How do you tell the joshobo that their shinan is coshima? Translation

and transculturality in ethnomedical tourism

Francis Jervis

Draft - please do not cite without permission

Please address correspondence to francisjervis@gmail.com

Notes

One of the highest-profile practitioners administering ayahuasca to Westerners in the Iquitos area

(Dobkin de Rios & Rumrill, 2005), Guillermo Arévalo Valera, is Shipibo,1 and it was while visiting

his albergue in 2008 that the author met an indigenous community activist who was seeking support

for a gathering of female shamans from the Shipibo people (on the role of female shamans, onanya

ainbobo, see in particular Colpron, 2005, and Caruso, 2005). The author later had the opportunity to

introduce the activist to the proprietor of an “ayahuasca retreat” (Winkleman, 2005) who was

interested in working with female, indigenous shamans, and to propose the development of

initiatives to raise awareness of both “native culture” and the social and ecological issues affecting

the Shipibo people and other inhabitants of the Loreto region, funded in part by contributions from

the lodge’s income. Joshobo (“whites”) is the conventional Shipibo-Conibo term for Europeans and

North Americans.

1 He is perhaps also somewhat over-represented in the recent ethnographic literature on the Shipibo, eg. Caruso, 2005; the work of Tournon, the most prolific writer on this people, which refers extensively to both field interviews and Arévalo Valeraʼs own (1986; 1994) writing; Saladin dʼAnglure & Morin, 1998; etc.

Beneath the surface of ethnic touristic performances of whatever kind, there exists a radically

indigenous discursive space, one where language barriers facilitate indigenous resistance to

commodification and exploitation, and the performative aspects of social action in (ethnic) tourist

spaces – “staged authenticity” (MacCannell, 1973) – are largely dropped in favour of a “backstage”

mode of discourse not shaped by the gaze, or in this case, listening, of the outsider. The barrier

between the worlds of touristic and native discourse, in the author’s experience, is generally

linguistic, and it was this barrier which, it was clear, needed to be crossed in order for the

interactions between visitors and native people to take place on a meaningful level: a common

conceptual vocabulary (perforce, in this scenario, the native one) was required. The subjective value

which many visitors gave to comprehension of the curing process as it was understood by the

Shipibo was, it was clear to me, far higher than that which would be expected in other

(observational) forms of ethnic tourism in respect of other practices. Tourism, it is argued, in which

participation in curing ceremonies as a “patient” is the sine qua non of the visitor’s desired

experience, produces a set of inter-actor relationships which, in the case of those between

practitioner and patient/tourist, are radically different from those between performer and audience,

or vendor and purchaser – the more familiar dyads of ethnic tourism. The field of ethnomedical

tourism – here defined as travel undertaken with the objective of receiving treatments from native

people, guided by their phytopharmacological and/or medical/magical traditions, in “exotic” locales

(from a Western point of view) – is one which until now has been neglected by anthropology, and

indeed other serious academic inquiries. This paper will outline the rationale for considering

ethnomedical tourism as a distinct phenomenon worthy of further study in its own right, and

examine the context of a particularly memorable episode from the author’s recent fieldwork which

illustrates the notable difficulties presented by touristic activities of this type, and anthropologists’

involvement in them.

The opening lines of Urry’s The Tourist Gaze (1990, p.1), noting that tourism seems to have

“nothing whatsoever to do with the serious world of medicine and the medical gaze that concerns

Foucault,” give the reader pause when read in the context of discussions of ethnomedical tourism.

In establishments like the one discussed here, visitors are apparently traveling to submit themselves

to the gaze of indigenous medical–magical practitioners, as well as the reverse; at the same time,

the significant differences between the shaman’s gaze and that of the Foucaudian medic must be

noted, along with the need for a fuller theoretical approach to this question than is possible here. It

is also worth noting that this form of tourism is neither “modal” nor, in most cases, what one could

classify as a “rite of passage” (seldom, at least, with those life stages commonly associated with

such rituals); arguably it represents a reaching for ritual as solution to a personal crisis, and, with its

emphasis on the intervention of “supernatural” forces, is more akin to premodern pilgrimage-

making than modern bourgeois tourism (Graburn, 1983). One might argue that in contrast to

MacCannell’s prototypical “pilgrim” who “attempted to visit a place where an event of religious

importance actually occurred,” (1973, p. 593) those engaging in this form of ethnomedical tourism

rather seek to experience such an event first hand. The liminal quality of the phenomenon is

overdetermined: ethnomedical tourism lines in a zone between sickness and health, Western and

native, real and imaginal, and in this case the a phenomenological account of the drama of the

curing practices in question is further complicated by the immanent presence of the discarnate

entities of Shipibo shamanic tradition, not to mention the induction of visionary states in both the

indigenous and tourist actors. This liminality was also highly evident in the social context of the

native participants’ involvement in the tourist industry.

