Who is authorized to be a Shaman in Colombia? Reflections after Deaths in a Hybrid Ayahuasca Ceremony

Leonardo Rodríguez Pérez (1)

Written specially to this site.

The following text reports two deaths recently announced in the Colombian

press. This note has been built using national and local information released by

the press, information from the web and interviews with Ayahuasca drinkers in

Colombia during August 2011.

After an Ayahuasca ceremony organized by the Foundation Luz de María y

Jesús (“Light of Mary and Jesus, in the rural area of Piedecuesta, Santander,

near Bucaramanga city, 380 kms from Bogotá) on August 14, 2011, two men

died. The head of the ceremony, named Pedro Elias Cortés, called himself

“master”. This man was a former Ayahuasca drinker under the supervision of

Robert Ramos, a mestizo taita who holds a healing center called Corona de

Plumas (“Feather Crown”) in Piedecuesta. According to information collected,

he asked Robert Ramos to be adopted as ayudante (assistant) in his

ceremonies. However, Ramos did not accept, as Pedro Cortés allegedly could

not handle the psychedelic experience well.

As I deduced from the website, Pedro Cortés decided to move ahead and

create his religious foundation around 2008. This branch is difficult to classify,

as it combined biblical preach, spiritualistic practices, environmental speech and

Ayahuasca.  Looking in the website, it appears to be a variation of what is

known as “Catholic Charismatic Renovation”. This line promotes practices of

liberation of demons/evil through exorcism and healing, speaking on other

languages and so forth. Perhaps it is most famous for its practice of

incorporation of the Espíritu Santo (Holy Spirit) – the Holy Spirit gets inside the

body of the follower and produces a kind of sleep of trance of mystical rapture.

Surprisingly, the ceremonies also included the presence of Alfredo Vesga,

“bishop” of Guadalupe Church in Bucaramanga city, who officiated a “mass”

before the Ayahuasca consumption.

Alongside with these variations of contemporary form of Christianism, the

Fundación Luz de María y Jesús adopted also an indigenous aesthetics, using

the chumbe, a kind of long ribbon clothed traditionally by indigenous women

from the south of Colombia (e.g. inga women) on the waist. It is important to

note that in the Santander department where the Foundation had its

headquarters there are not Indians anymore, the guanes Indians disappeared

during colonization. In the last decade there has been a project of ethical revival

which finally never took place. Other indigenous peoples in Santander

disappeared with the development of oil industry.  Maybe Elias Cortés copied

an indigenous aesthetics following the example of mestizo taita Robert Ramos,

who adopted elements from Coreguaje indigenous people in the Colombian

Amazon.

As it is reported, although Elias Cortés offered Ayahuasca, he did not make the

brew but bought Yagé (the name Ayahuasca receives in Colombia) from

“cookers” in the Putumayo region. During the ceremonies, it is said, he did not

drink himself. In this context, psychedelic experiences were imbued with images

related to hell, purgatory, martyrdom, punishment, the devil, witches, salvation,

the virgin, heaven, as we can read in the testimonials posted on the Foundation

website.

After the ceremony held on 14 August the autopsies of dead men were carried

out with delay, as relatives hoped men were still in trance and their souls would

return to their bodies. It seems that Elias Cortes have moved to Venezuela in

order to escape from Colombian justice.

The debate this terrible incident has generated in the Colombian public opinion,

and particularly within Ayahuasca networks, have led Taita Querubin Queta,

traditional authority of the Cofan indigenous people in the Colombian-

Ecuadorian Amazon, to propose the elaboration of a list of authorized taitas in

conjunction with other traditional authorities. This initiative takes up the proposal

made by UMIYAC (Unión de Médicos Yageceros de la Amazonía Colombiana)

in 2008, which gives Indian authorities the task of validating who can give

Ayahuasca in the country.

Considering the cases of Peru, Brazil, USA, Netherlands and other European

countries where non-indigenous people lead successful Ayahuasca

ceremonies, as it happens with mestizo taitas in Colombia, it does not seem to

be appropriate or realistic to attribute exclusively to indigenous authorities the

role to legitimize who can lead Ayahuasca ceremonies in Colombia. In any

case, obviously, taking in account the national context, the indigenous

authorities must have a very important place in this debate. At the end, perhaps

the best way to avoid incidents like the one reported with the Foundation Luz de

María y Jesús is to inform the public opinion about what Ayahuasca is through

spreading academic works on the subject, which fortunately seam to begin to

flourish.

Sources

La transferencia de rituales indígenas donde se consume Yagé ha causado

varias muertes http://www.radionacionaldecolombia.gov.co/index.php?

option=com_topcontent&view=article&id=20417%3Ala-transferencia-de-

rituales-indigenas-donde-se-consume-yage-ha-causado-varias-

muertes&catid=1%3Anoticias

Newspapers from Santander

Dos personas murieron tras un ritual con yagé

http://www.vanguardia.com/judicial/117420-dos-personas-murieron-tras-un-

ritual-con-yage

Confirman muerte de dos personas por yagé

http://www.vanguardia.com/judicial/117610-confirman-muerte-de-dos-personas-

por-yage

En 7 días se sabrá qué causó la muerte de dos personas que bebieron Yagé

http://www.vanguardia.com/judicial/117630-en-7-dias-se-sabra-que-causo-la-

muerte-de-dos-personas-que-bebieron-yage

Familiares por fin aceptaron la autopsia

http://www.elfrente.com.co/index.php?

option=com_content&view=article&id=19526:familiares-por-fin-aceptaron-la-

autopsia&catid=666:justicia&Itemid=60

Colombian National Newspapers

Dos muertos tras consumir yagé en Santander

http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/nacional/articulo-292147-dos-muertos-

tras-consumir-yage-santander

Mal uso del yagé puede llevarlo hasta la muerte

http://www.eltiempo.com/vida-de-hoy/salud/ARTICULO-WEB-

NEW_NOTA_INTERIOR-8399381.html

¿Por qué el uso de yagé puede ser letal?

http://www.eltiempo.com/vida-de-hoy/salud/yage-peligros-de-su-

consumo_10207228-4

Dos personas murieron tras un ritual con yagé en Bucaramanga

http://www.eluniversal.com.co/cartagena/nacional/dos-personas-murieron-tras-

un-ritual-con-yage-en-bucaramanga-38456

Websites

Fundación luz de María y Jésus – Piedecuesta – Santander, Colombia

http://fundeluzmariayjesus.com/index.html

Corona de plumas

www.coronadeplumas.com

Interviews

Sergio Leonardo Ramos (long time Ayahuasca drinker with taita Robert

Ramos).

Alejandro Cardona (Ayahuasca cooker in Mocoa Putumayo, Shaman assistant).

Hector Raúl Gonzales (Shaman assistant from Bucaramanga, Santander).

Electronic communication

Horacio Serrano “Suma Pinta” (Organizer of Ayahuasca ceremonies near

Bogotá).

——

(1)    Leonardo is an associate researcher from the Pierre du Bois Foundation

for Current History, Geneva – Switzerland; PhD candidate from The Graduate

Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland; M.A.

in History from Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France; M.A. in Social

Sciences from Université de Limoges, France; B.A. in History from Universidad

Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga – Santander, Colombia.

e-Mail: perez.rodriguez@graduateinstitute.ch