantes, también inofensivos y aun benéficos.

«In no way do they invariably appear as negative and dangerous forms. It is therefore interesting to record that felines and reptiles have always played a central role in the aboriginal religions of America, whether in the high civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andes or among groups that had not evolved complex social orders. ‘The symbolic importance of these animals can be traced back archaeologically at least to the second millennium B.c., and it continues into the present in the shamanistic religions of many indigenous groups» — la antigüedad que Reichel-Dolmatoff le da a felinos y reptiles en las religiones americanas, rastreable al segundo milenio antes de la era.

«Certainly, the hallucination not only induces the projection of supposed or observed forms, but possibly also induces to a more intense degree the projection of latent psychological conflicts extant in the culture» — la distinción con que Reichel-Dolmatoff acota el hallazgo de los fosfenos: la alucinación proyectaría no solo formas sino, con más fuerza, los conflictos psicológicos latentes de la cultura.

«One more point needs to be emphasized in relation to the cultural context in which the Tukano of Vaupés are seen to use B. Caapi. The inexorable processes of acculturation modify not only indigenous culture but also the natural environment. The Indians’ age-old knowledge about the properties of many plants is of extraordinary potential value to us; yet it is being lost under the avalanche of accelerated acculturation. Here is an enormous field of research for anthropologists which must be investigated before it is too late» — la urgencia con que Reichel-Dolmatoff cierra su capítulo: el saber indígena sobre las plantas se pierde bajo la aculturación acelerada.

«In the face of the current world-wide popularization of the use of hallucinogens, it is of the greatest importance to investigate, on an interdisciplinary basis and transculturally, not only the motivations but the psycho-biological effects of these substances. If this comparative material from primitive and fast-disappearing cultures is not obtained, humanity will have lost an important reference point on which to base informed opinion and decisions on the use of hallucinogens in advanced cultures» — la consecuencia que Reichel-Dolmatoff saca para el mundo entero: sin ese material comparativo, la humanidad pierde un punto de referencia para decidir sobre el uso de alucinógenos.

«Gillin (1945) was the first investigator to observe and record the role of the hallucinogenic cactus known as San Pedro (Trichocereus pachanoi), which contains mescaline as its active ingredient» — a quién le adjudica Sharon el primer registro del cacto San Pedro en la cura popular del norte peruano.

«The ritual and symbolic importance in northern Peru of the hallucinogenic San Pedro (or a columnar cactus closely related to it) has recently been demonstrated to date back at least three thousand years, on the basis of its association with jaguars and spirit beings on ceremonial pottery and painted textiles of the Chavin horizon» — la antigüedad que Sharon le da al San Pedro en el norte peruano, por su asociación con jaguares y seres espíritu en la cerámica y los textiles chavín.

«As Furst has noted, the identification of Trichocereus pachanoi or a related species on ritual burial ceramics and weavings of the Chavin period makes this the second hallucinogen for which we have very ancient evidence, the first being snuff. For the latter, there is even earlier archaeological proof in the form of snuffing paraphernalia almost four thousand years old, from the site of Huaca Prieta on the Peruvian coast» — lo que Sharon toma de Furst: el San Pedro es el segundo alucinógeno con evidencia arqueológica muy antigua, tras el rapé de Huaca Prieta.

«It was discovered that, for trips considered hazardous, the only way to secure the services of guides and porters was to hire a curandero, or folk healer,* to accompany the expedition» — cómo llegó Sharon al asunto: en expediciones arqueológicas riesgosas, solo se conseguían guías y cargadores contratando a un curandero.

«This paper is the result of an exploratory study undertaken to familiarize myself with the curandero’s application of his art and to ‘gain membership” to the curandero community by following the approach of Slotkin (1955-56) and Castaneda (1969)» — el método declarado de Sharon: estudio exploratorio para ganar membresía en la comunidad de curanderos, siguiendo a Slotkin y a Castaneda.

«The English term hardly begins to convey the pervasive role that these modern shamans play in their communities as spiritual mentors and guardians of traditional lore—functions that include, but are not restricted to, medical therapy» — la reserva terminológica que Sharon pone en nota: la palabra inglesa no alcanza al papel de estos chamanes modernos como mentores espirituales y guardianes de la tradición.

«As will soon be apparent, contemporary folk-healing practices in northern Peru are syncretic in nature, combining many Christian elements with older beliefs surviving from pre-European times. In this respect they strongly resemble the sacred mushroom cult as it is practiced today in Oaxaca, Mexico (see Wasson, pp. 185-200, below» — el sincretismo que Sharon declara en la cura popular del norte peruano y con qué lo empareja: el culto oaxaqueño del hongo sagrado, con remisión al capítulo de Wasson.

«it is correct to say that the core of the folk-healing system in Peru (as in Mexico) is shamanistic, and that the curandero himself is more of a shaman, in the traditional meaning of that term, than anything else —the various modern or folk-Catholic elements of contemporary curanderismo notwithstanding. The shamanistic component is especially apparent in the attitude toward, and use of, the hallucinogenic cactus» — la tesis de Sharon sobre el fondo del sistema: chamánico, y el curandero más chamán que otra cosa pese al aparato católico popular.

«San Pedro is the catalyst that activates all the complex forces at work in a folk-healing session, especially the visionary and divinatory powers of the curandero himself» — la función que Sharon le asigna al cacto en la sesión: activa las fuerzas en juego, sobre todo los poderes visionarios y adivinatorios del curandero.

«As a result there is a growing body of literature ¢ on a widespread system of therapy that represents a blend of prehispanic Indian, Western, Eastern, and idiosyncratic beliefs and» — cómo caracteriza Sharon ese sistema terapéutico: mezcla de creencias prehispánicas, occidentales, orientales e idiosincrásicas. La frase se corta antes de la llamada de nota y sigue en la plana 146.

«On the other hand, the contrast between my experiences with San Pedro and those of the indigenous curandero should demonstrate that much more than the psychotropic cactus itself is at work in “learning to see,’’ which is the goal of every folk healer» — el contraste que Sharon anuncia entre su experiencia y la del curandero indígena: mucho más que el cacto obra en el aprender a ver, que es la meta de todo curandero.

«there was obviously nothing very Indian about Galvaez’ lifeway—on the contrary, he was a typical Mestizo, Spanish-speaking, literate, Catholic in religion, apparently with only the most tenuous ties to native Indian culture» — el perfil del curandero que Sharon subraya contra lo esperable: mestizo típico, hispanohablante, letrado y católico.

«However, throughout his long career in a variety of jobs, Galvaez the artist and family man was also evolving as Gdalvaez the curandero. His early interest in the priesthood had been an attempt to realize what he regarded as a “calling to serve humanity.’ He experienced dreams urging him to prepare himself and felt a deep and idealistic yearning to help alleviate human suffering» — cómo cuenta Sharon la vocación de su maestro: sueños que lo urgían a prepararse y un anhelo idealista de aliviar el sufrimiento.

«Then, aged only twenty-two, he suddenly fell il] with a mysterious ailment that failed to yield to modern medical treatment. Both of his grandfathers had been curanderos in the highlands, and so he decided to see if a folk healer might help where the doctors had failed. He underwent treatment and was cured. He did not understand what had happened but felt an urge to learn» — el episodio que Sharon pone en el origen del oficio: una dolencia que la medicina moderna no cedió y que un curandero curó.

«Galvaez’ experience is obviously akin to “sickness vocation,’ a common phenomenon in shamanism» — cómo encuadra Sharon ese episodio en nota: la vocación por enfermedad, fenómeno común en el chamanismo.

«It is interesting to note that the curandero with whom I worked is himself well aware of the antiquity of the San Pedro cactus in Peruvian ritual. He knew, for example, that the hallucinogenic cactus is depicted on burial ceramics of the Mochica culture, dating back some 1500 years and more, an identification also made by Friedberg (1963)» — lo que Sharon consigna en nota sobre el saber del propio curandero: sabe que el cacto está representado en la cerámica funeraria mochica de hace mil quinientos años.

«Since this was written, I returned to Peru (in the summer of 1971) for another season's research with the same curandero. By then his confidence in me had progressed to the point of permitting me to use his real name, Eduardo Calderén Palomino, in my published reports. He also agreed to accept me as full-fledged assistant in his curing rituals» — la nota en que Sharon consigna el cambio de trato con su maestro: la confianza ganada le permitió usar su nombre real, Eduardo Calderón Palomino, y ser aceptado como ayudante.

«His second wife had an uncle who was noted as a curandero working with hallucinogens and a mesa (literally table, a kind of altar containing numerous standardized and idiosyncratic ‘power objects» — la mesa que Sharon define al presentar al maestro de su maestro: una especie de altar con objetos de poder estandarizados e idiosincrásicos.

«between voyages he gained sufficient experience to serve as rastreador (literally ‘“‘tracker,’ one who helps the curandero “see’’ during the curing session» — el oficio intermedio que Sharon describe: el rastreador, el que ayuda al curandero a ver durante la sesión.

«When he remained in Trujillo he had enough time to develop his powers to the point where, during one momentous session, he suddenly felt that the “Christ of the mesa’ had chosen him to effect a part of the curing ritual» — el momento que Sharon señala como decisivo en la carrera de su maestro: sentir que el Cristo de la mesa lo había elegido.

«In gratitude to God, Gdalvaez made a vow never to abuse his powers and to work only for good in the service of humanity» — el voto que Sharon le atribuye a su maestro al fundar su propia mesa.

«San Pedro, a smooth, relatively thin, often spineless, columnar cactus of the Cereus family, was first described and classified as Trichocereus pachanoi by Britton and Rose (1920), who gave the area of its distribution as Andean Ecuador, where it is also called agua-colla, giganton, and San Pedrillo. How and why it came to be called ‘Saint Peter” was not stated» — la clasificación botánica del San Pedro según Sharon y lo que la literatura no explica: por qué se llama San Pedro.

«According to Galvaez there are several types of San Pedro, distinguished by the number of longitudinal ribs. The kind most often used by curanderos has seven ribs. Four-ribbed cacti are very rare and are considered to have special curative properties. ‘Ihe varieties found in the Andean highlands are said to be the most potent, whatever the number of ribs, because of the higher mineral content of the soil» — la clasificación indígena del cacto que Sharon recoge de su maestro: por número de costillas, con las de cuatro por raras y curativas.

«The preparation of San Pedro for use in the folk-healing session is a very simple process. At noon on the day of the session, four short cacti (the thinnest cacti are believed to make the best brew) are sliced like loaves of bread, placed in a five-gallon can of water, and boiled for seven hours» — la preparación del brebaje según Sharon: cuatro cactos delgados rebanados como pan y hervidos siete horas.

«However, in cases of illness caused by a sorcerer’s magic concoction, such as powdered bones, cemetery dust, or dust from archaeological ruins, certain botanically unidentified plants, known as hornamo blanco, hornamo amarillo, hornamo morado, hornamo cuti, hornamo caballo, and condor purga, are boiled separately for addition to the portions of San Pedro served to the patient» — los aditivos reservados para el daño de hechicería según Sharon, con los nombres locales de plantas sin identificar botánicamente.

«Many curanderos in the Chiclayo area add Floripondio or Flortpondium (Datura arborea)—one of the numerous muishas, or Daturas— to San Pedro, but Galvaez does not. He was initiated by healers who used these potent plants and is aware of their toxic properties and adverse effects on many patients. He does not feel that such drastic shock therapy is necessary to alleviate the ailments of those seeking his services» — la diferencia que Sharon consigna entre curanderos: su maestro fue iniciado por quienes añaden Datura y no lo hace, por no creer necesaria esa terapia de choque.

«San Pedro, Huando Hermoso, Cardo, Huachuma [are] various names applied to this cactus. . . . It is medicinal. It is applied, for example, to cutaneous infections. It is diuretic.* It is utilized in general for cases of healing and witchcraft. . . . It is used . . . for both [types of] magic—white and black» — los nombres del cacto y sus usos en la voz del curandero que Sharon cita: sirve igual para la magia blanca y para la negra.

«It is always recommended that after taking San Pedro one must follow a diet: not eat any food that contains hot peppers, salt, animal fat or grease, or anything that “entangles,” for example, foods that grow on climbing vines, such as beans, peas, lentils, etc» — la dieta que el curandero prescribe tras tomar el cacto, en su propia voz: nada que enrede, como lo que crece en enredaderas.

«San Pedro has a special symbolism in curanderismo, for a reason: San Pedro is always in tune with (‘‘accounted” with) the saints, with the powers of animals, of strong personages or beings, of serious beings, of beings that have supernatural power» — cómo explica el curandero el simbolismo del cacto: está siempre acordado con los santos y con los poderes de animales y de seres de poder sobrenatural.

«The symbolism of San Pedro is to locate in all the regions of the territory the elemental thought and potentiality of man» — la fórmula con que el curandero cierra ese simbolismo, tal como Sharon la traduce.

«It cares for the house . . . as if it were a dog. It is accounted for [in the curanderismo traditions], it is in tune [with the curandero’s own powers and with his other magical artifacts and herbs], and it is raised* with tabaco in the proper manner. Then it cares for the house. It serves as guardian» — el poder de guarda que el curandero le atribuye al cacto plantado en la casa.

«In the night it appears to strangers who want to enter as a man in white, wearing a hat. Or else it whistles. It whistles with a peculiar sound so that anyone who enters who is not of the household . . . comes out at top speed, like a bullet» — cómo se manifiesta esa guarda en la voz del curandero: se aparece al extraño como un hombre de blanco con sombrero, o silba.

«The great majority of magical plants are herbs collected on the hillsides of sacred lagoons in the Andes at altitudes of 12,000 to 13,000 feet above sea level. There are several areas in the northern highlands where such lagoons are found, but the most important, called collectively Las Huaringas, are found above the town of Huancabamba near the border between Peru and Ecuador» — de dónde vienen las plantas mágicas según Sharon: laderas de lagunas sagradas andinas a gran altura, y sobre todo Las Huaringas.

«The herbs are then placed in the curandero’s seguro, a special glass jar, where they are kept in a state of preservation by several perfumes accompanying them. Ihe seguro is one of the focal points of the curandero’s attention during the curing division of a session» — el seguro que Sharon describe: frasco de vidrio con hierbas conservadas en perfumes, foco de atención del curandero en la sesión.

«these plants, once activated by the ceremonial part of a session and by the drinking of San Pedro, “talk’’ to him when he is concentrating on the seguro. Some merely indicate representative symbols of the curing art and the causes of a patient's ailment during diagnosis, while others, which have both symbolic and medicinal value, indicate what herb or herbs should be used in the cure during treatment» — lo que el curandero sostiene de esas plantas según Sharon: activadas por la ceremonia y por el San Pedro, le hablan cuando se concentra en el seguro.

«According to my evaluation as a curandero, the herbs have their spirits, because they speak [and] direct the activities in the realm of curanderismo during the nocturnal session. .. . Their spirits are susceptible to the curandero who manipulates them. They can advise or warn him» — la fórmula del curandero en su propia voz: las hierbas tienen sus espíritus, porque hablan y dirigen la sesión.

«If one does not drink San Pedro, there is nothing. ... The herbs. . . have power to manifest themselves. It seems that possibly they have a spirit that is matched with the power of San Pedro and the intellectual power of the curandero» — el papel que el curandero le da al cacto frente a las hierbas: sin él no hay nada, y el espíritu de las hierbas casa con su poder y con la inteligencia del curandero.

«The curandero or brujo [sorcerer], upon invoking the power of the plants within his curative power, also influences them. He imposes his personal spiritual force over the plants . . . giving them that magic power which becomes, let us say, the power that plants contain as a result of having been rooted in the earth and partaken of its magnetic force» — la reciprocidad que el curandero describe: impone su fuerza espiritual sobre las plantas y estas devuelven la influencia.

«And, since man is an element of the earth, with the power of his intelligence . . . he emits this potentiality over the plants. The plants receive this influence and return it toward man, toward the individual in the moment when he invokes» — cómo cierra el curandero esa reciprocidad en su propia voz: el hombre emite su potencialidad sobre la planta y la planta se la devuelve al invocar.

«It would seem, then, that once the inner power of the curandero is activated by the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus, the magic plants provide a medium by which his contact with the earth is renewed in a reciprocal flow of energy» — la lectura que Sharon propone de esa doctrina: activado el poder interno por el cacto, las plantas mágicas son el medio por el que se renueva el contacto con la tierra.

«Every curandero has his mesa, which, as mentioned, is a collection of numerous power objects laid out on the ground in altar-like fashion for the curing sessions» — la mesa que Sharon define: colección de objetos de poder dispuestos en el suelo a manera de altar.

«The mesa symbolizes the duality of the world of man and nature and of the spiritual realm, as manifested in the struggle between good and evil. The opposites among the power objects are complementary rather than irreconcilable, rather like two sides of a coin» — lo que la mesa simboliza según Sharon, con la precisión que no se debe pasar por alto: los opuestos son complementarios y no irreconciliables.

«To the curandero, the existence of opposite forces does not mean splitting the world in two (the “sacred” and ‘profane’ or establishing a rigid dichotomy between “this” world of matter and the “other” world of spirit. On the contrary, the curandero seeks to perceive unity in the dynamic interaction between the forces of good and evil through the attainment of» — la negativa que Sharon le atribuye al curandero: no hay dicotomía rígida entre sagrado y profano ni entre materia y espíritu, sino unidad buscada en la interacción dinámica.

«Such a view of the world is very flexible and adaptable; it leaves room for the acceptance of new symbols and ideas and allows competing elements to enter into one’s structuring of reality and the behavior determined by such structuring» — lo que Sharon le reconoce a esa manera de ver: deja sitio para símbolos nuevos y para elementos en competencia.

«I salute the ancients, the powerful ones, men who have lived in antiquity . . . for their intellectual force, their power, their magnificence, and the saints for . their intellect, their personality . . . their great power as philosophers, writers, poets . . . [so] that they will help me intellectually in search of these» — la invocación del curandero en su propia voz: saluda a los antiguos por su fuerza intelectual y a los santos por su intelecto y su poder de filósofos, escritores y poetas.

«I always invoke the ancients, brujos, curanderos who have died [and] who are alive, calling their spirits, their personalities. They attend and deliver ideas that can bring one out of trance, out of the wrong path that he may be following. Therefore I [also] call on St. Augustine, Moses, Solomon, St. Cyprian, St. Paul, for advice, for help in moments of doubt» — a quiénes llama el curandero según su propia enumeración: brujos y curanderos muertos y vivos, y San Agustín, Moisés, Salomón, San Cipriano y San Pablo.

«Similarly, Galvaez sees no contradiction between modern medicine and traditional curing and, depending on the situation and his diagnosis, readily employs pharmaceutical products in his work» — la falta de contradicción que Sharon consigna en su maestro entre medicina moderna y cura tradicional.

«capacity to inhabit, with apparent ease, two religious worlds at once, one traditional, the other Roman Catholic; his faith in the power of the “‘ancients” and the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus is as absolute as his belief in Christ, the Virgin, and the saints» — cómo describe Sharon la doble pertenencia religiosa de su maestro: habita dos mundos religiosos a la vez, y la fe en los antiguos y en el cacto es tan absoluta como la fe en Cristo, la Virgen y los santos.

«To return to the mesa: in accordance with the concept of complementary opposites, the mesa is divided into two major (though unequal) zones, called campos (fields) or bancos (benches), which are kept apart by a “neutral” area. The left and smaller side of the oblong mesa is called the Campo Ganadero (Field of the Sly Dealer, Satan). It contains artifacts associated with the forces of evil, the underworld, and negative magic, mainly fragments of ancient ceramics and stones from archaeological ruins, along with cane alcohol, a deer foot, and a triton shell» — la división de la mesa según Sharon: dos campos desiguales separados por una zona neutra, y el de la izquierda con los objetos de las fuerzas del mal.

«This zone is governed by Satan, whose negative powers are concentrated in three staffs—called Satan’s Bayonet, Owl Staff, and the Staff of the Single Woman—placed upright in the ground behind the artifacts of the Campo Ganadero» — quién gobierna ese campo y en qué se concentra su poder según Sharon: tres bastones plantados detrás de los objetos.

«A witch or sorcerer would use this negative zone for sorcery or curing for lucrative gain; a benevolent curer like Galvaez needs it for consultation in cases of witchcraft, adverse love magic, or bad luck, since this is the realm responsible for such evils and consequently capable of revealing their sources» — para qué necesita ese campo un curandero benévolo según Sharon: para consultar en casos de brujería, pues es el reino que los causa y por eso puede revelarlos.

«The right and larger side of the mesa, called the Campo Justiciero (Field of the Divine Judge or Divine Justice), contains artifacts related to the forces of good or positive magic—including images of saints, positive power objects such as stones, shells, bowls, a glass, a dagger, and a rattle, and certain substances, including three perfumes, holy water, tobacco, sugar, lime, and a five-gallon can of San Pedro infusion» — el campo derecho de la mesa según Sharon, con los objetos y sustancias de la magia positiva.

«This zone is governed by Christ, whose positive powers are focused in eight staffs—called, respectively, Swordfish Beak Staff, Eagle Staff, Greyhound Staff, Hummingbird Staff, Staff of the Virgin of Mercy, Sword of St. Paul, Sabre of St. Michael the Archangel, and Sword of St. James the Elder—positioned behind the artifacts» — quién gobierna el campo derecho y los ocho bastones en que se enfoca su poder según Sharon; *Greyhound* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón, que el impreso trae como *Grey-hound*.

«This zone is governed by St. Cyprian (a powerful magician who was converted to Christianity), whose neutral powers are focused in a Serpent Staff» — quién gobierna el campo del medio según Sharon: San Cipriano, mago poderoso convertido al cristianismo, con su bastón de la serpiente.

«These are symbolic of forces in nature and the world of man that can be used for good or for evil, depending on the intention of the individual. This part of the mesa is the focal point of the curandero’s “vision.” Because of its neutral quality, it is considered capable of reflecting the case under consideration without distortion, usually in the glass jar of magic herbs or in the crystal mirror» — por qué el campo del medio es el foco de la visión según Sharon: por neutro, refleja el caso sin distorsión, en el frasco de hierbas o en el espejo de cristal.

«The artifacts of the mesa are not just a random collection of standard objects. Rather, they are gradually accumulated over the years of a curandero’s practice» — cómo se forma una mesa según Sharon: por acumulación a lo largo de los años de práctica, no por colección estándar.

«Each was carefully selected and acquired under special circumstances, and each has unique personal significance to the curandero, along with its own cuenta, or “account,” which is activated by the catalyst San Pedro» — lo que cada objeto de la mesa lleva según Sharon: circunstancia de adquisición, significado personal y su cuenta propia, que el cacto activa.

«Obviously, within the standard symbolic framework passed on from curandero to initiate, there is room for personal elaboration, once mastery has been gained over the curing art» — el margen que Sharon señala dentro del marco simbólico transmitido: hay lugar para la elaboración personal una vez ganada la maestría.

«The same is true of the curandero’s tarjos, or chants. He learns the traditional rhythms and song cycles but, as with the various power objects, he elaborates on the basic complex with his own particular talents and according to the inspiration he receives from a variety of extrapersonal and supernatural sources» — el mismo margen en los cantos del curandero según Sharon: aprende los ritmos y ciclos tradicionales y elabora sobre ellos.

«In my case I have some talismans that I prepared by means of my own ideas and illuminations that I have had in my dreams. The cat plays a principal role in witchcraft and its glance has great power» — el talismán del gato en la voz del curandero, preparado según sus propias ideas e iluminaciones en sueños.

«When a cat dies . . . the eyes remain open. Then there is reflected all concerning the tragedy that has happened in the hour of its death. And it carries in its pupils the moment of» — lo que el curandero sostiene de los ojos del gato muerto: reflejan la tragedia de su hora y llevan en las pupilas el momento del rapto hacia la tumba.

«I use it on a block of crystal. This block of crystal is like a mirror, and the cat sees what moves in this mirror. For whatever [disturbance] it is there, looking. The eyes light up as if they were light bulbs. This is one of the talismans purposely prepared by us in accordance with the idea that one has, or the inspiration of a dream, or the intuition of each one» — cómo obra el talismán según el curandero: el gato ve lo que se mueve en el bloque de cristal y los ojos se encienden como bombillas.

«The whole concept of the mesa with its numerous power objects typifies the fusion of European-Christian and traditional Indian symbolism in contemporary curanderismo. All shamans have power objects, and many of those owned by Galvaez are characteristic of shamans in many cultures, as 1s the manner in which they are obtained. Saints, Christ, Satan, the Virgin, etc., of course are Christian, but their functions are very similar to those of negative and positive forces in aboriginal shamanism; duality, or the complementary nature of opposites, likewise is characteristic of many indigenous symbolic systems» — la lectura de Sharon sobre la mesa: fusión de simbolismo cristiano europeo e indígena, con funciones muy semejantes a las fuerzas positivas y negativas del chamanismo.

«To understand how the artifacts function it is important to remember that to the curandero they are not lifeless objects. Each is a focal point of a particular force» — la regla que Sharon enuncia para entender los objetos: para el curandero no son cosas sin vida, cada una es foco de una fuerza.