The Shipibo2 today inhabit an example of the “polysemous, social space surrounded by tourism

2 Frequently referred to in older texts as Shipibo-Conibo, the term Shipibo will be used here, as it is by the people themselves, to refer to the now highly integrated group of Panoan-speaking peoples of the Ucayali and Pisqui valleys (Loreto, Peru) including the Shipibo, Conibo, and others. Tournon (2002) provides an excellent overview of the ethnohistory of the region, at least in post-Colombian times.

activities” (Grünewald, 2002, p. 1005) produced by ethnic tourism, and many highly acculturated

individuals participate actively in the tourist industry. While the Shipibo people’s ethnobotany (eg.

Tournon, 2005, 2006), mythology (eg. Roe, 1982 and others) and magical–medical complex (eg.

Illius, 1994) have been fairly well-studied, and Dobkin de Rios and Rumrill (2008 and elsewhere),

Winkleman (2005), Tupper (2008, 2009) and other researchers have explored the use of ayahuasca

in non-indigenous (and non-traditional) contexts, little has been said about the novel transcultural

field produced by the confluence of “ethnic tourism” and what, to spare the blushes of those

involved on a participatory level, will be referred to as ethnomedical rather than “drug” tourism.3 It

is the author’s view that this is an area which, in the practical interests of both the indigenous

people and Western visitors involved (the dangers discussed by Dobkin de Rios in several of her

publications on the subject being very real), deserves to be explored in considerably greater depth –

indeed, it was impossible to resist a profound personal engagement with the ethical questions which

arose. Although no hard data is available on the economic significance of this tourism subsector, the

number of operations offering various ethnomedical tourism services centred on indigenous

practitioners and practices which can almost instantly be located online suggests that several

thousand visitors each year now take part in activities of this type in the Amazon region alone. The

Shipibo’s involvement with “ayahuasca tourism” is an excellent example of the ethnomedical

tourism phenomenon; the extensive accounts of their traditional practice facilitate comparison with

“performances” in tourism contexts, and successful engagement with this aspect of globalisation

seems likely to be crucial in their attempts to ensure the continuity of their traditional

ethnobotanical knowledge transmission, medical–magical practices and curing songs.

3 The reader is directed to Shannonʼs outstanding 2004 work on the phenomenology of the ayahuasca visionary experience, The Antipodes of the Mind, for a convincing, rationalist account of the profundity and complexity of the state the brew induces. The term ethnomedical is arguably preferable to “spiritual” (a term more likely to be popular among participants), given the diversity of beliefs (including non-belief) among the Western/Northern visitors. The Supreme Courtʼs recent judgement on the First Amendment claim by an ayahusca-using church reinforces the legitimacy of the distinction between the consumption of the brew and recreational drug use.

The Shipibo are best known for their elaborate and distinctive polychrome ceramic ware and woven

and embroidered textiles, invariably marked with kené (“designs”; for their significance in the

Shipibo magical-medical complex, see in particular Belaunde, 2009, and Illius, 1994). Production

of these items represents a significant source of income for the Shipibo, in particular for the women

and especially those excluded from the mainstream of the Peruvian economy (Carpo, 2006). In

recent years, the Shipibo use of ayahuasca (nishi or nishikon in Shipibo-Konibo4, (Tournon, 2002)),

a hallucinogenic tea, has led to their involvement in the development of a substantial tourist

industry in and around Iquitos and Pucallpa (and, nearby, the heavily tourism-oriented Shipibo

community of San Francisco de Yarinacocha). This phenomenon in general has attracted attention

from both mainstream media (eg. Otis, 2009) and researchers in various disciplines, including

anthropology (for a critical look at the phenomenon as one of “drug tourism” see Dobkin de Rios,

1994, 2008 (with Rumrill)), although no investigation has focussed specifically on the issues

surrounding the involvement of indigenous people in this activity. The only work known to the

author to explore these issues (Tupper, 2009), fails to escape the trap of universalism in its

consideration of “indigenous” practice: Tupper does not draw clear distinctions between traditional

mestizo and indigenous practices, and assumes a degree of commonality between indigenous

groups (for instance, the universality of hereditary lineages in the transmission of shamanic

practices) which is, on consideration of the ethnographic data, insupportable.

