![]() ![]() They substantiate that the Ashéninka approach is inconsistent with Western categories, and calls for another analytic framework in the next steps. The first steps of the analysis are based on findings of our interdisciplinary work. The whole paper defends the proposition that a prior condition for any medical anthropology in the Ashéninka case is a thorough examination of Ashéninka epistemology. Facing the great variety of everyday healing (which includes much more than just shamanic practices) I aim to determine its underlying conceptual framework, according to the Ashéninka categories of thought. The second one focuses on ethnomedicinal plants and pharmaceutical properties, especially the mentioned ayahuasca, Banisteriopsis caapi (Spruce) Norton, Malpighiaceae, and other outstanding species. ![]() In Western Amazonia it often entails a particular attention paid to the use and diffusion of ayahuasca, the main shamanic hallucinogen in the region. the most dramatic aspects of healing, among many others]. The first one addresses the shamans, their social role, symbolic thought and publicly ritualized action, i.e. These studies actually fit in with two traditional focuses of interest in Amazonian ethnomedicine. Even partial studies on this topic are very few and focus exclusively on Asháninka shamanism or pharmacology. By contrast, the Ashéninka or Asháninka ethnomedicine has never been addressed addressed as a whole. Together or separately, similar practices are widespread throughout Amazonia, but rather than comparative work, my concern here is with the internal consistency of such a variety, from an Ashéninka point of view.Īt the moment, various researchers offer very stimulating insights into the healing systems and medical concepts of the closely related Matsigenka and other indigenous neighbours. Various psychoactive drugs (tobacco, ayahuasca, datura.) and countless medicinal plants are used, for steam baths and divination, collective ayahuasca ceremonies and individual ayahuasca healing sessions, baths of leaves, plant compresses, plant juices used as eye drops, tobacco and other specific plants used for juice spit, blowing of tobacco smoke, little pieces of thorn or charcoal extracted from the patient's body. It results in a wide range of medicinal means and techniques, with important local and individual variation. Different forms of healing are performed by shamans, by steam bath specialists and by most ordinary people. ![]() Like many other Amazonian people, the "Ashéninka del Ucayali" and "del Gran Pajonal" have a complex, detailed ethnomedical knowledge. Among the Asheninka, nevertheless, the underlying hierarchy is clear: the herbal, apparently more materialistic, approach is embedded in the shamanic, plainly relational, model. Such a coexistence of two contrasting explanatory systems is frequent in Amazonia. In fact, this everyday herbalism amounts to an alternative explanatory model. However, most ordinary people have detailed herbal knowledge. This network is supposed to be the mainspring of illness – a belief shared by both shamans and ordinary people. His main concern is managing a network of personal relationships involving all kinds of living beings. A shaman does not necessarily need to be a good botanist. The point has implications in Asheninka shamanism and herbalism. The relational dimension also involves the plants themselves, as a sort of person. When the Asheninka borrow botanical knowledge from another ethnic group and comment the fact, the contrast between indigenous self-assessments and objective ethnobotanical measurements points out a crucial difference: While the Western approach focuses essentially on chemical effectiveness of the plants themselves, Asheninka people pay much more attention to relational aspects. The first question is about the nature of a "good medicine". Concerning some specific points these data are also compared with ethnobotanical findings, to highlight significant peculiarities of the Asheninka approach. It draws on ethnographic data gathered between 19, and is essentially based on my own interviews and participant observation. This paper attempts to elicit the underlying consistencies of their manifold, often contradictory practices and statements. Such is the case among the "Asheninka del Ucayali" (Arawak from the Peru-Brazil border). Indigenous Amazonian ethnomedicine usually relies on numerous forms of healing, exercised by both specialists and non-specialists.
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