«Collectively, they are a projection of his own inner spiritual power, which becomes activated whenever the mesa is manipulated in conjunction with the drinking of the hallucinogenic San Pedro infusion» — qué son los objetos en conjunto según Sharon: proyección del poder espiritual interno del curandero, activado al manipular la mesa con el cacto.

«I took it in order “to track” (rastrear), to see what type it was. As a result these artifacts rebelled. Rare animals and monstrous beasts issued forth with hunger and desire to seize people. Then, when I placed the kit on my mesa, everything was distorted and turned black. The artifacts began bleeding. Several personages with huge fangs gushing blood came forth» — el episodio del estuche de hechicero antiguo en la voz del curandero: los objetos se rebelaron, todo se ennegreció y sangró.

«Therefore, I purposely prepared this talisman. I grabbed a cat and killed it and drank the blood three times. I sucked the blood from the neck of the animal three times and then I took out the eyes. After I took out the eyes I cut off its right paw, the right claw. And this I gathered together and placed in a receptacle with agua cananga (dark perfume) during one complete cycle of the moon» — la fabricación del talismán en la voz del curandero: la sangre bebida tres veces, los ojos y la garra derecha puestos en perfume por un ciclo lunar completo.

«After that I added agua florida (scented water, another perfume). And after the agua florida I added cane alcohol at the end in order to give this feline bravery and power to intoxicate with his glance. Those eyes I sewed together with green and red silk thread and tied them to a flint arrowhead that I found in an ancient archaeological tomb» — el resto de la receta en la voz del curandero: el alcohol de caña para dar al felino bravura y poder de embriagar con la mirada, y los ojos cosidos a una punta de flecha de tumba antigua.

«This talisman I carry with me and I use it at night when I want to countercheck the power of a cat, of a feline, of some exterior spirit attack of a sorcerer who wants to attack or» — para qué usa ese talismán el curandero, en su propia voz: contrarrestar de noche el ataque exterior de un hechicero. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«I purified the kit with holy water and burned it because the day that I brought it home there had also begun a noise on my roof like the galloping of wild beasts. And they didn’t leave me alone until I made cabalistic thrusts with my swords to countercheck these influences» — cómo se deshizo el curandero del estuche antiguo, en su propia voz: agua bendita, fuego y estocadas cabalísticas con sus espadas.

«That is, this was used in witchcraft . . . in remote ancestral times by the Mochica or Chimu peoples . to destroy farms, crops, [human] organs» — a qué atribuye el curandero ese estuche: brujería de tiempos ancestrales mochica o chimú, para destruir sembradíos, cosechas y órganos.

«When accounted, the object absorbs the potentiality, let us say, the intellectual potentiality of the man who manipulates it and remains impregnated forever» — la doctrina del curandero sobre cómo un objeto guarda el mal por siglos: al ser acordado absorbe la potencialidad de quien lo manipula y queda impregnado para siempre.

«Once the curandero has set up his mesa he is ready to begin the curing session. There are two parts to this: (1) ceremonial acts, and (2) curing acts. The ceremonial part lasts generally from about 10 P.M. until midnight; diagnosis and/or treatment lasts from midnight until about 4 a.M.» — las dos partes de la sesión y sus horarios según Sharon: lo ceremonial hasta medianoche y la cura hasta las cuatro de la mañana.

«The entire session takes place in the open, usually in an area enclosed by a wall or fence, and can be performed any night of the week except Monday, the “day of the spirits,’ when dead souls from purgatory are supposed to be roaming about» — dónde y cuándo se hace la sesión según Sharon, con el lunes excluido por ser el día de los espíritus.

«The ceremonial part consists of prayers, invocations, and chants (accompanied by the rhythmic beat of the traditional shamanic rattle) addressed to all the supernaturals of the aboriginal and Roman Catholic faiths» — de qué consta la parte ceremonial según Sharon: rezos, invocaciones y cantos con sonaja dirigidos a todos los sobrenaturales de ambas religiones.

«Finally, at midnight, when the ceremonial acts have been completed, all present must drink one cup of the hallucinogenic cactus brew, after which they are ceremonially ‘“cleansed’’ by the curandero. The ritual drinking of San Pedro is initiated by the curandero, who takes the first cupful, and concluded by his two assistants, who are the last to drink» — el orden del beber ritual según Sharon: el curandero abre y sus dos ayudantes cierran.

«Thus, through elaborate ceremony, music, perfumes, brews, and symbolic contact, the curing session stimulates the five senses of the patient in a familiar cultural environment. In addition, during his turn before the mesa, everyone present gives attention to the patient and his problem in a supportive fashion. All this, added to the hallucinogenic nature of the San Pedro infusion, is intended to render the patient susceptible to therapy» — cómo explica Sharon el dispositivo entero de la sesión: estimula los cinco sentidos en un entorno cultural familiar y suma la atención del grupo al paciente.

«Because it 1s near certain motor nerves that transmit it to the brain. There it touches these olfactory papillae that go directly to the brain. Then its power is more rapid» — por qué se toma por la nariz según el curandero, en su propia explicación fisiológica.

«What emerges from many hours of taped conversation with Galvaez and participation in his curing sessions is that the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus is experienced as the catalyst that enables the curandero to transcend the limitations placed on ordinary mortals: to activate all his senses; project his spirit or soul; ascend and descend into the supernatural realms; identify and do battle with the sources of illness, witchcraft, and misfortune; confront and vanquish ferocious animals and demons of disease and sorcerers who direct them; “jump over” barriers of time, space, and matter; divine the past, present, and future —in short, to attain vision» — lo que Sharon concluye de muchas horas de cinta y de sesiones: el cacto es el catalizador que permite al curandero trascender los límites del mortal común.

«And “seeing,” in the sense in which this word is used by the curandero, is very different from» — la distinción que Sharon subraya entre ver y mirar en boca del curandero.

«are first a slight dizziness that one hardly notices. And then a great vision, a Clearing of all the faculties of the individual. It produces a light numbness in the body and afterward a tranquility. And then comes a detachment, a type of visual force in the individual inclusive of all the senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, etc.—all the senses, including the sixth sense, the telepathic sense of transmitting oneself across time and matter» — el efecto del cacto en la voz del curandero: mareo leve, gran visión, desapego y una fuerza visual que incluye el sexto sentido de transmitirse a través del tiempo y la materia.

«San Pedro has great power .. . as it is “accounted” with the saints» — cómo formula el curandero el poder del cacto: está acordado con los santos, los cerros, las huacas, las lagunas y los arroyos.

«Then San Pedro tends to manifest itself [in the patient] in the form of vomiting, perspiration , sometimes in dancing. At times during diagnosis a patient automatically starts to dance alone, or to throw himself writhing on the ground» — cómo se manifiesta el cacto en el paciente según el curandero: vómito, sudor, a veces danza involuntaria.

«It penetrates the blood . . . rises to, let us say, the intellectual nervous system. Then it “visualizes” and opens up a sixth sense» — la fisiología que el curandero le atribuye al cacto: penetra la sangre, sube al sistema nervioso intelectual y abre un sexto sentido.

«The subconscious is a superior part (of man) ...a kind of bag where the individual has stored all his memories, all his valuations. . . . One must try . to make the individual “jump out” of his conscious mind. That is the principal task of curanderismo. By means of the magical plants and the chants and the search for the roots of the problem, the subconscious of the individual is opened like a flower, and it releases these blockages. All by itself it tells things. A very practical manner . .. which was known to the ancients [of Peru]» — qué entiende el curandero por subconsciente y cuál dice que es la tarea principal del oficio: hacer saltar al individuo fuera de su mente consciente.

«Pure tobacco (sayri or huaman tabaco—the famous falcon, as the ancients called it) gives power to “visualize”... and very rapid sight, mind, and imagination. It is for this reason that in ancient times they used rapé made from ground tobacco to ‘‘clear” the mind» — para qué sirve el tabaco en la mezcla según el curandero: da poder de visualizar y rapidez de vista, mente e imaginación, como el rapé de los antiguos.

«I called certain saints, hills, ancient shrines; and I disappeared. There was an unfolding of my personality. .. . I was no longer at the mesa. . . . That is to say, my personality had departed to other places» — el desdoblamiento que el curandero describe en su propia voz: llamó a santos, cerros y huacas y dejó de estar en la mesa.

«He also told me that the curanderos of northern Peru had their own sacred lagoons, called Las Huaringas, where one traveled to bathe and to learn about all thé magical plants that grow there—“those for good and those for evil.” I asked him if he had ever personally visited these sacred lagoons. Physically, no, he said, but supernaturally, yes, through the agency of his jar of magical herbs» — lo que Sharon consigna sin corregirlo: su maestro no visitó físicamente las lagunas sagradas, sino sobrenaturalmente, por el frasco de hierbas.

«That this cultural syndrome is recognized as a separate and legitimate category which is shared with the patient and not simply as another psychological ailment, as it is often characterized by Western psychology, may give curanderismo great therapeutic value and may explain its persistence. Our knowledge of the extent to which culture influences psychological disturbances is weak, to say the least. Can we deny witchcraft the status of a separate, legitimate category in contemporary Latin American culture when great numbers of people accept it as such and act accordingly?» — la nota de Sharon sobre el estatuto de la brujería como categoría propia: pregunta si puede negársele legitimidad cuando mucha gente la acepta y obra en consecuencia.

«comes to look for what it is lacking. A light in the form of a firefly blinks on and off and comes looking for its “bone,” which the sorcerer has introduced into the patient’s stomach, killing him, consuming him. And until the patient throws up that element, the firefly is there, circling» — cómo describe el curandero el espíritu del brebaje del hechicero: una luciérnaga que busca su hueso dentro del paciente hasta que este lo vomita.

«In certain serious cases, the illness-causing forces are believed to be powerful enough to attack the patient during the actual curing session, in an effort to thwart the curandero’s therapeutic measures. This is extremely critical and requires vigorous emergency action» — el ataque en plena sesión que Sharon describe: las fuerzas causantes del mal se vuelven contra el paciente para frustrar la cura.

«The curandero seizes one of the swords of his mesa and charges into the open, beyond the mesa and the patients. Here he conducts a ferocious battle with the attacking forces (which only he can see in his San Pedro trance vision), violently thrusting and slicing the air with his blade. Then he performs seven somersaults in the form of a cross, while grasping the sword in both hands with the sharp edge held forward. This is intended to drive off the attacking spirits and shock the sorcerer who is directing them» — la respuesta de emergencia: el curandero sale con la espada, pelea con fuerzas que solo él ve y da siete volteretas en forma de cruz.

«In certain trances, on paths closed to most men, rare beasts have confronted me with harmful intentions. And the presence of the Lord and His powerful light have helped me out of these places unharmed. And I always get out unharmed because there are beings in the other “mansion” [realm] such as great curanderos. . . . [By] calling these spirits via the prayers that I know, they come and assist in any trance» — cómo dice el curandero salir ileso cuando lo atacan a él: la luz del Señor y los grandes curanderos de la otra mansión, llamados con sus oraciones.

«By means of San Pedro the curer awakens all of his senses, including a vital sixth sense, and by their interaction attains “vision’’--the true focus of the curing session and the supreme achieve» — la definición de la visión que Sharon da: despertados todos los sentidos y un sexto vital, su interacción da el foco verdadero de la sesión.

«During my field work in 1970, I was able to participate in only three curing sessions as more than an observer. Thus there was insufficient time for me to develop even the beginning of “‘vision,’’ as understood by Galvaez, or to make an adequate analysis of the process» — el límite que Sharon declara de su propia experiencia: tres sesiones no bastaron para desarrollar nada parecido a la visión.

«The problem was aggravated by the trappings of my anthropological subculture: tape recorder, notebook, and a felt need to collect ethnographic data on a phenomenon about which little had been written by trained observers» — el estorbo que Sharon reconoce en su propio oficio: grabadora, libreta y la necesidad de recoger datos etnográficos.

«However, this very paucity may prove useful, in that it illustrates the role of cultural factors in the “psychedelic” experience» — lo que Sharon le saca a esa pobreza de contenido: ilustra el papel de los factores culturales en la experiencia psicodélica.

«In the first session, the San Pedro infusion produced no observable effect whatever. I taped the ceremonial phase of the session until midnight. After drinking the infusion and taping the tarjo addressed to the first patient, I put the tape recorder away and began to participate in the curing phase. I did not notice any effects on myself, nor did I “see” any of the dogs, rats, or stars that the curandero and others present seemed to be perceiving together» — el resultado nulo de la primera sesión de Sharon, frente a lo que curandero y asistentes decían estar viendo juntos.

«Finally had some results with San Pedro. Felt warm and relaxed. At 3 A.M. began to see what Galvaez calls a remolino, a whirlpool of red and yellow light spinning inward before my eyes and lightly printed on everything I looked at» — lo que Sharon anotó al despertar tras la segunda sesión: el remolino de luz roja y amarilla girando hacia dentro.

«Still don’t see what everyone else sees, but did notice patients under ‘‘attack,’’ leaning crazily backwards as if pulled by some force. Noticed a white ghostlike outline around each patient as each took his turn before the mesa out in the darkness. Also the outline of one patient seemed to melt around the edges Galvaez said this patient was in a state of indecision!» — la negativa que Sharon no oculta de su segunda sesión, junto a lo que sí notó: el contorno blanco y fantasmal en torno a cada paciente.

«Actually saw one of the twelve staffs ‘‘vibrate’’ while the others remained stationary, On two occasions. Both times these were the staffs given to the particular patient taking his turn before the mesa» — el dato que Sharon consigna de la prueba de los bastones: vio vibrar dos veces el que se le había dado al paciente en turno.

«When we returned home and I finally got to bed (5 a.m.), as I began to doze off all kinds of designs in every color imaginable unfolded before my eyes» — lo que Sharon vio al dormirse: un caleidoscopio de patrones y diseños en todos los colores, con los ojos abiertos o cerrados.

«From this it would follow that the objective sensory impressions triggered by San Pedro might be fairly standard for all users no matter what their culture. Culture influences how these objective impressions are conceptualized or processed» — la tesis que Sharon deriva del remolino: las impresiones sensoriales serían bastante uniformes y la cultura decide cómo se conceptualizan.

«Everyone else, it seemed, was seeing a monster of some sort pulling his hair and trying to abduct him. From the participants’ comments during the session and their obvious state of panic, it appeared that all except myself were sharing this perception together and at the same moment» — lo que Sharon consigna del contraste: todos menos él compartían la misma percepción y en el mismo momento.

«Later I discovered that, as in my own case, this was only the second time these patients had used San Pedro. Yet they had experienced something together that had completely escaped me. Thus it cannot be that they were physiologically more susceptible than I to the effects of mescaline through longer use» — el control que Sharon aplica a su propia hipótesis: los pacientes tampoco tenían experiencia previa, así que no era costumbre fisiológica.

«Rather, it seems more likely that the degree of their susceptibility and their common vision were due to culture—that, unlike myself, they were culturally conditioned to certain experiential expectations under the influence of San Pedro, within the context of a curing session» — la explicación que Sharon prefiere: el condicionamiento cultural hacia ciertas expectativas de experiencia bajo el cacto.

«These expectations, reinforced by the long history of curanderismo in the north and the traditional shamanistic beliefs and practices in which it is rooted, would tend to determine the way in which neutral sense impressions produced by the action of San Pedro are processed—i.e., perceived—by northern Peruvians. I, on the other hand, would perceive these ‘“‘neutral” impressions according to my own cultural conditioning—1.e., as the sympathetic but “objective” observer» — cómo completa Sharon esa explicación, incluyéndose a sí mismo: él procesaría las mismas impresiones según su propio condicionamiento, el del observador objetivo.

«Galvaez—wise man!—said later that my second session had been more successful (in the sense that the effects of San Pedro had been stronger) because my conscious mind had been occupied with the mechanical processes of taping and so had been kept out of the way, allowing my _ subconscious to take over completely» — la explicación que el curandero le da a Sharon de su mejor sesión: la mente consciente ocupada en grabar dejó paso al subconsciente.

«The Peruvian patients, by contrast, backed by their cultural heritage, had simply relaxed, allowing San Pedro and the curandero to take hold of them completely» — el contraste con que Sharon cierra esa comparación: los pacientes peruanos simplemente se relajaron y se dejaron tomar.

«That perhaps is due to the geographic position or the cultural heritage of the raza. For example, the raza of Peru is rooted in the very origin of the universe, it is one with the universe and its beginnings. And all the characteristics of our ancestors—race, blood, religion, intellectuality, culture—these are to be taken into account in an ambiente such as curanderismo. Possibly in Europe also, in antiquity, there was this [art], but it is according to one’s geographic position» — la explicación del propio curandero sobre por qué los de otras culturas no ven lo que ven los suyos, con la conjetura de que también en la Europa antigua hubo este arte.

«And I also claim that exercise is primal in these operations. The more one practices the more one enters into the power. That is to say that all exercise is equal to the gain, to the appreciation of the ambiente in which one wants to introduce himself, in which one desires to live» — lo que el curandero da por primordial en estas operaciones: el ejercicio, porque cuanto más se practica más se entra en el poder.

«And they knew the qualities, the essence of herbs. The so-called peyote was their discovery. These, when they ate peyote, esteemed it above wine or mushrooms. They assembled together somewhere in the desert, they sang all night, all day. And on the morrow, once more they assembled together. They wept; they wept exceedingly. They said [thus] their eyes were washed; thus they cleaned their eyes» — el epígrafe de Sahagún con que Furst abre su capítulo sobre el peyote huichol.

«Life is a constant object of prayer with the Huichols; it is, in their conception, hanging somewhere above them, and must be reached out for» — el segundo epígrafe del capítulo, tomado de Lumholtz: para el huichol la vida cuelga en algún sitio por encima y hay que alcanzarla.

«As he described the Teochichimeca peyote ritual Sahagun might have been speaking of the modern peyote hunt, for even today, small bands of Huichol each year still ‘‘assemble together somewhere in the desert’? 300 miles northeast of their homeland in the Sierra Madre mountains of western Mexico, still “sing all night, all day,” still “weep exceedingly,” and still so esteem peyote above any other psychotropic plant that the sacred mushrooms, morning-glories, Daturas, and other indigenous hallucinogens of which they have knowledge are consigned to the realm of malevolent sorcerers» — el paralelo que Furst traza entre el rito descrito por Sahagún y la cacería de peyote actual, con el peyote estimado por encima de todo otro psicotrópico.

«Only the powerful native tobacco, Nicotiana rustica (ye in Huichol, macuche in Mexican-Spanish), plays an honored, indeed indispensable, role» — la única excepción que Furst le reconoce a esa exclusividad huichola: el tabaco nativo.

«La Barre (1970c:1201) has suggested that the contemporary Huichol peyote rituals are ‘‘probably the closest extant to the pre-Columbian Mexican rite,” a judgment that my own studies confirm» — lo que Furst toma de La Barre y respalda: el rito huichol sería el más cercano al rito mexicano precolombino.

«In any event, the symbolic religious complex that has the peyote quest as its sacred center appears to be the only survival on a major scale of relatively pure Indian religion and ceremonial, without substantial admixture of Catholic elements, in Mexico today» — lo que Furst sostiene del complejo peyotero huichol: la única supervivencia a gran escala de religión india relativamente pura, sin mezcla católica sustancial.

«Like so many American Indians, the Huichol understand the natural phenomena—including man—in terms of immanent and innate powers of creation through transformation. In such a view, all the different manifestations of the biosphere are capable of transformation or metamorphosis. Further, the various phenomena are held to be qualitatively equivalent and imbued with a life force—indeed, even supernatural power» — la cosmovisión que Furst le atribuye al huichol: todas las manifestaciones de la biosfera pueden transformarse y son cualitativamente equivalentes y animadas.

«This, of course, is the antithesis of the Judeo-Christian credo that all creatures and other phenomena were created by an omnipotent deity and that man is commissioned by God to assume mastery over —rather than be in and of—nature» — el contraste explícito que Furst traza con el credo judeocristiano del hombre comisionado para dominar la naturaleza.

«The actual name of the people for themselves and their language is Wixdrika, ‘“Huichol” being a Spanish Colonial corruption of an Indian tribal name which has passed into general usage. Although many Huichol adults know Spanish, and some speak it well, they customarily converse among themselves only in Huichol, a tongue which, like that of the Hopi of Arizona, the sixteenth-century Aztecs, and many contemporary Indian groups, belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family» — la nota de Furst sobre el nombre propio del pueblo, Wixárika, y el origen colonial del término huichol.

«Not every Huichol has participated in a peyote hunt—some have not even tasted peyote—but so completely integrated is the sacred cactus into the native ideology and ritual that there has been no dilution of the traditional indigenous beliefs regarding peyote nor any tendency to substitute more readily available substances, despite the considerable distance that separates the Huichol homeland in the Sierra from Wirikuta (Real de Catorce), the sacred peyote country in the north-central] state» — el límite que Furst le pone a la extensión de la práctica y lo que a la vez subraya: ni dilución de las creencias ni sustitución por plantas más cercanas.

«On the ideological level, there is a degree of syncretism in part of the ceremonial cycle, resulting from the non-Indian religious rituals that have been added since 1722. For example, as elsewhere in rural Mexico, such Catholic observances as Good Friday and Christmas play an important role in the annual ceremonial round» — el sincretismo que Furst sí reconoce: el Viernes Santo y la Navidad tienen su papel en el ciclo ceremonial anual.

«What sets the Huichol apart from other Indians is that Christian, or Christo-pagan (‘‘folk Catholic’), rituals and supernaturals have not superseded the pre-European ones even nominally, but rather have augmented an already rich native tradition without affecting it in any fundamental sense» — lo que Furst da por distintivo del huichol: el rito cristiano no sustituyó al anterior ni nominalmente, sino que se añadió sin afectarlo.

«Whereas the highland Maya, to cite only one example among many, learned early in the colonial period at least to adopt the names of Christian supernaturals for many of their ancient deities, or to ascribe to the former the attributes and functions of the latter, the old Huichol gods continue to form their own closed system, while the traditional rituals—especially those related to peyote and agricultural fertility—remain largely intact, without significant admixture or substitutions from missionary sources» — el contraste que Furst traza con el maya de las tierras altas, que sí adoptó los nombres cristianos para sus deidades antiguas.

«Likewise, many Huichol accept the Virgin of Guadalupe as a legitimate, though minor, deity, or else identify her with the celestial eagle mother Tatés Weérika ’Uimar1 (Our Mother Young Eagle Girl» — la asimilación que Furst consigna: muchos huicholes aceptan a la Virgen de Guadalupe como deidad menor o la identifican con la madre águila celeste.

«Nevertheless, Christian saints and Biblical events are not generally found in the context of aboriginal mythology, except where a traditional story and one introduced by missionaries happen to overlap» — el límite que Furst le pone a esa asimilación: santos y episodios bíblicos no entran en la mitología aborigen salvo donde dos relatos se solapan.

«The myth that underlies the peyote pilgrimage, however, contains no Christian elements whatever, nor do the traditional stories of the origin of people, animals, plants, fire, sun, moon» — la negativa que Furst consigna en nota: el mito que sostiene la peregrinación del peyote no contiene elemento cristiano alguno.

«For instance, according to one Huichol version (there are several) of the New Testament, Jesucristo was the offspring of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Tayaupa, the Sun Father, who took pity on Guadalupe when she was deserted by her husband, San José (Joseph), because she fell in with “a bunch of drunken Spaniards.” Jesucristo subsequently rose to eminence by winning a violin-playing contest!» — la versión huichola del Nuevo Testamento que Furst recoge: Jesucristo hijo de la Virgen de Guadalupe y el Padre Sol, encumbrado por ganar un certamen de violín.

«Such stories are not meant to be irreverent. ‘The Huichol customarily parody the clergy in their native rituals (for example, during peyote ceremonies following the pilgrimage to Wirikuta) but generally are quite respectful of the religious beliefs and practices of others, asking only that others respect theirs in the same way» — la lectura que Furst hace de esos relatos: los huicholes parodian al clero en sus ritos y a la vez respetan las creencias ajenas y piden lo mismo.

«Among the Huichol there is no campaigning for office. ‘The names of the future gobernador (governor) and important officials are often “dreamed” by the ranking mara’akdme (the singing shaman of the twkt, or community sanctuary) and approved in consensus by a council of elders. The expenses of the installation, involving much ritual drinking, are largely borne, not by the chosen individuals, as in the cargo system, but by the community. A poor man is often preferred as governor, since his poverty is taken as proof of his honesty» — cómo se nombran las autoridades huicholas según Furst: los nombres se sueñan y el pobre se prefiere porque su pobreza prueba su honradez.

«I have even heard Indians refer to Nicolas, the prestigious and wise old ranking mara’- akame of San Andrés Cohamiata, one of the truly great religious and intellectual personalities of the Sierra, as Tatewari: “Tatewari lives among us here, he lives in ‘Colas,’”’ they say. “Our mara’akame is Tatewari» — la identificación que Furst recoge en boca de los propios huicholes entre su chamán mayor y el Abuelo Fuego.

«[He] ranks higher than any other shaman, and his dignity is even greater than that of the guardian of Grandfather Fire. In fact, he is the spiritual head of the community, and sets the dates for all the feasts and observances in accordance with communications he is supposed to receive direct from the gods themselves. This singing shaman .. . is the actual chief and even superior to the tatowan, or gobernador» — la cita de Lumholtz que Furst trae para afianzar el rango del chamán cantor sobre el gobernador.