The majority of larger-scale tourism businesses involving the Shipibo are either wholly or partly

owned by outsiders, or heavily dependent on them for marketing and other functions. Business

partnerships between shamans and their Western “apprentices” were common; in many cases, the

4 Nishi means simply “vine” (ie. Banisteriopsis caapi); the suffix -kon, “true” (“legitimo”) (Loriot et al, 2008). To the vine material the Shipibo add kawa (Psychotria viridis, or chacruna in the local Spanish) prior to preparing the brew. The Quechua is more common in magical songs, or ikara (eg. Tournon, 1991, in Nete Vitaʼs invocation of the plants), which may be due to the “culture hero” status of the Inca, from whom the Shipibo believe they acquired the use of ayahuasca, the kené and much of the rest of their material culture (Roe, 1982).

accounts given either the apprentices themselves (implicitly) or other Westerners (explicitly)

characterised these relationships as exploitative – with the naive gringo being relieved of substantial

sums, or even, on occasion, their spouse. Convincing Western entrepreneurs in the indigenous

tourism sector, even those operating with the best of motives5, to genuinely engage with the social

context of their activities can be challenging in the extreme; these tales of impropriety, which

seemed to be one of the main topics of conversation among the expatriate community in Iquitos, did

nothing to foster an atmosphere of trust between the groups involved. For the author, participating

in the development of one of these businesses – even in a position forcefully defined as one of

advocacy for the Shipibo people – remained a problematic position, to say the least. The act of

dislocating Shipibo shamans from their homes in the Ucayali region to the boomtown of Iquitos

never entirely shook its echoes of the dark days of the gaucheros, when the riverine tribes were

mercilessly exploited by the patrones and many of them were forced into labour in the Maynas

region (Tournon, 2002). However, seeing the significant improvement in the living standards of

Shipibo friends which involvement in the tourism sector could bring – and the genuine pleasure

which the onanyabo seemed to derive from their work – only foregrounded the urgency need to

develop effective modes for anthropology to make ethnic, and ethnomedical, tourism a richer and

safer experience for all concerned.

As Tupper (2006, p. 299) notes, “With growing awareness of ayahuasca in developed Northern

countries has come the concomitant desire among some to seek “authentic” ayahuasca experiences

in countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Brazil.” The complexity of the questions of authenticity

produced by ethnomedical tourism has not, however, been discussed, and no attention has been paid

to the interaction between native (as opposed to mestizo or white) people and visitors seeking

ayahuasca. The author’s experience of the processes of “authentication” (by the proxy of

5 The lodge where the event discussed took place is a “not for profit” organisation, committed to re-investing the proceeds of its operations in the Shipibo community.

employment at the lodge) was troubling; the dominating factor on the indigenous side appeared to

be (extended) family politics, and the level of direct communication between the individual onanya

and (Western) management, largely due to language issues, did not appear to be high enough for

any reasonable judgement of their skills to be made. Probably the most important criterion was the

number of ikara each could perform (a common, and in the logic of the Shipibo magical-medical

complex, reasonable measure (Caruso, 2005)): this criterion is consistent both with the notion of the

songs being acquired directly from other than human helpers (classically, the spirits of the rao or

magical plants (Tournon, 2006)), a more powerful shaman thus having more “plant allies,6” (ibid;

Caruso, 2005) but, more problematically, in practice tends to emphasise the aesthetic aspects of the

curing performance over and above their semantic content (“the words aren’t important, only the

sound” was a constant refrain) and sociohistorical context. Tournon’s account (2002), it should be

noted, makes the point that only some of the curing songs are, in the Shipibo sense, ikara (and

hence potentially “received” rather than “composed”): while the regional Spanish icaro is generally

used, particularly by the mestizo curanderos, to refer to any and all curing songs used in ayahuasca

rituals, the Shipibo distinguish between these songs and other types, such as the masha, which

follow traditional melodies.

