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The Hunter in the Rye: Ergot, Sedges and Hunting Magic in the Peruvian Amazon

Abanti draws the string of a palm wood bow all the way to his ear, aiming the razor-sharp bamboo tip of an arrow straight up into the rain forest canopy. Eighty feet above, a large spider monkey eats Pouteria fruits, unaware of the human predator below. Then the black silhouette flinches, a fruit drops, and the monkey leaps to another branch.  “Wary. May have heard us,” he whispers to his brother-in-law as he releases the tension on the bow in a smooth snap.

He steps quietly, bending back a few spindly palms that block his view, never taking his eyes off the monkey high overhead. Once again he takes up his stance, but this time he removes a small cluster of plant bulbs from a net bag slung across his back. The bulbs are the roots of an alkaloid-rich sedge variety used for the specific purpose of hunting spider monkey. Snapping off a piece, he chews the bitter, aromatic quid, then rubs the masticated root onto his bow and arrow. Still watching the monkey, he spits a fine, turpentine-smelling spray upward. “Straight up, straight to the heart, no branches, fly straight and fast,” he mumbles to the bow, to the arrow, to the monkey, to himself.

Posted by Glenn H. Shepard at 10:39 AM 5 comments: Links to this post Labels: Amazonia, ethnobotany, hunting, literature, Matsigenka, native people, Peru, psychoactives, shamanism
