​Glossary​

ayahuasca ​-- considered the "mother" of the teaching plants

ayahuasquero -- shaman who specializes in ayahuasca

brujo -- a warlock or witch

brujeria -- witchcraft

curandero -- healer​

dieta -- strict lifestyle regime used for spiritual practices and healing 
 

icaro/ikaro -- shamans' song unaccompanied or with rhythmic shaking of shacapa

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​madres -- spirit mothers of the plants

maestro -- "master" (title used in addressing shaman)

maloca -- Amazonian Indian building (one style shown below on right)​

mapacho -- cigarette used in healing ceremonies

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maraca -- seed-filled gourd rattle​ used in healing​. Two rhythmic instruments are used in shamanic performance in the Upper Amazon — the shacapa, the leaf-bundle rattle; and the maraca, the seed-filled gourd rattle. Whether shacapa or maraca, rattles are the most important shamanic tool in the Amazon — the equivalent of the shaman’s drum elsewhere. Anthropologist Lawrence Sullivan calls them the paradigm of sacred sound, the epitome of the link between sacred sound and shamanic power. Ethnographer Alfred Métraux descibes them as the most sacred object among the tropical tribes of South America. Anthropologist Jacques Chaumeil says that, among the Yagua, the rattle is held to be the voice of the spirits.​
 

perfumero -- shaman who works with fragrances

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San Pedro -- entheogen used by Incas in mountains of Peru

shacapa -- leaf-bundle rattle used by shamans during healing (see photo).​ There is a continuum of sound from the concrete, verbal, and intelligible to the abstract, sonic, and unintelligible. The continuum begins with intelligible lyrics in Spanish, and progresses through indigenous languages such as Quechua, purported languages of indigenous people and unknown archaic tongues, languages of animals and birds and computers, pure vocables, whispered sounds, whistling, breathy whistling, the silent pshoo of the blowing of tobacco smoke, and the susurration of the shacapa. The more rarefied the sound, the farther it departs from intelligible words into a state of pure sound -- the language of plants.

serena -- mermaid

soplada -- healing and protecting by blowing mapacho, tobacco

tobaccuero -- shaman who specializes in tobacco

virote -- invisible "darts" used in black magic

yaje -- another name for ayahuasca

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