«The chief of the peyoteros is often a full-fledged shaman, or at least a novice, who “becomes” Tatewart and is so addressed for the duration of the journey, because it was Tatewari who led the first peyote pilgrimage, of which each such journey is the ritual re-enactment» — la apoteosis temporal que Furst describe: el jefe de la cacería se vuelve el Abuelo Fuego, que condujo la primera peregrinación.

«In the same way, the other participants assume the identities of the deified ancestors who followed Tatewari to Wirtkuta “‘to find their life» — y lo que hacen los demás peregrinos según Furst: asumir las identidades de los antepasados deificados.

«It is a “hunt” in the literal sense, because to the Huichol, peyote and deer are synonymous. The first of the sacred plants to be seen by the leader of the hunting party contains the essence of Elder Brother Wawatsari, “‘master’’ of the deer species, and manifests itself as deer, which in turn explains why it is first “shot” with bow and arrow before being dug from the ground and ritually divided among the participants in the hunt» — por qué es cacería en sentido literal según Furst: el peyote y el venado son sinónimos, y la primera planta se flecha antes de arrancarla.

«At the same time Deer-Peyote embodies the equally sacred and life-giving Maize, so that deer, peyote, and maize together form a symbol complex» — el complejo simbólico que Furst identifica: venado, peyote y maíz.

«This is what the Huichol mean when they say that on the peyote hunt “we go to find our life» — la fórmula huichola que da título al capítulo, tal como Furst la traduce.

«these three elements become fused, the mythic “‘first times’’ that existed before the separation of man, plants, animals, and “gods” are recreated, man reunites with his ancestors, and contradictions between what is and what is thought to be or desired, between life and death, and between the» — lo que la peregrinación opera según Furst: los tres elementos fundidos, los primeros tiempos recreados y el hombre reunido con sus antepasados. El tramo se corta en el cambio de plana.

«sexes are resolved, bringing about that state of unity and continuity between past and present, “between man, nature, society, and the supernatural,” that epitomizes the Huichol view of “the good» — la continuación en la plana siguiente: resueltas las contradicciones entre la vida y la muerte y entre los sexos, en el estado de unidad que para el huichol es lo bueno.

«That the Indians of the Sierra Madre Occidental used peyote ritually in a variety of contexts became known not long after the arrival in western Mexico of the ruthless and avaricious Nuno de Guzman—one of the most unpleasant characters in the drama of the Spanish Conquest—and the subsequent founding of the province of Nueva Galicia in the early sixteenth century» — cuándo se supo del uso ritual del peyote en la Sierra Madre Occidental según Furst.

«The Spanish clergy saw the spineless little psychotropic cactus as a principal medium by which the natives of northwestern \fexico maintained communication with the “devil.” One man’s devil being another man’s god, this assessment was wrong only in its resort to European demonology» — cómo leyó el clero español al peyote según Furst, con el juicio que él añade: el error estaba en recurrir a la demonología europea, no en ver ahí una comunicación.

«Understandably, the good friars recognized peyote as a serious threat to effective Christian instruction and rigorously sought to destroy any vestiges of a peyote cult among Indians under their control—clearly without success» — lo que Furst le reconoce al fraile y en qué fracasó: vio en el peyote una amenaza real a la instrucción cristiana.

«The most widely quoted of these early denunciations of peyote is that of P. José Ortega, who coined the term “‘diabolic root” in his Historia del Nayarit, published in Spain in 1754» — de dónde sale el mote de raíz diabólica según Furst.

«Ortega convinced himself that with the conquest of the Sierra, the Indians, though for two centuries valiant defenders of their lands and beliefs, had quickly embraced Christianity, becoming ‘‘as lambs” and resolutely turning their backs on their former heathen practices» — lo que Ortega se convenció de creer según Furst: que los indios habían abrazado pronto el cristianismo y vuelto la espalda a lo suyo.

«He complained that this “infernal abuse’’ persisted not only among Indians out of the reach of the missionary fathers but even among Christianized natives of his province. ‘These, he reports, were adept at procuring the “horrendous drink’ and cleverly concealing it from the watchful eyes of the ministers, so that they might inebriate themselves with it to procure knowledge of future happenings» — lo que Arlegui denuncia según Furst: el abuso persistía incluso entre naturales cristianizados, que escondían la bebida de los ministros.

«As an especially brazen example he cites the case of Indian elders (“politicos”) who, in place ‘“‘of the four Gospels one gives to the children in Spain,” concealed peyote in the bags carried by their sons, claiming ‘without embarrassment or fear’ that peyote would make them wise, skillful matadors and agile tamers of horses» — el ejemplo que Furst destaca de Arlegui: los ancianos ponían peyote en los morrales de sus hijos donde en España se ponían los cuatro Evangelios.

«A rather less sanguine assessment comes from an eighteenth-century Franciscan writer, P. José Arlegui, who had firsthand experience with the tenacity of native religion and ritual among the “lambs” of the Province of Zacatecas, which included part of the mountain tribes of the Sierra» — el testimonio contrario que Furst alinea al de Ortega, el del franciscano Arlegui, con experiencia de primera mano de la tenacidad de la religión nativa.

«writes that, of all the herbs used by the natives, peyote was the most venerated and that, ground and mixed with water, it was imbibed for all manner of infirmities and also to attain “fantastic imaginings” and knowledge of the future» — lo que Arlegui escribe según Furst: el peyote era la hierba más venerada y se bebía para toda dolencia y para las imaginaciones fantásticas.

«It is interesting that the Indians chose to emphasize those qualities they thought might favorably impress the Spaniards. They have been doing it ever since. Klineberg (1934: 446-60), for example, reports that when he asked some Huichol what they saw in the peyote vision, the answer was, “the saints’! He was given—and seems to have naively accepted—the same explanation when he inquired about the purpose of the native “god houses» — la nota de Furst sobre la respuesta que los indios dan al forastero: a Klineberg le contestaron que en la visión veían a los santos.

«Nearly a century earlier, the Jesuit writer Fr. Antonio Arias de Saavedra (in Santoscoy, 1899), in a lengthy carta to his superiors describing the conditions and customs of the unconquered “Gentile” Indians of the Sierra of Nayarit, reported that the Cora drank decoctions of peyote to seal their pacts with their spirits. Ihe “creator of peyote” was said to be Naycuric, a principal spirit who resided in the earth and who had the form of a crayfish» — el testimonio más antiguo que Furst trae: los coras bebían peyote para sellar pactos con sus espíritus, y el creador del peyote tenía forma de langostino.

«Santoscoy quotes another report on the use of peyote in western Mexico, dated January 20, 1659, in which the cura of San Pedro Teocaltiche, P. Andrés Estrada Flores, complained that the inhabitants of the Caxcana region in northern Jalisco drank peyote ceremonially as well as medicinally, for “different indispositions and convulsions,’’ and that when they intoxicated themselves with peyote for their ceremonies they saw “horrible visions» — otro informe colonial que Furst recoge, de 1659, sobre el uso ceremonial y medicinal del peyote en la Caxcana.

«Pérez de Ribas, who went to Sinaloa in 1604 and remained for sixteen years, says that, although it had medicinal properties, peyote was forbidden and its use punished by the clergy because it was inextricably bound up with “heathen rituals and superstitions”’ and used to conjure up evil spirits and ‘diabolical fantasies» — el testimonio jesuita que Furst trae de Sinaloa: el peyote estaba prohibido y penado pese a sus propiedades medicinales.

«The widespread use of peyote in colonial times by the native peoples of western Mexico, from Jalisco north to Sinaloa, left the impression that peyote must be indigenous to the area. Even today one reads occasionally that Lophophora Williamsit grows not only in_ north-central Mexico but also in the Sierra Madre Occidental» — el error que Furst rastrea: la extensión colonial del uso hizo creer que la planta fuera nativa de la región.

«That it does not, and that at least the Huichol travel long distances to procure it ritually each year, became generally known with the publication by Lumholtz of his observations among the Huichol between 1895 and 1898» — cuándo se supo que la planta no crece ahí y que los huicholes viajan lejos a buscarla, según Furst.

«Huis contribution is all the more outstanding when one considers the lack of scholarly precedent, the enormous gulf between his own European system of interpreting the world and that of the Indians, and the difficulties of travel, communication (both cross-cultural and physical), and sheer survival that he had to overcome during his travels in the Sierra» — lo que Furst le reconoce a Lumholtz: la falta de precedente erudito y el abismo entre su sistema europeo y el de los indios.

«Interestingly enough, in the summer of 1970 I came across a Huichol tradition according to which hallucinogenic mushrooms were used “in ancient times’ by non-Huichol Indians of western Mexico. Characteristically, the mushroom-users were referred to as “‘sorcerers» — lo que Furst consigna en nota sobre una tradición huichola recogida en 1970: los hongos alucinógenos se habrían usado en tiempos antiguos por indios no huicholes, llamados hechiceros.

«No anthropologist observed an actual peyote hunt until December, 1966, when tne author and Barbara G. Myerhoff, of the University of Southern California, accompanied Ramon Medina Silva, a traditional Huichol artist then aspiring to become a mara’akadme (shaman), on his fourth peyote trek, and 1968, when the author and his wife were allowed to participate in, and record on film and tape, Ramon’s fifth peyote pilgrimage, on which he became a full-fledged mara’akame» — la primicia que Furst declara en nota: ningún antropólogo presenció una cacería de peyote hasta 1966, con él y Barbara Myerhoff, y en 1968 filmó y grabó la quinta de Ramón Medina Silva.

«What Lumholtz said of the pilgrimages and its meaning in Huichol culture was confirmed not only by ourselves but also by Benitez (1968a, 1968b). Indeed, I doubt that any of us would have been able to absorb as much of the ritual as we did had we not had Lumholtz at hand. Not only is this a tribute to his powers of observation and his ability to inspire trust in his Indian friends; it also demonstrates how little change there has been in the ritual in nearly eighty years» — lo que Furst dice hallar en Lumholtz y qué señala con ello: el rito ha cambiado poco en casi ochenta años.

«This fact gains in significance when one considers that it is precisely this period that has seen the greatest impact of the outside world on Huichol life» — por qué esa continuidad pesa según Furst: coincide con el periodo de mayor impacto del mundo exterior.

«This refers to the narrator’s grandfather, who was a prestigious mara’akame, or shaman-priest and singer. Ramon’s sister, Concha, is one of the few female shamans in the Huichol Sierra today» — el dato que Furst da en nota sobre la hermana del narrador: una de las pocas chamanas de la Sierra huichola.

«Those ancient ones of whom I speak, they began to say to one another, ‘‘“How will it turn out well, so that there will be unity of all, this unity we have?” And another said, ‘‘Ah, that is a beautiful thing, that which 1s our life. It is the hikur: [peyote].” And another said, ‘It is like a beautiful flower, as one says. It is like the Deer. It is our life. We must go so that it will enable us to see our life» — el arranque del relato de Ramón Medina Silva sobre la primera peregrinación, en la voz del narrador huichol: la unidad se busca en el peyote, que es como una flor hermosa y es el Venado.

«According to the myth, the ancient gods had come together in the first tuki, the prototypical Huichol sanctuary constructed by Tatewari, so that each might have his proper place. When they were met together they discovered that all were iull—one suffered a pain in his chest, another in his stomach, a third in his eyes, a fourth in his legs, and so forth. Those responsible for rain were giving no rain; those who were masters of animals were finding nothing to hunt. It was a time of general malaise in the Sierra, and none knew how to “find his life» — el punto de partida del mito según Furst: los dioses reunidos en el primer santuario descubren que todos están enfermos y el mundo no funciona.

«Tatewari told them that they were ill because they had not gone to Wirikuta (Real de Catorce), the sacred land of the peyote, the place to the east where the Sun was born. If they wished to regain their health, they must prepare themselves ritually and follow him in their proper order on the long and difficult journey to the peyote. They must fast and touch neither salt nor chile. No matter how hungry or thirsty they became, they must nibble only dried tortillas and assuage their thirst with but a drop or two of water» — lo que el Abuelo Fuego les dice en el mito, con las prescripciones del viaje: ayuno, nada de sal ni de chile, tortilla seca y un par de gotas de agua.

«No females were present—they would join the men later, at the sacred lakes or water holes called Taté: Matiniér1 (Where Our Mother Dwells), which le within sight of the sacred mountains» — el orden del mito según Furst: las mujeres se suman después, en las lagunas sagradas a la vista de las montañas.

«Not all the divine peyote seekers completed the primordial quest. Some, like Rabbit Person and Hummingbird Person, were forced by hunger, thirst, or sheer exhaustion to leave the ritual file. They remained behind in their animal form in places which became sanctified by their presence and which, like the other stopping places of the divine pilgrims, were forever after acknowledged with votive offerings and prayer by those who journey to the peyote» — los que se quedaron atrás en el mito según Furst, y qué quedó de ellos: lugares santificados por su presencia, reconocidos después con ofrendas.

«But the principal male gods and the female ones—the Rain Mothers and those of the Earth-Readyfor-Planting and of fertility and children—they followed Tatewari to the sacred mountains at the end of the world—‘‘to the fifth level’”— where the Deer-Peyote revealed itself to them in the ceremonial hunt. In this way they ‘found their life’ and by their example taught the Huichol how to attain theirs» — el desenlace del mito: los dioses llegan al quinto nivel, el Venado-Peyote se revela en la cacería ceremonial y con su ejemplo enseñan a los huicholes; *Earth-Readyfor-Planting* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón.

«Peyote pilgrimages may take place at any time between the end of the rainy season, in October-November, and early spring. Our own two pilgrimages were held in December, but Ramon and other Huichols have gone as late as February and even March» — la ventana estacional de la peregrinación según Furst, con el dato de sus dos viajes.

«In general, however, the sacred hunt follows a fall ceremony in which children, the shamanic drum, new maize, and especially the first ripened squash play the principal roles. Although it does not require the use of peyote, this ceremony, which Lumholtz called “First Fruits,” is actually a vital component of the whole peyote complex, for it is the principal ritual through which the shaman inculcates the children of the extended family homestead (often his own) or several related rancherias with the sacred itinerary of the peyote quest» — la ceremonia de otoño que Furst describe como componente vital del complejo: es el rito por el que el chamán inculca a los niños el itinerario sagrado.

«Since the body of the drum can be considered to be female and the pitch pine brands male, as is the fire, this act has symbolic connotations as well as a practical purpose» — la lectura simbólica que Furst le da al templado del tambor con teas de ocote.

«The drum itself has great power and possesses a personality. To play it is the sole prerogative of the shaman and his assistants. As elsewhere in the indigenous cultural context, it is exclusively a ritual instrument, never used simply for dancing or other entertainment» — el estatuto del tambor huichol según Furst: tiene personalidad, solo el chamán lo toca y es instrumento exclusivamente ritual.

«Incessantly pounding the tepu and chanting all the while, the shaman proceeds to “transform” the participating children into hummingbirds and to lead them in magical flight from the Sierra to the country of the peyote» — la operación que Furst describe: el chamán transforma a los niños en colibríes y los lleva en vuelo mágico de la Sierra al país del peyote.

«Look, you hummingbirds [he begins], Surely we are going where the peyoteros have gone, On their ancient pilgrimage of the peyote. Who knows if we are going to get there or not, Because this journey is very dangerous. One must fly high in order to pass over the wind, Light as air, We will make camp there, Under the highest trees» — el arranque del canto del chamán que Furst reproduce: el viaje es peligroso y hay que volar alto, ligero como el aire.

«The widespread symbolic and ritual association of shamans and drums in indigenous culture leads me to interpret the well-known clay figurines of drummers from the tombs of western Mexico as representations of shamans intent on supernatural communication rather than as “musicians,” as they are usually called in the literature on pre-Columbian art» — la lectura que Furst propone en nota para las figurillas de tamborileros de las tumbas del occidente de México: chamanes en comunicación sobrenatural y no músicos.

«According to Ramon, the “transformation” of the children into hummingbirds takes place by means of the mara’akdme’s ‘‘secret’’—i.e., his magical powers. The children “ascend” and fly eastward on the vibrations produced by the mara’akdme’s rhythmic beating of the drum» — cómo se opera esa transformación según el narrador huichol: por el secreto del chamán, y los niños ascienden sobre las vibraciones del tambor.

«Their flight in single file is symbolized by a string along which the children are arranged as puffs of cotton. One end is tied to the drum, the other to a thread cross or a pair of deer horns, representing the deer deity» — el símbolo material de ese vuelo según Furst: un hilo con los niños dispuestos como copos de algodón, atado del tambor al signo del venado.

«He gives them the names of where they will fly, So that they may enter there safely. They rise, they rise, Like a string of beads, ‘How pretty is this pilgrimage, How very pretty» — el resto del canto del chamán: el Venado les da los nombres de los lugares para que entren seguros, y suben como una sarta de cuentas.

«The chant consists of several hundred short verses, each repeated four times. Along the magical route the shaman points out the sacred landmarks: “Here the ancients made tortillas,” “Here they rested,” ‘Here Rabbit Person was left behind in the cactus thicket,” ‘Here is the Place of Lost Water,” “Here they ground their face paint» — la forma del canto según Furst: varios centenares de versos breves repetidos cuatro veces, con los hitos sagrados nombrados uno a uno.

«Some of these are merely ‘‘overflown’” or “circled,” but at others the hummingbird-children alight, so that they may become familiar with the peculiarities of each of the sacred places, which presumably they will one day visit on an actual peyote quest» — la función didáctica que Furst le atribuye al vuelo: en unos lugares los niños solo sobrevuelan y en otros bajan para familiarizarse con ellos.

«Significantly, Maxa Kwaxi, speaking through the shaman, also warns the children of danger spots: “In this pueblo live bad Spaniards, avoid it.” “Here they must not see you, they may try to capture you, do not light a fire” (literally, ‘do not light Tatewari’). Or, conversely, ‘“‘Here live people who are good and will help you» — las advertencias que el canto trae según Furst, en boca del Venado por la del chamán: dónde hay malos españoles y dónde gente que ayudará.

«There may well be some historical basis for such statements, as there may be also for the story of the first peyote quest of deified ancestors under the leadership of a charismatic great shaman» — la lectura histórica que Furst propone con su límite dentro: podría haber base histórica también para el relato de la primera búsqueda.

«References to ‘‘bad Spaniards who may capture you’ could pertain to the colonial period, when peyote seekers from the Sierra must have made their way as much as possible in secret, perhaps traveling by night, ever fearful of discovery and capture, especially by slave raiders for the many Spanish silver mines of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi» — a qué remitirían esas advertencias según Furst: al periodo colonial, cuando los peregrinos viajaban a escondidas por miedo a los cazadores de esclavos de las minas de plata.

«The peyote country itself must have been particularly perilous, since it is identical with the colonial silver-mining center of Real de Catorce. How many of those who set out for Wirtkuta never returned?» — la pregunta con que Furst cierra esa lectura: el país del peyote coincide con el centro minero colonial de Real de Catorce.

«The critical moment in the flight of the hummingbird-children is the dangerous passage through the “Gateway of Clouds,” or “Where the Clouds Open and Close.” In the actual peyote pilgrimage this mythological passage is located on a rise near the city of Zacatecas. The shaman invokes the aid of Maxa Kwaxi, and while the latter holds back the threatening clouds on either side with the points of his antlers, the bird-children fly quickly through the passage» — el paso peligroso del vuelo mágico según Furst: la puerta de las nubes que se abren y se cierran, sostenida por las astas del Venado.

«The audience of children and their families may be held spellbound while the shaman, in his chant, relates how the clouds closed on the tail feathers of one little girl and how the shaman, “with his power,” raised her from the ground and restored her ability to fly» — el episodio del canto que Furst destaca: las nubes se cierran sobre las plumas de la cola de una niña y el chamán la levanta con su poder.

«Here the children are received by the Great Mother of Huichol children, Niwetwka(me).* “Let us go where Niwetuka(me) is,” the shaman sings. ‘‘Let us go, all of us, in order to know Our Mother. Let us go where the one who embraces us lives, the one who loves us much.” The Mother Goddess greets them: ‘““Now I am content, now I am happy. I will give them life. . . Look, my children, I am the one who embraces you. I am the one who gives you your kiipuri (life force, soul)» — la acogida de la Madre de los niños huicholes en el canto, tal como Furst la traduce: ella da la fuerza vital.

«Apart from its more subtle meanings and its obvious function of enculturation and education, the ceremony serves to imprint on the minds of Huichol youngsters a kind of subjective territorial map, on which all the sacred landmarks between the Sierra and the peyote country are indelibly engraved and by which they may one day orient themselves, geographically and culturally, on an actual pilgrimage» — la función que Furst le adjudica a la ceremonia: imprimir un mapa territorial subjetivo con los hitos sagrados entre la Sierra y el país del peyote.

«As Ramon put it, “In this way they begin to learn what it is to be Huichol» — la fórmula con que el narrador huichol resume esa función.

«Many Huichol pass their whole lives without ever going on a peyote pilgrimage: “one does or one does not go, as one wishes» — la libertad que Furst consigna: la peregrinación no es obligatoria, se va o no se va.

«Some participate in the rituals before and after the journey and take peyote at the various ceremonials but are not willing to submit themselves to the intense hardships and ritual abstentions from sex, salt, and normal nourishment required of the peyotero. Others have gone five, ten, even twenty times. Nicolas, the ranking mara’akdme of San Andrés, is said to have gone no less than thirty-two times» — el rango de participación que Furst describe, de los que nunca van al chamán mayor que habría ido treinta y dos veces.

«Why do they go? ‘Patriotism,’ among many other reasons, says Lumholtz, by which he presumably means the same thing as Ramon’s “being Huichol.” “What does one go for?’’ asks Ramon. “One goes to have one’s life» — las dos respuestas que Furst alinea a la pregunta de por qué se va: el patriotismo de Lumholtz y la fórmula del narrador huichol.

«IThe pilgrimage helps one attain whatever one desires—health, children, rain, protection from lightning and sorcerers, or divine intervention against the ever-troublesome vecinos (‘“neighbors,’’ Mestizos), who encroach illegally on the Huichol lands with their cattle and sometimes employ force to drive the Indians from their farms. Above all, one goes to attain visions of great beauty, to hear the voices of the spirits, the divine ancestors, and to receive their guidance» — lo que se busca en la peregrinación según Furst, de la salud y la lluvia a la intervención contra los vecinos, y sobre todo las visiones y las voces.

«In a sense, participation in a peyote journey makes of each man a kind of shaman or priest. For a long time following a pilgrimage its members acknowledge a ritual bond with one another. They recognize and greet each other in special ways. They have special names. They wear special insignia: the tobacco gourd of Tf atewari, squirrel tails on the hats» — lo que la participación hace de cada hombre según Furst: una especie de chamán o sacerdote, con lazo ritual, nombres e insignias propias.

«The peyote journey also has the characteristics of initiation; one who has never gone is said to be “new,” like a baby; he is a matewame and must undergo special restrictions, because his tenderness makes him extraordinarily vulnerable to the malevolent magic of sorcerers» — el carácter iniciático que Furst le reconoce al viaje: el que nunca fue es nuevo como un recién nacido y su ternura lo hace vulnerable a la magia maléfica.

«But if all peyoteros have attributes of shamans (for one thing, because for the duration of the pilgrimage they can transform themselves, or are transformed, into spirit beings, a capability normally belonging only to true shamans), they are shamans on a very low level» — la acotación que Furst le pone a esa condición: todos tienen atributos de chamán, pero de muy bajo nivel.

«He must prove his capacity to endure not only lack of food and water but lack of sleep. Even at night, when his companions rest around the sacred fire, he must remain awake, alert, ever ready to defend their spiritual integrity against supernatural enemies» — la prueba de resistencia que Furst describe: el guía no duerme siquiera de noche, velando la integridad espiritual de sus compañeros.

«like one who is bent low under the heaviest carrying basket. Its ropes cut so deeply into his shoulders that they bleed» — la imagen con que el propio Ramón describe el oficio de guía, según Furst.

«But he more than any other man must transcend the limitations of his bodily self and achieve that unique breakthrough that sets the shaman apart from ordinary men» — lo que Furst le exige al guía por encima de todo: trascender los límites del cuerpo y lograr la ruptura que separa al chamán del hombre común.

«And he must “see” with an inner eye, for only he will recognize the tracks of the Deer-Peyote and see the brilliant rainbow-soul of Elder Brother Wawatsani, the Principal Deer, rise from the peyote plant as it is “slain” by his arrows» — qué significa ver en este contexto según Furst: reconocer las huellas del Venado-Peyote y ver alzarse el alma arcoíris del Venado Principal.

«I want to emphasize that this idea of completing a certain number of pilgrimages in order to become a shaman is not a matter of adding up so many miles, so many hardships, so many visions, to a required total—like collecting merit badges or battle stars» — la negativa con que Furst acota su propio planteo: no es una suma de millas, penalidades y visiones hasta un total requerido.

«Rather, it is accumulation of spirit power, in geometric progression, through repeated and ever more intense metamorphosis. “Completing oneself” is really progressive minimization of matter and maximization of spirit to the point where temporary transformation makes the transition to spiritual exaltation and apotheosis» — qué es entonces según Furst: acumulación de poder espiritual en progresión geométrica, minimización de la materia y maximización del espíritu.

