Nixi pae and its transcendental connection: An ethnographic essay on ayahuasca rituals in a Huni Kuin community in Brazil

Ana Verônica de Sá Resende; Txanawa Inu Bake; Fabrício Borges Carrijo

doi:10.26881/etno.2024.10.15

Authors

Ana Verônica de Sá Resende Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7883-5644
Txanawa Inu Bake Rainforest Healing Center, Manaus
Fabrício Borges Carrijo Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0065-3389

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26881/etno.2024.10.15

Keywords:

ayahuasca, Amazon, indigenous peoples, Amerindian, Huni Kuin, shamanism

Abstract

The Huni Kuin people, inhabiting the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Peru, have mastered the use of ayahuasca, which serves as a conduit bridging different realms of existence. Grounded in an immersive personal experience of participating in an ayahuasca ceremony, this paper explores ayahuasca rituals in a Huni Kuin community in the Brazilian state of Acre, focusing on their healing purposes and role in fostering intimate connections with spirituality, as situated within Huni Kuin cosmology. Writing from distinct yet interconnected positionalities, we adopt a collaborative decolonial approach that centres Huni Kuin ways of knowing, being, and healing.

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Author Biographies

Ana Verônica de Sá Resende, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO)

medical doctor specialising in homeopathy; worked as a physician among the Yanomami in the Brazilian Amazon. Research interests: Indigenous health in Amazonia, social sciences of health, clinical homeopathy.

Txanawa Inu Bake, Rainforest Healing Center, Manaus

Huni Kuin Indigenous healer, holistic therapist, musician, and assistant director of the performance Ühpu. Trained for eight years under the Tukano shaman Bu’u Kennedy.

Fabrício Borges Carrijo, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences

PhD in international relations; assistant professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Research interests: ethnography, forced migration studies, peace and conflict studies.

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