Journey to the land of ayahuasca

Already of growing interest in the pharmaceutical industry for its possible use as an antidepressant, the psychedelic concoction of ayahuasca has been a psychological and cultural shield for the various indigenous peoples in the southeast Amazon during centuries of violence and persecution. “The Madiha that we are going to visit only 50 years ago came into contact with your society and the moment was very violent; they hunted down the younger women to rape them,” explains Leticia, about 55 years old, from the Nawa ethnic group.

“With Bolsonaro, we had violence from loggers, grileiros (land grabbers) and illegal fishermen,” he adds during a four-hour drive on a potholed road, surrounded by treeless jungle, from Rio Branco, the capital of Acre state, to the Municipality of Manoel Urbano, on the banks of the mythical Purús River. “But we resisted; we drink the uni –ayahuasca– and do our ceremonies. Our survival is due to our spirituality.”

In the Madiha, Huni Kuin and other branches of the Nawa ethnic group, with more than 15,000 members in the Amazon, not only shamans consume the hallucinogenic vine, sometimes fortified with leaves from the chacruna bush. Taken two or three times a month, it is a spiritual reinforcement for all men and, in Leticia’s case at least, women as well. “It helps us connect with our ancestors and identify our enemies,” says Leticia, daughter of a seringueiro –rubber cutter– of those who were organized in the Chico Mendes union, before his murder, in Acre, in 1988.

But if the spirit of the native peoples remains intact, one thing becomes clear upon arrival at Manoel Urbano, a sad set of wooden huts, small warehouses for essential goods, with a small dock for the boats that meander through the meanders of the Purús. After four years with Jair Bolsonaro in the presidency, the material conditions of the 3,000 Madiha, and many other indigenous communities in the Amazon, are going through a critical situation.

A dozen families of the 3,000 members of the Madiha community are camped on the shore, after leaving their village three hours upriver. They await the arrival of the new anti-poverty subsidy promised by Lula, of 600 reais a month, plus 150 per child under 15 years of age. The children cry. Mosquitoes buzz. The old seek refuge from the merciless heat. A lone catfish lies dying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the boat.

“No one comes to see what situation we are in! We need health and education services. We need to learn Portuguese,” said Siko, the madiha councillor. “FUNAI is far away,” he adds, referring to the National Indian Foundation, the federal institution that, in theory, should look after the interests of the 750,000 indigenous people of the Brazilian Amazon.

During the Bolsonaro government, Funai – as well as the Ibama environmental protection institute – were defunded and politicized, with disastrous results for isolated communities such as those on the upper Purús river.

The critical situation of the Yanomami people in Roraima, northwest of the vast Amazon jungle, has been widely discussed in recent weeks. But the humanitarian crisis – exacerbated by the pandemic – is spreading through many communities throughout the Amazon, in Brazil.

Here, in Acre, there have been no invasions by violent illegal miners – garimpeiros – and mercury does not flow through the rivers. But the Purús is contaminated anyway. “Dirty water, dirty!” repeats the village shaman. “We have children with diarrhea.”

“We are paying for the construction of artesian wells in some communities to guarantee drinking water,” says Claudia, a Brazilian who has lived in Scotland for 20 years, where she founded the Shamanic Center of Edinburgh, who comes with Leticia. Shouldn’t this be the responsibility of the federal state? “With the bureaucracy that there is, it will never arrive,” she replies. Diarrhea, and the dehydration it causes, is one of the leading causes of death for indigenous children in the Amazon.

Large trucks loaded with logs pass in front of the town. Others carry construction materials, perhaps for a new highway that – according to an investigation by the State Attorney’s Office – is being illegally built in the middle of indigenous lands. If the work is not stopped, the feared deforestation in the form of fish skeletons will soon appear along the roads. “It’s not necesary; it will bring violence and contamination, we have the river to move around”, says Leticia.

Although deforestation is advancing most rapidly along the soybean and cattle frontiers of the eastern and southern Amazon, destruction is spreading to the west and the enormous forests, with more than 2,000 tree species, of the states of Amazonas and Acre . The number of trees felled in February in Acre doubled from last year. Of 803 protected areas in Acre, 654 are already considered in serious danger of deforestation. Lula has pledged to achieve zero deforestation in the next four years.

But no results are yet to be seen; In the first quarter, deforestation throughout the Amazon has risen again compared to last year. The system adopted during Lula’s first governments to curb deforestation – which fell by 84% between 2005 and 2012 – was based on satellite detection of sources of destruction, police raids coordinated by Ibama and Funai, and sanctions against perpetrators.

But long-term protection was guaranteed through the creation of conservation areas, mainly indigenous territories. More than a fifth of the 5.2 million square kilometers in the Amazon is already an indigenous reserve. Another 1.4 make up conservation areas, which raises the hypothetically protected area to 42%.

Bolsonaro halted the processing of all remaining demarcation requests. But, after the creation of a new ministry of native peoples led by the indigenous Sonia Guajajara, a new phase of federal recognition is expected. The land of the Madiha is already demarcated, but 100 kilometers further north, the indigenous Huni Kuin have just resumed their request for demarcation. “We have been fighting for 23 years,” said Nimawa, the chief of the Huni Kuin people, who have two territories in Acre, one already demarcated, the other not. “Bolsonaro declared war against the indigenous people and fulfilled his promise; he has not demarcated one millimeter,” said Nimawa, who belongs to a new generation of indigenous leaders.

The Huni Kuin are now confronted by a group of cattle ranchers who have deforested 400 hectares in the area claimed by the indigenous people. “All of this should be demarcated,” Nimawa said, showing us a satellite photo of a treeless area. “If it were demarcated, it would be jungle.” After Lula’s victory, “it is a moment of hope,” says Nimawa.

There is potential to also expand the protection zones of the estimated 54 non-contact native peoples, the majority here in Acre. There are four areas already assigned for the protection of isolated peoples that extend over an area of ​​more than 600,000 hectares in the area of ​​the border with Peru, 26% of all protected areas in Acre.

The death, in the state of Rondonia, last year, of the so-called “hole man”, the sole survivor of another isolated village, has sparked a debate about the possibility of demarcating indigenous areas even after the disappearance of their inhabitants.

Everything indicates that the 750,000 indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon – 194 villages – will play a key role in drawing up Lula’s plan to save it. “The indigenous world has totally changed in the last 20 years,” says Marcio Meira, former president of Funai. After a drop in the birth rate during the military dictatorship, the demographic curve in the 1990s registered a jump, the result precisely of the achievements in the demarcation of indigenous territories and the improvements in health and vaccination policies. “A leap similar to what happened in the rest of Brazilian society in the 1960s, but with the indigenous people it came late,” said Meira.

Hence, a new generation of political leaders like Guajajara and Nimawa. Many indigenous youth have university and political education. “There has been a strong attitude of mobilization against Bolsonaro, with a lot of commitment,” says Joenia Wapichana, from Roraima, the first indigenous deputy in Congress, appointed president of Funai.

It will be these indigenous people who lead the fight to achieve more demarcations and new development models compatible with the environment and their culture. “There is great potential for the bioeconomy, there will be new foods and drugs; the indigenous people have a huge database of millions of species, and new ones are being discovered every day,” says Meira. “But it is essential to address the issue of intellectual property.” Starting with ayahuasca. There is already a German patent application to manufacture a synthetic version of the sacred liana without acknowledging indigenous authorship of the medicine.