«It is my impression that this special condition of the shaman cannot be faked—that not only he himself but his companions really do know whether or not a man who lays claim to being a mara’akadme has what the Huichol call “balance’’—that special, ineffable capacity to venture without fear onto the “narrow bridge” across the great chasm separating the ordinary world from the world beyond» — lo que Furst sostiene sobre el balance: no se puede fingir, y es la capacidad de aventurarse sin miedo por el puente angosto sobre el abismo.

«A man who would assume the enormous burden, ritual and psychological, of a mara’akdme, who would make himself responsible for the welfare of his community, must first complete at least five peyote pil» — lo que Furst exige de un aspirante a chamán: al menos cinco peregrinaciones. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«We were frankly terrified, even annoyed, at such “‘foolhardiness,’ but neither his wife nor the other Huichol watching showed any real apprehension» — el contraste que Furst subraya: los forasteros aterrados y los huicholes sin aprensión.

«Perhaps you thought, ‘Ah, Ramon is drunk with too much beer.’ But no. I took you there to show what it means ‘to have balance.’ So you could see and understand. Because when one crosses over as a shaman one looks below, and then one perceives this great abyss filled with all those animals waiting to kill one. Those who do not have balance are afraid. They fall and are killed» — la explicación que Ramón les dio al día siguiente, en su propia voz: al cruzar como chamán se mira abajo y se ve el abismo lleno de animales que esperan para matarlo a uno.

«In order to render intelligible something he feared our cultural experience might not have prepared us to understand, he had decided to give us a physical demonstration—a kind of literal translation—of a phenomenon basic to shamanism wherever it occurs» — cómo lee Furst aquel gesto: una traducción literal, física, de un fenómeno básico del chamanismo, para una experiencia cultural que quizá no lo entendería de otro modo.

«thought and private vision. He must demonstrate on each such journey his capacity to be an effective soul guide, or “psychopomp,” who escorts his spirit companions safely across the barriers of space and time, through the gateway of the clashing clouds, and to the sacred mountains at the end of the world in the east, where the ancestor spirits await them» — la condición que Furst añade al aspirante: demostrar en cada viaje que sabe guiar almas a través del espacio y del tiempo hasta las montañas del oriente.

«In the summer of 1966 Ramon gave us a memorable demonstration of fhe meaning of “balance.” He took us to a spectacular waterfall» — la demostración de balance que Furst cuenta: Ramón los llevó a una cascada. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«While the other Huichol grouped themselves in a semicircle in a safe place some distance from the edge, Ramon removed his sandals and, after making a series of ritual gestures to the world directions, proceeded to leap—“fly” might be more appropriate—from one rock to another with arms stretched wide, often landing but a few inches from the slippery edge» — la escena en el borde de la cascada según Furst: Ramón saltaba de roca en roca con los brazos abiertos, a pocas pulgadas del filo resbaladizo.

«Or he would stand motionless at the extreme limit of a massive rock, wheel about suddenly and make a great leap to the other side of the rushing water, never showing the slightest concern about the obvious danger that he might lose his balance and fall into space» — el resto de la escena: giraba de golpe y saltaba al otro lado del agua sin dar señal de temer la caída.

«repeatedly to be losing his footing and about to plunge to his death, but showed no concern whatever. Nor did don Juan. When he neared the summit, he “‘slipped’’ again and hung on only by his fingertips, looking down at Castaneda without any expression. Then he hoisted himself up, stood momentarily perched on top of the fall, almost at the edge. Ho!ding on to a small rock with his feet, said Castaneda, don Genaro stood there, his body tensed, “like a feline about to leap» — la nota de Furst sobre el episodio paralelo de Castaneda con don Genaro en una cascada de Oaxaca. Es la nota que él mismo retira en la Introduction 1990 (p. 26) tras el análisis de de Mille.

«Then he literally flung himself through the air, landing on a little cone-shaped rock no more than six inches across, where he remained motionless for several minutes, after which he leaped without warning to the other side of the water, performed a sudden somersault to his left, and disappeared—all this within inches of the cliff face (see also Castaneda, 1971). As for Ramon’s “great abyss” filled with dangerous. animals, this is reminiscent of other shamanic initiatory experiences, including especially that described by J. Wilbert, above» — el resto de esa nota retirada, con el remate que empareja el abismo de animales de Ramón con la iniciación chamánica del capítulo de Wilbert.

«So intense is the drama of the actual hunt for the Deer-Peyote in Wirikuta that certain prior events of crucial importance for the success of the quest tend to be overshadowed. The first of these is the ritual of confession and purification through which the participants are initiated into the sacred enterprise of the pilgrimage» — lo que Furst señala como eclipsado por el drama de la cacería: el rito de confesión y purificación con que se inicia a los participantes.

«Everyone—peyoteros as well as those who remain at home—is required to acknowledge publicly all his or her sexual adventures, from the beginning of adulthood to the present. Further, each sexual partner must be identified by name, regardless of the presence of spouses or lovers, although old people are allowed to telescope their love affairs and be less precise about names» — en qué consiste esa confesión según Furst: todos declaran en público sus aventuras sexuales desde la edad adulta, nombrando a cada pareja.

«No display of jealousy, hurt, resentment, or anger is permitted; more than that, no one is even allowed to entertain such feelings ‘in one’s heart» — la prohibición que acompaña a la confesión según Furst: ni celos ni rencor, ni siquiera en el corazón.

«Any show of hostility and any deliberate omission of sexual intimacy or a lover’s name would jeopardize not only the offender but his companions and the entire sacred enterprise. The quest for life could prove fruitless. At the very least, even if the peyote country were reached, those who had failed to purge themselves or who carried ‘‘bad thoughts in their hearts” would probably fall victim to sorcerers, suffer terrible hallucinations, and perhaps even die» — lo que estaría en juego según Furst: la empresa entera, con sortilegio, alucinaciones terribles y aun la muerte para el que no se purgue.

«An extraordinary spectacle indeed—doubly so if one has been taught to regard jealousy and its expression as a “natural” human emotion, common to all people everywhere, rather than as an artifact of culture» — el juicio de Furst sobre lo que ese rito le muestra a quien tenga por natural el sentimiento de celos.

«However, in neither of the two confession rituals I attended was there the slightest expression of hostility. On the contrary, there was an atmosphere of marked lightheartedness» — lo que Furst observó en las dos confesiones que presenció: ninguna hostilidad, y un ambiente marcadamente jovial.

«For each reported love affair Ramon made one knot in the cord. ‘Those whose memory faltered were assisted by shouts of encouragement or a reminder of this or that extramarital escapade» — el instrumento del rito según Furst: un nudo en el cordón de fibra por cada amor declarado.

«ual recitations of ‘‘transgressions’’ were frequently punctuated by laughter and ribald jokes, particuarly when a wife found it necessary to jog her husband’s memory by reminding him of an extramarital escapade he had overlooked» — el tono de esas recitaciones según Furst: risas y bromas subidas, sobre todo cuando una esposa refrescaba la memoria del marido. El verbatim arranca a media palabra, *Individual*, partida por el guion de fin de renglón.

«I have led such a long life that my feet are already rotting in the earth; if I spoke here of all those whom I have enjoyed we would not leave here tomorrow or the day after tomorrow» — la salida del más viejo de los peregrinos ante la confesión, en su propia voz.

«Rather, it seemed to me that the good-natured badinage that accompanies the confessions serves primarily to reinforce the ritual obligation to preserve good will toward each of the companions, no matter what» — para qué sirve entonces la chanza según Furst: reforzar la obligación ritual de conservar la buena voluntad hacia cada compañero.

«As each peyotero completed the ritual recitation and the last knot was tied for him or her, Ramon rose and brushed his ceremonial arrow with its pendant hawk plumes (muviéri) over the face, shoulders, arms, and chest, and down the thighs and knees to the feet» — el gesto de purificación que Furst describe: la flecha ceremonial con plumas de halcón pasada por el cuerpo entero.

«He directed the pilgrim to face Tatewari, the purifying fire, and ask that he “burn away everything, everything, burn away all your transgressions, burn it all away, so that nothing will remain, so that you will be new. The Mara’akame (Tatewari) does and undoes (transforms)» — la fórmula que el chamán pronuncia sobre el fuego purificador, tal como Furst la traduce.

«Leaning into the flames, the peyoteros held first one hand and then the other over the fire and followed the same procedure with their feet. TThe women lifted their skirts so that the heat could travel up their thighs. Some braver souls actually leaped over the flames, a rite which they repeated several times on the trek and which seems to suggest a former practice of ritual fire-walking» — lo que sigue según Furst: manos y pies sobre el fuego, las mujeres levantando la falda, y algunos saltando la llama.

«When everyone—including Ramon himself—had completed his confessions and been purified, Ramon rolled the sisal fiber cord, now crowded with knots, into a spiral and placed it on the fire. It flared briefly and was soon turned to ashes. Ramon stirred these with the brazilwood point of his ceremonial arrow and said, ““Now you see that you are new. Tatewari has burned it all away. He has removed it all from you. Now we can cross over there. The Mara’akame does and undoes» — el cierre del rito según Furst: el cordón anudado quemado y convertido en ceniza, con la fórmula del chamán de que ya se es nuevo.

«Lumholtz recognized its fundamental importance to the success of the peyote pilgrimage but interpreted it primarily in terms of sexual purity. The Huichol, he wrote (1902:129-30), seek to achieve health, good fortune, indeed life itself, by gathering peyote. For these goals to be attained, the participants must purge themselves of all sin, i.e., their sexual experiences: “. . . inasmuch as the pure fire cannot benefit those who are impure, the men and women must not only commit no transgression for the time being, but must also purge themselves from any past sin» — la lectura de Lumholtz que Furst recoge para el mismo rito: pureza sexual, porque el fuego puro no aprovecha al impuro.

«Nevertheless, I see no reason to regard the Huichol rite as anything but purely aboriginal and pre-European. In the first place, confession was practiced in Mesoamerica long before the arrival of the Spaniards (an Aztec goddess to whom confessions were addressed was appropriately known as ‘The Eater of Filth» — la negativa de Furst a explicar el rito por influencia católica, y su primer argumento: la confesión se practicaba en Mesoamérica antes de los españoles.

«Nevertheless, the lighthearted banter (which I understand is characteristic of every such ritual confession) should not be taken to mean that the ceremony is not in dead earnest—quite the contrary» — la advertencia de Furst contra una mala lectura de ese tono: la broma no quita que el rito sea de una seriedad extrema.

«Secondly, there are fundamental differences between the Catholic and Huichol rites that are obscured by the very term ‘‘confession.” In Catholic practice the confessor admits to having sinned and, if the priest accepts his act of contrition and repentance as genuine, is absolved from the sins he has acknowledged. ‘The Huichol does not repent but merely acknowledges a certain act as fact. In this sense ‘“‘profession’’ might be more accurate than “confession» — el segundo argumento de Furst: en el rito huichol no hay arrepentimiento ni absolución, solo reconocimiento de un hecho.

«I would suggest that the answer is to be found in the meaning of the peyote pilgrimage itself. Just as metamorphosis and return to origins are the Lettmotif and fertility the purpose of the peyote quest as a whole, so it seems to me to be metamorphosis, not absolution, that lies at the heart of the confession ceremony—metamorphosis from man to child, from ordinary mortal to spirit being» — la lectura que Furst propone del rito de confesión: no absolución sino metamorfosis, de hombre a niño y de mortal a ser espíritu.

«Incest is a grave offense among the Huichol (incest and sexual intercourse with a “Spaniard”’ are the only offenses for which there is punishment after death» — el lugar del incesto en la moral huichola según Furst, con el otro delito que también se castiga tras la muerte.

«In the primordial pilgrimage the gods ‘slapped down” their sandals in front of Tatewari and asked him to strengthen them for the long and difficult trek; our peyoteros did the same» — lo que Furst consigna en nota sobre el viaje en vehículo: los peregrinos se comportaban como si fueran a pie, igual que los dioses del mito.

«The white machine, the white machine Which brought us here to Wirikuta, That white machine is so good for walking, So good for walking» — el estribillo de un canto de peyote que Furst grabó en la primera noche en el país del peyote, sobre la máquina blanca que los llevó.

«As a matter of fact, the Huichol custom of making knots for each transgression and then burning the knotted cord is reminiscent of an Aztec confession ritual in which straws were drawn through the pierced tongue and then ritually burned in a sacred fire. ‘““With this,” reports the sixteenth-century chronicler Fr. Diego Duran (197.1:247), “everyone felt he was cleansed and pardoned for his transgressions and sins, having the same faith that we hold for the Divine Sacrament of penance» — el paralelo azteca que Furst trae en nota: pajas pasadas por la lengua perforada y quemadas en fuego sagrado, con el juicio del cronista Durán sobre la fe de los penitentes.

«the pilgrims must be cleansed of all sexual experience, that is, they must return to the period of life when they were innocent, before they were mature, worldly adults» — la lectura de Myerhoff que Furst recoge y respalda: el peregrino debe volver a la edad de la inocencia, antes de la madurez.

«Might the sacred country be a kind of “Great Mother’’? If so, we would have at least one explanation for the emphasis on ridding oneself of all adult sexual experience before embarking on the journey, lest the whole enterprise come to naught or the offender go mad in Wirikuta. To “enter” the Mother as an experienced adult would be tantamount to incest, and incest is far and away the most unthinkable transgression in the social universe, an act that threatens not merely the transgressor but his whole group» — la hipótesis que Furst plantea como pregunta: si el país sagrado es una Gran Madre, entrar en ella como adulto sexuado equivaldría a incesto.

«I want to emphasize that there is no overt equation of Wirtkuta with a “Great Mother’ in the. Huichol peyote traditions. Nevertheless, it is implied» — la cautela con que Furst acota esa hipótesis: en la tradición huichola no hay equiparación explícita entre el país sagrado y una Gran Madre.

«Identification of the sacred country with a Great Mother almost certainly represents only one level in a very complex system built around the peyote quest, with others remaining to be probed (but not necessarily understood within the Western tradition» — el límite que Furst le pone a su propia lectura: sería un nivel entre muchos de un sistema muy complejo, no todos comprensibles desde la tradición occidental.

«there is really no such thing as a ‘primitive’ people, and the Huichol, who may be characterized as a case of incomplete transition between a former life as food gatherers and hunters—with powerful vestiges remaining still of the world view typical of this type of culture—and their present existence as subsistence farmers in a rapidly changing world, are sufficiently complex ideologically for a lifetime of study» — la negativa que Furst opone de paso al término primitivo, y cómo describe el caso huichol: transición incompleta entre la caza y recolección y la agricultura de subsistencia.

«The peyotero has been made over, “become new.’’ He has shed one state of being, maturity, and assumed—or reassumed—another, that of childhood innocence. At the same time, transformation has occurred on another level, for the peyotero has ‘become’ the likeness of one of the supernaturals of the original peyote quest. More than merely child, he has had to become spirit, for the gates to the Otherworld will open only for one who is spirit» — la doble metamorfosis que Furst identifica en el rito: de adulto a niño y de niño a espíritu, porque solo al espíritu se le abren las puertas.

«From the manner in which these knots are tied (and eventually untied, following the return of the pilgrims from the peyote quest), it appears that the peyote seeker is really meant to be taken iback to his very beginnings as a human being, or at least to the moment of birth» — hasta dónde retrocede el peregrino según Furst, leído en el modo de atar y desatar el segundo cordón.

«Indeed, as will be seen, for novices the reversal of their lives is complete in that they will soon find themselves in the total darkness of a simulated prenatal state» — lo que Furst anuncia para los novicios: la reversión completa, hasta la oscuridad total de un estado prenatal simulado.

«When the seventeen Indians, including the seven-day-old infant, had thus been knotted in by the mara’akame, he made several additional knots for the observers, “‘so that we will all be of one heart» — el rito del segundo cordón según Furst, con los nudos añadidos por los observadores.

«for the Huichol, knots, knotting, and binding have much the same magical significance as they have elsewhere: folk belief, customs, and religion the world over “attribute to knots and bonds a function of healing, a defence against demons, or of conservation of the magic and vital forces» — el sentido mágico que Furst le reconoce al nudo, apoyándose en Eliade: función de cura, defensa contra demonios y conservación de las fuerzas vitales.

«However, in the context of the peyote pilgrimage the knotted cord seems to have an additional dimension which may even be its primary symbolic function: that of umbilicus» — la dimensión añadida que Furst le atribuye al cordón anudado en este rito, y que tiene por su función simbólica primaria.

«In the first—at least as we observed it—it is the shaman who ties the knot for each participant. In the second it is the pilgrim who unties it. ‘his seems to suggest the following: Just as the midwife ties off the umbilical cord of the newborn infant, so the ‘new’ peyotero cannot tie the knot for himself but must have it done for him by the mara’akame, who in a very real sense acts as midwife for his passage into the Otherworld» — la asimetría en que Furst funda esa lectura: el chamán ata el nudo como la partera ata el cordón del recién nacido, y el peregrino lo desata solo al volver.

«The bow serves as drum throughout the peyote pilgrimage. Its beat tells the supernaturals that the pilgrims are coming and guides them through the dangerous passage of the Clashing Clouds. It is also played to “make Elder Brother happy” in the final tracking and stalking of the Deer-Peyote in Wirtkuta» — las funciones del arco-tambor que Furst enumera en nota: avisar a los sobrenaturales, guiar por el paso de las Nubes y alegrar al Hermano Mayor en el rastreo.

«We recall that before the peyote seekers enter the peyote country, they must visit Tatei Matiniér1, Where Our Mother Dwells, the desert water holes from which one catches one’s first awesome glimpse of the sacred mountains of Wirikuta. It is here that one asks for rain and fertility. Here the matewamete, the novices, ‘emerge into the light’ (quite literally, as we shall see). Here the peyoteros are ritually washed by the mara’akdme, as the midwife washes newborn infants. Here the containers are filled with the water that has the power of fertility» — los ritos de las lagunas que Furst describe: los novicios emergen a la luz y el chamán los lava como la partera al recién nacido.

«In the total context of the quest, the confession ritual, by canceling out adult sexuality (i.e., matter), facilitates metamorphosis to spirit» — el papel que Furst le asigna al rito de confesión dentro del conjunto: cancela la sexualidad adulta, es decir la materia, y facilita la metamorfosis en espíritu.

«In relation to the specific confrontation, symbolic intercourse with the maternal, creative forces at the Place of Our Mother would be tantamount to incest were it not for the prior restoration of the “innocent’”’ condition of childhood» — y por qué hacía falta según Furst: el encuentro con las fuerzas maternas sería incesto sin la restauración previa de la inocencia.

«The perilousness and ambiguity of the undertaking are underscored in the passage of the Place of the Clashing Clouds that threaten to crush those who would venture on the journey to the Otherworld» — dónde se cifra según Furst el peligro y la ambigüedad de la empresa: en el paso de las Nubes que Chocan.

«But once the sacred goal has been attained and the pilgrims have returned from their quest for life, they regain their former status as adults. This seems to be reinforced symbolically by the ritual untying of the knots upon their return to western Mexico. In this ceremony, the knotted string, which has been in the custody of the mara’akame throughout the pilgrimage, is passed twice around the circle of participants, once counterclockwise and once clockwise (to symbolize transformation, or, as the Huichol call it, “doing and undoing» — el rito de desatar a la vuelta según Furst, con los dos sentidos de giro que los huicholes llaman hacer y deshacer.

«Then the mara’akame walks around the inside of the circle with the cord in his hands, stopping before each pilgrim in turn to allow him or her to untie his or her own knot, this time without the mara’akdme’s assistance» — el gesto que cierra ese rito: cada peregrino desata su propio nudo, esta vez sin ayuda del chamán.

«For drum and bow are identical.t ‘They are male-female, representing the maternal» — la identidad que Furst propone entre tambor y arco: macho y hembra a la vez. La frase se corta antes de la llamada de nota y sigue en la plana 191.

«aspect, the Great Mother-Earth from whom her children receive nourishment through the umbilical cord and, at the same time, the male procreative principle» — la continuación de esa identidad: la Madre Tierra que nutre por el cordón y a la vez el principio procreador masculino.

«There are two stages to the actual crossing of the critical threshold. The first is called Gateway, or Entrance, of Clouds; the second, Where the Clouds Open. They are only a few steps apart, but the emotional impact on the participants of passing from one to the other is enormous» — las dos etapas del paso crítico según Furst, a pocos pasos una de la otra y con enorme impacto emocional.

«However, one would search in vain on any map for places around this historic mining capital that bear such names, in Huichol or Spanish. For like other sacred loci on the peyote itinerary, these are landmarks only in the geography of the mind» — la advertencia de Furst sobre esos lugares: son hitos solo en la geografía de la mente.

«Here they halted, and Ramon moved down the line, brushing each pilgrim with his muviéri and ritually pronouncing his or her new name as the likeness of one of the original hikuri seekers. ‘They listened carefully as he related the relevant passages of the peyote traditions and invoked the protection of Kauyumarie and other supernaturals for the coming ordeal» — el rito previo al paso según Furst: el chamán pronuncia el nuevo nombre de cada peregrino como semejanza de uno de los buscadores originales.

«Beyond their obvious symbolism of celestial flight, the feather offerings commemorate an event on the pilgrimage of the gods and serve as prayers for safe passage “‘to the other side» — qué son las ofrendas de plumas según Furst: conmemoración de un episodio del viaje de los dioses y oración por el paso seguro.

«But from now on, until they came to the Place of Our Mothers, those who had not yet traveled to the peyote would have to “walk” in darkness. For they were “new,” he said, “new and very delicate,” easily blinded by the glare emanating from the sacred country on the other side of the clouds and especially vulnerable to whirlwinds and other dangers which malevolent sorcerers cast in the way of hikuri seekers» — por qué se venda a los novicios según Furst: son nuevos y delicados, cegados por el resplandor del país sagrado y vulnerables a los torbellinos.

«It will be hard,” he said, “‘very hard, this walk. It is a great penance, this journey to Wirikuta, and you will cry very much» — lo que el chamán les anuncia a los peregrinos, en su propia voz: una gran penitencia, y llorarán mucho.

«Although everyone took the blindfolding seriously (some actually cried), we were again impressed by the quick shifts between solemnity and humor. As Ramon came to those who, as veterans of previous journeys, did not require blindfolds, spirited and often very funny dialogues ensued» — el contraste que Furst vuelve a señalar entre solemnidad y humor, con algunos llorando de veras y otros en diálogos chistosos.

«quality of the whole enterprise than the sight of the hikurt seekers acting out their deepest beliefs on the very outskirts of the city of Zacatecas, within sight and sound of the rushing traffic, oblivious of the trucks and buses fighting the long grade» — lo que Furst señala como demostración más dramática del carácter fuera del tiempo de la empresa: el rito a la vista y al oído del tráfico de Zacatecas.

«Several of the Indians even said that they much preferred walking, “because it is more beautiful» — lo que Furst recoge de los propios indios sobre ir a pie o en vehículo. El tramo cruza a la plana 194.

«Here, on a little rise of dusty adobe on the edge of Zacatecas, a place entirely unremarkable to the untutored eye, was the mystical divide, the Symplegades of the peyote quest» — dónde estaba el umbral místico según Furst: un altozano de tierra sin nada notable a la vista del profano.

«Visually, the passage through the clashing cloud gates was undramatic. Ramon stepped forward, lifted the bow, and, placing one end against his mouth while rhythmically beating the string with an arrow, walked straight ahead, stopped once more, gestured (to Kduyumarie, we were told later, to thank him for holding back the cloud doors with his horns, at the place called “Where the Clouds Open’), and set out again at a more rapid pace, all the while beating his bow» — cómo fue el paso visto desde fuera según Furst: poco dramático, con el chamán tocando su arco como tambor y agradeciendo al Venado por sostener las puertas.

«Whatever the event might have lacked in visual drama for an uninitiated observer, there was no mistaking its impact on the participants. Their faces clearly reflected the emotional stress of this critical passage, their deep commitment to its truth, and their relief and pleasure that Ramon had proved to have the power to transport them safely through the clashing gates» — el efecto en los participantes según Furst: los rostros reflejaban la tensión, la convicción y el alivio.

«At one point a battered and noisy dump truck crossed their line of march, drowning out the musical beat of Ramén’s bow. To us, watching it roll over the sacred ground the Indians had just vacated, the symbolism was so stark, so explicit, as to be almost trite. Yet I doubt very much that the Huichol themselves even noticed its presence—or, if they did, that it disturbed them nearly so much as it did us» — el episodio del camión de volteo que cruza el suelo sagrado, con la reserva que Furst pone sobre su propia lectura del símbolo.

«Ramon himself showed the strain of all that had transpired here. He was solicitous of the blindfolded matewamete, assisting them in entering the cars and speaking soothingly to them, as one would to a frightened child. But he was also insistent that they hurry. For while all had gone well, one should not linger longer than necessary in such dangerous and sacred places» — el estado del chamán tras el paso según Furst, con su insistencia en no demorarse en un lugar así.

