Prologue

My name is Shakaim Mariano Shakai Ijisam Chumpi. I am Shuar. Like all my ancestors before me, I grew up in the Amazon jungle. I learned to hunt wild boar and many other animals with a spear and blowgun and to kill the men who are our enemies. We Shuar are the best hunters and the bravest warriors in the entire world. It is our tradition to shrink the heads of our slain enemies. We have never been defeated or signed a peace treaty -- not with the Incas, the Spaniards, or the governments of Ecuador, Peru, or the United States. The missionaries tell us that we are the only tribe in all the Americas who have never surrendered to anyone.

Unlike my parents, I attended Catholic mission school where I learned to speak and read Spanish. Like most Shuar who are alive today, I have a Spanish name, Mariano. I fought for the Ecuadorian army against the Peruvians. I am an expert shot with a rifle. With 2,000 other Shuar warriors of the Arutam brigade, I led the jungle war against Peru in 1995. We fought like our fathers, without mercy, valiantly. Many of my Shuar brothers died, but we killed more of our enemies. I carry tattoos on my body to prove it -- but we Shuar never brag about the enemies we killed or tsantsas [shrunken heads] taken! We know it is the power of arutam that made it possible.

War is necessary if the jungle is to live in peace and thrive. The old shaman Chumpi used to teach us that men have a responsibility to make sure that peace includes all the plants, animals, rivers, and insects. Peace without peace for all is not true peace. Sometimes war is necessary to keep human populations in check, to maintain balance. We must protect all future generations, including those of the "others," the ones we eventually shapeshift into.

So, it is important for us to possess arutam -- both our men and women -- in order to be effective hunters, warriors, parents, gardeners, and shamans and to pass this beautiful life on to future generations. Arutam was formed by our ancestors when they died and transformed themselves into powerful animals. Its magic is carried in the forests, the sacred waterfalls, the teacher plants -- ayahuasca, datura, and wild tobacco. People who have arutam sometimes shapeshift into the anaconda or the jaguar. Such people overcome all obstacles. I come from a long line of ancestors with arutam.

The son of Domingo Chumpi and nephew of the famous shaman, Chumpi (he had no Spanish name), I am twenty-six years old. My wife is Ujukam Kasent Nupirat Maria. She is almost four years younger than me. Like her ancestors, she grew up in the jungle. She learned about all the plants that our family needs for food and medicines, about taking care of children and training the hunting dogs. She also learned to make chicha, our most important food, a sacred and delicious beer the women produce by preparing the manioc root in a special process, then chewing and spitting it into a large pot to ferment. Everyone around agrees that Maria (her Spanish name) makes the very best chicha! According to tradition, men are not allowed to touch chicha with any part of our outside bodies except our mouths. Only women can make and touch chicha.

We Shuar know that men and women are equal but different. Men cut trees for building homes and dugout canoes, hunt animals for protein, and kill other men when it is necessary. Women tend the gardens and collect plants in the forests, raise children, make chicha, and -- according to them -- carry out the most important job of all: convince us men to stop cutting trees, hunting animals, and killing enemies, when enough of this has been done. "Stop," they say. "Our house is too large already," or "Don't go hunting today; we have eaten enough meat this week." We men laugh about this. "Stay home and make love today," they say. We obey.

In the old days, those of our parents, there were many more women than men because of the headhunting wars. Due to their different jobs, men and women never live without each other; therefore, one man might have two, three, or even four wives. If my uncle was killed in battle, his wives would go to live with my father. The women, though, had their own privileges, like teaching the young uninitiated males how to please a woman with the techniques of making love. A woman can always leave a man's house -- she simply walks away -- but a man cannot abandon a woman.

Now things are different. I have one wife and will not take another. Maria and I have four children. The first is our six-year-old daughter, Ujukam Zoila Pasculina Chumpi. She attends the mission school. The next is a son, Ujukam Wainchatai Mariano Chumpi. He is the godson of my friend and amikri, John Perkins. The next is another son, named after my amikri, Johnny. Our youngest girl is named after my amikri's daughter, Jessica, who has come here to visit us. The place where we live is Tsuirim, nowadays often called Miazal. We live in a traditional Shuar lodge near that of my mother and father and close to my brothers. These are our customs. We have lived here for years and years, long before Juan Arcos came to establish the mission and the school.

