pp. 21-50 Johannes Wilbert : "The Order of Dark Shamans among the Warao.

" [Orinoco
delta]

p.  

23 "the candidate’s empowerment as a "master over pain" (wisaratu; wisimo

is the plural form). The mentor hands the candidate ... six wads of tobacco
that, on ingestion, enter the pupil’s body as his sons, or tutelary "pains,"
and accommodate themselves, in pairs, on both sides of his throat, chest,
and abdomen. On his initiatory journey, the neophyte follows a
psychopomp ... past deadly creatures. He contemplates a pile of bones left
by unfortunates who failed to clear a dangerous passage of rapidly
opening and closing doors.

24 Only after making it safely through these crushing gates does the
apprentice, finally, behold a true horned viper balancing a bright red ball
on its protruding tongue." {cf. [the Irish] Cu-chulainn, who "was said to
swell up like a ball when angry" (MM, p. 149), when "over his head were
visible ... sparks of ruddy fire" (ibid., p. 150).}"A priest-shaman healer
expects to be compensated ... A man unable to provide compensation
mortgages his body by sitting back to back with the shaman, pledging to
be his lifelong neburatu (servant)."

25 "an ordinary priest-shaman ... makes his inquiries and pleas by plaintive
chant, accompanied by a sacred rattle that contains a family of tutelary
spirits in the form of quartz pebbles.""Old Spider Woman placed it [sago-
starch] ... into the stem of the primordial palm, after the god of the noon
sun had fashioned her from the bleached bones of ancestral Warao.""The
order of light shamanism is generically known as bahana {cf. [Navaho]
/bahane/} and is practitioners as bahanarao (bahanarotu is the singular
form), meaning those who ... "suck." ... its cosmic center is a two-story
ovoid structure, located ... northeast of the world axis. ... the avian God of
Origin, residing on the world mountain at equinoctial sunrise [the east] ...
is the father of the swallow-tailed kite (Elanoides forficatus), who, in
primordial times, emerged from a cave in the mountain. From there he
tracked the sun to the brightest region in the sky [the zenith], where he
built the egg-shaped house near the top of the firmament ... This house
connects with the apex of the world axis via a rope bridge that conveys a
beam of power down to the earth and to the nadir of the universe. The
bridge is bordered on both sides by flowering tobacco plants, whose leaves
were harvested by the architect of the cosmic egg to convert them into
thickened smoke of which the bridge, the house, its inventory, and its
residents are fashioned. In addition to housing the Tobacco Spirit and his
consort, the building’s upper floor is

26 home to the very first light shaman and his wife, as well as to four insect
 men and their families. {cf. Navaho insect-deities} A plumed serpent lives
on the structure’s lower level. Periodically, the insects gather around a
gambling table on which they move specific counters to invade each
other’s spaces according to an arrow dice cast by the Spirit of Tobacco.
On completion of a game, the snake erects itself above the gamblers,
jingles {cf. jingling ornaments on the costumes of Siberian shamans} the
chromatic feathers on its head, and presents an orb of radiant light on its
forked tongue.""the Tobacco Spirit ... manifests as the swallow-tailed kite.
The insects materialize as a honey bee (Trigona capitata), a stingless bee
(Trigona hyalinata branneri), a wasp (Stenopolybia fulvofasciata), and a
termite (Nasutitermes corniger M.), while the serpent is modeled on a blind
snake (Leptotyphlops sp.)."

27 "The first light shaman ... was only four years old when ... he fell asleep,
and ... a psychopomp conducted him northeasterly to the oval house of
smoke. Inside the house, ... the four insect men gave him four different
gambling-board counters, consisting of a crystal, a ball of hair, quartz
pebbles, and a puff of tobacco smoke. ... The boy began manifesting a halo
around his head, and the radiance of the serpent’s glowing orb filled him
with instant knowledge of all things bahana." "four young insect replicas
(the two bees, a wasp, and a termite) ... began opening a lumen in each of
his arms, ending in exit holes at the base of each of his fingers (other than
his thumbs)." {the Navaho tunnels through one’s body are for winds}"At
age sixteen ... the young man wed a bee girl ... in the tobacco Spirit’s
house, where the wife changed into a frigate bird (Fregata magnificens) to
become the first white shamaness, specializing, like her human successors,
in curing nicotinic seizures. Once the Warao began populating the earth,
the first light shaman shot two gambling tokens – the termite’s quartz
pebbles and the stingless bee’s puff of tobacco smoke – into a young man’s
upper body ... to perpetuate light shamanism on earth ... modern
practitioners ... carry

