The Cosmic Serpent Read Online Free PDF

relaxed, yet mentally apprehensive. Was I going to see terrifying snakes again? We drank the bitter liquid. It seemed to me that Ruperto filled my cup less than the others. I sat in silence. At one point, with my eyes closed, my body seemed to be very long. Ruperto started singing. M. accompanied him, but sang a different melody. The sound of this dissonant duo was compelling, though the rivalry between the two singers implied a certain tension. Carlos remained silent throughout.
    I continued feeling calm. Apart from a few kaleidoscopic images, I did not have any particularly remarkable visions, nor did I feel nauseated. I started to think that I had not drunk enough ayahuasca. When Ruperto asked me whether I was “drunk,” I answered “not yet.” He asked me whether I would like some more. I told him that I was not sure and wanted perhaps to wait a bit. I asked Carlos in a whisper for his opinion. He advised me to wait.
    I spent approximately three hours sitting on the ground in the dark in a slightly hypnotic, but certainly not hallucinatory state of mind. In the darkness, I could only make out the shape of the other participants. Both Carlos and M. had told Ruperto that they were “drunk.”
    The session came to a rather abrupt end. Carlos stood up and said with unusual haste that he was going home to rest. I got up to accompany him and thanked both our host and Ruperto, to whom I confided that I had been slightly fearful of the ayahuasca. He said, “I know, I saw it when we arrived.”
    Carlos and I had only one flashlight. He took it and guided us along the path through the forest. I followed him closely to take full advantage of the beam. After covering approximately three hundred yards, Carlos suddenly yelped and scratched at the back of his calf, from which he seemed to extract some kind of sting. In the confusion, what he was holding between his fingers fell to the ground. He said, “That man is shameless. Now he is shooting his arrows at me.” I was relieved to hear his words, because I was afraid a snake had bitten him, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked questions, but he interrupted, saying, “Later. Now, let’s go.” We marched over to his house.
    On arrival, Carlos was visibly upset. He finally explained that M. had shot one of his arrows at him, “because he wants to dominate, and show that he is stronger.”
    For my part, I was left with a doubt. How could one really aim a little sting in total darkness across three hundred yards of forest and touch the back of the calf of a person walking in front of someone else?
    Nevertheless, Carlos was ill the following day, and the tension between him and M. continued to the end of my stay in Quirishari. These suspicions of sorcery gave rise to a network of rumors and counterrumors that partially undermined the community’s atmosphere of goodwill.
    Contact with the spirits may allow one to learn about the medicinal properties of plants and to cure. But it also gives the possibility of exploiting a destructive energy. According to the practitioners of shamanism, the source of knowledge and power to which they gain access is double-edged.
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    TOWARD THE END of my stay in Quirishari, I read over my fieldnotes and drew up a long list of questions. Most of them concerned the central subject of my investigation, but several dealt with the shamanic and mythological elements that had mystified me. In one of my last taped conversations with Carlos, I asked him about these matters:
    â€œAre tabaquero and ayahuasquero the same?”
    â€œThe same.”
    â€œGood, and I also wanted to know why it is that one sees snakes when one drinks ayahuasca.”
    â€œIt’s because the mother of ayahuasca is a snake. As you can see, they have the same shape.”
    â€œBut I thought that ayahuasca was the mother of tobacco?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œSo who is the true owner of