While the ceremonia is undoubtedly a spectacle (and one visitor spoke of feeling like a

“connoisseur” hearing master musical performers at work), the immersion of native and tourist in a

visionary space in which sickness itself may be visibly beheld (vid. Narby, Huxley, 2001, for other

examples of this phenomenon) marks the activities at the lodge out as quite different from those at

other establishments where dance performances and the sale of handicrafts are the limit of the

tourists‘ interaction. Yet the fact that the tourist-patients consume ayahuasca is itself a necessary

6 Despite this pervasive belief, a popular one with the tourists in particular, there was no clear association between knowledge of Shipibo tradition and knowledge of the songs! Discussion of the mode of composition of these often enrapturing pieces, necessary though it is before any informed statement can be made about this assumption, sadly cannot be accommodated here.

compromise from the point of view of Shipibo tradition: “In all western applications of

pharmacological medicine, the patient – of course – takes the drug. In traditional nishi ŝheati7

sessions, he does not, by no means, but the healer does drink ayawaska.” (Brabec de Mori,

2002/2005, p.4). This profound dissonance between what are uncontestedly traditional practices and

the practical requirements of participation in the tourist trade seemed, however, to generate little

disquiet in the minds of either the vast majority of the lodge’s visitors, or in the expressed opinions

of the indigenous participants in the activities. Indeed, when challenged by a visitor curious about

this point, the explanation that “the (psychological) sickness of Westerners needs to be treated with

ayahuasca directly” (as opposed to the treatment of sicknesses caused by supposed incorporeal

entities or malevolent shamans among native peoples which was addressed through purely magical

action) was instantly proffered by the Shipibo group, and largely well received by the audience.

The degree of consonance between this explanation and the tendency of Western, non-indigenous

practitioners of “(neo-)shamanism”8 to account for the efficacy of the curing process in

psychological terms, despite having no formal knowledge of either psychology (generally conflated

with psychoanalysis, particularly among those visitors familiar with at least the title of Levi-

Strauss’s famous essay) or ethnography is striking. Indeed, the more acculturated Shipibo seemed to

have elevated giving the answers most likely to be pleasing to their visitors to a fine art. The

production of the tourists’ desired “truth”, which became at times a postmodern circus of endlessly

shifting, ill-defined paradigms, was a troubling process to watch. In a context which, probably by

nature, tended to attract visitors with highly disparate (not to mention, in many cases, idiosyncratic

7 The phrase means simply “ayahuasca-drinking”; cf ani ŝheati, “big drinking” (used to refer to the girlsʼ puberty – and circumcision – ritual (Tournon, 2002)).

8 Whether “shamanism” – as a coherent set of intercultural constants – actually exists has of course been called into serious question by Taussig, 1991, and numerous others, particularly critics of Harnerʼs “core shamanism” (Harner, 1980 and elsewhere), such as Wallis (2003). The term “shaman” is used here as the Shipibo themselves frequently use the words chaman or chamanismo when speaking Spanish; the word has a felicitous double meaning for them, given that the suffix -shaman in S-C means approximately “very much” or “very well”, eg. ani-shaman, “great” or “magnificent”.

to the point of eccentric) notions about matters “spiritual”, ethnographic and (pseudo-)scientific/

medical, interactions which appeared as perplexing for the Shipibo as they were visibly rewarding

for the visitors involved were common. The introduction of indigenous concepts to the visitors was,

in some cases, at least as problematic.

The “psychological sicknesses” with which the tourists almost (although not invariably; some had

serious physical ailments, and some were seeking “spiritual growth”) presented to the healers are, in

Shipibo-Conibo, referred to as those afflicting shinan:

shinan es quien preside el discernimiento de aquello que es bueno o malo. La noción se

refiere tanto al valor moral de la persona como a la capacidad de su entendimiento

[shinan is that which is concerned with discernment between what is good and what is

bad. The concept also refers to the moral strength of the person, as well as to his

understanding.] (Bertrand-Rousseau, 1986, cit. Tournon, 1991, p.24)

This quality, then, can best be rendered into English as “mind” or “intelligence,” with the added

notion of “moral sense;” interestingly, it is also the term used for the shaman’s supernatural power,

frequently invoked in the curing songs (Tournon, 1991 & 2005; Caruso, 2005; Loriot et al, 2008).