I tell you all this, talking into the tape recorder, because my amikri has asked me to and because I want to preserve the stories and traditions of my people. We say that amikri is the same as the Spanish word compadre, that John is the godfather of my son, Mariano; but in fact amikri means much more than that. It involves a sacred trust. In any case, John gave me this tape recorder, along with many cassettes and batteries, and asked me to interview my parents and others among the old people in our own language, which we call Shuar. He said we could talk about anything; I could share my own feelings and impressions and those of my wife, Maria, as well as those of the elders, the uwishin, ones who know. Everything that was said in Shuar, I have translated into Spanish.

I was raised as a traditional Shuar. Yet, so much is changing around us. I have mentioned some of this already and will tell you more on these tapes. I will tell you -- or, the older people who speak through me will -- about the love lives of our people; the way we are initiated into adulthood; the coming of the missionaries and schools; the sacred medicine plants, ayahuasca, tobacco, and datura; the vision quests; the wars and how they help create peace; the parties; the spirits who protect us and the trees and animals and teach us about the world. We will tell you how it was in the past and how it is now. According to what my father says, his early life was much the same as my own. But also different since there was no mission, no school. Things are really beginning to change now.

John says it is important to share our knowledge with the rest of the world because our ways may help other people, his people in the North, to better understand the importance of the plants and animals and the ways we live with them. He says his people are in trouble and need our help. I believe him. He has brought North Americans and Europeans to visit us and I have seen this among them, a lack of knowledge about the world, and a hunger to understand. Maria and I have invited these people to our home and been saddened to see how little they have. We Shuar are taught to read people, to peer through the fluttering leaves they smile at us; with the gringos, we see that they lack the fire that burns in the hearts of our people, they are longing for love. So, I believe what John tells me and, since he is my amikr -- the most important relationship two Shuar men can share -- I honor his request.

But I too have my reasons for making these tapes: my four children and the six who are yet unborn that Maria and I shall raise, and all their children, and their children's children and the ones who come after that. For their sake, I asked John to also make his own tapes and to write in the book that will sprout from the tapes the story of how he came to know and love the Shuar, to be like one of us, and become my amikri. He lived among us before I was born and then returned when I had just become a teenager. He wrote an important book about us, which I read in Spanish, and then later brought his friend and the publisher of that book to visit us, a man who dreamed this dream of giving me a tape recorder so I could save the history, stories, and traditions of the Shuar. I asked my amikri to include these things because they too are part of the story, roots to the tree that is spreading its branches to the sons and daughters of our sons and daughters.

So, along with my amikri, I make these tapes for Pasculina, Mariano, Johnny, my Jessica, his Jessica, and all their children, and for the children of the trees, the fish, the birds, and the animals.

And for you, that you may learn to love the way we Shuar love, to be one with the world that is one with you.

[Excerpt 1]

Amalia became an important teacher. A spry woman in her seventies or eighties -- it was impossible to tell her age and neither she nor her family would divulge it -- with long black hair that fell nearly to her waist, she lived near our compound and often helped prepare our meals. She was an expert on plants and greatly revered by her own eight children, as well as the Shuar girls who often came to help in her gardens and study under her.

Amalia Tuitsa Chiazo: Long ago, when I was very young, barely walking, my mother started teaching me about the plants. Over the years I learned from all the ladies in my family -- grandmothers, aunts, cousins, everyone who would share knowledge with me. I could journey into those plants -- still can -- to discover their secrets, share their powers. I know about the ones that are good for food, the ones for medicines. I know which are right for teas or soups to cure fevers and headaches or bad stomachs and which ones should be applied to the body as poultices.

My daughters have learned much about this too, and also they have been to school -- in Quito, Europe and the United States. Yes. Can you believe it! I never even heard of the places where they've been. They tell me that in those places it is the juices of the plants, the chemicals, that interest the medical people. Oh, my! Here we know otherwise. It is the spirit of the plant that counts!

