Andres Vergara, L.Ac., M.Ac., Michele Collins RH (AHG) MPH
While I was in Colombia in 2010, my aunt told me about a Colombian Shaman from the Amazon rainforests who was a powerful healer and had great knowledge of Amazonian plants. She said he lived in Bogota and that he was teaching and providing treatments. His treatment consisted of using songs and intention, as well as herbs to treat a variety of health conditions. She spoke very highly of him and I became curious to get to know more about him.
He was willing to give his time freely to me in order to share about his tribe’s history and practices. I conducted two hour long interviews with him in Spanish by phone, as well as received a treatment from him when I was in Colombia in 2010. I asked him a number of questions including, how he makes a diagnosis, how he was trained, and how he uses plants. I was very impressed by his authentic and compassionate nature. In this article, I am providing a summary of some of the things he shared during our time together.
His Colombian name is Isiais Ramon, his original name is Ju Jero Nya Cudo, which means mate coca (a plant) which is iuminated by Venus. His tribe is the Vetoto tribe, and the language of his tribe is known as Ultoto. He speaks Spanish, Ultoto as well as three other indigenous languages.
Diagnosis and Causes of Disease
For diagnosis Isiais uses Ambil which is a paste made from tobacco with a certain type of salt that his tribe makes from vegetables on it. Sometimes, he chews mambe, a paste of coca leaf powder. When asked why, he explained that Ambil and Mambe protect him from the illnesses that may be affecting the client and that they help him see what to do in terms of healing. Ambil and Mambe prevent the shaman from being affected by certain types of diseases a client may have, as well as help him figure out whether to touch the person, how to treat and also whether to give certain tasks to complete before actually doing any healing practices on that person. He spoke of different types of illnesses: those that come from human disorders, those that come from environmental influences, those that are hereditary, and artifical illnesses.
Through my training in the Taoist meditative arts, I know that when I was seeing this man as a client he was scanning my energy body, a term that refers to the underlying matrix that underlies the physical body. Acupuncture uses what are known as meridians or energy channels that run through the body. IN Chinese medicine, the organs, such as the kidneys or lungs, are considered to be the physical fruits of these meridians. Other Amazonian tribes, such as the Yanomami, also describe rivers of energy that move through the body.
Training
Isiais has studied with his grandparents and his parents since he was 5. The first time we spoke, he was visiting the Amazonian region for continuing education. Isiais began his practice of shamanism at age 21. Everyone in his tribe receives similar training, although to different extents. Many tribe members use this knowledge just for their families, while 30 people use it in the wider world as shamans. As part of his training as a shaman, his parents and grandparents choose when to teach certain things over time so that any power obtained from his training would not be abused. This ensured that he would have sufficient wisdom to support his skills. Now, at the age of 56, his parents and grandparents can teach him secrets of his tribe.
Isiais is from a part of the Amazon that has no hospitals or clinics. They rely on what mother earth can provide. “Mother earth gives us everything” he explained to me. The Earth is the “source of knowledge”. As part of his training, he was prohibited from eating large fish and large animals because his tribe believes that doing so decreases ones intelligence. They believe that this type of meat is only good for increasing sexual appetite. As a result, people from his tribe eat mostly small fish and small animals.
As part of his training to become a shaman, Isiais used particular plants designed to decrease anger and upset feelings, as well as other plants that are supposed to allow for easier assimilation of knowledge. In addition he was required to be abstinent until he had completed his shamanistic studies, as well as to maintain a specific diet.
The shamanistic path, he described, is the most rigid in terms of rules and diet. This rigidity ensures shamans will be able to properly use prayers, plants and spells. If he is not able to obtain a plant in an emergency situation, he will use songs and prayers. The songs and prayers are designed to capture and utilize the essences of different plants, without actually using the physical plant itself. The shaman works with the spirit or elemental essence of a particular plant or animal for healing purposes. Isiais explained that this can sometimes be much more effective than using the actual plant because the shaman is compounding the spirit of the plant with the creative force of the cosmos.
Language and Healing
From his tribes point of view, songs are used to recreate oneself and to recreate the universe and can heal oneself or others. Some songs are used for dancing or to vibrate heart to heal one’s health. In Isiais’ tribe, members also use a form of silence to heal themselves, in which they form the fetal position as a way to remember their own stories.
Innate in the Ultoto language are connections between the names of diseases and the names of plants that will heal those very diseases. Isiais gave the example of a stomach ailment called jifedi which is an ulcer like pain in the stomach. A plant, jifidicoma, called caimo in Spanish, is used to heal this condition. Jificicoma heals jifedi, and both words have an innate etymological resemblance to the other. The Vetoto tribe uses etymological similarities between plants and illness as part of their healing structure.