One’s shinan may be ani (great) and coshi (strong, powerful) – a healthy, desirable condition – or it

may be wekan and coshima9 (weak) (Caruso, 2005). A healthy shinan is seen as essential both to

function as a kikin (correct, good – but also applied to well-executed kené, or material objects, in an

aesthetic sense) member of Shipibo society, and also to be an effective onanya (“shaman” or

curandero/a; lit. “one who knows”)10. Mens sana in corpore sano – a coshi shinan and a jakon yora

– is very much the objective of their medical practices, and while ayahusca may be the

contemporary prescription for ills of the mind, mental weakness itself is at the same time seen by

9 The suffix -ma is negativising, and is extremely widely used (eg. jakon, good; jakon-ma, bad).

10 The onanya smokes a pipe containing Nicotiana rustica (reg. Sp. mapacho) known in S-C as a shinitapon. The word tapon means “root” (in both literal and metaphorical senses): the shamanʼs pipe is thus the root of their power.

the onanyabo as the root of most of the difficult experiences which can occur during the effects of

the brew11. A thorough exploration of the ethnodiagnostic characteristics of the concept of shinan

has yet to be put forward, at least in English (although cf. Illius, whose (1987) doctoral thesis was

entitled Ani Shinan: Schamanismus bei den Shipibo-Conibo); however, the general sense is clear

enough for the purposes of the present work.

To be told that a visitor has had an unpleasant experience because of their coshima shinan is, then, a

difficult message to translate in a discursive space where the relevant native concepts are highly

marginal to the touristic experience, despite the centrality of indigenous culture in the image of the

lodge disseminated to potential visitors12. Common decency – not to mention even the most

rudimentary grasp of “customer service” – generally precludes announcing to guests that they are

“weak-minded,” particularly in front of an assembled group of some fifteen Western visitors, and a

radicalism which advocated verbatim translation at the expense of harmonious relations would

clearly be ill-advised, and, indeed, represent an abrogation of the anthropologist’s metadiscursive

position. It is hard indeed to imagine a situation as problematic arising in most areas of

anthropological–interpretative work associated with “mainstream” ethnic tourism: delivering what

was in effect a diagnosis – to someone whose confidence in ethnomedical practices was sufficient

to justify substantial expenditure – lies far outside the generally accepted role of any ethnographer.

Being momentarily included in the privileged linguistic space of the Shipibo group, by virtue of the

11 Gableʼs recent (2007) review of research into the safety of ayahuasca (from a largely pharmacological/toxicological perspective) provides support for the beliefs that the brew can cause-short term episodes of acute dysphoria, but is safe – even, perhaps, beneficial – in the long term. Interestingly, his source for the observation that “The hallucinogenic effect of ayahuasca and other tryptamine derivatives can precipitate severe adverse psychological reactions, and this is especially true when administered outside established ceremonial practices (p.30),” is Dobkin de Rios & Rumrillʼs interview with a Shipibo shaman.

12 The production of acceptable images was at times a highly contested topic. For instance, the author was asked to omit mention of the ani shreati (“big drinking,” the girlsʼ puberty rite involving submission, under the influence of a large amount of masato (yuca beer), to clitoridectomy performed by an older woman (Tournon, 2002)), from presentations to the tourist groups, a request which was refused given the centrality of the rite to Shipibo culture.

shaman women’s use of native terms which they knew I had at least some understanding of,

highlighted the profound difficulties inherent in ethnomedical tourism. While this gesture of

incorporation was rewarding on many levels, it only heightened my awareness of the degree of

discrepancy between the worlds constructed the tourists and lodge workers, and that of the Shipibo.

What it also revealed was the need, if ethnomedical tourism is to be conducted in an ethical manner,

for an effective interpretative practice to be introduced: a working knowledge of the relevant

ethnomedical concepts, on the part of the “workshop facilitators,” is essential if gross

inauthenticities are not to be introduced due to the lack of a common conceptual vocabulary

between the various groups involved. To this end, it is argued, anthropology urgently needs to

develop strategies for an effective engagement with ethnic (and, particularly, ethnomedical)

tourism. In this instance, along with the issues of metadiscursive practice and the production of

authenticity discussed by Briggs in relation to the Warao (1996), the highly problematic relationship

between indigenous practitioners, enthographers, and Western “neo-shamanism” enthusiasts adds

considerably to the urgency of addressing questions of authentication.

