Guarani Indian leaders on the Atlantic coast of Brazil have incorporated ayahuasca, an Amazonian psychoactive ritual substance, into their own ritual practices, now recognizing it as part of their culture and tradition. This appropriation emerged from a network connecting the Guarani, members of Sacred Fire of Itzachilatlan, followers of the Brazilian ayahuasca religion Santo Daime, and a health team providing primary care to Indian communities. The case demonstrates that contemporary shamanisms arise from specific political and historical contexts, and that shamanism as an analytical concept must be understood as a dialogical category shaped by interactions among actors with diverse origins, discourses, and interests.
Siona Indian yajé shamanism in Colombia's Northwest Amazon has transformed since colonial times as an adaptive survival strategy. The shaman's role and the political and sacred use of yajé rituals changed over centuries. Current revitalization stems from state and popular representations of the ecological and wise Indian. Unlike Gow and Taussig's arguments that ayahuasca shamanism in Peru and folk healing in Colombia arose from colonial domination and proletarian concerns, Siona shamanic practices are best understood as a transfiguration and result of their particular response to outside forces. Contemporary yajé use reflects this past along with the discourse, aesthetics, expectations, and demands of the larger society.
Among the Siona people, narrative performances fulfill an aesthetic function by recreating shamanic journey experiences and the perspective shifts that occur during rituals with the entheogen yajé (ayahuasca). These performances replace everyday perspective with another, allowing the audience to know beings inhabiting the invisible world revealed in visions. They also transmit shamanic knowledge. Oral literature dramatizes encounters or travels in the invisible world, whether linked to entheogens or dreams. Through poetic mechanisms, these narratives convey knowledge by indexing relations between everyday life and hidden realms, creating audience expectations about extraordinary spirit encounters and preparing them for perspective shifts.