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Neltuma spp.
Neltuma spp. Using a term that is part of his Rarámuri (Tarahumara) heritage, Enrique Salmón explains the importance of iwígara in the introduction to Iwígara, the Kinship of Plants and People: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science: “In a worldview based on iwígara, humans are no more important to the natural world than any other form of life….
Yagé Varieties and Their Names By Jonathon Miller
Yagé Varieties and Their Names By Jonathon Miller Weisberger In this essay, I will share some key insights into the notable varieties of Amazonia’s enigmatic visionary vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, specifically related to the Indigenous science of yagé, as known and practiced by the Western Tukanoan speaking Siekopai people of the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. The information…
Flying plants: Past, Present and Future of the Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia spp.), a Sacred Plant Intimately Linked to Human History
Flying plants: Past, Present and Future of the Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia spp.), a Sacred Plant Intimately Linked to Human History Federico Roda, National University of Colombia (UNAL) Biology Department (Bogotá) I first heard the expression “flying plants” (“plantas voladoras”) from the mouth of Ayênan Quinchoa, a young man from the Kamentsá community of the upper…
Desfontainia spinosa
Desfontainia spinosa Richard Evans Schultes, in his pioneering article from 1977 “Desfontainia: A New Andean Hallucinogen,” describes collecting Desfontainia spinosa twice in Colombia’s Sibundoy Valley, first in 1942 and then in 1953. The Kamsá and Ingano shamans that Schultes consulted called the plant borrachero de páramo and told him that they would drink a tea…
Jonathon Miller Weisberger
Jonathon Miller Weisberger Microcosms, a glimpse into the confounding reality of worlds within worlds within worlds. As the universe extends itself inwards to realms of unknowingness, and simultaneously outwards, beyond the realms of reason. We struggle to reach for an understanding of just where is the unity between the quantum and relative realities? We begin…
Heimia spp.
Heimia spp. Even though there are dozens of names for Heimia salicifolia that cut across national borders from Mexico to Brazil as well as linguistic boundaries that indicate traditional medicinal plant knowledge among a diverse array of Indigenous groups, there is no known pre-Hispanic ritual use of this plant. Heimia is widely used as a…
