Witoto Creation Myth

by  Rember Yahuarcani

Cuando terminó el sueño de la creación, Buinaima [el creador] también nos dejó algo de recuerdo. Nos dejó el tabaco. Así nosotros también podemos soñar como él soñó. Esta planta brotó solita del banco donde Buinaima estuvo sentado, soñando durante la noche. Por eso, cuando tomamos tabaco, meditamos concentrados y pensamos en los dióses, y ellos nos aconsejan a través de los sueños.

El tabaco se puede fumar, oler y, también, lamer, cuando se prepara una pasta hecha de hojas machucadas. Lo usamos con respeto y cuidado, porque el tabaco es un gran caminante. Quienes lo han visto en sueños dicen que es un hombre muy delgado, casi un esqueleto. Anda por el espacio apoyado sobre un bastón donde crecen sus hojas, y lleva un collar de calaveras y rodillas. Son los huesos de nuestros antepasados, tan antiguos y espectrales como su humo blanco. Parece estar cansado, pero sigue caminando, trayéndonos para siempre el recuerdo de todo lo que ha pasado desde que la Tierra y todas las cosas se formaron.

En sueños nos reencontramos con Buinaima, el creador, JusÍguna, el niño-árbol, y Buiñaiño, la madre del agua de quien nació todo lo que existe cuando Buinaima sopló e iluminó el agua con su blanca saliva. Desde entonces, Buinaima lleva un arco iris en la cabellera y sueña a colores, y nosotros también soñamos, porque la vida es el sueño a colores del creador. Vivimos y soñamos con todos los colores con que se viste Buiñaiño cuando se yergue sosteniendo el firmamento para salvamos de la tormenta y hacer que el sol vuelva a brillar. Nosotros también soñamos, porque la vida es el sueño a colores del creador. Vivimos y soñamos con todos los colores con que se viste Buiñaiño cuando se yergue sosteniendo el firmamento para salvarnos de la tormenta y hacer que el sol vuelva a brillar.

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When he finished the dream of creation, Buinaima [the Creator], left us something to remember him by. He left us tobacco. In this way we can dream like He dreamt. This plant grew alone by the mound where Buinaima sat, dreaming throughout the night. That’s why, when we take tobacco, we concentrate in meditation and think of the gods, and they advice us through our dreams.

Tobacco can be smoked, inhaled, and also chewed when it’s prepared in a paste made from crushed leaves. We use it with respect and caution, because tobacco is a great traveler. Those who have envisioned him in dreams say that he is a very thin man, almost like a skeleton. He walks in space, aided by a cane where his leaves grow, and he wears a necklace of skulls and knees. They are the bones of our ancestors, so old and ghostly like his white smoke. He looks like he’s tired, but he keeps walking, always carrying for us the memory of all that has happened since the earth and her creation formed.

In dreams we reconnect to Buinaima, the Creator, to Jusíguna, the tree-child, and to Buiñaiño, the mother of water from whom was born all that exists when Buinaima blew and illuminated the water with his white saliva. Since then, Buinaima wears a rainbow in his head of hair and dreams in color, and we also dream, because life is the dream of colors from the creator. We live and we dream in all the colors with which Buiñaiño is dressed when she stands up, holding the heavens to save us from storms and make the sun rise and shine again.

from The Three Halves of Ino Moxo

"The viracocha—that is to say, the whites—long ago lived in a lagoon,” ponders Don Juan Tuesta, with eyes closed, in the full of an ayawaskha night. Somebody who is not Don Juan Tuesta, but is Don Juan Tuesta, has occupied his body, overflows it without containment, and comes out through his dreamwalker mouth.

Near the virakocha lived the Campa—in other words the Ashaninka. On a certain day, a Campa heard barking noises coming from the lagoon. "Well, I'll fish that dog,” and to do that he took some bananas with him. But since bananas are food for human beings, the dog was offended and refused to eat them. In turn, all of the virakocha came out of the lagoon and began to pursue, then kill, the Campa. They killed all of the Campa. The lagoon dried out. A single Campa survived, a sorcerer, one of those sorcerers called shirimpiáre: a Campa who used tobacco. Because you should know that not all sorcerers use tobacco, only shirimpiáre do. The other sorcerers have other spaces and a different name; they are called katziboréri. The surviving shirimpiáre invoked Tziho, the buzzard, and said, "Come, help me—the virakocha have killed all my brothers." "Where?" asked Tziho. "Everywhere," the Campa shirimpiáre answered, "but mainly in the Great Pajonal." You should know that the Great Pajonal, Don Juan Tuesta tells me, is the territory of the Campa nation, more than one hundred thousand square kilometers of pure flat jungle, an infinite plateau in the middle of the great forests and rivers that adjoin the High Amazon jungle, in the direction of Cusco. It was there, in the Great Pajonal, that the Campa resisted the Inka conquerors, repelled the Spanish conquerors...

The witch doctor

The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason the rest of us (doctors) succeed. Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us not knowing this truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work. 

-Albert Schweitzer, German physician, theologian, philosopher, and musician