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The Yagé Complex by Neil Logan
The Yagé Complex By Neil Logan Dedicated to Miguel Payaguaje and his extended family (including his father Delfín and his grandfather Fernando), as well as all the vine gardeners responsible for stewarding these sacred plants through time. Introduction This essay will present the origins, evolution, and human co-history of the Malpighiaceae family of ethnomedically significant…
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…
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…
Drimys andina
Drimys andina One of the last plants we were able to image, Drimys andina (with thanks to Sacred Succulents in California), enabled us to extend the geographical representation of sacred plants in our project much further south into the immense forests that are the Mapuche ancestral lands on both sides of the cordillera of the…
Tabernaemontana spp.
Tabernaemontana spp. Carmen X. Luzuriaga-Quichimbo and her team of researchers from Ecuador and Spain are at the forefront of new studies on Tabernaemontana sananho, also known by its Kichwa name Sikta. They document medicinal and ritual uses of this small tree that thrives in lowland evergreen rainforests throughout northern South America by the Aguaruna of…
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…
