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In 1973, Wade Davis, anthropologist, biologist, and
ethnobotanist of Harvard University, penetrated into the
heart of the Amazons. For more than three years he followed
the footsteps of his professor, Richard Evans Schultes, who
in 1941 made an epic research trip, which lasted 12 years,
through the Amazons and the Andes. Schultes navigated
unknown rivers, collected new species of plants,
established friendship with many indigenous tribes and
uncovered age-old secrets of sacred plants such as dupa,
yagé and curare. His explorations were narrated by his
disciple, Wade Davis, who has now become one of the most
recognized anthropologists for the National Geographic. |
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Davis captured, in the 635 pages titled ¨The River¨ (El Río),
the life of his teacher on a fascinating ethnobotanical
adventure through the Amazonian jungle. With this
information we filmed in a High Definition Format in the
Colombian Amazon, facing dangers and adventures of many
kinds, we travelled on the Apaporis river, and we sought the
cultures that Schultes found, recording surprising
information.
Then we went to Washington, where Wade Davis lives, to show
him our findings and confront his memories with our images
and sounds. How much have the Amazons changed in the last
three decades?What has happened to the indigenous cultures
with whom Schultes lived? What knowledge is at the point
of disappearing? What knowledge remains? How much access do
we have to the knowledge of the indigenous peoples?
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Research in progress
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The documentary’s research is sustained by the
writings of the North Americans Richard Schultes and
Wade Davis, scientists who visited our country
between the decades of the 40s and 70s.
Richard Evans Schultes is recognized as the father
of ethnobotany and as one of the great explorers of
the twentieth century. Recently graduated from
Harvard, Schultes left for the Amazons to observe
first hand what he had seen in books. And as part of
an assignment for the National Research Council of
the United States, he had to study medicinal and
toxic plants used by the |
indigenous tribes of High Putumayo, specifically the source
of the poison for arrows and darts: curare. It was the year
1941 and Schultes would live the following twelve years
among different indigenous tribes, collecting more than
30,000 botanical specimens and charting unknown rivers,
among them the Apaporis, a black river of more than 1350
miles in the north of the state of Caquetá.
In 1943 Schultes was assigned to explore the most remote
river of those which flow through the Colombian Amazons.
His instructions were to get to the headwaters, the home of
the Karijonas, according to rumours, a mysterious tribe of
cannibals. He was to then descend by the river which
borders the jungle in search of rubber. He and his
accompanying team were the first to survive the passage
through the waterfalls of Jirijirimo. He charted the river
and counted millions of rubber trees in seven
months. According to Wade Davis, Schultes ¨being the major
authority on hallucinatory plants, gave rise to the
psychedelic era with his discoveries¨. Davis attempted to
take the same route as Schultes in order to investigate the
relationships between plants and the indigenous peoples;
¨the Indians believed in the power of plants, they accepted
the existence of magic and recognized the potential of the
spirit. The magical and mystical ideas were part of the
structure itself of their thinking. Their botanical
knowledge could not be separated from their metaphysics¨.
Davis would find in Colombia that which Schultes had written
about: yagé, the reed of visions and coca, the sacred leaf.
Davis explored the Darién jungle, the Sierra Nevada, the
Valley of Sibundoy and the shores of the Amazon, Caquetá,
Vaupés and Putumayo rivers. |
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Production advances
In February of 2007 the work team travelled the
Apaporis river in the state of Vaupés at the
Brazilian frontier, one of the most significant
corners of the Amazon jungle because of its
biological diversity and landscape, and its
ethnographic and cultural wealth. The difficulty of
fluvial access continues to restrict the
interference of settlers in these places and
although the communities know about the existence of
money, barter continues to be their means of
exchange. It is a territory in which 25 languages
are spoken and many of them distinguish fifteen
tones of green.
We visited places which do not appear on maps.
Places like Buenos Aires, a settlement located on
the banks of the Canarari river and populated by
Cubeos, Baras, Barasanos and Taivanos. On the river
banks of the Apaporis, we visited the Indian village
of Gustavo Pachacuari, captain of the Jirijirimo
Union, a settlement which is custodian of the
beautiful torrents of the Jirijirimo. This is
considered to be one of the most beautiful places in
the world. |
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There we attended a Yagé ritual, with dances
and music of the Cabiyarí, a legendary tribe
recognized for the wisdom of its medicine
men and for the anthropophagic customs of
their close relatives. After two days in
canoe, we visited the Playa where captain
Rondón Tanimuca with his family assisted in
showing us the Dance of the Doll, the mask
dance which had captivated Schultes so much
in his trips through South America. Upon
seeing photos of the Schultes expedition, a
90-year-old Tanimucan remembered the
professor and recognized two of his deceased
brothers. We recorded mythologies which
recognize the particular ways of seeing and
thinking of the indigenous people and
settlers which populate the Amazon
territories today. |
They are memories related by payès (medicine men)
who, when confronting illnesses, prayers and spells,
reveal their conception of the world.Guided by
Professor Schultes’ research, we traced and recorded
with a high contrast video, unique and events
little known to Western vision, such as the
preparation of the curare for hunting and the
preparation of coca powder for the mambeo*. We also
recorded the preparation of dupa, extracted from
Virola, one of the strongest secret psychotropics
in the world, prohibited for many decades by the
missionaries since its effects confuse reasoning
more radically than yagé. |
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We have been devoted to the task of contacting
different sources of information among the Colombian
territories of Vaupés, Amazons and Putumayo, for two
years, taking representative segments of the route
undertaken by Professor Richard Evans Schultes. |
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Several institutions such as the Colombian Ministry
of Culture, the Secretary of Health of Vaupés , the
Universidad del Valle, and the indigenous
organizations have allowed us to make a series of
contacts in order to have access to secrets and
information which have not been filmed until now.
We have passed a tremendous acid test by daring to
film in Vaupés, a beautiful jungle territory where
natural obstacles and the complex situation of
public order make filming almost impossible, for
Colombians as well as for foreigners. The remaining
shooting sites are more controlled, and there we
have contacts who are helping us to create
conditions for filming.
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It is necessary to appeal to the audiovisual
creation in order to record independent
documents as acts of resistance and to not
lose hope of conserving the rivers of
knowledge which belong to us. There is a
saturation of audiovisual production which
recreates the violent vision of the events
in which the country is living and it is now
necessary to emphasize the culture, memory,
knowledge and the indigenous territories
which favor feelings of self-esteem and self
worth. We are convinced that, from the
ethnobotanical optic we will have a
different and fascinating record which has
not been explored sufficiently. |
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*the chewing of the mixture of coca powder and shell
powder which is consumed at the ceremony.
Fotografías:
Diego Miguel
Garcés
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