The shamanic traditon of the Secoyas

In the shamanic tradition of the secoyas, like most of the indigenous people of the amazons, the hallucinogenic plant mix called ayahuasca, or in secoya yagé, is used to enter the shamanic trance. The tradition of using yagé may go as far as 5000 years back.
The shaman was in the old days both the communities priest and doctor. He was the man the community called on if they had any problems physically of mentally. Because he was the man with the right knowledge, experience and qualities in the spiritual worlds to heal and defense his people. Something he had achieved through hard schooldays consisting of violent doses of yagé.
Through his education the shaman meets and makes his allies in the other worlds. He meets the angels and the demons and gets the chance to choose the light or the dark road. This is another important part of the shamanic tradition. Because Brujeria, as the dark road is called, is a well known phenomena for all shamans. And is a road that leads to a well know phenomena in the western world, egoistic power. A brujera will do everything in his powers to reach his goals, even murders can take place.
Yet all the most powerful curanderas agree that the road of the light that leads to the most healing, powerful visions and allies are the by far most difficult one.
In the old days the secoyas would dress in their most beautiful cloths, paint traditional patterns in their faces and place their red and yellow crowns, graced with Tucan feathers, on their heads. Before a yagé ceremony the secoyas would meet in the yagé house at about 4 o’clock, lay down in their hammocks and wait for the ceremony, which always lasted from sunset to sunrise, to start.
Nobody would ever enter the yagéhouse without their ceremonial dresses.
The ceremonies would always be leaded by the shaman, who cooked the Yagé, sang and blew smoke over it before he gave it to the participants. If somebody was sick, he or she would be brought to the ceremony and laid down in a hammock in one of the corners in the house. The shaman would then, after reaching his trance, start to blow smoke and sing over the patient to call on his spiritual contacts. He would then in his visions get a picture of the patient’s condition, what had to be done, what plants or spirits he could use to threat the condition. After one of these ceremonies he would never accept anything but a presents, if the family was pleased.
The intentions of a good shaman were always to heal, not to earn money. An interesting point for us in the western society with a medical industry that heals, but at the same time earns more money than ever. In fact, last year the pharmaceutical industry earned more money than any other industry in the US, even more than the oil industry. With these facts in mind it’s easy to ask oneself what the actual intentions of the industry are? To earn the most money or heal the most people?
Another interesting picture of the difference between the traditional and the western medicine is the doctor or shaman himself. In the west, the doctor gives the medicine, or the magic bullets. In the jungle the shaman takes the medicine himself..