“Yaas”: Awajún’s talent for overcoming difficulties
Young indigenous students are the future leaders of the Amazon. However, they face many obstacles, from having to adapt to a different culture,
The story of tobacco begins in 1492, when Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola, where both Haiti and Santo Domingo are located, as well as Cuba.
Christopher Columbus’s companions observe half-naked brown men blowing into brandets, the lit ends of which emit smoke. “A thing from the underworld”, they say of this sacred offering, given as a sign of welcome. At the time, the notion of hell was very present in people’s minds, and the act of smoking was unknown. Bold and curious sailors tried it, and the tobacco was brought back to Europe.
In France, Queen Marie de Médicis suffered from migraines. Aspiring to tobacco does her a lot of good, so she authorizes its use. While each European country has its own unique history with the spread of tobacco, in just one century it has spread around the world. But it has always been widely used for therapeutic purposes by healers throughout the Amazon basin, mainly in Peru, Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia.
Unprocessed, organic summer brown medicinal tobacco (nicotiana rustica) is interesting for its energizing properties. It has nothing in common with Virginia blond tobacco, from which most cigarettes in the West are made, and to which texture agents and preservatives have been added that are of no therapeutic interest.
In traditional Amazonian medicine, each plant species is animated by a generic spirit. Tobacco, considered a powerful spirit, tops the hierarchy of medicinal plants.
It has multiple functions: it cleanses and clarifies the mind, as well as the affective and emotional fields, reinforces the spirit of decision and ” verticalizes ” the being, encourages courage and righteousness. It gives strength, willpower and discernment.. Tobacco refocuses and restructures in depth, strengthening and protecting the energetic body from bad energy, infestation and witchcraft. Its action affects the physical, the psychic and the spiritual. It promotes concentration and develops mental acuity. Its ingestion produces heat. Toxic in high doses, it can weaken the heart and must be used with great care.
In Amazonian tradition, the person who treats with tobacco medicine is called
Tabaquero
(a). It takes a special skill and many years of learning, to be able to metabolize tobacco, contain it and control it in your body. This initiation is traditionally passed on from Maestro(a ) to disciple: you can’t just improvise Tabaquero(a). It is used therapeutically in three forms: solid, to be chewed or inhaled; liquid, to be used as a decoction or infusion; or aerial, corresponding to its smoked form. The smoke projected allows an energetic transfer of information between the healer’s medical body and the patient’s body. Transmission takes place not through words but directly through the body, a paradigm that is somewhat confusing for Westerners to integrate.
Tobacco smoke also enables the Tabaquero to act as a mediator between earth and heaven, enabling him to capture and receive information from the sensitive or spiritual world. Tobacco is also used in baths with other plants, and in massage with dried, chopped raw leaves mixed with perfumes or floral essences.
In the West, our relationship with smoked tobacco is essentially one of authentic masculine strength and spiritual inspiration. The tobacco addiction syndrome reflects a deep-seated social problem: the weakness of the paternal and masculine archetype, leading to the risk of submission, disintegration, standardization and withdrawal – as perceived by Amazonian healers, who point out that this addiction stems from the excessive use of smoked tobacco, unbalanced by the absorption of the liquid form, tobacco juice.
La Maison qui Chante, a Lyon-based association investigating traditional Amazonian medicines, organized a conference in 2010 entitled ” Tabac plante d’enseignement et de guérison “. Two whole days were devoted to the tobacco plant, combining Amazonian medicinal practices and Western uses.
We asked Robert Molimard, professor of medicine and founder of the first French tobacco clinics, to speak on the subject. In a fascinating lecture, he showed how, over and above the biological effects of tobacco smoke on the brain, which are not present in other forms of chewed or drunk tobacco use, nicotine acts not as an addictive substance, which we cannot do without, but as an engraver of mental information. In a way, addiction stems from the desire to rediscover the emotions (pleasures, affects) experienced and engraved in the memory circuit when nicotine intake began. Addiction can persist even with de-nicotinized tobacco. To free themselves from its grip, they need to access the memories and desires activated and compensated for when they first took nicotine.
Its action is very different from that of drugs or alcohol, whose addictive effects are mediated directly by the substances they contain, through so-called reward neuronal circuits.
Tobacco drunk and ingested under the right conditions is non-addictive: taken as a decoction, it even detoxifies smoked tobacco. This goes against the grain of Western recreational smoking, which generates dependency and toxicity, due in part to a total lack of initiation and protocol, as well as to the poor quality of the tobacco consumed.
In its purgative form, Tobacco is used diluted in a volume of lukewarm water, the ingestion of which induces a vomiting process. This practice acts on different levels. On a physical level, tobacco purging cleanses the stomach and eliminates fatigue. On a psycho-affective level, it helps to get rid of energies stored in the body’s memories, linked to negative feelings such as anger, sadness and so on. Integrated in liquid form, Tobacco can have visionary effects by strongly stimulating the intuitive process: it links strongly to the dream world.
The Tobacco Purge is a relevant tool for Westerners with mental hyperactivity, which it quickly puts an end to. This practice enables rapid reconnection with the density of bodily presence, and helps combat stress and depression.
In the long term, it can help us in our process of individuation and integration of our physical, psychic and spiritual identity. This authentic search over time takes place with patience and constancy, and helps us to become aware of the depth and sacredness of existence.
Tobacco medicine can provide many answers to our malaise in a material world based essentially on having, consuming and addiction: it’s a holistic medicine, a medicine of being.
Will the West be able to seize this opportunity to connect with this medicine?
Find out more:
Association La Maison qui Chante, Lyon
Traditional tobacco purges/diets
Contacts: ghislaine.bourgogne@wanadoo.fr – Francois.delonnay@gmail.com
Young indigenous students are the future leaders of the Amazon. However, they face many obstacles, from having to adapt to a different culture,
Les jeunes étudiants indigènes sont les futurs leaders de l’Amazonie. Cependant, ils sont confrontés à de nombreux obstacles, qu’il s’agisse de devoir s’adapter à une culture différente,
It’s important to understand what “restraint” means.
Il est important de comprendre ce que signifie le terme “contention”.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the Takiwasi Center, we are releasing this documentary which looks back over three decades of intense clinical and research work on traditional Amazonian medicines.
A l’occasion du 30ème anniversaire du Centre Takiwasi, nous vous relayons ce documentaire qui offre une rétrospective des trois décennies d’intense travail clinique et de recherche sur les médecines traditionnelles amazoniennes