The healing practices of a Peruvian shaman.
Journal of ethnopharmacology July 1, 1984 L E Luna 78 citations
A 65-year-old shaman in northeastern Peru, Don Emilio Andrade Gómez, preserves extensive plant knowledge and provides health care to local populations. Certain plants, called 'doctors' or 'plant teachers,' are believed to teach medicine when consumed under isolation and diet, often added to the hallucinogenic beverage ayahuasca. During isolation, the plants' spirits teach the initiate melodies (icaros) used in shamanistic practice. Fieldwork in 1981 and 1982 collected specimens of these plant teachers, some now identified, and the shaman's cosmovision is described.