We sing to the plants and I teach the young women around here to do it in the old traditions. You know that yucca [manioc] is special for us. We cook it and we also make chicha from it. We Shuar could not live without that plant. Well, it grows beneath the ground, close to the goddess Nunqui. We have to dig out the tubers -- they are what we use in our foods. Always before starting to dig we sing to Nunqui requesting her permission, thanking her and asking if it is okay to draw upon the spirit of her baby. Only if she agrees do we proceed. Afterward, we bury the stems and leaves of the plant so it will be reborn.

Yucca is like us, symbolic of all life, all the rejuvenation, the shapeshifts that occur around us every moment. Transformation. Life, death, life -- shapeshifting. It is like that here and important to learn to live within that context, to honor and appreciate Nunqui and all the other spirits who help us. My children tell me people have forgotten this in Europe and North America and that they suffer as a result.

We all suffer when anyone forgets. It is essential that we who show ourselves as people honor all the others around us, everything!

We women know these things about the plants, special things too. While the men cut trees and hunt, we women talk with the plants. The men say they can speak the language of the animals, joining them in their very lives. Well, we women do it all the time with our plants.

My children tell me that the world outside is very male -- there in North America and Europe, that the men have cut so many trees and built huge, tall houses that reach far above the tallest chonta [a type of palm], almost to the moon. We know that men will do this and kill more animals than we need for meat unless we women let them know when it's time to stop. That is the nature of men! I have to wonder why the women in those places don't help their men to understand these things.

[Excerpt 2]

Chumpi had never seen a tape recorder until one time I took a small palm-size one with me so I could record his chanting. The machine fascinated him, especially the morning after an ayahuasca ceremony when I played back the sounds of him singing and making music on the tumank and kitiar (a sort of two-stringed fiddle he had carved from a single piece of wood). He took the tape recorder in his hands and examined it closely, turning it over, gently shaking it, holding it up to his ear, and trying to peer inside. "It's a shapeshifter," he concluded. "It shapeshifted my music and now you can take the spirit of my voice, my tumank and kitiar with you wherever you go." Then he asked if he could speak into it. The following is what he said.

Chumpi: They call me 'Chumpi.' Just that. No Spanish name. Some say it is because I was born before the Spanish arrived. Hah! Perhaps that is so. Some say it is due to my powers as a shaman, a shapeshifter, my arutam. Who knows? I am Chumpi.

Often when I take ayahuasca with one of my patients, we journey together. I can see what she needs and I help to guide her -- or my spirit helpers do, the anaconda, jaguar, bat, Tsunkqui, and the power of my arutam. Then the arutam enters her, she feels it in her heart, and I just go along; I learn as much as I can so that I may heal her and help in many ways. Also, it's always an education for me!

This happened with John Perkins several times. I was training him, as I also did for Peem, and for my nephew, Mariano Chumpi. They are all powerful young men and I have suggested to them that they work together, joining hearts to help Nunqui, Tsunkqui, and Ayumpum do their jobs, uniting people and nature -- something that comes naturally to we Shuar, at least in the times before the mission, yet seems so difficult for the gringos.

You know, there is nothing more important than for people to shapeshift into nature. We must feel our hearts as the same hearts as those of the anaconda, jaguar, the river and chonta tree. Our souls, the same. Also, our bodies. This is the spirit of oneness, part of the power of arutam.

I know that the priests teach otherwise, saying that humans are above all the others. How can this be?

Is not Tsunkqui a woman, a human? Is she not a goddess, and also the water, the turtle, the caiman? Sometimes, too, a man? And Nunqu -- is she not the roots of the plants during the day and the trunk, branches, and leaves at night, as well as a woman? Ayumpum is the lightening and also the ayahuasca vine. A man on earth, a god, and so much more! Etsaa -- is he not a man, a great warrior, hunter and teacher and also the sun that warms us, our hearts and bodies, all day long?

What about the God of the priests? Is He not also the river and the mountain, the jaguar and the fish? Does He not love all these things -- the stones, birds, and insects, as much as he loves me or the priests?

Was I not a tree? You? Will I not be one again? And the bat? I know that I will shapeshift into a bat soon and disappear as a human. Does this mean I have sunk lower, become something less than I am now? Of course not. We are one, the same. The priests see us as different, but that is an illusion. They tell us that our ayahuasca and datura remove us from reality. It is just the opposite. We see the reality in our oneness. That is the power of arutam -- feeling the oneness. The priests hallucinate and in their confused state declare that man is above all others.

