Heirloom Snuffing Kits

Snuffing kit from Tiwanaku

We talked here about the use of snuffing tablets and snuffing kits among the ancient Tiwanaku in the Andes, such as the elaborate kit, shown at the right, that was buried with an adult male who appeared to have snuffing lesions near his nose.

A recent archeological discovery, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, now suggests that such South American snuffing devices were considered valuable heirlooms, and were carried long distances and preserved for long periods of time. The study, headed by Scott Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor of anthropology at North Carolina State University, describes three ceramic snuffing bowls found on the island of Carriacou, near Grenada in the Antilles, including the one shown below, which were probably used to snuff hallucinogens, liquid or powdered, through the nose.

Snuffing tube from Carriacou

These Caribbean islands were colonized from South America about 400 A.D. Using a type of radioactive isotope analysis called luminescence, the snuffing bowls were dated to between roughly 400 and 100 B.C. — that is, somewhere between five and eight centuries before they were carried to the islands by migrants from South America. Petrographic analysis of the mineral content of the bowls indicated that they were not made using local materials, and thus were probably not manufactured on Carriacou. So the bowls must have come from elsewhere, perhaps Puerto Rico, 465 miles away, where other bowls of similar antiquity have been discovered.

Unlike the Tiwanaku snuffing kits, the bowls were not buried as grave goods. One of the snuffing bowls was found at the site of Grand Bay on Carriacou, in deposits dating between about 1000 and 1200 A.D. Two others were from the local museum. Ceramic snuffing tubes and inhaling bowls used for ingesting hallucinogenic substances are known from several islands in the West Indies, but their chronological distribution is often vague. The Carriacou bowls must have been kept and maintained for at least eight centuries, and they "appear to have been transported to Carriacou when it was colonized — possibly hundreds of years after they were made," Fitzpatrick said.

Scholars have long thought that the people who settled the Caribbean islands from South America likely brought heirlooms with them, Fitzpatrick said. "The bowls are the first physical evidence we've found to support that claim." According to Fitzpatrick, the bowls not only shed new light on how long humans have been using inhaled hallucinogens, but are "the first physical evidence" to show that the people who colonized the Caribbean from South America brought their heirloom inhalation devices with them.

Descriptions of the study and its findings are found in National Geographic, Practicing Anthropology, and Archeology Daily.

Alas, no chemical analysis was done to determine what substance had been used in the recovered snuffing bowls. And, of course, we have no idea under what circumstances the snuffing bowls were used. But clearly they were important enough to be preserved, carried by boat from South America to the Caribbean, and passed on for centuries.

The Single Active Molecule

Many researchers have studied the biochemical interactions through which ayahuasca produces its psychoactive effect. The current wisdom is pretty clear. The companion plant — chacruna, sameruca, chagraponga — contains the potent hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine, and the ayahuasca vine contains ß-carboline derivatives that inhibit the monoamine oxidase-A enzyme that inactivates of the dimethyltryptamine of the companion plant.

Thus the ayahuasca drink is reduced to dimethyltryptamine, its single active molecule.

The DMT molecule

Indeed, modern science has defined medicines as having only one compound that is bioactive. This approach has solved some practical problems, such as the need to patent and standardize medicines. The idea has been that the medicinal or psychoactive effects of a plant are accounted for by specific chemicals, and that the best medicine consists of standardized, predictable dosages. Science journalist Joel Swerdlow puts it this way: “The study of whole plants and combinations is rare — largely because single active compounds, particularly those that have been modified, are easiest to patent and because FDA regulations encourage this approach.”

But there are several problems with the assumption that the ayahuasca experience is due to its single active molecule.

Ultrapure crystalline DMT

First, there is a significant experiential difference between drinking ayahuasca and parenteral ingestion of dimethyltryptamine. Differences in the rapidity of onset and duration of the experience mean differences in the amount of time available for contemplation and exploration; the presence or absence of purging means differences in the experience of corporeality and catharsis; and, as we have discussed, the harmala alkaloids — and even MAO inhibition itself — may make independent contributions to the quality or contents of the experience.