«Nonfatal injury, such as loss of feathers, a foot, or part of the stern of a vessel, is a common feature in many versions of this widespread motif of the dangerous passage, from the clashing rocks or Symplegades of ancient Greek tradition to funerary or shamanistic mythologies in Australia, Siberia, the Arctic, and the Americas» — el rasgo que Furst señala como común en el motivo del paso peligroso: la herida no mortal, de las Simplégades griegas a las mitologías de Australia, Siberia y el Ártico.

«Clashing rocks were also a feature of Aztec funerary belief, as they continue to be among Nahuatl-speaking Indians in Mexico to the present day» — la persistencia del motivo que Furst consigna: las rocas que chocan en la creencia funeraria azteca y entre los nahuahablantes de hoy.

«Reversal was to become more common after we left the paved highway (“‘oh, what a rocky path, so full of holes and stones!”’) and entered upon desert or deeply rutted wagon trails (“‘ah, what a fine highway, so well paved, so smooth!» — los ejemplos de esa inversión que Furst registra sobre la calidad del camino.

«In Huichol mythology, the peyote pilgrimage seems to be the only occasion in which ordinary men, and not just shamans, souls, and supernaturals, can achieve the breakthrough from this world to the one beyond. They are able to do so because they are no longer “ordinary” but are transformed» — lo que Furst sostiene como singular del caso huichol: es la única ocasión en que el hombre común, y no solo el chamán, logra la ruptura de nivel.

«Yet they are not allowed to forget that this condition is only temporary, even for the shaman—that they are men, not gods. Hence the required assistance of Kduyumarie. Hence also the lost feathers of the bird-child. It is after all only the dead and the supernaturals who are truly and permanently spirit» — el límite que Furst subraya: la condición es temporal aun para el chamán, y solo los muertos y los sobrenaturales son espíritu de veras.

«According to Eliade (1964), the ‘paradoxical passage’ opens only to those who are spirit— i.e., the dead or those who have become transformed» — lo que Furst toma de Eliade sobre el paso paradójico: se abre solo a los que son espíritu. El año entre paréntesis es de la propia fuente, no una nota cosida.

«The degree to which what we had just witnessed conforms to Eliade’s analysis of the meaning of the Symplegades motif in shamanism and funerary and heroic mythologies is remarkable» — el juicio de Furst sobre el ajuste entre lo presenciado y el análisis de Eliade del motivo de las Simplégades.

«We arrived at the sacred water holes the Huichol call Taté: Matiniéri, in San Luis Potosi, in the late afternoon. Ramén would have preferred dawn, when the rising Sun Father is stronger and therefore a more effective protector than the setting Sun» — la hora que el chamán habría preferido para las lagunas sagradas y por qué, según Furst.

«On the peyote quest, however, it is not ordinary reality that matters, but the reality of the mind’s eye. Accordingly, to the Huichol Tatét Matiniéri is not a forlorn and probably polluted desert oasis. It is beautiful, they say, because Our Mothers live here, and because it is the wellspring of the water of life» — la regla que Furst enuncia sobre el lugar: no importa la realidad ordinaria sino la del ojo de la mente.

«Whether intended as generalized offerings or more specifically as petitions for health, rain, fertility, luck in hunting, or whatever, such offerings gain greatly in effectiveness by being impregnated with the life-giving fluid of the springs» — por qué las ofrendas se impregnan con el agua de los manantiales según Furst.

«Only after this washing ceremony would they be capable of perceiving the sacred country all around them, and especially the mountains of the peyote country on the distant eastern horizon» — el efecto del lavatorio según Furst: solo después se es capaz de percibir el país sagrado y las montañas del peyote.

«unfortunately, for much of what happens in these ritual situations there really is no clearer explanation than the stock answer, ‘““That is the way one does» — la deuda de interpretación que Furst declara: para mucho de lo que ocurre no hay explicación mejor que la respuesta de rigor. El tramo cruza a la plana 198.

«Original meanings have been forgotten, or else the act requires no explanation because its meaning is known to everyone who belongs to the culture» — las dos posibilidades que Furst deja abiertas ante esa respuesta: sentidos olvidados, o sentidos tan sabidos que no piden explicación.

«unborn children are spirits and become human only when they receive their essential life force through the fontanelle at the time of birth» — la creencia huichola que Furst consigna: el no nacido es espíritu y se hace humano al recibir su fuerza vital por la fontanela.

«so the manner in which the Mothers “‘receive’’ the pilgrims from the mara’akame is seen to symbolize birth—or, better, rebirth» — lo que Furst lee en el modo en que las Madres reciben a los peregrinos: un nacimiento, o mejor un renacimiento.

«Then Ramon bends down, scoops up a gourdful of water, holds it behind his back, lifts the companion’s hat or scarf, and, if he 1s a matewadme, removes the blindfold. With sweeping gestures he now points to the east, exclaiming, ‘“There, companion, now you are able to see! Behold now the sacred places,’’ or words to that effect, and suddenly pours the contents of the bow] over the latter’s head. He instructs him to rub vigorously, working the sacred water into his hair, face, and eyes» — el gesto con que se quita la venda y se lava al novicio según Furst, con la fórmula de que ya puede ver.

«Subsequently he is given his “first food,’’ bits of tortilla and animal crackers which have been softened by soaking in sacred water. This is baby food, and its purpose is to reinforce the symbolic condition of “newness,” i.e., of having just been born» — el primer alimento que se da al recién lavado según Furst: comida de bebé, para reforzar la condición simbólica de recién nacido.

«with the exception of a required ritual bath and ritual washing of the hair at the beginning of the pilgrimage, this is the only occasion on which a hikuri-seeker is allowed to wash for the duration—even when the pilgrimage is on foot and takes up to forty-five days» — la única ocasión en que el buscador de peyote puede lavarse en toda la peregrinación, según Furst.

«The traditional pilgrimage on foot was ritually fixed at twenty days in each direction. Although the Huichol do not have a formal ceremonial calendar or even the memory of one, it may be that the length of the pilgrimage was in some way related to the twenty-day “month” of the 260-day ceremonial calendar of prehispanic Mesoamerica. Such a calendar survives today in certain areas, especially the Maya region» — lo que Furst conjetura en nota sobre la duración ritual del viaje a pie y el mes de veinte días del calendario mesoamericano.

«The naming of the baby, by now ten days old, had been put off because Ramon, who as mara’akame was to do the naming, had agreed with the parents that it would be propitious for the child’s health and proper growth if it were to be given its name in the presence of the Mothers. This was done by presenting it to the Mothers as well as to the Sun, the four quarters, and the sacred center and pronouncing the name, which had come to the mara’akame in a dream» — el bautizo que Furst presenció en las lagunas: el nombre llegado al chamán en sueños y pronunciado ante las Madres, el Sol y las cuatro direcciones.

«Tatét Matiniéri is not the only source of water to which magical potency is ascribed (indeed, in a sense all water and all bodies of water are sacred to the Huichol), but these desert springs on the way to the peyote country are believed to possess unique powers of fertility» — el estatuto del agua en la cultura huichola según Furst: toda agua es sagrada, pero estos manantiales tienen poderes de fertilidad únicos.

«Water from the sacred maternal springs is utilized in numerous ways, all related to the concept of fertility and germination: it is drunk in small quantities at the rituals; added to nawa, the ceremonial maize beer, in the fermentation process; mixed with peyote infusions, and sprinkled or sprayed on fields, crops, animals, people, tools, hunting weapons, and the likenesses of supernaturals» — los usos de esa agua que Furst enumera, todos ligados a la fertilidad y a la germinación.

«The way in which it is done can be interpreted as yet another symbolic act of sexual union and impregnation, with the ceremonial arrow serving as phallus and the empty container as uterus» — la lectura simbólica que Furst propone del modo de llenar los recipientes: la flecha ceremonial como falo y el recipiente vacío como útero.

«However, despite such readily apparent sexual symbolism, it would be simplistic in the extreme to reduce this particular ritual at Tatéi Matiniéri to the level of symbolic coitus alone» — la reserva que Furst pone a su propia lectura: sería simplista reducir el rito al coito simbólico.

«On the peyote pilgrimage, however, it is not sex that matters but fertility— the survival of the people and their natural and cultural environment. What the mara’akame simulates with his ceremonial arrow, therefore, is not coitus but unity—the life-producing union of the male and female principles in all nature» — qué simula entonces el chamán con su flecha según Furst: no coito sino unidad, la unión productora de vida de los principios masculino y femenino.

«Not surprisingly, water from the sacred springs is considered to be a powerful agent against barrenness, and before the journey to Wirikuta was resumed, one of the pilgrims, a childless woman, asked Ramon to “cure” her so that she might conceive» — el uso concreto que Furst presenció: una mujer sin hijos pide al chamán que la cure para concebir.

«The Huichol say “it is beautiful, very beautiful” here, and one has the feeling that they really mean it and are not just using ritual reversals. Presumably, when they say that the Wirikuta desert is covered with “flowers of brilliant colors” they are speaking of the peyote that grows here» — cómo describen los huicholes el desierto del país del peyote y cómo lo entiende Furst: las flores de colores brillantes serían el peyote.

«One lives well here,” he said, “if one has learned well and does not take more than one needs» — la lección de ecología del desierto que Furst recoge de Ramón, en su propia voz.

«My own view, admittedly unprovable, is that the discovery of peyote, like many other sacred hallucinogens, was probably the consequence of a deliberate search for ‘‘mind-altering” substances by shamans engaged on the vision quest» — la hipótesis que Furst declara como propia e indemostrable contra la del hallazgo accidental por hambre: el peyote se descubrió en una búsqueda deliberada de sustancias que alteran la mente.

«The individual peaks of both ranges are said to be the abodes of the Kakauyarixi, the generic name by which the Huichol address their supernaturals. No translation that makes sense in English is possible; the Huichol say it means “ancient, ancient ones, ’ or ancestral gods» — el nombre genérico de los sobrenaturales huicholes según Furst, con la negativa de que exista traducción posible al inglés.

«The analogy between Wirikuta and the sacred San Francisco Mountains of the Pueblos is striking, but it is only one of many traits that point to ancestral ties between the Cora-Huichol and the Pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico» — el parentesco que Furst propone entre los cora-huicholes y los pueblo del suroeste, a partir de la analogía de las montañas sagradas.

«For no matter how one had traveled thus far, one must enter and leave the Patio of the Grandfathers exactly as had Tatewart and his ancient pilgrims—on foot, blowing a horn and beating the hunting bow» — la regla de entrada al Patio de los Abuelos según Furst: a pie, tocando el cuerno y golpeando el arco, exactamente como los peregrinos antiguos.

«It is another mark of the total unity of the hikuritamete that each companion, down to the youngest, is expected to participate in the first “feeding” of the ceremonial Fire when it is brought to life by the mara’akame» — lo que Furst lee en que hasta el más pequeño lleve leña: la unidad total de los buscadores de peyote.

«fire is inherent in wood and only needs “bringing out» — la concepción huichola del fuego que Furst traduce: el fuego está en la leña y solo hay que sacarlo.

«The fire is allowed to go out only at the end, when sacred water is poured on the hot ashes, after which the mara’akadme selects a coal, the ktipuri (soul, life force) of Tatewari, and places it in the little ceremonial bag around his neck. Since the ritual is repeated at each campsite there is an accumulation of magic coals, which become part of the mara’akame’s array of power objects» — cómo termina el fuego en cada campamento según Furst: el chamán guarda un carbón, el alma del Abuelo Fuego, y los va acumulando como objetos de poder.

«The others, meanwhile, arranged themselves in a circle with their pieces of firewood and began to pray with great fervor and obvious emotion. We saw tears course down Lupe’s face, and there was much sobbing also among the others» — la emoción que Furst registra en torno al fuego: lágrimas y sollozos en plena oración.

«Such ritualized manifestations of joy mixed with sorrow were to recur several times during our stay in Wirikuta, especially at the successful conclusion of the “hunt,” and» — cómo califica Furst esas manifestaciones: ritualizadas, con alegría mezclada de pena, repetidas en el país del peyote.

«Tamatst Wawatsari, the principal deer, waits for us up there, on the slopes of the mountain» — lo que el chamán responde a Furst sobre la distancia hasta el peyote, en su propia voz.

«Catarino’s bow music, we were told, was to make the deer happy before his impending death» — para qué sonaba el arco durante la marcha según Furst.

«Of course, I had forgotten the reversals! When he had said, “far, very far,” he really meant very close» — el episodio en que Furst se enmienda a sí mismo: la inversión de sentidos también valía para la distancia.

«Ramon halted suddenly, pointed to the ground, and whispered urgently, “His tracks, his tracks!” I could see nothing. José-Tayaupda sneaked up close and nodded happy assent: “Yes, yes, mara’akame, there amid the new maize, there are his tracks, there at the first level» — el hallazgo de las huellas del Venado, en las voces del chamán y del más viejo de los peregrinos.

«There are five conceptual levels; for a man to reach the fifth, as Ramdén was to do here in Wirikuta, means he has “completed himself’’—i.e., become shaman» — los cinco niveles conceptuales que Furst explica y qué significa llegar al quinto: haberse completado, es decir, hacerse chamán.

«Its broad, flat crown is usually almost level with the earth and so is easily missed by the inexperienced eye» — por qué el peyote se le escapa al ojo inexperto según Furst.

«Ramon took aim, and the first of his arrows buried itself a fraction of an inch from the crown of the nearest hikuri. He let fly with a second, which hit slightly to one side. José ran forward and _ fired a third, almost straight down. Ramon completed the ‘kill’ by sticking a ceremonial arrow with pendant hawk feathers into the ground on the far side, so that the sacred plant was now enclosed by arrows in each of the world quarters» — cómo se mata al peyote según Furst: tres flechas y una ceremonial que lo cierran por los cuatro rumbos del mundo.

«Look there,” he said, “how sacred it is, how beautiful, the five-pointed deer!’’ Remarkably, every one of the peyotes in the cluster had the same number of ribs—five, the sacred number of completion!» — lo que el chamán dice al examinar el hallazgo, y el dato que Furst subraya: todos los peyotes del grupo tenían cinco costillas.

«The hunters look for any growth that can be associated with stands of maize, for the deer is not only peyote but maize as well» — por qué los cazadores buscan lo que parezca maíz según Furst: el venado no es solo peyote sino también maíz.

«peyote is differentiated by “color,” corresponding to the five sacred colors of maize—blue, red, yellow, white, and multicolored» — los cinco colores sagrados con que se diferencia el peyote según Furst, los mismos del maíz.

«The companions formed a circle around the place where Elder Brother lay “dying.” Many sobbed. All prayed loudly. The one called Tatutsi, Great-grandfather, unwrapped Ramon’s basket of power objects, the takwatsi, from the red kerchief in which it was kept and laid it open for Ramon’s use in the complex and lengthy rituals of propitiation of the dead deer and division of its flesh among the communicants» — la escena en torno al Hermano Mayor moribundo según Furst, con los ritos de propiciación y el reparto de su carne.

«Ramon explained how the kupuri, the life essence of the deer, which, as with humans, resides in the fontanelle, was “rising, rising, rising, like a brilliantly colored rainbow» — cómo describe el chamán el alma del venado saliendo por la fontanela, en la traducción de Furst. El tramo cruza a la plana 206.

«Do not be angry, Elder Brother, Ramon implored, do not punish us for killing you, for you have not really died. You will rise again» — la oración al Venado que Furst traduce: que no castigue por matarlo, porque no ha muerto de veras y volverá a alzarse.

«we will feed you well, for we have brought you many offerings, we have brought you tobacco, we have brought you water from Our Mothers, we have brought you arrows, we have brought you votive gourds, we have brought you maize and your favorite grasses, we have brought you tamales, we have brought you our prayers. We honor you and we give you our devotion. Take them, Elder Brother, take them and give us our life» — la enumeración de ofrendas con que los peregrinos responden a esa oración, en la traducción de Furst.

«To push the rainbow-kiipuri, which only he could see, back into the Deer, Ramon lifted his muviéri, first to the sky and the world directions, and then pressed it slowly downward, as though with great force, until the hawk feathers touched the crown of the sacred plant» — el gesto con que el chamán devuelve el alma al Venado según Furst.

«Then, instead of taking it out whole, he cut it off at the base, leaving a bit of the root in the ground. This is done so that “Elder Brother can grow again from his bones» — cómo se corta el peyote según Furst: dejando parte de la raíz para que el Hermano Mayor crezca otra vez de sus huesos.

«Then he divided the cactus into five pieces by cutting along the natural ridges and placed these pieces in a votive gourd. The process was repeated by Ramon and Lupe with several additional plants, for there had to be enough to give each of the companions a part of ‘Elder Brother’s flesh» — el reparto del cacto en cinco piezas por sus costillas, para que a cada compañero le toque carne del Hermano Mayor.

«One by one they squatted or knelt before Ramon, who removed a section of peyote from the gourd and, after touching it to the pilgrim’s forehead (in lieu of the fontanelle hidden under the hat or scarf), eyes, voice box,t and heart, placed it into his or her mouth. The pilgrim was told to ‘‘chew it well, chew it well, for thus you will see your life» — el rito de comunión que Furst describe: frente, ojos, laringe y corazón tocados antes de poner el peyote en la boca, con la fórmula de que así se verá la propia vida.

«Anderson (1969), who has been engaged in extensive field studies of Lophophora throughout its natural range from Texas to San Luis Potosi and Queretero since 1957, reports that “injury or harvesting by man induces the formation of many stems from a single rootstock. Single clones more than 1.5 m. across have been observed in San Luis Potosi, for example» — el respaldo botánico que Furst trae en nota para la práctica de dejar la raíz: la lesión induce la formación de muchos tallos de un mismo rizoma.

«The voice box is obviously of great significance in a nonliterate culture, for, as Ramon said, “If one could not speak, how would his children know how to be Huichol?» — por qué se toca la laringe según Furst, con la razón que Ramón le dio.

«As Lumholtz noted, these gourds are an indispensable part of the outfit of the Aikuri-seeker, giving him, as it were, priestly status (the tobacco gourd was also a priestly insignia in Aztec times» — el estatuto de la calabaza de tabaco según Furst y Lumholtz: insignia que da rango sacerdotal, como en tiempos aztecas.

«The tobacco is always the so-called wild species, Nicotiana rustica—the “tobacco of Tatewari’— which contains nicotine in far greater amounts than the domestic brands» — qué tabaco se usa según Furst: la especie silvestre, el tabaco del Abuelo Fuego, mucho más rica en nicotina.

«Ramon touched the offerings with his muviért, prayed, and set fire to one of the little wool yarn paintings he had made, depicting Elder Brother. As the wax melted, the flames licked at the ceremonial arrows, and soon the entire pile of offerings and the dry creosote bush itself were ablaze. Ramon muttered incantations and with his muviért wafted some of the smoke toward the sacred mountains» — el sacrificio por fuego de las ofrendas que Furst describe, con el humo llevado hacia las montañas sagradas.

«Peyote is not given in any quantity to young children, but after the age of three it can be a sign whether or not the child has the disposition to become a mara’akame. If he or she likes the taste, which is exceedingly bitter and difficult to tolerate, it is taken as a positive omen. If it is rejected, it 1s a negative sign—though not necessarily definitive» — la prueba de vocación que Furst describe: si al niño le gusta el sabor amarguísimo se toma por buen presagio, y si lo rechaza por malo aunque no definitivo.

«Chew, little brother,” he admonished, “and we will see how you like it. Chew well, chew well, for it is sweet, it 1s delicious to the taste» — la fórmula invertida con que el chamán ofrece el peyote al niño, en la traducción de Furst.

«There were smiles at this obvious reversal but no laughter—this was not a time for hilarity» — el matiz que Furst registra en ese momento: sonrisas por la inversión, pero sin risa.

«One matewame who was obviously greatly moved by the whole experience was Veradera, a strikingly handsome girl apparently under twenty. Veradera ate more peyote than anyone with the exception of Ramon and Lupe, and later that night fell into a deep trance that lasted for many hours and caused everyone to regard her as specially sacred» — el caso de la novicia que Furst registra: comió más peyote que nadie salvo los dos guías y cayó en un trance de muchas horas.

«Lupe explained that peyote not only discourages hunger and thirst and restores one’s spirit but heals wounds and prevents infection» — lo que la esposa del chamán le explica a Furst sobre las virtudes del peyote, tras frotarse con él las heridas de las espinas.

«It might be argued (as has La Barre) that these medicinal qualities are ascribed to peyote by the Huichol, not on any real evidence, but on the basis of its inherent supernatural powers and its exalted place in Huichol belief and ritual. It is my impression, however, that Huichol shamans at least are accomplished herbalists, and that many of their medicinal plants really do possess at least some of the curative powers with which they are credited» — el desacuerdo que Furst consigna sin armonizar: La Barre atribuiría esas virtudes medicinales al prestigio sobrenatural de la planta, y Furst tiene a los chamanes huicholes por herbolarios diestros.

«That this applies also to peyote is supported by a recent scientific study. Researchers at the University of Arizona separated a water-soluble crystalline substance from an ethanol extract of Lophophora Williamsit which, they report, exhibited “antibiotic activity against a wide spectrum of bacteria and a species of the imperfect fungi. The name peyocactin has been given to the principal antimicrobial component contained in this partially purified substance. Of particular interest was its inhibitory action against eighteen strains of penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Preliminary protection studies with mice suggest the in vivo effectiveness of peyocactin» — el estudio que Furst trae en apoyo: un componente antimicrobiano del peyote activo contra dieciocho cepas resistentes a la penicilina; *antimicrobial* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón, que el impreso trae como *anti-microbial*.

«Hikuri-seekers know about a small cactus they call tsuwwir1, which also grows in the north-central high desert and which they say is liable to manifest itself as true hikuri to those who have not properly purified themselves. Its effect, as described to me by Ramon, approximates the “bad trip» — el falso peyote que Furst registra: se manifiesta como peyote verdadero a quien no se purificó bien.

«guitar (both homemade), and the veterans stood aside in a group to sing and dance the matewdmete into a “receptive condition» — cómo se prepara a los novicios tras la primera comunión según Furst: los veteranos cantan y bailan para ponerlos en condición receptiva.

«Pilgrims who are not completely ‘‘pure,” who have committed incest, or who have been insufficiently instructed by the shaman-leader of the pilgrimage may be misled into eating this cactus instead of peyote and suffer a “bad trip,” madness, or even death unless they are cured in time by the shaman» — el pie de figura sobre el falso peyote: al impuro o al insuficientemente instruido puede engañarlo y darle un mal viaje, locura o muerte si el chamán no lo cura a tiempo.

«Hikuri “hides itself well,” and several of the companions had to walk a considerable distance before seeing their first peyote» — la fórmula huichola sobre el peyote que se esconde bien, según Furst.

«Occasionally she would stop to admire and speak quietly to an especially beautiful hikuri and to touch it to her forehead, face, throat, and heart before adding it to the others» — el trato con la planta que Furst observa en la esposa del chamán: hablarle quedo y tocarla a la frente, la cara, la garganta y el corazón.

«We also saw people exchanging gifts of peyote. This seemed to us a very beautiful aspect of the pilgrimage. No ceremony in which peyote was eaten communally went by without this kind of ritual exchange, in which each participant is expected to share his» — el intercambio ritual de peyote que Furst destaca como aspecto hermoso de la peregrinación. El tramo cruza a la plana 210.

«A man or a woman would carefully divide a peyote, rise, and walk from individual to individual, handing over a piece and receiving one in return. Sometimes an older participant would place his gift directly into the mouth of a younger one, urging him to “chew well, younger brother, chew well, so that you will see your life.” But most often these ritual exchanges took place in silence» — cómo se hacía ese intercambio según Furst, casi siempre en silencio.

«No hikuri was ever dug carelessly or dropped casually on the ground or into a basket or bag. On the contrary, it was handled with tenderness and respect and addressed soothingly by the hikuri-seeker, who would thank it for allowing itself to be seen, call it by endearing names, and apologize for removing it from its home» — el trato con la planta que Furst registra: agradecerle que se dejara ver, llamarla con nombres de cariño y pedirle perdón por sacarla de su casa.

«Our game bags are full. One must not take more than one needs.” If one did, if one did not leave gifts and propitiate the slain Deer-Peyote (just as one should propitiate the spirits of animals one hunts, the maize one harvests, and the trees one cuts), Elder Brother would be offended and would conceal the hikuri or withdraw them altogether, so that next time the seekers would walk away empty-handed» — la regla que el chamán impone al que quería seguir cosechando y su fundamento: el Hermano Mayor ofendido escondería el peyote.

«We would call this practice conservation; to the Huichol it is part of the principle of reciprocity by which he orders his social relationships and his relationship to the natural and supernatural environment» — cómo traduce Furst esa regla y cómo la entiende el huichol: reciprocidad, el principio con que ordena sus relaciones sociales y con lo natural y lo sobrenatural.

«Considering the lack of food, the long days on the road, the bitterly cold nights with little sleep (by now, Ramon had not closed his eyes to sleep for six days and nights!), and above all the high emotional pitch of the sacred drama, with its succession of increasingly intense and exalted encounters, one might have expected them to feel some letdown now that they had successfully “hunted the deer’’ and to lapse into a dream state induced by the considerable quantities of hikurt they had already consumed» — lo que Furst esperaba ver tras la cacería y no vio: un bajón después de días sin comida, sin sueño y en alta tensión emocional.

