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 Peru as well as the Awa, Cofan, Secoya, Shuar, Wao and Kichwa from Ecuador. The researchers maintain that the Kichwas consider the Sikta tree a sacred bridge that “links the person with the hidden forces of Nature” and will not cut these trees down when clearing the forest, keeping their exact location a closely-guarded secret. Different cure-all preparations of Sikta are used as a vulnerary for post-partum bleeding, as a treatment for syphilis, eye wounds, fevers, colds, abscesses, digestive and respiratory conditions, and also as a sedative, painkiller and contraceptive.
According to Christian Rätsch, Tabernaemontana sananho is used ceremonially as an admixture to ayahuasca preparations and to Virola snuffs as a “memory plant” that may serve as an aid to remembering the visionary experience more clearly.
Bradley C. Bennett and Rocío Alarcón, in the fascinating article “Hunting and Hallucinogens: The Use of Psychoactive Plants to Improve the Hunting Ability of Dogs,” highlight the importance of dogs in Indigenous societies that rely on hunting to survive. They mention how the “Ecuadorian Shuar believe that dogs are a gift from Nunkui, the earth mother” and how, for the Quichua, “dogs are gifts from sachahuarmi or sacharuna (forest spirits).” Bennett and Alarcón consider Tabernaemontana and other plant species in relation to ethnoveterinary practices. Citing examples from the Shuar, Quichua and Aguaruna ethnic groups, the authors point out that “in lowland areas of the Neotropics, the primary role of canines is to assist in hunting wild game,” asserting that the plants constituting the diet of the canines are meant to improve their prowess as hunters: “Plants are employed in baths to reduce their scent or to mask odors and thus decreasing their detectability by the targeted prey. Plants also function to clean buccal and nasal cavities, to enhance olfaction, or to enhance night vision.” They bring up the work of Eduardo Kohn, who has studied how the Quichua give their dogs a powerful hallucinogenic preparation called tsicta (sikta?), consisting of Tabernaemontana sananho, in addition to wild tobacco and Brugmansia that permits the dogs to “communicate with their masters and to counsel them.” Bennett and Alarcón speculate that the improved hunting capacity of the dogs who have been provided this mixture may be due to an efficacious experience of plant-based synesthesia that increases the overall combined enhancement of the ability to smell, see and hear in what they characterize as a “second sensory or cognitive pathway.”
Finally, Bennett and Alarcón treat Tabernaemontana as part of a larger vegetal complex by combining “phytochemical data with the ethnobotanical reports of each plant and then classif[ying] each species into a likely pharmacological category: depuratives/deodorant, olfactory sensitizer, ophthalmic, or psychoactive.”
