- Region
- South America
- Origin
- Western Amazon of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil; mostly cultivated
South America · Herb · № 901
Banisteriopsis caapi
Herb · South America
Ayahuasca
Banisteriopsis caapi
A giant liana up to thirty metres long. The stem contains harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine, which inhibit the enzyme MAO. This makes the DMT from plants such as chacruna active by mouth. The drink brings visions, and usually vomiting and diarrhoea, which the tradition regards as cleansing.
Safety notes
Life-threatening together with antidepressants (SSRIs, MAO inhibitors), lithium, MDMA, amphetamine, cocaine, dextromethorphan and some migraine drugs: risk of serotonin syndrome or a hypertensive crisis. Can trigger psychosis. Raises blood pressure and heart rate. In ayahuasca tourism people have died and participants have been abused; never choose a ceremony without medical screening. In the Netherlands the drink is illegal: DMT is on List I of the Opium Act, and in 2019 the Supreme Court ruled that churches such as Santo Daime may not serve it either. This information describes traditional use and is no encouragement or advice. Use is at your own risk; the makers of this site are not responsible for the consequences. Never alone, never together with alcohol, other drugs or medicines, not in pregnancy, with heart disease or mental illness (also in the family), and do not drive. In an emergency call 112.
Cautions by tradition (4)
- Healing traditions of the Americas: Life-threatening with antidepressants and many other substances. Use at your own risk; never alone and not with medicines. Illegal in the Netherlands.
- Curanderismo of northern Peru: Can be life-threatening with antidepressants and other medicines or substances that act on serotonin. Not with heart or mental illness and not in pregnancy. In the Netherlands the DMT in ayahuasca brews falls under the Opium Act. This information describes traditional use and is no encouragement or advice; use is at your own risk and the makers of this site are not responsible for the consequences.
- Kamëntšá and Inga medicine (Sibundoy): Life-threatening together with antidepressants and other drugs; see the warnings on the card. The healers of UMIYAC ask outsiders not to copy or sell their ceremonies.
- Medicine of the Tukano peoples (Vaupés): Life-threatening together with antidepressants and other drugs; see the warnings on the card. Drinking it belongs to the peoples' own ceremonies.
Preparation
Traditionally, pieces of the vine are cleaned, pounded with wooden mallets and boiled for hours, usually together with chacruna leaves, into a thick, bitter drink; the cooking often takes more than a day. The drink is taken at night in a ceremony led by an experienced healer, the ayahuasquero or vegetalista, who sings (icaros) and guides the participants. Beforehand people often keep a diet without salt, fat, spices, alcohol and sex. Strength varies greatly from brew to brew.
Use in traditions
The Quechua word means 'vine of the spirit' or 'vine of the dead'. Peoples such as the Shipibo-Konibo use ayahuasca to recognise and heal illness and to contact the spirit world. Among the Tukano of Colombia the drink is part of the initiation of boys. Despite its image as an age-old practice, the first written accounts date from the seventeenth century, and its use spread mainly through mission posts and the rubber trade. In Brazil churches such as Santo Daime and União do Vegetal arose in the twentieth century, and since the 1990s many Westerners travel to Peru for ceremonies.
Applications
Use by tradition
How different herbal traditions describe this herb. Amounts are traditional guidelines checked for obvious errors; they are not medical advice. For poisonous plants no dosage is given on purpose.
Healing traditions of the Americas
Attributed effects
To recognise and heal illness, for contact with the spirit world and in initiations.
Preparation and amount
Pieces of the vine pounded and boiled for hours with chacruna leaves; drunk at night in a ceremony led by an ayahuasquero.
Caution: Life-threatening with antidepressants and many other substances. Use at your own risk; never alone and not with medicines. Illegal in the Netherlands.
Curanderismo of northern Peru
Attributed effects
Some curanderos of the coast and the mountains have taken up ayahuasca from the Amazon, to 'see' better in the ceremony.
Preparation and amount
According to Bussmann and Sharon, a curandero in the north boils the bark of the vine for hours over a low fire from midday, and the patient drinks a small cup of it during the night-time ceremony. One fasts for a day beforehand; the drink is not given during menstruation.
Caution: Can be life-threatening with antidepressants and other medicines or substances that act on serotonin. Not with heart or mental illness and not in pregnancy. In the Netherlands the DMT in ayahuasca brews falls under the Opium Act. This information describes traditional use and is no encouragement or advice; use is at your own risk and the makers of this site are not responsible for the consequences.
Kamëntšá and Inga medicine (Sibundoy)
Attributed effects
For the taitas of Sibundoy and the Putumayo, yagé is the plant that teaches them: Salvador Chindoy said that what he knew about plants he had learned from the plants themselves. With yagé they find out what is wrong with someone.
Preparation and amount
In the west of the Colombian Amazon the bark of the vine is scraped off and boiled, often with leaves of chagropanga (Diplopterys cabrerana). A taita, an experienced healer, leads the night with chants.
Caution: Life-threatening together with antidepressants and other drugs; see the warnings on the card. The healers of UMIYAC ask outsiders not to copy or sell their ceremonies.
Medicine of the Tukano peoples (Vaupés)
Attributed effects
Caapi links people to the time of origins: the vine is grown from cuttings and counts as one continuous strand, an umbilical cord to the ancestors. The images people see, gahpi-ghori, are painted on the walls of the houses.
Preparation and amount
In the Vaupés the bark is not boiled but kneaded in cold water. At great dances the adult men drink in the maloca; the healer blesses the drink with chants, and sometimes red berries of kana (Sabicea) go in to soften the bitter taste.
Caution: Life-threatening together with antidepressants and other drugs; see the warnings on the card. Drinking it belongs to the peoples' own ceremonies.
- Ways to prepare herbs
- Tincture
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org
- en.wikipedia.org
- nos.nl
- wetten.overheid.nl
- Richard Evans Schultes, Hallucinogenic Plants (1976)
- Rainer W. Bussmann & Douglas Sharon, Medicinal Plants of the Andes and the Amazon (2015)
- Richard Evans Schultes & Robert F. Raffauf, Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia (1992)