«When night fell Lupe placed candles around her to protect her against attacks by sorcerers while her soul was traveling outside her body» — la protección que se le da a la que está en trance según Furst: velas contra los ataques de hechiceros mientras el alma viaja fuera del cuerpo.

«But most of the others were wide awake, in varying states of exaltation, supremely happy and possessed of seemingly boundless energy. If the dancing and singing stopped it was only because Ramon laid down his fiddle to commune quietly with the ceremonial fire or to chant the stories of the first pilgrimage. Neither he nor Lupe was ever without a piece of peyote in the mouth. Yet they were never out of control—indeed, none of them was—and neither they nor any of the others, little Francisco included, showed the slightest adverse effect, then or later» — lo que Furst sí observó: exaltación, energía aparentemente inagotable y ningún efecto adverso, ni entonces ni después.

«It is in this dream state also that the mara’akdme obtains the new peyote names for the pilgrims (e.g., Offering of Blue Maize, Votive Gourd of the Sun, Arrows of Tatewart, etc.). These names are said to “emerge” from the center of the fire like brilliantly colored, luminous nbbons» — cómo obtiene el chamán los nuevos nombres de peyote según Furst: emergen del centro del fuego como cintas luminosas de colores.

«The Huichol regard their peyote experiences as private and do not, as a rule, discuss them with anyone, except in the most general terms (“there were many beautiful colors,” “I saw maize in brilliant colors, much maize,” or simply, “I saw my life» — la reserva con que el huichol guarda su experiencia según Furst, y las fórmulas generales con que la resume.

«central nervous system, there are powerful cultural factors at work that influence, if they do not actually determine, both content and interpretation of the drug experience. This is true not only between cultures but even within the same culture» — la tesis de Furst sobre el peso de lo cultural: hay factores que influyen si no determinan el contenido y la interpretación de la experiencia, entre culturas y aun dentro de una misma.

«Huichol are convinced that the mara’akame, or one preparing himself to become a mara’akame, and the ordinary person have different kinds of peyote experiences» — la distinción que los propios huicholes sostienen, según Furst: el chamán y la persona común tienen experiencias de peyote distintas.

«He seeks to experience a catharsis that allows him to enter upon a personal encounter with Yatewari and to travel to “the fifth level” to meet the supreme spirits at the ends of the world. And so he does» — qué busca el chamán en el viaje según Furst, con el remate que él añade: y lo consigue.

«Ordinary Huichol also “experience” the supernaturals, but they do so essentially through the medium of their shaman» — cómo experimentan a los sobrenaturales los huicholes comunes según Furst: por mediación de su chamán.

«In an objective sense his visions might be similar, but subjectively they are differently perceived and interpreted» — el matiz con que Furst cierra esa distinción: objetivamente las visiones podrían ser semejantes, pero se perciben e interpretan de otro modo.

«Their once-white clothing was caked with the yellow earth of the desert, for during the night it had begun to drizzle—an astonishing event at the height of the dry season and an auspicious omen» — el presagio que Furst registra en la partida: llovizna en plena estación seca.

«Do not leave,” they implored the supernaturals, “do not abandon your places, for we will come again another year» — la despedida de los peregrinos a los sobrenaturales, en la traducción de Furst.

«What pretty hills, what pretty hills, So very green where we are. Now I don’t even feel, Now I don’t even feel, Now I don’t even feel like going to my rancho. For there at my rancho it 1s so ugly, So terribly ugly there at my rancho, And here in Wirikuta so green, so green» — el canto de despedida que Furst reproduce, con la inversión ritual entre el rancho feo y Wirikuta verde.

«Do not weep, brothers, do not weep. For we came to enjoy it, We came on this trek, To find our life. For we are all, We are all, We are all the children of, We are all the sons of, A brilliantly colored flower, A flaming flower. And there is no one, There is no one, Who regrets what we are» — el cierre del canto de despedida, con la fórmula de que todos son hijos de una flor llameante.

«On June 23, 1971, Ramon Medina Silva died of wounds sustained during a shooting incident at a fiesta held at his rancho in the Sierra to celebrate the preparation of the soil for the planting of the new maize crop. As is customary on such festive and sacred occasions, there had been a good deal of ritual and recreational drinking. At the time of his death at age forty-five, he had become widely recognized as the leading Huichol artist, and as a mara’akdme of considerable and very special gifts. His loss, to his people and to his friends, is 1incalculable» — el postscriptum con que Furst cierra su capítulo: la muerte de Ramón Medina Silva en 1971, a los cuarenta y cinco años, por heridas de bala en una fiesta.

«Rather than repeat it here, I now prefer to give my readers this chapter of my life in perspective—that is, to say what I think the Mexican hallucinogenic mushrooms mean to us all, what bearing they may have on the origin of the religious idea among primitive peoples» — el objeto que Wasson declara para su capítulo: no repetir el relato del viaje sino decir qué significan los hongos mexicanos y qué relación guardan con el origen de la idea religiosa.

«Those who do not know the story will be interested in learning how it came about that my late wife, a pediatrician, and I, a banker, took up the study of mushrooms. She was a Great Russian and, like all of her countrymen, learned at her mother’s knee a solid body of empirical knowledge about the common species and a love for them that is astonishing to us Americans. Like us, the Russians are fond of nature—of the forests and birds and wild flowers. But their love for mushrooms is of a different order, a visceral urge, a passion that passeth understanding» — el contraste que Wasson pone en el origen de su investigación: el amor ruso por las setas frente a la indiferencia angloamericana.

«By inheritance, I ignored them all; I rejected those repugnant fungal growths, manifestations of parasitism and decay. Before my marriage, I had not once fixed my gaze on a mushroom, not once looked at a mushroom with a discriminating eye» — cómo describe Wasson su propia posición de partida, heredada y no razonada.

«Such discoveries as we have made, including the rediscovery of the religious role of the hallucinogenic mushrooms of Mexico, can be laid to our preoccupation with that cultural rift between my wife and me, between our respective peoples, between the mycophilia and mycophobia (words we devised for the two attitudes) that divide the Indo-European peoples into two camps» — a qué atribuye Wasson sus hallazgos, incluido el del papel religioso del hongo mexicano: a la preocupación por esa grieta cultural entre micofilia y micofobia, palabras que él y su mujer acuñaron.

«If this hypothesis of ours be wrong, then it must have been a singular false hypothesis to have produced the results that it has. But I think it is not wrong» — cómo defiende Wasson su hipótesis, sin renunciar a plantear que podría ser falsa.

«I suggest that when such traits betoken the attitudes of whole tribes or peoples, and when those traits have remained unaltered throughout recorded history, and especially when they differ from one people to another neighboring people, then you are face to face with a phenomenon of profound cultural importance, whose primal cause 1s to be discovered only in the wellsprings of cultural history» — la regla que Wasson enuncia: un rasgo emocional de pueblos enteros, invariable a lo largo de la historia registrada, señala un fenómeno de importancia cultural profunda.

«We ourselves have had no desire to change the Anglo Saxon’s attitude toward mushrooms. We view this anthropological quirk with amused detachment, confident that it will long remain unchanged, for future students to examine at their leisure» — la abstención que Wasson declara frente a los micólogos que querían corregir el prejuicio anglosajón.

«Our method of approach was to look everywhere for references to mushrooms. We gathered the words for “mushroom” and the various species in every accessible language. We studied their etymologies. Sometimes we rejected the accepted derivations and worked out new ones, as in the case of ‘“‘mushroom”’ itself and also of chanterelle.* We were quick to discern the metaphors in such words, metaphors that had lain dormant, in some cases for thousands of years» — el método de Wasson y su mujer: recoger las palabras de todas las lenguas accesibles y despertar las metáforas dormidas en ellas.

«Mushrooms are widely linked with the fly, the toad, the cock, and the thunderbolt; and so we studied these to see what associations they conveyed to our remote forebears» — las cuatro asociaciones del hongo que Wasson rastrea: la mosca, el sapo, el gallo y el rayo.

«We were amateurs, unencumbered by academic inhibitions, and therefore we felt free to range far and wide, disregarding the frontiers that ordinarily segregate the learned disciplines. What we produced was a pioneering work» — cómo se describe Wasson a sí mismo y a su mujer: aficionados sin inhibiciones académicas, libres de cruzar las fronteras entre disciplinas.

«We know, we have always known, better than the critics, the flaws in our work, but our main theme, which we adumbrated rather diffidently in Mushrooms, Russia, and History (1957), seems to have stood up under criticism» — lo que Wasson reconoce y lo que defiende de su propia obra.

«I do not recall which of us, my wife or I, first dared to put into words, back in the ’40’s, the surmise that our own remote ancestors, perhaps 6000 years ago, worshiped a divine mushroom» — la conjetura mayor de Wasson: que sus propios antepasados remotos adoraran un hongo divino hace unos seis mil años.

«It seemed to us that this might explain the phenomenon of mycophilia vs. mycophobia, for which we found an abundance of supporting evidence in philology and folklore» — qué explicaría esa conjetura según Wasson: el fenómeno de la micofilia contra la micofobia.

«In the fall of 1952, we learned that the sixteenth-century writers describing the Indian cultures of Mexico had recorded that certain mushrooms played a divinatory role in the religion of the natives» — cómo fecha Wasson el comienzo de sus exploraciones mesoamericanas: los escritores del XVI y el papel divinatorio del hongo.

«For want of a better name, the archaeologists called them “mushroom stones,’”’ but not one archaeologist had linked them with mushrooms or with the rites described by the sixteenth-century writers in neighboring Mexico. They were an enigma, and “mushroom stone’ was merely a term of convenience» — el estado en que Wasson encontró las piedras-hongo: nadie las había ligado a los hongos ni a los ritos que describen los cronistas.

«Just like the child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” we spoke up, declaring that the so-called mushroom stones really did represent mushrooms, and that they were the symbol of a religion, like the cross in the Christian religion, or the Star of Judea, or the crescent of the Moslems» — la afirmación con que Wasson se presenta a sí mismo: las piedras-hongo representaban hongos y eran el símbolo de una religión, como la cruz o la media luna.

«If we are right—and accumulating evidence is strongly in our favor—then this Middle American cult of a divine mushroom, this cult of God’s flesh, as the Nahua called it in pre-Hispanic times, can be traced back archaeologically at least to 500 B.c. and probably 1000 s.c. This places the ancestral mushroom cult in the culture of the highland Maya at a time when stone sculpture was making its first appearance in Middle America» — la datación que Wasson propone para ese culto: hasta el 500 y probablemente el 1000 antes de la era, en la cultura maya de las tierras altas.

«Religion has always been at the core of man’s highest faculties and cultural achievements, and therefore I would suggest that we learn to contemplate the lowly mushroom in a new light: what patents of ancient lineage and nobility are coming its way!» — la consecuencia que Wasson le saca a su hallazgo para la micología, llamada hijastra de las ciencias naturales.

«Some Middle American specialists may challenge my assumption of a connection between the “mushroom stones,” which ceased to be made centuries before Columbus arrived on these shores, and today’s surviving mushroom cult. For years I had only an assumption to go on, but now, thanks to discoveries made by the late Stephan F. Borhegyi and us, I think we can tie the two together in a way that will satisfy any doubter» — la objeción que Wasson se anticipa en nota, sobre el vínculo entre las piedras-hongo y el culto superviviente.

«before or after we had learned of the role of Amanita muscaria in the religion of several remote tribes of Siberia. Our bold surmise seems less bold now than it did then» — la duda que Wasson no resuelve sobre si su conjetura precedió o siguió al conocimiento del papel de la Amanita muscaria en Siberia.

«The effigy here is a crouching jaguar with a human head, possibly signifying shamanic transformation under the influence of the hallucinogenic mushroom or depicting the guardian spirit of the sacred plant» — el pie de figura de la piedra-hongo guatemalteca: un jaguar agazapado con cabeza humana, leído como transformación chamánica o como espíritu guardián de la planta.

«Fortunately, we could build on the experience of a few predecessors in the field: Blas Pablo Reko, Robert J. Weitlaner, Jean Bassett Johnson, Richard Evans Schultes, and Eunice V. Pike. They all reported that the cult still existed in the Sierra Mazateca in Oaxaca» — a quiénes le reconoce Wasson haber ido delante: Reko, Weitlaner, Johnson, Schultes y Pike, que ya informaban de la supervivencia del culto.

«So far as we know, we were the first outsiders to eat the mushrooms, the first to be invited to partake in the agapé of the sacred mushroom» — la primicia que Wasson se adjudica con su límite dentro: hasta donde saben, fueron los primeros forasteros en comer los hongos.

«How curious it 1s that modern civilized man finds surcease from care in a drug for which he seems to have no respect!» — la paradoja que Wasson señala en el hombre civilizado y su droga, con todo su vocabulario despectivo.

«If we use by analogy the terms suitable for alcohol, we prejudice the mushroom, and since there are few among us who have been bemushroomed, there is danger that the experience will not be fairly judged. What we need is a vocabulary to describe all the modalities of a divine inebriant» — lo que Wasson reclama: un vocabulario para todas las modalidades de un embriagante divino.

«Thus it comes about that we are all divided into two classes: those who have taken the mushroom and are disqualified by subjective experience, and those who have not taken the mushroom and are disqualified by total ignorance of the subject!» — la trampa que Wasson describe en el campo profesional: descalificados los que tomaron el hongo por subjetivos y los que no por ignorantes.

«As for me, a simple layman, I am profoundly grateful to my Indian friends for having initiated me into the tremendous Mystery of the mushroom» — cómo se sitúa Wasson a sí mismo: un simple lego agradecido a sus amigos indios por haberlo iniciado.

«Let me hasten to warn that I am painfully aware of the inadequacy of my words, any words, to conjure up for you an image of that state» — la advertencia con que Wasson acota lo que va a describir.

«The men are given to the abuse of alcohol, but in their minds the mushrooms are utterly different, not in degree, but in kind» — la distinción que los propios indios hacen según Wasson: el hongo no difiere del alcohol en grado sino en especie.

«But about mushrooms they prefer not to speak at all, at least when they are in company, and especially when strangers, white strangers, are present» — el silencio en que se guarda el asunto según Wasson, sobre todo ante forasteros blancos.

«Now you will learn how the mushrooms are gathered, perhaps before sunrise, when the mountainside is caressed by the predawn breeze, at the time of the New Moon, in certain regions only by a doncella, an untouched maiden. The mushrooms are wrapped in a leaf, perhaps a banana leaf, sheltered thus from irreverent eyes, and in some villages they are taken first to the church, where they remain for some time on the altar, in a jicara, or gourd bowl. ‘They are never exposed in the market place but pass from hand to hand by prearrangement» — el protocolo de la recolección y la custodia del hongo según Wasson: antes del alba, en luna nueva, a veces por una doncella, y de mano en mano y nunca en el mercado.

«The Nahua before the Spaniards arrived called them God’s flesh, teonanacatl. I need hardly draw attention to a disquieting parallel, the designation of the Elements in our Eucharist: ‘“Take, eat, this is my Body .. .”; and, again, “Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son» — el paralelo que Wasson señala entre el nombre náhuatl del hongo y las palabras de la Eucaristía.

«This disturbance is wholly different from the effects of alcohol, as different as night from day. We are entering upon a discussion in which the vocabulary of the English language, of any European language, is seriously deficient. here are no apt words in it to characterize one’s state when one is, shall we say, “bemushroomed» — la insuficiencia del vocabulario que Wasson declara para el estado que llama *bemushroomed*, distinto del alcohol como el día de la noche.

«El honguillo viene por si mismo, no se sabe de ddnde, como el viento que viene sin saber de donde ni porqué. The little mushroom comes of itself, no one knows whence, like the wind that comes we know not whence nor why» — la respuesta del arriero mazateco que Wasson cita en español y en su propia traducción: el honguillo viene por sí mismo, como el viento.

«His answer, breathtaking in its sincerity and feeling, was filled with the poetry of religion, and I quote it word for word as he gave it» — cómo califica Wasson esa respuesta: llena de la poesía de la religión.

«When we first went down to Mexico, my wife and I, we felt certain that we were on the trail of an ancient and holy mystery, and we went as pilgrims seeking the Grail. To this attitude of ours I attribute such success as we have had» — la actitud a la que Wasson atribuye su éxito: ir como peregrinos en busca del Grial.

«For four and a half centuries the rulers of Mexico, men of Spanish origin or at least of Spanish culture, have never entered sympathetically into the ways of the Indians, and the Church regarded the sacred mushroom as an idolatry» — el juicio de Wasson sobre cuatro siglos y medio de trato entre los gobernantes de México y los indios, con la Iglesia teniendo el hongo por idolatría.

«For more than four centuries the Indians have kept the divine mushroom close to their hearts, sheltered from desecration by white men, a precious secret» — cómo explica Wasson la supervivencia del culto: guardado cerca del corazón y al abrigo de la profanación por los blancos.

«With the passing years they will die off, and, as the country opens up, the cult is destined to disappear» — el pronóstico que Wasson da para el culto conforme el país se abre.

«Do not think that it is a question of money: No hicimos esto por dinero (We did not this for money), said Guadalupe, after we had spent the night with her family and the curandera Maria Sabina. (For those who know the Mazatecs this simple declaration will be all the more remarkable: money is hard to come by in the Sierra Mazateca, and the Mazatecs are notoriously avaricious» — la negativa que Wasson consigna con la fórmula de la informante y el dato que la hace notable.

«But there is one difference. The orthodox Christian must accept on faith the miracle of the conversion of the bread into God’s flesh: that is what is meant by the doctrine of transubstantiation» — la diferencia que Wasson opone a ese paralelo: la transubstanciación se acepta por fe.

«After all, who would have it different? What priest of the Catholic Church will perform Mass to satisfy an unbeliever’s curiosity? The curandero who today, for a big fee, will perform the mushroom rite for any stranger is a prostitute and a faker, and his insincere performance has the validity of a rite put on by an unfrocked priest» — el juicio de Wasson sobre el curandero que oficia por dinero para un extraño.

«In the modern world religion is often an etiolated thing, a social activity with mild ethical rules. Religion in primitive society was an awesome reality, “‘terrible” in the original meaning of that abused word, pervading all life and culminating in ceremonies that were forbidden to the profane. This is what the mushroom ceremony was in the remote parts of Mexico» — el contraste que Wasson traza entre la religión moderna y la de la sociedad primitiva, terrible en el sentido original de la palabra.

«Let me now draw your attention to certain parallels between our Mexican rite and the Mystery performed at Eleusis in the first millennium B.c., and probably much earlier. The timing seems significant. In the Mazatec country, the preferred season for ‘‘consulting the mushroom” is during the rains, when the mushrooms grow, from June through August. The Eleusinian Mystery, a sacred rite of purification and initiation related to deities of the earth, was celebrated in September or early October, the season of the mushrooms in Europe» — el paralelo que Wasson traza entre el rito mexicano y el misterio de Eleusis, empezando por la coincidencia estacional.

«At the heart of the Mystery of Eleusis lay a secret. In the surviving texts there are numerous references to the secret, but in none is it revealed» — lo que Wasson consigna del secreto de Eleusis: se lo menciona en los textos y en ninguno se lo revela.

«From the writings of the Greeks, from a fresco in Pompeii, we know that the initiate drank a potion. Then, in the depths of the night, he beheld visions, and the next day he was still so awestruck that he felt he would never be the same man as before» — lo que sí se sabe del iniciado eleusino según Wasson: bebía una poción, veía visiones de noche y al día siguiente seguía sobrecogido.

«And he went on to speak of the “ineffable visions” that it had been the privilege of many generations of men and women to behold» — lo que Wasson subraya de esa cita: las visiones inefables que fue privilegio de muchas generaciones contemplar.

«How striking that the Mystery of antiquity and the mushroom rite in Mexico are accompanied in the two societies by veils of reticence that, so far as we can tell, match each other point for point! The ancient writers’ words are as applicable to contemporary Mexico as to classic Greece» — el punto que Wasson destaca del paralelo: los velos de reticencia de las dos sociedades se corresponden punto por punto.

«Eleusis is a shrine common to the whole earth, and of all the divine things that exist among men, it is both the most awesome and the most luminous» — la cita de Elio Aristides con que Wasson corre un instante el velo sobre el misterio eleusino: el santuario común a toda la tierra, el más temible y el más luminoso.

«The Greeks of the classic period were mycophobes. Was this because their ancestors had felt that the whole fungal tribe was infected “by attraction” with the holiness of some mushrooms, and that they were not for mortal men to eat, at least not every day? Are we not dealing with what was in origin a religious taboo?» — la pregunta que Wasson deja planteada: si la micofobia griega clásica vendría de un tabú religioso sobre el hongo sagrado.

«For me there is no doubt that the secret of Eleusis lies in the hallucinogens. I should like to think that the agent was a mushroom, and there are clues hinting that it was, but the plant world withholds» — la tesis que Wasson declara sin reservas: el secreto de Eleusis está en los alucinógenos, aunque el hongo sea solo lo que a él le gustaría.

«All the utterances concerning Fleusis, such as the one from Aristides, quoted above, the awe and wonderment, the instinctive reticence, for me bespeak a hallucinogen» — en qué funda Wasson esa tesis: el asombro y la reticencia instintiva de todas las declaraciones sobre Eleusis.

«Anyone could become an initiate on two conditions: that Greek was his tongue, and that he was not an unabsolved murderer. Even slaves could present themselves. Thus the reticence was not a self-imposed rule of an elite guarding a secret from the profane, as it was among the Aryans of India» — el argumento de Wasson sobre la reticencia eleusina: cualquiera podía iniciarse, hasta un esclavo, luego el silencio no era regla de una élite.

«I think the silence imposed itself, spontaneous and voluntary, precisely the same reticence that we found among the Mazatec Indians when we went there in 1953-55, precisely the same reticence that prevails in all circles when face to face with the deepest Mysteries of religion» — cómo explica Wasson ese silencio: espontáneo y voluntario, el mismo que halló entre los mazatecos.

«But how much could we have learned if the initiated of Eleusis had spoken? Perhaps only the details of their experience, whereas the secret of secrets, the identity of the hallucinogen, may well have been the arcanum of the hierophant and his next of kin» — el límite que Wasson le pone a lo que podría saberse: la identidad del alucinógeno pudo ser arcano del hierofante y de los suyos.

«The effects on the initiates were, as near as we can say, the same as follow the ingestion, in proper dosage, of peyote, of ololiuqui, of the hallucinogenic mushrooms of Mexico» — la equiparación que Wasson propone entre el efecto sobre el iniciado eleusino y el del peyote, el ololiuqui y el hongo mexicano.

«At present I am inclined to think that the potion of Eleusis did not contain the juice of the fly agaric of the forest belt of Eurasia, the Soma of the Aryans» — la exclusión que Wasson se inclina a hacer: la poción de Eleusis no llevaría el jugo de la amanita, el Soma de los arios.

«The action of the fly agaric on the human organism is different: there is a period of abnormal somnolence, and then a phase in which the imbiber is stimulated to perform feats of physical endurance renowned both in Siberia and in the hymns of the Rig-Veda. We have no hint of these effects from the Eleusinian potion. The chemistry of the fly agaric is not the chemistry of the Mexican plants» — en qué funda esa exclusión: el efecto de la amanita es otro, con somnolencia y luego proezas de resistencia física.

«it not be significant that the Greeks were wont to refer to mushrooms as “the food of the gods,” brédma theon, and that Porphyry is quoted as having called them ‘‘nurslings of the gods,” theotrophous?» — los dos nombres griegos del hongo que Wasson recoge, alimento de los dioses y criaturas de los dioses. La frase arranca en la plana 223.

«Now that we are struggling unsuccessfully to control drug addiction in our modern world, let us turn to our ‘primitive’ kin to see how they handled the dangers inherent in all hallucinogens. Among the Aryans, only the Brahmans were privy to the secret of Soma; they alone knew how it was prepared and imbibed. Similarly, in the Valley of the Ob, in Siberia, the Vogul laid down a severe taboo on the ingestion of the fly agaric: only the shaman and his acolyte could consume the mushroom with impunity—all others would surely die» — los controles que Wasson encuentra en las sociedades llamadas primitivas: el secreto brahmánico del Soma y el tabú vogul sobre la amanita.

«Throughout my sojourns in Mexico I was constantly being warned that the divine mushrooms were muy delicados, “very dangerous,’ and their consumption is hedged about with many taboos, differing from village to village» — la advertencia constante que Wasson recibió en México y los tabúes que rodean el consumo.

«the Indians never abuse the plants, which they treat with respect, and I have known Indians, some of them alcoholics, who had taken the mushrooms only once in their lives. They spoke of the mushrooms with reverence but did not wish to repeat the experience» — lo que Wasson sostiene del trato indígena con la planta, con el ejemplo de los que la tomaron una sola vez en la vida.

«During an all-night session, the curandero (or curandera) watches solicitously over those. who have taken the hallucinogen and is quick to act if there is sign of upset. Ihe communicants are enjoined not to leave the house (a one-room hut) under any circumstances as long as the effect of the plant lasts. There is always one person, sometimes two, who do not share in the agapé and who stand guard against interruptions from without and any untoward happenings within» — el dispositivo de cuidado que Wasson describe en la sesión nocturna, con uno o dos que no comulgan y montan guardia.

«All those who have shared in the communion feel close to one another, having passed together the unforgettable hours» — el efecto social que Wasson registra: los que comulgaron juntos se sienten cercanos.