Commonly Treated Diseases in the Amazon
Isiais explained that the list of diseases he commonly sees in the Amazon include, diarrhea, cough, dermatitis, ulcer, parasites, and malaria, as well as fractured and broken bones. Unfortunately many of the plants that he uses are not registered and are not yet named in Spanish or English, but are only known in indigenous languages.
For diarrhea, he uses a plant called Necobe if the diarrhea is light. If the condition is more severe he will use a separate combination of 3 Amazonian plants: Cojoyo de Mecabe mixed with Coduro and a preparation of Creptocico cooked together and drank every half hour. He also uses avocado and ash placed on the stomach to stop the diarrhea. If Isiais does not have plants, then he will use prayers. He explained that sometimes, prayers can work fast, resolving an issue in a day or so if it is caused by infection. If diarrhea is caused by bad food, it is easy to heal.
For the treatment of cough, he distinguished between plants that stop cough and those that resolve cough. This is similar to idea in Chinese medicine of resolving both the root and branch of a health issue. The root is the underlying cause of the condition and the branch is the actual set of symptoms. His purpose is not to necessarily stop the cough immediately, but to resolve any underlying issues, such as phlegm accumulation. He uses fresh Cana Agria new plant sapling, followed by a preparation of Maranion in order to expel phlegm, as well as to resolve fevers, pneumonia, and other disorders.
For the treatment of dermatitis, he referred to what he called an ecological calendar, meaning the treatments he used were specific to the month of birth of any given individual. The actions of nature in a given month would determine what the cause might be as well as the given plant cure. Isiais also mentioned certain butterfly and plant parts that he uses by placing them on the arm of the person with a dermatological condition. He will compare the different areas of the skin to see which remedy is working better and will then use the one that is working best.
To treat ulcers Isiais recommends people avoid anger and upset emotions, as well as that they eat at regular hours, stay calm, and that they avoid sex with full stomachs. He explained that the emotion of anger is heating, and that pains and fevers were also heating. This is similar to Chinese medicine where anger can create heat in the body through stagnation and pains and fevers can also be expressions of internal heat that then need to be resolved herbally. Isiais further explained that the negative heat (which is like the heat from anger) must be removed and be balanced by postitive heat, which is part of the heat that maintains this world. This concept is reminiscent of the idea of yin and yang in Chinese medicine. Isiais uses prayer and herbs to accomplish this. Anger must be transformed into wisdom that can be used for self advancement to preserve the energy, which is like a candle.
For malaria he uses techniques to reduce the fevers at the early stage to resolve it.
For broken bones he also uses plants to hasten their healing.
Conditions Treated in Bogota
The conditions Isiais is asked to treat in Bogota are ver different from the conditions he treats in the Amazon. He explained his current focus in Bogota is more on fertility and heart conditions. He works with women who have had multiple miscarriages, as well as people who have had serious cardiac problems. In treating miscarriage, he uses astral analogies, such as applying the gravity of the moon and stars to the uterus so that it can hold a child and not abort. He also uses prayer and songs about how the moon and the cosmos and the sun do not fall from the sky to keep the baby from falling out. He explained that he is giving the uterus more magnet-like powers to maintain a pregnancy.
Isiais told of a woman who was using a pacemaker and had blockages in her arteries, as well as was experiencing great pains. He used water from certain rocks from the Amazon to strengthen her heart, as well as songs and prayers to cure her of her heart problems which allowed her to stop all of her medications.
Tribal History and Daily Life
The Vetoto tribe, located in the Colombian state of Amazonas near the rivers Caqueta and Irigaparana, once numbered 40,000 people, however, during a war with Peru his tribe, as well as all other tribes in the vicinity, where massacred by Peruvian forces. Isiais and his father determined that 36 tribes completely disappeared during this time, and as he put it, “not even a song remains of them”. During these massacres only 1,000 of the original 40,000 of his Vetoto tribe survived, mainly because the members hid in the jungles. Any people that remained in the their town were all killed. Since this time, his tribe has increased to 5,000 people.
Worldview
Isiais advocates discipline and hard work in order to accumulate more potency, more physical and spiritual power. He explained that over time, with age and the accumulation of wisdom, this will allow you to affect more positive change.
Isiais also explained what he called the cosmological calendar. This is a calendar that indicates individual weaknesses and strengths based on the month of birth, given the analogies of natures for each month.
He also explained that there are no bad things, that all is well. Thoughts, he said, are neither good nor bad. Diseases are simply things that are awaiting to be transformed into good things, in much the same way that poisonous yucca can be transformed into good and nutritious food.