Second, emphasis on a single active molecule has prejudiced consideration of whole plants, which can contain dozens of bioactive substances. There is little doubt that every plant contains a unique mix of multiply interacting substances in complex additive, synergistic, and antagonistic relationships, presumably in a variety of feedback loops. The fact that it is difficult to describe these relationships is no reason to decide that they are unimportant.

Yet, once it has been determined that the companion plant contains DMT, the inquiry stops. But mestizo shamans select particular companion plants — and combinations of companion plants — for their specific effects. If their only function is to provide the single active molecule dimethyltryptamine, what is there to choose among them?

Alex Grey, DMT—The Spirit Molecule (2000)

Similarly, if the purpose of the ayahuasca vine is to contribute a single active molecule, or even just a few active molecules, whose function is to inhibit peripheral MAO, then it should not matter if another plant is substituted, as long as it contains the same molecules. But substituting, say, Syrian rue for the ayahuasca vine, even though the rue contains the same harmala alkaloids, does apparently make an experiential difference. The experience with rue has been described as crystalline, cold, overwhelming, erratic, and uncaring, compared with that of the ayahuasca vine, which has been described as warm, organic, friendly, and purposeful.

This difference may be because the harmala alkaloids are in different proportions in the two plants: levels of THH are higher in the ayahuasca vine, harmaline in rue. Experiential differences might also be due to the fact that rue contains tannins and quinazoline alkaloids not found in the ayahuasca vine. Thus, too, self-experimenters tend to use only the minimum amount of rue necessary to inhibit MAO; using more apparently serves no purpose other than to increase the emetic effect. But the amount of ayahuasca vine can be increased beyond the minimum necessary, and increasing the amount is claimed to add a special dimension to the experience.

Randy Mack, The Magic Molecule DMT (2006)

Third, the emphasis on the single active molecule ignores the presumably complex interactions among plants deliberately used for modulatory effects during the ceremony. For example, no metsizo shamanic ceremony takes place without the additional ingestion of tobacco and all of its constituent molecules as well. The ayahuasca experience is the confluence not only of all the molecules in the ayahuasca vine and its companion plants, but also of the modulating effect of nicotine and other tobacco alkaloids — not to mention any of the scores of additional plants that may be added to the ayahuasca drink.

Finally, the focus on single active molecules ignores context. The terms pharmacologicalism and pharmacological determinism have been coined to capture the often unstated premise that the effects of a substance are entirely determined by its chemical structure, thus ignoring the effects, among other things, of traditional ceremonial settings, the authoritative presence of a healer, social pressures both within and outside the ceremony, and expectations of particular outcomes. Expectations of what is supposed to happen during an ayahuasca ceremony may be the most powerful additive of all.

Ancient Andean Hallucinogens

Tiwanaku is an important Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia. Tiwanaku is recognized by Andean scholars as one of the most important precursors to the Inca Empire, flourishing as the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power for approximately four hundred years between 700 and 1100 A.D.

Wooden snuff tablet

There has been good reason to believe that the inhabitants of Tiwanaku utilized an insufflated hallucinogen. They produced a variety of small carved objects that included puma and jaguar effigies, incense burners, and decorated wooden snuff tablets. Many mummies and skeletons from this culture were buried with such tablets and snuffing kits. One archaeologist reported recovering 614 snuffing kits from a single excavation.

Chemical analysis of samples of archeological snuff powders from such kits has indicated the presence of bufotenine, dimethyltryptamine, and 5-MeO-DMT. The presence of bufotenine suggests that the source of the powder was any of several DMT-rich plants in the genus Anadenanthera; small pouches containing Anadenanthera seeds have also been found in several burials. CAT scans of Tiwanakuan skulls have shown signs of chronic perinasal damage in some cases, likely caused by frequent sniffing of Anadenanthera.

Snuffing kits

Anadenanthera species are used as hallucinogens today by the peoples along the Orinoco river, in the form of a snuff called yopo, cohoba, vilca, or huilca. Among the Guahibo, the snuff is widely and frequently used as a stimulant; among the Tunebo, it is used only by shamans. We can only guess the circumstances under which the Tiwanakuans used it.