«I would not be understood as contending that only the hallucinogens (wherever found in nature) bring about visions and ecstasy. Clearly, some poets and prophets and many mystics and ascetics (especially in India) seem to have enjoyed ecstatic visions that answer the requirements of the ancient Mysteries and that duplicate the mushroom agapé of Mexico» — la negativa con que Wasson acota su propia tesis: no solo los alucinógenos traen visión y éxtasis.

«I do not suggest that St. John of Patmos ate mushrooms in order to write the Book of the Revelation. Yet the succession of images in his vision, so clearly seen and yet such a phantasmagoria, means for me that he was in the same state as one bemushroomed» — la distinción que Wasson mantiene sobre el Apocalipsis: no afirma que Juan comiera hongos, sino que la sucesión de imágenes indica el mismo estado.

«The Prophets describe what they saw in Vision as real and existing men, whom they saw with their imaginative and immortal organs; the Apostles the same; the clearer the organ the more distinct the object. A Spirit and a Vision are not, as the modern philosophy supposes, a cloudy vapor, or a nothing: they are organized and minutely articulated beyond all that the mortal and perishing nature can produce. He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in stronger and better light than his perishing eye can see, does not imagine at all» — la cita de Blake sobre la claridad de la visión que Wasson reproduce: cuanto más claro el órgano, más distinto el objeto.

«In Greece the initiates generally attended the celebration at Eleusis only once in their lives, a few being permitted to return for the second time the following year. In Mexico the shamans (curanderos) and their next of kin know which plants are hallucinogenic» — los otros dos controles que Wasson enumera: una sola iniciación en la vida en Eleusis, y en México el saber reservado al chamán y a los suyos.

«All that you see during this night has a pristine quality: the landscape, the edifices, the carvings, the animals— they look as though they had come straight from the Maker’s workshop. This newness of everything—it is as though the world had just dawned —overwhelms you and melts you with its beauty» — cómo describe Wasson la cualidad prístina de lo visto: como recién salido del taller del Hacedor.

«All these things you see with an immediacy of vision that leads you to say to yourself, ‘Now I am seeing for the first time, seeing direct, without the intervention of mortal eyes» — la inmediatez de la visión según Wasson, en la fórmula que uno se dice a sí mismo.

«Plato tells us that beyond this ephemeral and imperfect existence here below is an ideal world of archetypes, where the original, the true, the beautiful pattern of things exists forevermore. Poets and philosophers for millennia have pondered and discussed his conception. It is clear to me where Plato found his ideas; it was clear to his contemporaries too. Plato had drunk of the potion in the Temple of Eleusis and had spent the night seeing the great vision» — la conjetura de Wasson sobre el origen de las ideas de Platón: habría bebido la poción en el templo de Eleusis y pasado la noche viendo la gran visión.

«One night my curandera devoted her attention to her seventeen-year-old son, who seemed to have been mentally retarded. She sang over him, and it was as though what she sang were a threnody of all the mothers of the world from the beginning of time, the Lament of the Grieving Mother, without artifice, without self-consciousness because a stranger was present, without reticence, her naked soul reaching out to the Divine Mother» — el canto de la curandera sobre su hijo que Wasson describe, como un treno de todas las madres del mundo.

«The singing is good, but under the influence of the mushroom you think it is infinitely tender and sweet. It is as though you were hearing it with your mind’s ear, purged of all dross» — cómo cambia el canto bajo el efecto del hongo según Wasson: se lo oye con el oído de la mente, purgado de escoria.

«In the darkness and stillness, that voice hovers through the hut, coming now from beyond your feet, now at your very ear, now distant, now actually underneath you, with strange ventriloquistic effect. ‘he mushrooms produce this illusion also. Everyone experiences it» — el efecto ventrílocuo del hongo que Wasson consigna como común a todos los presentes.

«It permits you to see, more clearly than our perishing mortal eye can see, vistas beyond the horizons of this life, to travel backward and forward in time, to enter other planes of existence, even (as the Indians say) to know God» — lo que el hongo permite según Wasson: ver más allá del horizonte de esta vida, viajar en el tiempo, entrar en otros planos y, como dicen los indios, conocer a Dios.

«Likewise, in Mexico, I have heard a shaman engage in a most complex percussive beat; with her hands she hit her chest, her thighs, her forehead, her arms, each giving a different resonance, keeping an intricate rhythm and modulating, even syncopating, the strokes» — la percusión corporal de una chamana mexicana que Wasson describe, con un ritmo intrincado y aun sincopado.

«Your body lies in the darkness, heavy as lead, but your spirit seems to soar and leave the hut and with the speed of thought to travel where it listeth, in time and space» — la disociación que Wasson describe: el cuerpo pesado como plomo y el espíritu viajando a la velocidad del pensamiento.

«What you are seeing and what you are hearing appear as one: the music assumes harmonious shapes and colors, giving visual form to its harmonies, and what you are seeing takes on the modalities of music» — la sinestesia que Wasson describe: la música toma forma y color y lo visto toma las modalidades de la música.

«Elsewhere I once wrote that the bemushroomed person is poised in space, a disembodied eye, invisible, incorporeal, seeing but not seen. In truth, he is the five senses disembodied, all of them keyed to the height of sensitivity and awareness, all of them blending into one another most strangely, until, utterly passive, he becomes a pure receptor, infinitely delicate, of sensations» — la fórmula de Wasson para el estado: los cinco sentidos descorporizados, mezclados entre sí, hasta volverse puro receptor.

«But the Mazatec communicants are also participants with the curandera in an extempore religious colloquy. Her utterances elicit spontaneous responses from them, responses that maintain a perfect harmony with her and with each other, building up to a quiet, swaying, antiphonal chant. This is an essential element of a successful ceremony, and one cannot experience the full effect of the role of the mushroom in the Indian community unless one attends such a gathering, either alone or with one or two other strangers» — la diferencia que Wasson consigna entre el forastero y el comulgante mazateco: el segundo responde a la curandera en un canto antifonal.

«As your body lies there, your soul is free, with no sense of time, alert as never before, living an eternity in a night, seeing infinity in a grain of sand. What you have seen and heard is cut as with a burin in your memory, never to be effaced» — cómo describe Wasson el estado del alma: sin sentido del tiempo, viviendo una eternidad en una noche y viendo el infinito en un grano de arena.

«At last you know what the ineffable is, and what ecstasy means» — lo que, según Wasson, se llega a saber esa noche.

«For the Greeks ekstasis meant the flight of the soul from the body. Can a better word than that be found to describe the bemushroomed state?» — la etimología que Wasson invoca para nombrar el estado: éxtasis como vuelo del alma fuera del cuerpo.

«But ecstasy is not fun. In our everyday existence we divide experiences into good and bad, “fun” and pain. There is a third category, ecstasy, that for most of us hovers off stage, a stranger we never meet. The divine mushroom introduces ecstasy to us. Your very soul is seized and shaken until it tingles, until you fear that you will never recover your equilibrium. After all, who will choose to feel undiluted awe, or to float through that door yonder into the Divine Presence?» — la corrección que Wasson le hace al uso corriente de la palabra éxtasis, con la tercera categoría que no es ni placer ni dolor.

«What today is resolved into a mere drug, a tryptamine or lysergic-acid derivative, was for them a prodigious miracle, inspiring in them poetry and philosophy and religion» — el contraste con que Wasson cierra ese planteo: lo que hoy se resuelve en una droga era para ellos un prodigio que inspiraba poesía, filosofía y religión.

«Perhaps, with all our modern knowledge, we do not need the divine mushrooms any more. Or do we need them more than ever?» — la pregunta doble que Wasson deja sin contestar.

«As man emerged from his brutish past, millennia ago, there was a stage in the evolution of his awareness when the discovery of a mushroom (or was it a higher plant?) with miraculous properties was a revelation to him, a veritable detonator to his soul» — el momento que Wasson sitúa en la evolución de la consciencia: el hallazgo de un hongo con propiedades milagrosas como detonador del alma.

«sentiments of awe and reverence, gentleness and love, to the highest pitch of which mankind is capable, all those sentiments and virtues that man has ever since regarded as the highest attribute of his kind. It made him see what this perishing mortal eye cannot see» — los sentimientos que ese hallazgo habría despertado según Wasson, y que el hombre tiene desde entonces por sus atributos más altos.

«On the other hand, the drug is as mysterious as it ever was: “like the wind it cometh we know not whence, nor why.” Out of a mere drug comes the ineffable, comes ecstasy» — la paradoja con que Wasson responde al reproche de reducir la religión a una droga, citando de nuevo la fórmula del arriero.

«This is not the only instance in the history of humankind where the lowly has given birth to the divine. Altering a sacred text, we would say that this paradox is a hard saying, yet one worthy of all men to be believed» — cómo cierra Wasson esa paradoja, alterando un texto sagrado.

«What would our classical scholars not give for an opportunity to attend the rite at Eleusis, to talk with the priestess? —They would approach the precincts, enter the hallowed chamber, with a reverence born of the texts venerated by scholars for millennia. How propitious would be their frame of mind if they were invited to partake of the potion!» — la ironía con que Wasson interpela al erudito clásico.

«Well, those rites take place now, accessible but unbeknown to classical scholars, ignored by them, in scattered dwellings, humble, thatched, without windows, far from the beaten track, high in the mountains of Mexico, in the stillness of the night, broken only by the distant barking of a dog, perhaps the braying of an ass» — dónde ocurre hoy ese rito según Wasson: en chozas sin ventanas, lejos del camino trillado, en las montañas de México.

«Then, indeed, as you lie there bemushroomed, seeing the music and listening to the visions, you know a soul-shattering experience, recalling as you do the beliefs of some primitive peoples that mushrooms, the sacred mushrooms, are divinely engendered by Jupiter Fulminator, the God of the Lightning Bolt, in the Soft Mother Earth» — la creencia con que Wasson cierra su capítulo: que el hongo sagrado sea engendrado por el dios del rayo en la Madre Tierra blanda.

«One of the divinities in this religion was Soma—the only plant known to have been deified in the history of human cultures» — cómo presenta Wasson al Soma: la única planta que se sabe deificada en la historia de las culturas humanas.

«One hundred and twenty of the hymns were devoted entirely to extolling this plant and its properties (including the inebriating juice), not to speak of frequent adoring references to it in the other hymns. The role of Soma in the Rig-Veda pervades the entire collection of hymns. As the late Louis Renou said, the whole of the Rig-Veda is present in a nutshell in the themes centered on Soma» — el peso del Soma en el Rig-Veda según Wasson, con la fórmula que toma de Renou.

«Now, the strange thing is that in 1900 no one knew, no one has known until now, what plant Soma was. In India its identity had been forgotten millennia before the arrival of Westerners» — el enigma que Wasson plantea: en la India la identidad del Soma se había olvidado milenios antes de la llegada de los occidentales.

«Even they seem to be adjusting themselves to the absence of Soma, although this is a feat comparable to presenting the play of Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark absent» — la imagen con que Wasson describe la resignación de los védicos ante la ausencia del Soma.

«Soma, I suggest, was the mushroom known in the English-speaking world as the fly agaric, Amanita muscaria» — la identificación que Wasson propone para el Soma.

«When I first approached the Rig-Veda in 1962 I was mystified not so much by the elusive Soma as by the inability of the learned fraternity to identify it» — lo que a Wasson le resultó más misterioso al acercarse al Rig-Veda: no el Soma sino la incapacidad de los eruditos para identificarlo.

«But let me remind you that we must read these hymns as poetry. Perhaps I was blessed by being unencumbered with problems of syntax, with ramifying questions of Indo-European philology, with the sweep of mythological concepts emanating from prehistoric times. However, I did possess some knowledge of the known plant hallucinogens of the world» — la regla de lectura que Wasson enuncia y la ventaja que se atribuye: leer los himnos como poesía y conocer los alucinógenos del mundo.

«I will not tarry over the many suggestions that Soma was an alcoholic beverage, since they all do multiple violence to the text of the Rig-Veda and they merely reflect the obsession of the West with alcohol as the inebriant of this world» — cómo despacha Wasson las propuestas de que el Soma fuera bebida alcohólica.

«But I will point out that in the Rig-Veda there is no mention of the roots, the leaves, the blossoms, the seed, or the fruit of Soma. In fact, the Rig-Veda says* expressly that Soma was born without seed: the gods laid the Somic germ. The only plants that fill these requirements are mushrooms» — el argumento textual de Wasson: el Rig-Veda no menciona raíz, hoja, flor, semilla ni fruto del Soma, y dice que nació sin semilla.

«The habitat of Soma is on the mountain heights. This means that the divine fungus grew in the Himalayas or the Hindu Kush or both, and not in the dry hot plains of the Indus valleys» — dónde sitúa Wasson el hábitat del Soma según el texto: las alturas, no las llanuras cálidas del Indo.

«The fly agaric first appears as a fluffy ball the size of an egg wrapped in an envelope of white wool. As it grows and swells it bursts its woolly envelope, showing its dazzling red skin beneath. Fragments of the envelope remain on the cap, studding it with small white patches» — la descripción del hongo con que Wasson sostiene su lectura de las metáforas védicas.

«The poets, with poetic license, also liken it to an ‘‘udder;” tdhan, which is ‘‘milked” of its holy ambrosia, called pdvamdna» — la metáfora védica de la ubre que Wasson empareja con el sombrero del hongo.

«In one place the poet actually says that Soma sloughs off its envelope, a figure of speech that a mycologist today might use in conversation» — la figura védica que Wasson dice que un micólogo usaría hoy en conversación.

«The poet speaks of the dazzling red skin of the fly agaric as the hide of a bull, the red beast that the Vedic priests exalted above all others in nature, and he describes Soma’s “‘dress’’ as of sheep—the woolly fragments that remain when the envelope bursts» — las dos vestiduras del Soma según la lectura de Wasson: la piel de toro roja y el vellón de oveja de los restos del velo.

«Scholars have been puzzled by the five verses in which Soma is called the “single eye,’ ékam akst. This metaphor now becomes clear: in its natural habitat the adored plant at one stage in its life cycle looks like a single eye, contemplating the world, taking it all in» — la metáfora del ojo único que Wasson dice aclarar con su identificación.

«For the poet the divine juice comes down from heaven on the rays of the sun. Soma enters the plant while the rays remain caught on the skin» — el tercer filtro védico según Wasson: el jugo baja del cielo por los rayos del sol y los rayos quedan prendidos en la piel.

«I have yet to find a single verse in the Rig-Veda that is incompatible with my identification, and there are many verses whose figures of speech are in happy concordance with our regal plant» — el alcance que Wasson le reclama a su identificación y el límite con que lo enuncia.

«I now present converging evidence of startling character in support of my contention. I wish to emphasize that this evidence is not essential to my case, but, unless it is impugned, it alone is sufficient to prove that Soma was the fly agaric of Eurasian folklore and to suggest that the fly agaric may be the key to the religion prevailing throughout Eurasia in prehistoric times» — cómo presenta Wasson la evidencia siguiente, con su propio límite: no es esencial a su caso, pero bastaría para probarlo.

«a column, and the poets hyperbolically refer to it repeatedly as the “mainstay of the sky,” the “pillar of the world» — las dos metáforas védicas que Wasson lee como columna del hongo: el sostén del cielo y el pilar del mundo.

«The poet speaks of Soma as ‘‘dazzling by day, by night silvery white.’’ Surely he is referring to the brilliant spectacle that the fly agaric presents in sunlight, and then to its aspect as the color fades out by night and only fragments of the silvery-white envelope remain visible in the light of the moon» — la fórmula védica sobre el Soma deslumbrante de día y blanco plateado de noche, leída por Wasson como el aspecto del hongo.

«The fly agaric possesses a peculiar property, unique so far as we know in the whole plant world: it is an inebriant whose inebriating property passes quickly through to the urine» — la propiedad que Wasson da por única en todo el reino vegetal: el poder embriagante pasa pronto a la orina.

«The tribesmen of the Chukotka and Kamchatka, in the far northeast of Siberia, used to drink the urine of those who had ingested the fly agaric, apparently by preference, I think because certain impurities are strained out as it passes through the human organism, the third of the Rig-Veda’s three filters» — la práctica siberiana que Wasson consigna y cómo la lee: el organismo humano como tercer filtro del Rig-Veda.

«Not all tribes have recourse to this practice: we have no evidence that the tribes who use the fly agaric in the valleys of the Ob and Yenisei do so. The sources are silent on this» — el límite que Wasson pone a ese dato: no consta que lo hagan las tribus del Obi y el Yeniséi.

«The answer may lie in the reindeer. The tribes live in intimacy with their great herds of reindeer, and these are addicted both to the fly agaric and to drinking urine, especially human urine. Fly-agaric inebriation is common among the animals, as every reindeer-handler knows» — la conjetura de Wasson sobre cómo se descubrió esa propiedad: por el reno, adicto al hongo y a la orina humana.

«Wasson’s recent book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968) includes a complete anthology of the travelers, anthropologists, and linguists who have left accounts of the Siberian practice, some of whom describe in some detail the practice of urine-drinking in mushroom rituals» — nota del editor dentro del capítulo de Wasson: Furst remite a la antología de testimonios siberianos del propio libro de Wasson sobre el Soma. La nota cierra con la firma *Eb.*.

«Like a stag, come here to drink! Drink Soma, as much as you like. Pissing it out day by day, O generous one, you have assumed your most mighty force. (Daniel H. H. Ingalls’ rendering» — la estrofa del Rig-Veda que Wasson trae en la traducción de Daniel H. H. Ingalls, con el dios que orina el Soma día tras día.

«When we drink tea or coffee or milk or beer, no one says that we later urinate tea or coffee or milk or beer. But Indra pisses Soma, just as the fly-agaric consumer in the Chukotka does» — el contraste con que Wasson lee esa estrofa: nadie dice que uno orine té ni cerveza, y en cambio el dios orina Soma.

«Only with Soma is there Soma-urine. How did the priests learn this other than by drinking the Soma-impregnated beverage?» — la inferencia con que Wasson cierra ese argumento: los sacerdotes no pudieron saberlo sino bebiendo.

«In the Rig-Veda we find a number of allusions to the passing of Soma through the belly, the entrails, of Indra, some of these allusions expressing considerable anxiety. I say that these become meaningful if we understand that Soma is being passed through what the poets call the Third Filter, the human organism, into the urine, and that this act is attended by genuine dangers of misadventure» — cómo lee Wasson las alusiones al paso del Soma por las entrañas del dios: el tercer filtro, con peligros reales de percance.

«There is a verse, IX 74.4d, where the priests “with full bladders piss Soma quick with movement.” Now this is a translation of Renou and also in essence of Geldner, both of them Vedic scholars of the highest eminence. They agree on the peculiar meaning of this verse. I believe other scholars dispute such a reading, but if Geldner and Renou are right, this verse alone is sufficient to clinch my case» — el verso que Wasson da por decisivo y el desacuerdo que consigna sin armonizar: Renou y Geldner lo leen así y otros eruditos lo disputan.

«According to a well-known Brahmana story,* Indra drinks so much Soma that the sources say Indra exudes it from his ears as well as pissing it» — el relato de los Brahmanas que Wasson trae: el dios exuda el Soma por los oídos además de orinarlo.

«The Parsis, descendants of the Zoroastrians, to this day consume urine in their religious devotions, although only in symbolic amounts and only bull’s urine» — la supervivencia que Wasson consigna con sus dos límites: los parsis consumen orina en sus devociones, en cantidades simbólicas y solo de toro.

«The Manichaeans, whose religion was an outgrowth of Zoroastrianism, exercised considerable influence in China for some centuries; from a late date in Fukien Province, two reports survive by a high civil servant to his superiors criticizing the religious activities of these Manichaean sectarians. In their devotions, he said, they consume too many red mushrooms and, moreover, were making use of urine, apparently human urine» — el testimonio chino que Wasson recoge sobre los maniqueos de Fujian: consumían demasiados hongos rojos y usaban orina.

«Probably this civil servant had not himself attended the Manichaean rites and was reporting hearsay» — la reserva que Wasson pone a ese testimonio: el funcionario probablemente informaba de oídas.

«As a final citation, in the Mahabharata we find a quaint apologue, interpolated late into the text, telling how a mdtanga (the lowest of the low) invited the holy man Uttanka to drink his urine to quench his (Uttanka’s) thirst and how Uttanka refused indignantly, only to learn later that the mdtanga was Krishna in disguise, and that he had been offered—and had refused— Soma-urine! Uttanka thus lost forever the chance to join the immortals» — el apólogo del Mahabharata que Wasson cita: el santo rechaza la orina del paria, que era Krishna, y pierde para siempre la ocasión de sumarse a los inmortales.

«Again, an Indian intellectual says that the present-day sadhu conveys his spiritual powers to his disciples in any one of four ways: (1) by a “laying on” of hands, precisely as in our church; (2) by having his disciples repeat incessantly for long periods a certain prayer or mantra; (3) by having him fix his gaze undeviatingly on the sadhu’s countenance for long periods; and, finally, (4) by giving his favored disciples the privilege of drinking his urine» — las cuatro vías por las que un sadhu de hoy transmite sus poderes, según el informante indio que Wasson cita.

«Avesta, Yasna 48.10, Zarathustra angrily excoriates those who use urine in the sacrifice: “When wilt thou do away with the urine of drunkenness with which the priests evilly delude the people?» — la condena de Zaratustra contra el uso de orina en el sacrificio, que Wasson cita del Avesta.

«Do not these instances of contemporary urine-drinking come down from the time when urine was still impregnated with the essence of Somar» — la pregunta con que Wasson cierra esa serie, planteada como pregunta y no como afirmación.

«But for three millennia Soma, the exalted plant, has been absent. The Hindus strangely disclosed no curiosity about it; as for the West, our speculations in recent times have been only blind guesses, convincing no one» — el estado de la cuestión según Wasson: tres milenios sin la planta, sin curiosidad hindú y con conjeturas ciegas en Occidente.

«Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of the genuine plant, our scholars, devising a myth to fill the vacuum in their own knowledge, seem ready to weave for the poets a myth that the poets never knew» — el reproche que Wasson les hace a los eruditos que dan al Soma por mero concepto mitológico.

«The Vedists have allowed themselves to be miscast. When you seek the identity of a plant you go to a botanist, not to a Vedist» — el diagnóstico que Wasson da del problema: el vedista quedó mal repartido, y la identidad de una planta se le pide a un botánico.

«The botanists had no access to the hymns, but, what was far worse, they thought they had» — lo que Wasson señala como peor que la falta de acceso de los botánicos a los himnos.

«Their translations sound like what refined ladies enjoyed reading in the Victorian age. They were “poetical’’ in the vein of the Idylls of the King but without Tennyson’s powers of versification. ‘They were flowery, rotund, some might say flatulent, giving a pseudo-sense to all passages that puzzled Vedists and that the translators had to guess at, and, moreover, bowdlerizing the text to caress the prudish Victorian ear» — el juicio de Wasson sobre las traducciones victorianas del Rig-Veda que leyeron los botánicos.

«Small wonder that George Watt, the foremost botanist of the British raj, who knew no Sanskrit, much less Vedic, is quoted as saying, ‘‘the vague and poetical descriptions given of the Soma make any scientific identification impossible» — la conclusión del botánico mayor del raj británico que Wasson cita como consecuencia de esas traducciones.

«Professor F. B. J. Kuiper of Leiden is a thousand times right in saying that “the complexities of the problem should not ... be underestimated.’’ He adds that the identification of Soma must take the seeker far beyond the confines of Indo-Iranian studies proper. This is where I have gone» — lo que Wasson le concede a Kuiper y cómo lo usa: la identificación exige ir mucho más allá de los estudios indoiranios.

«But they confined themselves to the phanerogams—the seed-bearing plants—and they neglected the fungal flora. No one suggested a mushroom for the role of Soma. This may seem strange, but the English people, mycophobes to the core, chose to ignore the fungal flora, the ‘‘toadstools,” of India» — el hueco que Wasson señala en el trabajo botánico británico en la India: se ciñeron a las plantas con semilla y dejaron de lado los hongos.

«from a botanist’s point of view the distinctive feature of Soma is that it belongs to the world that Louis Lewin, the pharmacologist, first called Phantastica more than forty years ago, that today is usually named the “plant hallucinogens,” that the chemist and pharmacologist designate as the psychotropic or psychotomimetic plants. This restricts the area of inquiry» — el rasgo que Wasson da por distintivo del Soma desde la botánica: pertenece a lo que Lewin llamó phantastica.

«Many have observed that discoveries in the realms of geographical or intellectual exploration arrive in a measured sequence, when the days are fulfilled that they should be made, and that only in recent years have we been able to approach the Soma problem with a hope of finding the answer. The fortunate person who makes the discovery 1s an accident of history, arriving as he does at precisely the right moment and happily possessed of the needed information derived from diverse disciplines hitherto not associated together» — la lectura que Wasson hace de su propio descubrimiento: los hallazgos llegan cuando se cumplen los días, y el que lo hace es un accidente de la historia.

«On the strength of the folklore of Europe and the etymologies of the fungal words in the languages of Europe, in the 1940’s we had advanced to each other the daring idea that a mushroom had once figured in the religious life of our own remote ancestors» — la idea audaz que Wasson y su mujer se propusieron en los años cuarenta, a partir del folclore y de las etimologías europeas.

