The Journey to the House of the Jaguars: Narratives about Extraordinary Experiences

Abstract

Narrative performance among the Siona Indians manifests an esthetic function, as pointed out by Richard Bauman and others, through the recreation of the experience of shamanic journeys and transformation of perspective that are part of rituals with the entheogen yajé (ayahuasca). During these journeys, the ordinary daily perspective is substituted for another, one that permits the participants to know the beings that inhabit the invisible world revealed through visions. In addition, ritual performances have an important role in transmitting shamanic knowledge. Siona oral literature dramatizes the experiences of encounters and journeys to the invisible world, be these related or not to the use of entheogens or to dreams. Through poetic mechanisms, these narratives transmit knowledge by indexing relations between the daily and occult worlds. In this way, they create expectations for the participants with respect to extraordinary experiences with the spirits and provide clues for understanding and preparing oneself for the change of perspective that characterizes encounters with the occult side. In order to explore the relation between extraordinary experience, performance and perspective, this work analyzes a narrative told by several Siona about their youth and shamanic apprenticeship – “The journey to the house of the jaguars”. In this narrative, the youth is invited by the master-shaman to visit the house of the jaguars, which appear in the form of humans in celebration. They invite the youth to rest in a new hammock, while the master-shaman orients him as to what he is seeing. This journey does not occur during the ritual while under the influence of yajé, but the following morning when the novice is returning to his village. The analysis highlights the strategies that permit narrative performance to create experience, transmit shamanic knowledge and inform as to the change of perspectives and shamanic power.