Psychoactive alkaloids accumulate in hair and other body tissues; so a test of hair samples would provide direct evidence for hallucinogen use among the Tiwanakuans. A recent paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science, entitled "Identification of psychoactive alkaloids in ancient Andean human hair by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry," reports an analysis of the chemical composition of hairs from 32 mummies from northern Chile, dating to the Tiwanakuan expansion, looking specifically for harmine and 5-MeO-DMT.

Stone figure holding two snuff tablets

The results were surprising. None of the 32 mummy hair samples tested positive for 5-MeO-DMT, and two tested positive for harmine. This certainly appears to be inconsistent with the results of the testing of snuff powders from archeological snuff kits. Moreover, one sample testing positive for harmine came from an adult male, who had a snuffing tablet in his grave, and a sclerotic process in the perinasal area; but the other was from a one-year-old infant, also buried with a snuffing tablet. There is only one likely source for the harmine in these two samples — Banisteriopsis caapi, the ayahuasca vine, which must have been imported, over some distance and rough terrain, from the Upper Amazon.

Wooden snuff tablet

What can we make of this? Both the absence of 5-MeO-DMT and the presence of harmine are puzzling. The results appear to indicate that the ayahuasca vine was consumed without the addition of a DMT-containing companion plant such as chacruna, although clearly, given the apparently extensive trading network that allowed the importation of the ayahuasca vine, such plants would have been available. The snuffing tablets appear not to be associated with ingestion of Baniseriopsis. And how in the world did harmine get deposited in the hair of a one-year-old? Was the ayahuasca vine administered as a medicine independent of any potential psychoactive effect? Did the Tiwanakuans — like the Guahibo or Piaroa today — combine sniffing Anadenanthera with chewing the ayahuasca vine?

"We think that Banisteriopsis was not necessarily used as a hallucinogenic mixture, and perhaps was used in therapeutic practices. It is also possible that its consumption with snuffing kits was used as element of social differentiation," one of the authors said in an interview.

The investigation of hallucinogen use in antiquity has certainly taken a methodological step forward with this study. It is just not clear where that step has taken us.

The Amazon River

Why is it called the Amazon River?

The first occurrence of the Greek word Amazon is in the Iliad, two times, both with the same epithet: 'Αμαζονας αντιανειρας, Amazons who fight like men. In the centuries following, there were many additional references to armed and mounted women, fierce warriors, fighting the Greeks. Indeed, the αμαζονομαχιες, the battle between Greeks and Amazons, became a favorite theme with vase painters and sculptors of friezes. The women are depicted as beautiful and valiant, usually dressed in short tunics, often open at one side, and often with one breast bare. This convention was presumably to ensure that the viewer knew these figures were women. The Greek warriors, as always, were depicted as fighting naked.

I have now looked at a bunch of amazonomachies, and I must confess that the constant depiction of naked men slaughtering near-naked women strikes me as deeply creepy. Still, the theme should be placed in the context of similarly popular depictions of Greeks fighting Persians and centaurs. These battle scenes define the ideal of Greek manhood by what it is not — not foreign, not animal, not female.

At some point the word Amazon acquired a folk etymology, and the word was said to be derived from the α- privative and the noun μαζος, breast — thus breastless, related to a tradition, almost certainly false, that the Amazon women burned off their right breast, so that it would not interefere with drawing the bow. There are several reasons to disbelieve this account. Contemporary women certainly manage to be outstanding archers without sacrificing a breast. More important, nowhere in Greek art is there a depiction of a single-breasted Amazon. Rather, there is every reason to believe that the word Amazon is a borrowing into Greek of the Old Persian word hamazan, fight as a group. The Ionian Greeks did not aspirate the first syllable of the borrowed Persian word — hence amazonas.

The large South American river was apparently first given the name Río Santa María de la Mar Dulce by the invading Spaniards around 1500. The term mar dulce, freshwater sea, refers to the fact that the river's discharge into the ocean is so massive that, even far out from the river’s mouth, the ocean water is not salty. There are then two theories of how the river acquired its current name. Some maintain that the name is from the Tupi or Guarani word transliterated into Portuguese as amassona, boat-breaker, and, again, there are two theories as to the origin of this term. Some say that it refers to the destructive effects of the root systems of some riparian plants; others say that it refers to the tidal phenomenon in the lower Amazon called the proroca, which can produce rapidly advancing tidal waves twelve to fifteen feet high sweeping hundreds of miles upstream. It has been argued that, in either case, an indigenous etymology is not neccessary, since there are already the perfectly good Portuguese verbs amassar, crumple, crush, and amassarse, heap up.