My work here is often unpopular. The teachers at the mission school get angry with me from time to time. They and the priest don't like my teachings. I know its because they realize I'm speaking the truth and it threatens their desire to teach something else. They tell our children that no longer do we need to learn about the plants and animals, because everything is written in books, all they need to do is learn to read and they can turn to their books for all the answers. But this is crazy. We feel the plants and animals, love them; it isn't just about learning the things books tell us, but about sharing our lives, our hearts and souls, with all that is around us, part of us. We are not separate from these things in nature; we are them and they are us.

That is why the Shuar had headhunting wars, as a way to keep peace, and fulfill our promise to Etsaa. Peace for all of nature and among men, which is the same. You see, we know that men will keep creating babies and use up more of the land, killing animals and cutting trees; there is nothing to stop us. Only we people can take that responsibility. We can do it either by having fewer babies or by going to war!

Our young men used to sing an initiation song about sacrificing themselves for this purpose. "I was born to die fighting, born to sacrifice myself for Nunqui, born to sacrifice myself for my children's children." That's the way it was.

Look at us now! The Ecuadorian government and the missionaries have prohibited headhunting wars. A few still take heads but not the way we used to. And just see what's happened! Look at all the Shuar. Our population has spread like the strangler fig vine! We can no longer live off the land, from hunting and gathering alone. Too many people!

There are no headhunting wars -- just wars with Peru! And there is no peace for the plants and the animals. They suffer. They are us, we are them. We suffer. The Shuar have become beggars, begging the mission for food and education, begging visitors for shirts and stupid wrist watches, begging . . . becoming like the others out there who have lost their way!

The only hope is for us to regain arutam, to feel our connection.

[Excerpt 3]

A man's body slowly rose to a sitting position. He appeared frail and moved as though suffering from severe pain. Mariano urged me closer. "I want to introduce you to my respected father, Domingo Chumpi," he said. It was the first time I had met him, but Mariano had told me that his father was nearly blind. The old man took my hand and bent his face close to it, as though he would kiss it. Instead, he seemed to study it. Then he smiled and welcomed me. He spoke to his son in Shuar, his voice so soft I could barely hear it. Mariano talked with him quietly and at length, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the people who had congregated along the walls of the lodge.

"So, you've brought white people here who want to learn from us?" Domingo's voice boomed across the room. It caught me completely by surprise. He continued to look frail, but his voice now was that of a man accustomed to commanding authority. "Good. About time!" Slowly and deliberately he swung his legs over the side of the bed. "What are we waiting for?"

Domingo Chumpi: Oh, arutam! It is a powerful thing! Its power is carried in the teacher plants: natema [ayahuasca], datura, and tobacco. It is in the sacred waterfalls. We know that arutam was formed by our dead ancestors when they transformed themselves into the powerful animals. There are many arutams; they take the shape of the anaconda. We call the spirit of that great snake Pangui. And the jaguar. The strength anacondas and jaguars possess creates arutam. One who has arutam, who shapeshifts into the anaconda or the jaguar is also called Panqui. Nobody can defeat him. All enemies fear him unless they have more arutam than he, even greater powers, the ability to shapeshift into something terribly strong. The powers of those two spirits, those two warrior animals, are the highest degree. For that reason, when men go to the waterfall and drink ayahuasca they want to transform themselves into a jaguar or anaconda. Arutam cannot be differentiated for woman or man. It is a single thing. Both sexes can have it. When a woman possess it -- what beauty! What spirit! What magic she can work with men, children, plants, and animals! It is incredible to behold a woman or a man shapeshifting into an anaconda or jaguar, transforming right before your eyes . . . what a sight! And to do it yourself. What an experience!

Arutam is a power that can help people in good and evil. We live by its power. Without arutam we could not live so long. We need the power of arutam. People who live eighty or ninety years are the ones who have the power of the jaguar or the anaconda and have presented themselves at the sacred waterfall when they took ayahuasca or tobacco. Those who live many years and have children and good luck have arutam. They are the shapeshifters we all respect.

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