28 only one tutelary spirit (termite) in their right torso and one (stingless bee)
in their left, requiring but a single exit hole in the palm of each hand."
{stigmata}

29 "The owner awakens the effigy [of the swallow-tailed kite] by fumigating
it with tobacco smoke ... Suddenly, the figurine lifts off with the roar of a
hurricane and flies to the targeted village, who residents can hear the
missile approaching but do not see it. Only the local white shaman beholds
the flying image ... When in the air, the quartz pebbles surge in a
triangular formation closely followed by the figurine." {cf. the
"whirlwind" accompanying the beings of amber in YH.ZQ>L 1:4} {those
accompanying Paulos were able to hear, but not to see, Iesous Khristos
(Acts of the Apostles 9:7)}
30 Those having ability to influence rain are referred to as /NaHarima/ ‘rain-
father’ or /NaHarani/ ‘rain-mother’ {cf. /NoH./ in whose time occurred a
deluge occasioned by water falling from the sky.}

31 "a weather shaman ... candidate ... meets a manifestation of the supreme
rain lord in the form of a waterspout or tornado. Lifted up and swallowed
by the colossal spirit, the novice journeys through the lord’s serpentine
physic ..., receiving instantaneous and total knowledge of the masters of
the night sky and their ways. On leaving the twister spirit (via the rectum),
the new shaman has aged precipitously {In order to have awarded to
himself the golden fleece, Iason allowed himself to be swallowed by the
dragon which guarded it. In being "restored to the world of the living",
Iason was re-emitted from the dragon’s mouth : "He hung fainting from
the dragon’s mouth" (MM, p. 144).}, and the rainbow, the lowest –ranking
rain lord, takes up residence in his chest to ... serve as his familiar."

32 "the rain lords stride with pounding heels to congregate on the celestial
plaza below the top of the cosmic vault, where they perform a dance. Their
stomping thunders through the clouds, the impact of their walking staffs
sparks sky-rending lightning and their sweating causes heavy rainfall,
while bellowing alligators dialogue with them in the sky. ... widespread
famines every four to five years are caused by alligators, the naguals
(animal doubles) of dark shamans".

33 "The ruler over this domain [the west] is Hoebo, the Ancient One, residing
on the western mountain of the setting equinoctial sun. ... Only two small
lights – one white, the other yellow, illuminate ... its surroundings. ...
Miana ... occupies a house located near the zenith, west of the world’s axis,
and is considered the soul of Hoebo ... Miana ... favors soft crepuscular
light : broad daylight dazzles him and causes him to squint." {cf. the
squinting sun-god in the Books of C^ilam Balam} "Hoebo manifested as
the red macaw (Ara chloroptera) ... the parrot people built a settlement of
humble houses near macaw’s colossal iron (or aluminum) mansion, and
they gathered there with their lord to drink of human blood from a thirty-
foot canoe. ... Wind instruments of human tibias ... are playing, and
partakers in the banquets are attired in their feather coats adorned with
necklaces of human costal bone." "Miana ... used a hosepipe (hoa ahutu)
that was fastened to a high-rise structure near the drinking trough. The
line ran up ... to reach a place halfway between Hoebo and Miana’s
stations, from where it dangled over the encampment of the newly formed
Warao. The duct was furnished with a brilliant headlight, which helped it
find, at night, the heads of unsuspecting sleepers." {cf. S.ufi^ & Mormon
ascription of prophetic capacity to a beam of light shining down from
above onto the top of the head of the prospective prophet.}

34 "the blue-and-yellow species (abuhene; Ara ararauna), ...red-and-blue

 macaws (abahera)"

35 "Abahera ... the jilted suitor ... sliced his rival [Hoebo] horizontally in half.
... The headlight of the duct, which had been seen above the village like a
small-sized moon, crashed with Hoebo’s body to the dance floor."

36 "Hoebo’s soul rose to his father’s (Miana) place west of the zenith. ...
trainees must come here to receive the singing power that activates the
sucking snare (kaidoko) that they will receive as a proboscis ... Hoebo bids
the novice to enter his dark house ... and implants a wound-up snare of
hoebo power in his chest, below the sternum. ... the tendrils of this bifid
sucking snare emerge from the corners of his mouth each time he chants
Miana’s song".

37 "the novice meets a demonic spirit who beats him on the neck with a
heavy cudgel. The spirit comes a second time and places him into a
wooden dugout coffin. {cf. the enclosing of the living Osiris in a wooden
coffin.} The fearsome demon then manifests a third and final time to
entomb him in a sarcophagus ... the neophyte beholds a beam of sunlight
entering a crack in the coffin wall.""Vampires [vampire bats] descend
from a nocturnal tribe of people who ate children and who acquired their
present form through a promiscuous bat woman. Blood-sucking insects
stem from a young man who preyed on his sleeping wives".

