The plant spirits in the Amazon love strong, sharp, sweet smells. Thus, one way to acquire protection against malevolent persons and their pathogenic projectiles is to acquire such a sweet smell oneself, as opposed to the ordinary human smell, including the smell of human sex, which the spirits dislike. Shamans achieve this state, and provide it for their patients, by putting substances with sharp sweet smells either on or inside the body.

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Speaking of endangered plant species, the government of San Luis Potosi in Mexico’s northern desert, working with the Huichol Indians and with Pedro Medellín, a professor at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi, is completing a plan for the protection of peyote, a plant that has been sacred to the Huicholes for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.

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People frequently lament the imminent passing of animal species, especially species of large impressive mammals, while at the same time ignoring the extinction of plant species. That is why one of my favorite organizations is United Plant Savers.

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It may be worth drawing a distinction between the source of plant knowledge and the source of plant healing. Many indigenous peoples assert that their knowledge of plants and their uses comes from some other-than-human person who appears in a vision or dream. These spirits may, as in the Amazonian mestizo tradition, be the plants themselves, but not necessarily; when my teacher doña María Tuesta was young, for example, it was the Virgin Mary, not the plant spirits, who appeared in her dreams, showed her the healing plants, and taught her the plants to cure specific diseases.

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Among Amazonian mestizos, the term saladera refers to a persistent run of bad luck and misfortune — in family matters, business, and human relationships — often accompanied by great anxiety. This sickness is parallel to the Mexican sacalio, and it is treated the same way: by bathing.

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The term monte occurs frequently in Amazonian mestizo shamanism. It generally refers both to mountains and woodlands; in the Amazon, it is, technically, the term used to differentiate the highland jungle from the várzea, the annually flooded lowland forest. But to the mestizos, the term means — as one regional dictionary puts it — despoblado, unpopulated, deserted, and thus dangerous, solitary, and frightening.

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My teacher don Roberto Acho is well known as a sananguero — that is, an expert in the use of a group of plants collectively known as sanango. The best known of these plants is chiricsanango (Brunfelsia grandiflora). In fact, there are two primary Brunfelsia species, B. grandifloria and B. chiricaspi. Both of these plants are called chiricsanango; but the first is also called chuchuhuasha, and the second is also called chiricaspi.

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Toé is the name given in the Upper Amazon to various species of Brugmansia, primarily B. suaveolens and a wide variety of cultivars. Poet César Calvo calls toé “that other powerful and disconcerting hallucinogen.” Toé contains the primary tropane alkaloids hyoscyamine, atropine, and scopolamine; it may be mixed into the ayahuasca drink, ingested in the form of raw plant materials, or smoked in a cachimbo pipe. Toé is considered one of the most powerful plants, a strong but dangerous ally.

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Anthropologists who work with shamans and healers in indigenous cultures continue to be influenced by two significant cultural events — the impact of postmodernism on ethnography, and the brief apotheosis of Carlos Castaneda. These events challenged both prongs of the traditional anthropological concept of participant observation: postmodernism questioned what the fieldworker was observing, and Castaneda questioned whether the fieldworker was participating.

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The potent hallucinogen DMT, when taken orally, is inactivated by peripheral monoamine oxidase-A, an enzyme found in the lining of the stomach, whose function is precisely to oxidize molecules containing an NH2 amine group, like DMT. There are thus two ways to ingest DMT, or plants containing DMT, and experience psychoactive effects — by parenteral ingestion through nasal inhalation, smoking, injection, or rectal insertion; or by mixing the DMT with an MAO inhibitor that prevents the breakdown of DMT in the digestive tract. Let’s look at these one at a time.

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