«When we learned of the role played by the fly. agaric in the shamanic rites of Siberian tribesmen, down to recent times, we were overjoyed, thinking that the Siberian usage in part vindicated our hunch» — lo que les pareció respaldo de esa corazonada: el papel de la amanita en los ritos chamánicos siberianos.

«In 1952 we were diverted to Mexico, where we later revealed to the world the part played by hallucinogenic mushrooms in the religious life of the Indians of southern Mexico. Thanks to the indispensable aid of Professor Roger Heim, then Director of the Muséum National d’ Histoire Naturelle, upwards of a dozen hallucinogenic species received scientific identification for the first time» — el rodeo mexicano que Wasson cuenta, con la docena larga de especies alucinógenas identificadas por primera vez gracias a Roger Heim.

«Certain English scholars have lately dwelt with dramatic effect on the divorce that has taken place in our generation between the scientific and humane aspects of our culture. But for ethnobotanists (including ethnomycologists) these two aspects are still joined. As scientists, they know plants; as students of human cultures, they study the role plants play in man’s daily life and in his spiritual perceptions» — la excepción que Wasson opone al divorcio entre las dos culturas: para el etnobotánico las dos caras siguen unidas.

«We have drunk the Soma, we are become Immortals, We are arrived at the Light, we have found the Gods. What now can hostility do to us, what the malice of mortal, O Immortal Soma!» — el verso del Rig-Veda que Wasson da por epítome de toda la colección.

«We are dealing with the “enthusiasm” of the poet, in the original and now obsolete sense of that word, divine possession, poetic frenzy, supernatural inspiration» — qué nombra Wasson con la palabra entusiasmo en su sentido original: posesión divina, frenesí poético, inspiración sobrenatural.

«The engine behind the myth and ritual of the Rig-Veda is this “enthusiasm.” If I am right, here is where we are arrived, this is the secret of our discovery. We have identified a plant understandably considered as miraculous by the people of long ago, and in so doing we have swung open the portals to ecstasy» — lo que Wasson reclama para su hallazgo: haber identificado una planta tenida por milagrosa y abierto de par en par las puertas del éxtasis.

«The greatness of a discovery is in the further discoveries that it may render possible. Io my mind the identification of the Soma with a hallucinogenic mushroom is more than the solution of an ancient puzzle. I can imagine numerous roads of inquiry on which, with this new knowledge in hand, one may set out» — el respaldo de Daniel H. H. Ingalls que Wasson cita, con el criterio de qué hace grande a un descubrimiento.

«Many students of the customs and folklore of the forest belt of Siberia have remarked on the reverence shown everywhere for the Siberian birch, a tree that is much taller and straighter than our birches. The birch is pre-eminently the tree of the shaman. He builds his tent around the bole of a birch, and in trance he climbs up the trunk to go on his travels to the land of departed spirits» — el lugar del abedul en el chamanismo siberiano según Wasson: el chamán planta su tienda en torno a su tronco y trepa por él en trance.

«For me the answer is clear. The birch is revered wherever it grows in Siberia because it is the preferred host to the fly agaric. This mushroom grows in mycorrhizal relationship with certain trees, and the tree that it prefers is the birch» — la respuesta que Wasson da a una pregunta que nadie había contestado: el abedul se venera por ser el anfitrión preferido de la amanita.

«If investigators have not discovered why the birch is a cult object, I think this is because they have not asked the right questions» — por qué nadie lo había visto según Wasson: no se hicieron las preguntas correctas.

«As for the mycologists, who certainly now know the birchfly agaric relationship, they talk only to one another and never to anthropologists» — el otro lado de esa ceguera según Wasson: los micólogos hablan solo entre ellos y nunca con los antropólogos; *birchfly* sale de la unión del guion de fin de renglón.

«That the use of Soma, the inebriating mushroom, has survived there until recently, even if in a degenerate state and restricted» — lo que Wasson tiene por notable del complejo siberiano: la supervivencia del uso hasta hace poco, aun degenerado. La frase se corta en el cambio de plana.

«Uno Holmberg, in the Mythology of all Races, has summarized for us the folk beliefs that surround the birch. The spirit of the birch is a middle-aged woman who sometimes appears from the roots or trunk of the tree in response to the prayer of her devotee. She emerges to the waist, eyes grave, locks flowing, bosom bare, breasts swelling. She offers milk to the suppliant. He drinks, and his strength forthwith grows a hundredfold» — el relato del espíritu del abedul que Wasson toma de Holmberg: la mujer que emerge del tronco y ofrece leche.

«In another version the tree yields “heavenly yellow liquor.”” What is this but the “tawny yellow pdavamadna” of the Rig-Veda?» — la segunda equivalencia que Wasson propone: el licor amarillo celeste del relato y el pavamana leonado del Rig-Veda.

«Repeatedly we hear of the Food of Life, the Water of Life, the Lake of Milk that lies hidden, ready to be tapped, near the roots of the Tree of Life. There where the Tree grows is the Navel of the Earth, the Axis Mundi, the Cosmic Tree, the Pillar of the World. What is this but the Mainstay-of-the-Sky that we find in the Rig-Veda?» — la serie de nombres que Wasson alinea en torno al Árbol de la Vida: el Ombligo de la Tierra, el Eje del Mundo, el Árbol Cósmico y el Pilar del Mundo.

«The Pool of “heavenly yellow liquor” is often guarded by the chthonic spirit, a Serpent, and surmounting the tree we hear of a spectacular bird, capable of soaring to the heights, where the gods meet in conclave» — los dos guardianes del relato según Wasson: la Serpiente ctónica abajo y el ave espectacular arriba.

«In brief, I submit that the legends of the Tree of Life and of the Marvelous Herb had their genesis in the Forest Belt of Eurasia, the tree being the towering Siberian birch, and the herb being the fly agaric, Soma, the pongo of the Ugrian tribesmen» — la tesis mayor con que Wasson cierra: las leyendas del Árbol de la Vida y de la Hierba Maravillosa nacieron en el cinturón forestal de Eurasia.

«It is a mistake to attribute the genesis of these ancient tales to Mesopotamia and the Near East merely because these lands furnished the clay on which they were first inscribed» — la objeción de método que Wasson opone: atribuir esos relatos a Mesopotamia por haber sido allí la arcilla en que se escribieron.

«He went out to seek the marvelous herb and found it in a watery place, only to have it filched from him, as he slept, by the Serpent, its chthonic guardian, more subtle than any beast of the field» — cómo lee Wasson el episodio de Gilgamesh: la hierba maravillosa hallada en un lugar acuático y hurtada por la Serpiente, su guardián ctónico.

«In Genests, is not the Serpent the self-same chthonic spirit that we know from Siberia? The Tree of Life, is it not the legendary Birch Tree, and the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Life, what else is it but the Soma, the fly agaric, the pongo of the Ugrian tribesmen?» — las preguntas con que Wasson traslada su lectura al Génesis: la Serpiente, el Árbol de la Vida y el Fruto Prohibido.

«The tale, repeated in myriad variations, clearly refers to the fly agaric, but none of Holmberg’s sources has called this to his attention. What is the breast but the udder, uwdhan, of the Rig-Veda» — cómo lee Wasson ese relato y la equivalencia que propone entre el pecho y la ubre védica.

«Hitherto the Soma-Haoma of the Indo-Iranians has been regarded as without parents or siblings. If my reconstruction of the legends holds good, the Soma of the Rig-Veda becomes incorporated into the religious history and prehistory of Eurasia, its parentage well established, its siblings numerous» — lo que la reconstrucción de Wasson le daría al Soma: parentesco y hermanos, en vez de quedar sin padres ni parientes.

«Its role in human culture may go back far, to the time when our ancestors first lived with the birch and fly agaric, back perhaps through the Mesolithic and into the Paleolithic. We have here a web of interrelated beliefs that give to us a united field in a major area of primitive Eurasian religion» — hasta dónde retrocede ese papel según Wasson: quizá al Mesolítico y al Paleolítico, en un campo unificado de la religión euroasiática primitiva.

«Despite much writing to the contrary, there is but a single species of Cannabis—popularly called marihuana—and that is Cannabis sativa L., the cultivated hemp» — la tesis taxonómica con que Emboden abre su capítulo, y que Furst enmienda en la Introduction 1990: una sola especie de Cannabis.

«Although the common name “hemp” has come to be inextricably associated with this genus and species, there are actually more than twenty plant families that produce products known as hemp; the term can apply to any of a number of fibers of plant origin, so that Cannabis and hemp are not in fact synonymous» — la distinción que Emboden traza entre el nombre común y el género: más de veinte familias vegetales dan productos llamados cáñamo.

«There is only one species of Cannabis, but there is evidence to suggest that the plant has undergone natural selection and selection by man for perhaps 6000 years, and this fact, coupled with migration, has led to recognition of three varieties within the single species: mexicana, amertcana (gigantea), and indica. The North American and Mexican varieties may achieve heights of up to twenty feet; the Indian variety (indica) is relatively small, but it produces a more potent resin and in greater abundance than the other varieties» — las tres variedades que Emboden reconoce dentro de la especie única, con la india como la más resinosa.

«Therefore, we must regard as nonsense reports of seeds flushed into a sewer giving rise to plants that grew in darkness and were silver or white rather than green, and more potent than other plants. Accordingly, the oft-repeated tale of ‘Manhattan Silver” as an especially powerful variety of Cannabis sativa (Bloomquist, 1968) has no foundation in fact and is botanically unsound» — la negativa que Emboden opone a un relato difundido sobre una variedad crecida en la oscuridad.

«However, the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia brewed intoxicating beer of barley more than 5000 years ago; is it too much to assume that even earlier cultures experienced euphoria, accidentally or deliberately, through inhalation of the resinous smoke of Cannabis while clothed in the coarse fibers of its stem?» — la pregunta con que Emboden deja abierta la antigüedad del uso embriagante, planteada como conjetura.

«By the fifteenth century B.c. the Chinese book known as the Rh-Ya was compiled, and in it there is mention of the herb Ma, the Cannabis sativa plant. Not only were the fibers and potent resins employed at this time, but the Rh-Ya describes the first ritualistic or shamanistic use of the plant» — el primer uso ritual o chamánico del cáñamo según Emboden, atestiguado en el Rh-Ya.

«It was the practice of the early Chinese to carve this wood into the likeness of a serpent coiled around a rod (not unlike the caduceus or Staff of Aesculapius, which had its origin in the Greco-Roman world and is still with us as the traditional symbol of the physician). ‘This image was used in curing rituals; a relative of the patient beat on the sickbed with the snake rod in order to dispel evil spirits» — el uso chino del bastón de cáñamo labrado en forma de serpiente enroscada, que Emboden empareja con el caduceo.

«The herb that Linnaeus christened Cannabis sativa over two centuries ago originated somewhere in the desert region to the south and east of the Caspian Sea. As a cultivated plant it does not seem to be as old as some of the better-known Old-World food plants, but it certainly boasts respectable antiquity among cultigens» — de dónde viene la planta según Emboden: la región desértica al sur y al este del Caspio, con antigüedad respetable entre los cultígenos.

«human exploitation of Cannabis is thought to reach back as far as 6000 years, with actual cultivation of Cannabis for a variety of purposes beginning only slightly more recently» — desde cuándo se explota el cáñamo según Emboden: unos seis mil años, y el cultivo poco después.

«Regarding the herbal of Shen-Nung, known as the Pen Ts’ao Ching, F. N. L. Poynter and H. L. Lei (1969) are of the opinion that it was really compiled in the late Han Dynasty» — la objeción que Emboden consigna en nota contra esa datación.

«This is based on evidence that there was no written language in China in the third millennium B.c.» — el fundamento de esa objeción: no había lengua escrita en China en el tercer milenio.

«Despite these descriptions, it is rather dificult to estimate the prestige of the plant in ancient China, for while we have early conservative warnings in which it is cursed as a “liberator of sin,’’ we have equally ancient texts that call it the “giver of delights» — el desacuerdo antiguo que Emboden consigna sin armonizar: textos que maldicen la planta como liberadora del pecado y otros que la llaman dadora de delicias.

«In a.p. 220 the celebrated Chinese physician and surgeon Hua-I’o performed surgery using Cannabis resins mixed with wine, known as Ma-Yo, as an anesthetic, rather like the use of Mandragora officinarium roots and leaves mixed with Atropa leaves by the early Greeks» — la anestesia quirúrgica con resina de cáñamo y vino que Emboden atribuye a Hua-T'o, comparada con la mandrágora griega.

«I would suggest, rather, that the conservative element in China may have realized the potential threat to authority in a liberated younger generation given over to using the exudate of hemp, and for this reason inveighed against it. Conservative resistance was similarly manifested against the introduction of alcohol, tobacco, and even coffee» — la explicación que Emboden propone para la condena china del cáñamo: el elemento conservador habría visto en él una amenaza a la autoridad.

«If we combine the testimony of Homer with that of Diodorus Siculus, who wrote of the women of Thebes dispelling their anxiety with nepenthe, we cannot escape the conclusion that the herb or preparation in question was not Cannabis but the exudate of the unripe capsules of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, or poppy milk mixed with Mandragora (mandrake), Hyosyamus (henbane), Atropa (deadly nightshade), and other herbs of similar soporific powers» — con qué sustituye Emboden esa identificación: el nepente sería exudado de adormidera, solo o mezclado con mandrágora, beleño y belladona.

«peror Shen-Nung, allegedly compiled in 2737 B.c.* The ancient herbal recognizes both male and female plants, but there is a decided bias in favor of the female, or pistillate plant, evidently because it is the only sex that produces a significant amount of intoxicating resins. Shen-Nung, or “Divine Cultivator,’ 1s said to have founded Chinese medicine with the appearance of this herbal; during his experimentations with different plants he is said to have taken as many as twelve ‘“‘poisons”’ a day. He must have tried exudate of Cannabis and given his approval, for he recommended it for ‘female weakness, gout, rheumatism, malaria, beri-beri, constipation, and absent-mindedness» — lo que el herbario chino recomienda para el cáñamo según Emboden, con el sesgo declarado hacia la planta femenina.

«has been taken by some—most recently Andrews and Vinkenoog (1969)—to refer to Cannabis sativa. I believe this to be in error» — la enmienda que Emboden le hace a una identificación difundida del nepente con el cáñamo.

«Thus, it was not Cannabis that Helen used to assuage her anguish but the milk of the opium poppy. So popular was the latter that early Greek cameos show the goddess of night, Nix, distributing poppy capsules; terra-cotta figurines from Knossos with slit poppy capsules as coronas can also be seen 1m museums. One city in early Greece was even known as Opion, the City of the Opium Poppy» — el remate de esa enmienda y los testimonios iconográficos que Emboden alinea para la adormidera griega.

«There is a classic Greek term, cannabeizein, which means to smoke Cannabis. Cannabeizein frequently took the form of inhaling vapors from an incense burner in which these resins were mixed with other resins, such as myrrh, balsam, frankincense, and perfumes; this is the manner of the shamanistic Ashera priestesses of the pre-Reformation temples in Jerusalem, who anointed their skins with the mixture, as well as burned it» — el término griego para fumar cáñamo que Emboden recupera, y el uso que le atribuye a las sacerdotisas de Asherá en Jerusalén.

«Cannabis is also the plant which Democritus (ca. 460 B.c.) knew as potamaugis, and which he said was drunk with wine and myrrh to produce delirium and visionary states. Democritus observed the “immoderate laughter” that occurred erratically following a draught of this decoction» — lo que Emboden le atribuye a Demócrito sobre el cáñamo bebido con vino y mirra: delirio, visiones y risa inmoderada.

«The first Greek botanist, ‘Theophrastus (371-287 B.c.), wrote of Cannabis under the name dendromalache and gave one of the first accurate accounts of the plant» — a quién le adjudica Emboden uno de los primeros relatos exactos de la planta.

«All these legends involve manufactured fiber as well as a mystical state of mind, and they are associated with cultures that were well aware of the plant, which embodied both economic and mystical properties» — lo que Emboden ve en común en esas leyendas: fibra manufacturada y a la vez un estado místico.

«To ethnobotanists, one of the mysteries of the Ancient World is why the Egyptians should have preferred the cultivation of Linum, from which they obtained flax, or linen, to the cultivation of Cannabis. Certainly soil conditions and climate were favorable in the Nile Valley. Moreover, the fiber of Cannabis is in no way inferior to that of Linum; quite the contrary. Nevertheless, an analysis of the wrappings of numerous mummies has revealed that only flax fiber was used» — el enigma que Emboden plantea sobre Egipto: por qué el lino y no el cáñamo, con las condiciones a favor.

«Finally, it should be noted that no elements of any Cannabis cult are to be found in the Babylonian tablets relating the epic of Gilgamesh» — la negativa que Emboden consigna para las tablillas babilonias del Gilgamesh.

«The dectrine of batin, meaning inner, or esoteric, was founded in the ninth century A.D. by the Ismailites; its adherents believed the Koran should be interpreted allegorically and religious truth ascertained by the discovery of inner meaning, of which outer form was “but a veil intended to keep that truth from the eyes of the uninitiated» — la doctrina ismailí del sentido interior que Emboden resume: el Corán interpretado alegóricamente y la forma exterior como velo que guarda la verdad de los no iniciados.

«These dissenters from orthodox Moslem thought became known as hashishin, those of the “new word” (the full name of al-Hasan was Hashishin ibn-al Sabbah.) This term has become Anglicized as ‘‘Assassins» — de dónde hace venir Emboden la palabra asesino.

«The movement of the Assassins was essentially religiously motivated. Al-Hasan was not driven to assassinate those around him by bloodthirsty personal ambition, as has sometimes been claimed; rather, he and his followers felt that in order to promulgate their new religion, they first had to eliminate by whatever means necessary those who taught contradictory philosophies» — la lectura que Emboden hace del movimiento contra la imagen corriente: motivación religiosa y no ambición sanguinaria.

«There is no historical basis for the allegation that the slayers of al-Hasan did their work in states of malice or frenzy, intoxicated with hashish, or for the tales of depravity and debauchery at the court. These were promulgated by enemies of the Assassin cult and popularized by Marco Polo, among others» — la negativa con que Emboden responde a ese relato: no hay base histórica, y las historias venían de los enemigos de la secta.

«We do know that a member of the Assassins, Nizam-al-Mulk, was a founder of hospitals, observatories, and universities and was himself a statesman and scholar—hardly a picture that accords with the vicious character attributed to the sect and its adherents» — el dato con que Emboden contrapesa esa imagen: un miembro de la secta fundó hospitales, observatorios y universidades.

«He kept at his court a number of the youths of the country, from twelve to twenty years of age, such as had a taste for soldiering. . . . He would introduce them into his garden . . . having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep sleep. . . . When therefore they awoke and found themselves in a place so charming, they deemed it was Paradise» — el relato de Marco Polo sobre la corte del Viejo de la Montaña que Emboden reproduce, con la poción y el jardín tomado por el Paraíso.

«When the Old Man would have any prince slain, he would say to such a youth: “Go thou and slay So and So; and when thou returnest my Angels shall bear thee into Paradise» — el remate de ese relato: la promesa de que los ángeles llevarán al ejecutor al Paraíso.

«In truth, the slaughter performed by the Assassins was less bloody and wanton than that which was then and later carried on in the name of another religious movement— Christianity» — el cotejo que Emboden hace de esa matanza con la que se hizo en nombre del cristianismo.

«Attitudes of the time toward Cannabis are well reflected in that great favorite of Eastern and Western literary tradition, the Arabian epic A Thousand and One Nights. In a story told by Scheherazade on the 798th night, a Sultan in disguise has the misfortune of being deliberately urinated upon in the house of a cadi, or lowly magistrate, by another guest, a fisherman. The fisherman believed himself to be Sultan, for he had swallowed enough hashish ‘“‘to destroy a hundred-year-old elephant» — el cuento de las Mil y una noches con que Emboden ilustra la actitud de la época hacia el hachís.

«The implication, of course, is that the consumption of hashish was at least accepted, if not encouraged. This is supported also by the fact that at the beginning of the tale Scheherazade says, ‘Allah had willed that the cadi should also be given to the use of hashish.” If hashish consumption had been beneath contempt, as al-Hasan’s detractors claimed, tales of this period would hardly implicate Allah himself in the practice» — lo que Emboden infiere de ese cuento: el consumo estaba cuando menos aceptado, pues el relato implica al propio Alá.

«Their shamans, known as Kapnobatai, used hemp smoke to induce visions and oracular trances» — los chamanes getas que Emboden nombra y para qué usaban el humo del cáñamo.

«After anointing their heads, the mourners placed posts in the ground and wrapped them with cloth. They then rolled heated rocks from funeral fires and placed them in censers; it was on these rocks that the hemp was thrown, and the resulting vapors were inhaled» — el rito funerario escita que Emboden describe: piedras calientes en pebeteros y el cáñamo echado encima.

«Herodotus, born in 484 B.c., tells that the Scythians howled with joy after such vapor baths, and that they danced and sang» — lo que Emboden cita de Heródoto sobre el efecto de esos baños de vapor.

«Herodotus makes no mention of shamanistic ritual in the ceremony, but he was given to such oversights. We can be reasonably certain that among the Scythians, as among other Turko-Tartar peoples, shamanic ecstasy played an important role in curing as well as funeral rites» — la reserva que Emboden pone al silencio de Heródoto sobre el rito chamánico.

«Today in India, certain concoctions of Cannabis are known as bhang, and there are those who still insist that bhang is the Soma of the Vedic hymns, a contention with which R. Gordon Wasson especially has taken sharp issue» — el desacuerdo que Emboden consigna sin armonizar: hay quien sostiene que el bhang es el Soma védico y Wasson lo disputa con dureza.

«Zarathustra, the founder of Persian religious thought in the sixth century B.c., considered himself a shaman, or, as he himself termed it, a psychopomp» — cómo se consideraba Zaratustra a sí mismo según Emboden.

«According to the Gathas, united in ecstasy with Zarathustra, the dead as well as the living disciples could commune between heaven and earth. Both melotherapy and versotherapy (music and chant) were necessary to the process, which had to occur in a maga, or enclosed space» — lo que Emboden toma de los Gathas: la comunión entre cielo y tierra por el éxtasis, con música y canto y en un recinto cerrado.

«This is curiously reminiscent of curing and divining rituals by shaman-like curers in Mexico and Peru, who intoxicate both themselves and their patients or supplicants with psychotropic plant decoctions in order to enter a mystical realm where causes and cures of illness or misfortune may be learned» — el paralelo que Emboden traza entre ese dispositivo y los curanderos de México y del Perú.

«According to the Polish scholar, both kane bosm of the Old Testament and the Aramaic kene busma refer to Cannabis sativa» — la identificación que Emboden recoge de Sara Bentowa entre la caña aromática del Antiguo Testamento y el cáñamo.

«In the Mishna, the collection of traditional Hebrew law, the kanbos bears an unmistakable affinity to the Assyro-Babylonian kannab, the Sanskrit cana and sana, and the Scythian cannabis, to mention but a few of the more than 100 synonyms compiled by Dr. Bentowa for this plant» — la serie de nombres emparentados que Emboden alinea siguiendo a Bentowa, del asirio-babilonio al sánscrito y al escita.

«A number of traditions developed around the hemp harvest that involved rituals based on intoxication from the volatile resins and oils. One such tradition was the offering of hemp seed as a sacrifice to one’s ancestors. There seems to be an obvious link between such ritualistic gestures and the funeral ceremonies of the Scythians» — las tradiciones de cosecha que Emboden consigna, con la ofrenda de simiente a los antepasados y su vínculo con el rito escita.

«The most likely route of migration for Cannabis is from the tribes of Iran into India, where it did not grow indigenously. The contemplative nature of Hinduism had already led these people to the tranquilizing root of Rauwolfia serpentina and the sedative root of Withania somnifera. It may be that the prior acceptance of these plants facilitated the easy assimilation of Cannabis in India» — la ruta que Emboden propone para la entrada del cáñamo a la India y lo que la habría facilitado.

«bangha, the Iranian word for hemp, simultaneously refers to mushroom intoxication, hemp intoxication, and the hemp plant itself» — el dato lingüístico que Emboden destaca: la palabra irania para el cáñamo nombra a la vez la embriaguez por hongo y por cáñamo.

«It became known as the “heavenly guide,” and just as “Father Peyote’ resides in the psychotropic cactus for some Indians of the southwestern United States, so a Guardian lived in the leaves of Cannabis for. the early Indo-Iranians. Even a dream of the hemp plant was considered an omen of good fortune, and to long for it implied a future happiness» — los nombres y presagios indios del cáñamo que Emboden registra: la guía celestial y el Guardián que vive en sus hojas.

«It was believed that to experience Cannabis intoxication was to fix one’s eyes on the Eternal. Hence, decoctions of Cannabis resin were used before reading holy writings or entering sacred places» — la fórmula india que Emboden traduce: la embriaguez de cáñamo fijaba los ojos en lo Eterno, y por eso se tomaba antes de leer lo sagrado.

«However, although one of the earliest Sanskrit names for Cannabis is sana, meaning a hollow reed or cane, it cannot be equated with soma» — la negativa que Emboden opone a la identificación del Soma con el cáñamo.