38 "the light-globe of the blood duct shattered""When ... the time has come
for the dark shaman to begin his service to the netherworld, the zenithal
Hoebo takes the shaman there ... The visitor ... sees the blood canoe ... He
also sees the house in the village of diseased dark shamans (hoarao) {cf.
the lookman (‘shaman’) of Wayana, who is expected to be diseased.} that
he ... will dwell in permanently after death, when he assumes, like all his
predecessors, a ... form that is half-parrot and half-human with a simian
tail."

41 "the sorcerer’s body in its nagual form of ... teju lizard (Tupinambis
nigropunctus) of blackish color with yellow bands across its back."

43 "Veteran shamans ... sat on wooden stools (duhu) and smoked ritual
tobaccco (kohoba)."

MM = Ev Cochrane : Martian Metamorphosis. Aeon Pr, 1997.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------pp. 82-108 Robin Wright :
"Witches and Prophets in the History of the Northwest Amazon". [Baniwa]

p.  
84 "the universe is organized into an enormous vertical structure of twenty-
five layers, or worlds (kuma), with twelve

85 layers below "This World" (Hliekwapi) of humans and twelve above."the

highest :- that of Nhia~perikuli "the "Illuminated One," whose body
shines "like a brilliant mirror," {Tezcatli-poca or else Tezcatla-nextia}. ...
The sun is considered to be a manifestation of Nhia~perikuli’s body. {A
praevious sun was considered to be Tezcatli-poca.} The twelve worlds
below ours – collectively known as Uapinakuethe – are inhabited ... With
the exception of the people of the lowest level and one other, all other
peoples are considered to be "good" and assist the shaman ... The worlds
above ours – collectively known as Apakwa Hekwapi, the "Other World"
-- ... have to do with sickness and curing. With the exception of levels five
and six, which are inhabited by the spirit "Owner of Sickness,"
Wamundana or Kuwai (who is Nhia~periculi’s son), and his "secretary,"
{cf. Citra-gupta?} the white sloth (tchitamali), all other levels are likewise
inhabited by "good people."""This World is frequently characterized as
the place of evil, maatchikwe; place of pain, kaiwikwe".

86 "witchcraft, manhene, literally means "one does not know," ...""Kuwai,

the son of ... Nhia~perikuli, left all forms of poison in this world as
vengeance for his own killing. Nhia~perikuli gathered up this poison in a
pot and hid it in his house., but a tribe of ancestral monkey-spirits, called
Eenunai {"monkey or sloth" (p. 87) : surely sloth-spirits, in view of the
sloth-deity being evil (as on p. 85) in contrast with the monkey-tailed curer
(on p. 38)}, stole this poison and became ... "poison-owners" (manhene
iminali). They poisoned one of Nhia~perikuli’s younger brothers".

87 "the poison-owner’s soul is, according to shamans, a spirit of the dead,

inyaime, which inhabits the periphery of This World."

88 " "thought" (ianheke, the negative of which is manheke ...)""Hiuiathi ...

are evil spells sent by persons who desire to cause harm to their enemies."

89 "Kuwai ... taught hiuiathi to Nhia~perikuli’s younger brother Eeri who,

thinking that they were to do good, transmitted them to humans. Other
versions say that in the great fire that marked Kuwai’s death, he passed
on all his knowledge about hiuiathi to the spirits of nature called iupinai".
{cf. city /YaPo^/ ‘more beautiful’ (Strong’s 3305)}

90 "iupitha`tem {item of natural beauty?} ... is collected immediately after the

person’s death, it is kept wrapped in a bundle".

91 "Thevengeance-taker"sendsagreatwindtowheret
heintendedvictimis,andthevictimbeginstogomad(
ikaka)...runsafterwomenandattemptstorapethem
 "."

91 "Thevengeance-taker"sendsagreatwindtowheret
heintendedvictimis;p.104,n.791Thevengeance-ta
ker"sendsagreatwindtowheretheintendedvictimi
s,andthevictimbeginstogomad(ikaka)...runsafter
womenandattemptstorapethem"."

