Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon by Stephan V. Beyer Page A

teacher gave him
"would leave me if I had sex with a woman."3° Cocama shaman don Juan Curico explains the prohibition in medical terms-that ejaculation bothers the
functioning of the brain, weakens the mind, and interferes with the effect of
the medicine.3' Shipibo shaman don Guillermo Arevalo says the same thingthat sex is debilitating, and that the plants, instead of being a medicine when
ingested, become toxic. And then he adds: "Under these circumstances, it is
said that the plant becomes jealous of the human lover and can make you ill
or kill you. That is why the shaman goes into the forest. There is no temptation there.131 Don Enrique Lopez says that, if you are not sexually abstinent,
if you give in just once, "you will fall ill, go mad, fall into the water, or die.
These are the tremendous problems of being a shaman."33 Typically, don Roberto and dona Maria express this understanding in terms of odors: while the
spirits love the sweet smells of tobacco and cologne, they hate the smells of
menstrual blood, semen, and human sexual intercourse.

    BREAKING THE DIET
    As simple as the diet seems, it is hard to keep. Food without salt or sugar is
bland and boring; I have tried to live on just fish and plantains, and, believe
me, the craving for salt or sugar can become intense. Commenting on a similar diet among Achuar apprentice shamans, limited to plantains, boiled palm
hearts, and small fish, anthropologist Philippe Descola calls it "dauntingly
dull."34
    La dieta is a form of self-imposed discipline, self-control, suffering, which
makes the apprentice or shaman worthy of the love of the plants. In order to
be a shaman, one Napo Runa elder says, "one has to suffer much with all this
fasting. 1135 Novelist Mario Vargas Llosa has one of his characters describe the
process of becoming a Machiguenga shaman: "You will have to be born again.
Pass all the tests. Purify yourself, have hallucinations, and above all suffer. It
is hard to achieve wisdom.1136 Alonso Andi compares the restricted diet to a
university, where "the body and the mind suffer while learning, and learning
never ends."37
    Breaking the diet can, it is said, have terrible consequences. Shipibo shaman Guillermo Arevalo says that sex during la dieta can produce cutipa.38 The
verb cutipar apparently comes from the Quechua kutichiy, return, give back;39
it is commonly used to mean to plant yuca, manioc, in the same garden from
which yuca has been taken-that is, to give back to the garden what was taken
from it.4° Thus, the term cutipar also means to give back in the sense of revenge or retaliation-to infect, contaminate, use sorcery;41 one who is the victim of sorcery is said to be cutipado.42
    This is what happens when people quiebran la dieta, break the diet: the plant
with which they were dieting takes revenge, often by marking the body of the
unfaithful one in various ways, with stains, bumps, protuberances, or red
splotches all over the body.43 For example, Shuar shaman Alejandro Tsakimp
was told not to eat pork, because "it could cause bumps to appear on your
skin and they won't heal, and your nose could rot from leprosy. "44
    Even more, shamans who master their desires may use their powers to
heal; those who break the diet, by their lack of self-control, become brujos,
sorcerers, followers of the easy path. Secoya shaman Fernando Payaguaje,
speaking of the restricted diet kept when drinking yage, says: "Some people
drink yage only to the point of reaching the power to practice witchcraft;
with these crafts they can kill people. A much greater effort and consumption of yage is required to reach the highest level, where one gains access to
the visions and power of healing. To become a sorcerer is easy and fast."45 As anthropologist Francoise Barbira Freedman puts it, shamans who master
their emotions and aggressive desires use their powers to heal; apprentices
who break the rules of their ascetic training become weak, and