A more likely candidate derives from the 1541 expedition of Francisco de Orellana in search of the legendary city of El Dorado. Accompanying the expedition as its chronicler was a Dominican monk named Gaspar de Carvajal. De Orellana's ship became separated from the others, and he found his way home by sailing down the Amazon. On the way, he encountered and fought an indigenous people of eastern Brazil called the Tapuya, pictured above in two nineteenth-century prints. To the surprise of the Spaniards, Tapuya women fought beside the men. Here again there are two theories. It is perhaps true that Tapuya women, unlike those among other Amazonian peoples, fought in battles. Perhaps the Spaniards, confronted with beardless long-haired warriors decorated with jewelry, thought that at least some of them were women. In any event, in the chronicle of Gaspar de Carvajal, the Tapuya fighters transmogrified into tall, pale-skinned, blonde-haired, naked female warriors.

Hence the River Amazon.

An Ayahuasca Documentary

The following, in three parts, is a documentary, originally created for French television, entitled Ayahuasca, the Snake and I, written and directed in 2003 by Armand Bernardi, narrated in English and with English subtitles. The film was produced by ArtLine Films, a well-known production company that coproduces documentaries and feature films with all the major French channels and with international broadcasters.

The film centers on Jacques Mabit and Takiwasi, his Center for the Treatment of Drug and Alcohol Addiction and the Research of Traditional Medicines, located in Tarapoto. Takiwasi claims remarkable success in the treatment of addiction. It describes its treatment method as "innovative, unique in its field. It is characterized by a combination of psychological therapy and conventional medicine with the traditional medicine of the Amazon."

The Takiwasi healing model is described as a tripod — physical detoxification through purgative plants, baths with plants, saunas, massages, physical exercises, and a special diet; psychic detoxification through the opening up of hidden emotions such as sorrows, sadness, family resentments, and inappropriate lifestyle; and family, work, and social reinstatement through a program of furloughs to regain contact with family and especially with outside jobs. The typical stay is nine to twelve months.

Apparently the documentary was to be shown on France 5 television in the spring of 2004, but was withdrawn before being aired, because it was viewed as promoting the use of dimethyltryptamine, which was banned in France as a narcotic substance.

Bernardi discusses the film on his blog, and an extended and highly critical discussion by a French Catholic priest is here. You can purchase the film on DVD. It is probably worth noting that, on May 3, 2005, the French Director General for Health promulgated an order amending the list of substances classified as narcotics to include not only DMT but also, specifically, Banisteriopsis caapi, Psychotria viridis, Diplopterys cabrerana, as well as harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmaline — in other words, just about every possible ingredient of the ayahuasca drink.

Uncontacted Tribes Again

Andy Graham at HoboTraveler has pointed to an article in the Pucallpa newspaper Diario Ahora, dated June 5, 2008, with the headline Indígenas de Yurúa señalan que no existe población no contactada, Indigenous People of Yurúa Say There Are No Uncontacted Populations. The cover photograph, below, is captioned Supuestos no contactados dicen que ONG pago para fotografiarios desnudos, Allegedly Uncontacted People Claim that NGO Paid Them for Nude Photos. The article states that Murunahua from the Ucuyali region travelled to Pucallpa to rebut the claim that uncontacted people lived in their region, and that they claimed the Peruvian World Wildlife Foundation and AIDESEP, the Associación Interétnicos de Desarrolla de la Selva Peruana, had paid them to pose naked as an uncontacted and "voluntarily isolated" tribe, in order to keep the timber industry from operating in the region.

The irony is that the Murunahua have in fact been decimated by contact with the logging industry. An estimated 60 per cent of the Murunahua Territorial Reserve has been cut by loggers; after contact with loggers in 1996, more than 50 percent of the Murunahua died of imported diseases.

It is impossible to tell whether the Murunahua in Pucallpa had been paid by WWF and AIDESEP to pretend to be an uncontacted people, or had been paid by the timber industry to say that WWF and AIDESEP had paid them. The true irony is that focusing on the romantic notion of of uncontacted tribes serves only to divert attention away from genuine harms.