104, "inBaniwasociety:themari`ri,orshaman,whouses
n.5" maraca`rattlesandsnuffsthehallucinogenicparika
`toperformcures;dzuri,orchant-owner,whousespr
imarilyorationsandtobacco,mutawari;andthemah
~eminare(equivalenttothemanheneiminali,poison
-owner),whoarethesorcerers,ormaita`raintheling
uageral"

104, "inBaniwasociety:themari`ri,orshaman,whouses
n.5 maraca`rattlesandsnuffsthehallucinogenicparika
`toperformcures;dzuri,orchant-owner,whousespr
imarilyorationsandtobacco,mutawari;andthemah
~eminare(equivalenttothemanheneiminali,poison
-owner),whoarethesorcerers,ormaita`raintheling
uageral"

106, n. "In ancient times, ... it was Huiti Uanakale himself who reccommended
16 that they kill him. ... they simply cut off his head and threw it into the
river. The head floated downstream still with its brains and the knowledge
of how to cause all illnesses and also how to cure them. {cf. the decapitated
head of Orpheus, which floated down the river Hebros (GM 28.d)} When
the head reached a place a bit above Jui`vitera (on the Ic,ana River), the
Guahibo shamans called Dzauinaikada got the head, took out the brains,
and got all the shamanic powers in them ... {cf. attack by Lemnian serpent
on the decapitated head of Orpheus (GM 28.g)} After the Guahibo had
taken out the brains, the head continued on downriver, but already
empty." {The voyage by Orpheus on the ship Argo to Kolkhis (GM 28.b)
may be related with the Desana myth of the voyage by transformation-
canoe (In Darkness and Secrecy, p. 128, n. 9) "to Ipanore`, on the middle
Uaupe`s River"; as well as with the Irish legend of the voyage Bran the
son of Febal, in view of the singing by (GM 28.1) the decapitated head of
Bran.}

GM = Robert Graves : The Greek Myths. 1955.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pp. 109-131 Dominique Buchillet : "Sorcery Beliefs, Transmission of Shamanic
Knowledge ... among the Desana of the Upper Rio Negro, Brazil".

p.  

111 "the jaguar-shaman (yee) and the blower of spells (kumu). The yee, who
derives his power from direct contact with spirits during a trance induced
by ingestion of hallucinogenic snuff (Virola spp. and/or Anadenanthera
peregrina), is said to have the ability to transform himself into a jaguar"
{viz., during dreams when under the influence of the same hallucinogen?}.

"By contrast, the kumu’s skills and reputation stem from his great
knowledge and mastery of mythology".

"the yea (the plural form of yee)"

112 doreri (‘illness’) may be caused by "the kumu’s involuntary forgetting of

animal or spirit names during the recitation of protective spells in the life
cycle rites or during the shamanic ritual to decontaminate food".

113 "near the Uapui rapids on the Aiari River ... There, Kuwai ... was burned
to death because he "killed" young boys who were being initiated."

114 "Dohari refers to ... evil spells that are silently cast ... in the direction of a
person when he or she is nearby [thereby introducing into the victim’s
body harmful substance] ..., provoking illness."

"Yee-weheri refers to sorcery practiced by the jaguar-shamans ...

115 [The yee] can throw an illness onto his victim’s body like a garment."

"Birari refers to collective assault sorcery effected ... by a yee through a

lightning bolt."

"Bia`-soarin~e is the term used to refer to countersorcery, which consists in

sending aggression back .... It is said that when the sorcerer’s identity is
discovered, a bee falls into the cooking pot. ... The bee is said to represent
the spirit/heart of the sorcerer. ... The spirit/heart arrives in the form of a
bee that the kumu strikes and throws into the cooking pot."

117 "the kumua (plural form of kumu)"

118 "N~amiri masu, the "Master of the Night," who did not want to teach the
primordial ancestors of humanity the rituals to install the alternation of
day and night in the world, made them fall asleep during his explanations
by making them fix their attentions on the designs of the benches on which
 they were seated."

120 "envy, jealousy ... have always existed in the world, and there is general
agreement ... that Bupu, "Grandfather Thunder," is responsible for this
state of affairs. ... Angered because Boreka, the principal Desana ancestor,
and his younger brother Toaramu-yee, did not consult him before
undertaking the transformation of humanity, Bupu .... magically put a
poisonous snake (Bothrop sp.) under the tree that the two brothers intended
to use to make the transformation canoe that would serve to transport the
primordial humanity ro the upper Ri`o Negro region. The snake bit
Toaramu-yee, who then died, but Boreka brought him back to life".

121 "myths are known as bayiri pagusuma~ "the fathers of the spells"; that is,
they are the "trunk" or the "root" of the spells".

125 caerimony empowering neophyte to become kumu :- "Whereas the

therapeutic spells are put into his brain, the evil ones are placed in his
belly".

_________________________________________________________________

Neil L. Whitehead & Robin White : In Darkness and Secrecy. Duke U, Durham (NC), 2004.