-:- little vision tricksters -:-
-:- shamanic allies - hekura spirits of the yanomami -:-
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Under the dark canopy of the tropical Amazonian forest of Brazilian-Venezuelan border country live the Yanomami, a people renowned in the anthropological literature for their fierceness, their generosity and their unique culture. Living in round, communal villages called shabonos, these people live cheek by jowl with each other in one of the most biodiverse regions of the planet. In the Yanomami jungle, there are said to be more species of trees in one quarter mile area than can be found in the whole of Western Europe .
But, in the minds of the people who live there, the forest is not merely filled with plant and animal life. The trees are also teeming with what might be termed spiritual life. Every single plant, vine, tree, and every single animal from mouse to jaguar has a vital living soul.
But most important of all are the shamanic spirits, the hekura. These tiny glowing lights which live in the wilds of the mountains and distant uninhabited jungle can only be contacted by the use of the hallucinogenic snuff called ebene. Prepared from the bark of the virola tree, this snuff is used by shamans of the tribe, as well as a large percentage of the ‘layman’ Yanomami population.
On most afternoons, when the day’s work of hunting, gathering or tending to the fruit gardens is done, they gather in their shabono to socialise, using a combination of songs, dances and ebene to entice the hekura down from their distant homes to enter their bodies. Once they have entered, they begin to ‘shamanise’ the person in whom they are dwelling, which causes them to sing the healing or harming songs of the spirits within them.
A shaman can furthermore be initiated so that the hekura start to live permanently inside his body. Using very large amounts of ebene and extremely strong strains of wild tobacco, the spirits are contacted and eventually housed inside him, from where an almost permanent shamanic communication can begin. The Yanomami envisage entire communities of hekura inside the shaman, living in symbolic houses, villages, mountains and rivers within his body.
Keeping the hekura satisfied inside them is a priority for most shamans of this tribe – this is maintained by the regular use of tobacco, ebene and ceremonies – and by using on the power of the spirits within him, and understanding the quality of that power, the shaman can heal an ally or harm an enemy at will.
It appears from much of the literature about these people that the hekura, and the use of ebene to contact them, forms the vast majority of Yanomami religious practice. It might be said that the Yanomami are a profoundly internal people who prefer to communicate with aspects of the ‘inner’ world rather than entities such as ‘gods’ or ‘deities’.
We might thus consider that the Yanomami have made these living, powerful spooks the centre of their spiritual lives. It is clear that they value the magical aspect most strongly, and as shamanic allies, they determine the course of major political events such as inter-village warfare, in which the hekura-derived shamanic power is recruited to harm enemies, and trade, which is often concluded with a generous measure of ebene to cement the new relationship.
Furthermore, the Yanomami believe that the souls of the dead eventually become hekura, as do the souls of animals that the Yanomami have killed to provide themselves with food. At funerals and great feasts, ceremonies are often performed – again with the shamans and their hekura power presiding – to ensure that this transition – from living, to dead, to hekura – takes place in the natural order of things.
These shamanic allies, then, not only have a magical power, they also function as a kind of ancestor remembrance, and by allowing them into their bodies, the Yanomami recycle and remember the wisdom of the past, gathered by all that have died before them. More than this though, the hekura are overtly political in a way that the kami of Japan or the Taotao Mona of Guam could not be.
By taking up residence within a shaman’s body, they become agents for the furtherance of that particular shaman’s aims – whether he is a sorcerer who desires to control large populations across a wide territory or a weapon of war who wishes to protect his village from attacks from shamanic enemies. In fact, inter-village warfare is often begun out of a desire for revenge for some (imagined or real) shamanic attack on a tribal member.
The hekura are spooks par excellence. Taking centre stage in the spiritual and political life of the people, they are the most complex of the spooks we have seen so far. But of these it also appears that they are the most ancient.
The Yanomami speak a language which, according to most linguists, is related to no other currently spoken tongue. They are often considered to be an isolate people in the northwest Amazon, who remained in their mountains as many of their sister cultures were supplanted by incoming Carib and Arawak peoples from the north (*8). Thus it is likely that the Yanomami have been living in their present lands for several thousands of years. And in turn, it is likely that the mandala of culture relating to the hekura is just as ancient.
The Yanomami represent what Joseph Campbell refers to as a primitive planting culture, that is to say one that has turned to some extent towards the planting of crops for sustenance, but still maintains a healthy respect for hunting traditions, including shamanism. While in Japan , we see an almost aesthetic tradition typical of a civilised people, here in the Amazon we seem to be witness to an older substrate of spook, one that still maintains a profound magical power strong enough to inspire shamans and coordinate political and tribal events.
And as we turn to a place further back in time again, to a people who never knew the cultural innovations of planting crops but remained as hunters, we see the spooks returning even more to their central places – as the very Creators of the Dreaming Universe itself.
(c) Bruce Rimell, June 2005
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