The need for representational–interpretative approaches to be brought to bear in the ethnomedical

tourism field which can resist the naive neocolonialism of the new age movement is, sadly, clear

from almost all the popular media (including “participative,” so-called “Web 2.0”) representations

of the phenomenon. The production of an image of the healing process in the touristic space which

is quite at odds with that produced by professional ethnographers can be seen in the discrepancies

between a recent New Age travelogue (describing a visit to the lodge) and Tournon’s transcription

of, and limited commentary on, a Shipibo shaman’s curing song (Tournon, 1991). In the former, the

shamans’ songs are experienced by the writer “interweaving with each other in arcane Shipibo

language that washes over us like waves from the deep sea of the unconscious” (Razam, 2009).

In this description, we can see the extent to which the indigenous discursive space is, for the

visitors, one of radical and impenetrable otherness. Tournon’s translation of Nete Vita’s song, in

fact, suggests that the language used is far from “arcane,”13 and all the Shipibo I questioned on their

ability to understand the ikara said that they were for the most part easily intelligible. In the

description of the sound of the songs as “waves from...the unconscious” we encounter a more

troubling tendency in this kind of ethnic tourism: the reduction of indigenous peoples to

depersonalised, ahistorical figures in the ethnocentric psychodrama of affluent spiritual adventurers.

While the subjective meaningfulness ascribed to experiences like this by visitors to the lodge was

unquestionably genuine, the tendency for the indigenous actors supposedly at the centre of the

experience to be excluded from the Westerners’ discursive domain, in the absence of a common

language (most of the older practitioners speaking very little Spanish), was pervasive. Thus

excluded, their indigeneity often became no more than a screen onto which a grab-bag of New Age,

neo-shamanic and other ideas, most at the fringes of conventional Western thinking, were projected.

Even if the Shipibo’s “cultural heterogeneity” is not, in this case, “turned into recreational

exhibition” (Bruner, 2005, p. 212), and instead was the site of a much more intense contemplation

by the amateur participant-observers at the lodge, the tendency for popular representations of

ethnomedical tourism, particularly those produced by particpants, to perpetuate simplistic, even

patronising images of indigenous people, remains.

Despite the frequent difficulties in communication, there was a degree of profound emotional

engagement between the visitors and the onanyabo which is surely rare in any tourism context,

which Razam describes eloquently elsewhere in the piece cited above. The shamans showed

genuine concern for the visitors, for the most part, and these feelings were reciprocated to the extent

that, during the period I was there, a medical bill amounting to several thousand dollars was paid for

13 It is worth noting, though, Brabec de Moriʼs remarks on “encryption” in Shipibo curing songs:Level and methods of coding differ individually. For example an often recorded healer-witch sings very directly, mentioning all the dark and evil things that he extrudes from the patients body. However, his elder brother sings in difficult metaphors and sometimes in unintelligible tongues. (Brabec de Mori, 2005, p.4)

one of them by a past visitor. The level of interest in indigenous medical concepts among the

visitors was high, and the brief presentations I gave to the tourist groups on the subject were

warmly received. However, even the presentation of a comprehensive account of this topic based on

ethnographic sources to visitors by a non-native cannot be seen as a truly radical approach to ethnic

tourism: the imaging of indigenous culture through the lens of even an avowedly emancipatory and

anti-colonial practice remains problematic.

The transmission of cultural knowledge as it relates to the built environment – or, particularly in the

case of indigenous peoples, the lived natural world and the ethnobotanical and zoological expertise

associated with it – in touristic contexts has been studied extensively (eg. Graburn, 2000). While

their ethnobotanical knowledge is extremely important to their participation in the ethnomedical

tourism phenomenon, we should note that visionary world of the Shipibo onanya as described to

ethnographers (eg. Caruso, 2005) seems to be at least as rich as the material one (and indeed, in

many respects, is extremely similar in organisation (Roe, 1982)), and, in the context of

ethnomedical tourism involving ayahuasca consumption guided by these practitioners, this

intangible heritage is what, in marketing terms, differentiates the lodge’s offerings (and that of other

onanyabo working in the industry) from those run by practitioners of other ethnic origins.

