Intelligence in Nature - Jeremy Narby [14]
âAre they thinking about the future?â I asked.
âThinking about the future,â he agreed. âThatâs why we, in our knowledge, see that animals also think. They know how they are going to save themselves, how they are going to prepare their nests.â
Usi Kamarambi, the Kandoshi specialist, said, âAnimals, for example insects, also have their ideas, their thoughts. It is just that we cannot hear that they have their own voices. They understand one another, they hear one another. Insects talk to each other. For example, leaf-cutter ants, when they go to get leaves in such-and-such a place, they all go there together, then they carry the leaves back to their nest. It is like a communal work party. They also have their experience, how to know for example.â
Nawhiri Rafael Chanchari, the Shawi specialist, said, âWe believe that animals think. Monkeys, birds, animals, when they see you, they smell you, and they tend to run away from you. So we think that in their own world, they also think and converse. When we see peccaries [wild pigs], we see animals. But in their world, they are not animals, they too are human beings, and they can speak to one another. They make plans regarding where they are going to go. They check to see if their group is all together, or if one is missing, what happened. Each place where they sleep, they keep lists, they control things as they go. And that is the experience that we have through our elders. In other words, animals have their own world. They are also human beings in their world. We see what appears to us as an animal, but in their own world they think and reason and only then start out looking for their food.â
He said that animals and plants contain spirits which humans can see when drinking ayahuasca. He said these spirits are beings that appear to us in human form when they want us to see them and learn something. âThey can transform themselves. Even though a human being can also transform himself, according to his capacity to sing icaro [shaman] songs. For example, a man can transform himself into a jaguar.â
âWhat does one have to do for that?â I asked.
âFor example, know a lot of icaro songs. There is a discourse which is very dangerous to learn, even though it is of the icaro song. You learn it and become a jaguar, but as a person. It cannot be taught. That is a difference: Human beings, depending on their capacity to discourse, can transform themselves into jaguars. Whereas, a jaguar cannot transform itself into a human.â
I asked the Kandoshi specialist how shamans turn into jaguars. He replied, âThe shaman transforms his soul into a jaguar, but not his body. And this jaguar can go and cause harm to others, because the shaman is directing it, because his soul is inside the jaguar body. But this jaguar is an animal. So the shamanâs soul transforms itself and enters into the jaguar. Thatâs where the shamanâs soul is. Inside the jaguar.â
At the end of our meeting, the specialists showed me a book about Amazonian cosmovisions that they and their colleagues had just published. It contained hundreds of illustrations concerning the indigenous Amazonian view of the world. As I skimmed through it, I noticed a number of images depicting hybrid beings, half human and half animal.
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THAT NIGHT I sat on the bed in my hotel room in Iquitos under the glare of a bare lightbulb and thought about what the three specialists had told me. I had the feeling they had relayed important information that I was failing to understand. I felt both excited and puzzled. I knew that animal transformation is a common theme among Amazonian shamans. Anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff reported extensively on the subject while devoting his career to studying the indigenous people of Colombia. âAll shamans are transformers,â he wrote, âand are said to be able to turn at will into jaguars, huge serpents, harpy eagles or other fearful creatures.â According to Reichel-Dolmatoff, shamans use plant hallucinogens to get into the mind-set of another species: âProstrate in his hammock he will growl and pant, strike