Uncontacted Tribes

Indigenous people all over the world are already embedded in global modernity, whether anyone likes it or not. There is no turning back, no way to disengage from the modern world, nowhere for indigenous peoples to retreat. And I think it is fair to say that indigenous people are, generally, worse off in many ways since this change than they were before.

Still, there are aspects of modernity — modern dentistry, for example — which could be of benefit to indigenous people if they had access to them. Indeed, modern technologies can be appropriated by indigenous peoples for their own purposes — for example, in the Amazon, using video as a tool for perpetuating and reaffirming cultural values, or using Google Earth imaging to spot river discoloration caused by illegal mining operations, or using GPS mapping to determine traditional land boundaries.

Very few indigenous peoples of the Upper Amazon hunt with blowguns any more. The weapon of choice is a 16-gauge shotgun, which provides a very efficient way to hunt medium-size jungle game — tapir, capybara, agouti, peccary, monkey. But there is a price. Hunting with a shotgun creates dependency on manufactured goods: shotgun shells cannot be made and must be bought.

Similarly, many mestizos hunt at night, floating silently downriver in a canoe with a shotgun and a flashlight. When they pass a beach where animals come to drink at night, they shine the light, and then fire at the eyeshine -- indeed, they can even identify the species by the color of the reflection off the retina. But now they need not only shotgun shells but also flashlight batteries. Given the success of these hunting methods, despite their costs, I think it unlikely that Amazonian peoples will revert to traditional blowgun hunting.

A while back I referred to first contact being made with a group of previously unknown indigenous inhabitants of the jungle between Peru and Brazil, based on what EarthFirst! called, at the time, "amazing photographs of one of the last uncontacted tribes in the Amazon." Like others, I just swallowed whole the idea that these were in fact a previously uncontacted people, which, of course, turns out to have been something of a scam. As both The Guardian and National Geographic report, the tribe has in fact been known for almost a century, and the allegedly chance encounter that produced the now famous photographic images — red- and black-painted indigenes aiming their arrows at the airplane — were no accident.

José Carlos Meirelles, an official with FUNAI, Brazil's Indian-protection agency, said that the tribe had monitored for decades, and that he intentionally flew over the area where the tribe is known to live in an attempt to get a photograph. He wanted, he said, to rebut claims that there are no isolated tribes left in the world, and to call attention to the danger facing them in the form of outside contact. "We put the photos out because if things continue the way they are going, these people are going to disappear," he said.

Meirelles released the photos through the indigenous-rights advocacy group Survival International. "These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist," said Survival International director Stephen Corry. "The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct." Survival International defended the intrusion on the tribe, saying that release of the images, and the subsequent international media attention, had forced Peru to re-examine its logging policy in the border area where the tribe lives.

There are multiple levels of irony here. Despite the alleged threats, the population of the tribe has nearly doubled in the last twenty years. Flying over the village and its inhabitants was certainly itself a form of contact, and it is unclear to me whether such contact can be justified because it makes a defensible political point. At the same time, Survival International is an outstanding organization that has done a tremendous amount of good for tribal peoples throughout the world.

Savage Minds, an anthropology blog, has considered the whole issue of uncontacted tribes, and has concluded that there is no such thing, at least not any more. The peoples described on Survival International's website as uncontacted have all beein touch with outsiders for many years. As the blog puts it, "None of the people listed on the ‘uncontacted tribes’ are, according to SI’s own material, actually uncontacted in any straightforward sense of the term. The problem they face is exactly the fact that they are in contact with a world that is giving them the shortest end of the stick possible."

The issue may be semantic. Survival International appears to have stipulatively redefined the term uncontacted. On the Survival International blog, the organization parses the term uncontacted as meaning "has no peaceful contact with outsiders." Under this definition, an indigenous people that has been slaughtered and driven deeper into the jungle by gold miners is uncontacted.

I think our romantic image of pristine and uncontacted indigenous peoples is, in the twenty-first century, a mirage. We can no longer console ourselves with the thought that there are some who have evaded our grasp. We are all in this together. The question is what we are going to do about it.