Curing songs, the outward semantic–performative manifestation of power acquired through the

rigours of the sama (generally rendered in regional Spanish as dieta, “diet” (Loriot et al, 2008)), are

the symbolic capital par excellence of the Shipibo shaman. This has the effect of making possession

of knowledge of them a potential key to considerable material wealth (in many cases, for some of

the most marginalised individuals in modern Shipibo society); however, outsiders face a

considerable challenge if they are to establish whether any given practitioner is “legitimate” based

on this criterion. The author heard several accounts of unemployed residents of San Francisco de

Yarinacocha learning a handful of songs, purchasing ayahuasca from dubious sources, and

enthusiastically offering their services as shamans to tourists; despite their ability to provide

reasonably convincing “staged authentic” experiences, the judgement of the onanyabo (who had

trained, in many cases, for decades) was a resounding “ellos no saben nada” – “they don’t know

anything,” or, “they are not shamans!” One employee of the lodge had even conducted a “folk

experiment” consisting of playing digital recordings of some of these “fake” onanyabo to the

practitioners at the lodge; they had, she claimed, immediately recognised the songs of one such

alleged impostor, saying they “had no healing power.”

What, then, can the role of anthropology be in this problematic field? We have, fortunately, moved

beyond the days when its position would be to issue an imprimatur of authenticity on native

practitioners whose activities conformed to academic notions of what their actions “ought” to be

like. Nor can moral relativism be a viable response to many of the deviant practices observed on

both sides. Guided by the idea of the anthropologist as compañero/a, rather than disconnected

observer (Scheper-Hughes, 1995), and actively resistant to abetting the exploitation of native

peoples or traditions by outsiders, the author’s practice in the field was aimed at improving the

depth of communication between the Shipibo group and the Western contingent on an interpersonal

level, and when delivering material derived from ethnographic sources, emphasising its secondary

nature.

The anthropologist’s role in ethnomedical tourism, it is argued, must be as a mediator between

discourses: much more than a resort translator, but far from a figure of hegemonic interpretational

or authenticating authority, and at the same time acknowledging their privileged metadiscursive

position (Briggs, 1996). A role in the production of “high quality” experiences for ethnic (and

ethnomedical) tourists should be one which is primarily shaped by the needs of the native people

involved, and the goal should in many cases be for the control of these enterprises to be, as far as

possible, in indigenous hands. Moreover, ethnomedical tourism, being intensely dependent on both

indigenous expert knowledge and local biodiversity, deserves to be recognised as a potentially

significant contributor to the sustainable development of the Amazon basin and other regions; there

is, as such, a strong practical, not to say moral, case for the discipline to involve itself with the

industry. To this political end, the distinction between ethnomedical and more common modes of

ethnic tourism, and Dobkin de Rios’ notion of ayahuasca tourism as “drug tourism,” are important

to draw, as both may lead to underestimates of the sector’s potential benefits to indigenous peoples

by institutional assessors and in the public eye.

Let us turn, in conclusion, from the vital practical role which anthropology can play in

ethnomedical tourism to some brief theoretical considerations of the curing process as performed at

the lodge. Briggs, in reference to Warao curing, suggests that “the semantic content of the [curing]

song and the way it is used in performance have a great deal to do with the performative effects that

discourse can exert on bodies” (1995, p.150). Given the lack of a common semantic field occupied

by “patient” and shaman in most ethnomedical touristic scenarios (particularly those where curing

songs performed in a native language are central), some parallels could be drawn to the practice

Briggs describes, where “the [Warao] patient can hear but cannot understand” (p. 153) the

anobahatu nominal lexicon of the curer, although it is crucial to note that “while names almost

always draw on curer's lexicon, many of the words that make up the path are in everyday

Warao” (p. 154). With the exception of occasional borrowings (notably medicina and ayahuasca),

the tourist cannot hope to guess even the vaguest meaning of the curing songs. Furthermore,

Shipibo curing practice seldom features many of the “theatrical” elements (sucking, spitting and

vigorous physical manipulations of the patient’s body14) to which symbolic–therapeutic power,

operative in the absence of linguistic communication, might be ascribed. The participant structure

of curing rituals performed in ethnomedical touristic contexts is, it is quite clear, profoundly

different from that described in indigenous societies; equally obviously, producing an adequate

account of the process – encompassing both the native and tourist actor–subjects – would be a

substantial task, and one far beyond the scope of this paper.

14 Massage – kimosti – is extremely important to Shipibo medical practices, but is often performed by specialists who are not onanya, and never in ayahuasca sessions. At the lodge, the shaman women performed these traditional massages in the daytime, some hours prior to ingesting ayahuasca.

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