Mapacho
BETWEEN THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE
Article by:
Clara Best
Published on: November 5, 2024
Today, Mapacho or Tobacco is used recreationally by people from different parts of the world; however, its first uses were in rituals in Amazonian communities, having its origin in the American continent between 3000 and 5000 years BC.
Many cultures mention the importance of the tobacco plant in their myths and legends, for example, Rember Yahuarcani López in “Sobre los orÃgenes de la gente de la Garza Blanca” narrates the following:
They asked themselves, how can we represent what we know? For that, at the stroke of midnight the men led by Muinájega and Janánigi concentrated on licking Mapacho and thus returned in thought to the place of their origin. To the centre of the earth. There they saw. There they had visions. In their visions, they saw everything in order to then realise it, to then execute the work. Then to create.
Tobacco is scientifically called Nicotiana tabacum. The plant genus Nicotiana has more than fifty species which are classified into four groups: Nicotiana tabacum, Nicotiana petunoides, Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana polidiclia. While the Nicotiana tabacum species can be classified into: havanesis, brasilensis, virgÃnica and purpurea, which are used for commercialisation.
Various studies have been carried out on the health problems caused by excessive tobacco consumption, mainly affecting the heart, lungs and liver of the body, as well as causing cancer. But why did Amazonian cultures use this plant as sacred? Kriztian Valente, a Kukama anthropologist, gives us the answer:
When we talk about tobacco, in relation to the indigenous populations in this north-eastern part of the Peruvian Amazon, we are talking about a master plant that is closely linked to a form of ancestry, which has to do with the people's own logic and also, as part of their history.
Each culture has developed a particular way of connecting with the Mapacho plant, some cultures ingest it in liquid form, others inhale it in powdered form, there are also those who chew it together with other ancestral plants. The Mapacho ceremony can be related to purging or also to the connection with the elemental beings of nature. Kriztian Valente explains more about this:
In that sense, for example, there are many populations such as Boras, Ocainas, Uitoto, Murui, Muinani that are close to the Peru-Colombia border, who use tobacco as part of their cultural heritage in the form of paste. And also, they have rituals that are used in a form of purging and they can also have visions. In the area a little further east, going towards Brazil with the Peruvian border in the area of Matsés, for example, which is another Pano group, they have what is called snuff, they also use a form of tobacco to do it, to inhale it through the nose. There are other practices of other peoples that also use Mapacho in a purgative way, for example in Uitoto and Murui rituals, because when you take tobacco paste, you have to drink warm water beforehand, and after you take the freshly cooked tobacco paste, in less than three to five seconds it has an immediate effect that can make you vomit and even give you visions. In other peoples, for example, such as the Chayahuitas or Shawis as they are known today, from the Cahuapana linguistic group, to Mapacho is an accompaniment when they are going to perform the ritual of drinking Ayahuasca. And among the Awajún, for example, there is a whole taboo around who smokes tobacco, for example, anyone who smokes tobacco, especially commercial packets of tobacco, is only someone who has some negative power and is more linked to witchcraft practices. So, there is a whole series of imaginaries, and also linked to the same logics of the people in relation to understanding tobacco.
Mapacho can also be smoked, a handmade cigar made in the Amazon. In both the Andean and Amazonian cosmovision, it is believed that smoking mapacho helps to purify the body and is related to warding off evil spirits. Also, when someone has “mal de ojo” or “mal de aire”, people blow mapacho smoke on their body to dispel the illness.
The taking of mapacho as a purgative for a ritual is preceded by a diet that can last several days, which consists of not eating chilli, fats, pork, not having sexual relations and fasting on the day it is to be taken. The preparation and the amount of mapacho varies according to the mapacho master or mistress, being very common to boil the mapacho leaves in water, let it rest and then give the medicine to the patient.
The ingestion of tobacco generates vomiting, which is understood as a cleansing of the body for Amazonian communities. In my own experience, when I took mapacho for the first time, I felt a lot of pain in my stomach, the smell of the plant was pungent and I could not contain the immediate vomiting. The third time I took mapacho, I was able to hold back the vomit and feel the medicine inside my body, I gradually became disconnected from the pain I was feeling and I had visions.
The experience of doing a mapacho ritual can generate different results in each person, depending on their organism, their psychology, their spirituality. Gbislaine Bourgogne, who conducts mapacho therapy sessions in France, comments as follows:
Ultimately, only the knowledge of spiritual laws and the transcendental order of life, which must not be transgressed, allows us to heal. These laws are deeply engraved in the unconscious and in our psychic and physical structures (engramming). The deeper the inscription, the more spiritual elevation is necessary. It is therefore essential to educate oneself to know them, to observe them and thus to heal oneself. This education must reach the spiritual level to be complete, and healing at this level requires rituals.
Not only do we have to take into account that excessive mapacho consumption is harmful, even more so if the mapacho is processed with different chemicals to make the cigars that are distributed commercially; we also have to take into account with whom we take the tobacco plant and in what space, because it is a master plant and must be given the proper respect. Remember that all plants have a spirit guardian in the Amazonian cosmovision, who will punish us if we do not take the plants with the proper respect.
References
Yahuarcani, R. “On the origins of the Garza Blanca people”. Tradition Magazine. p. 126. 2016, October.
Valente, K. (2024, August 14). Interview by Clara Best.
Bourgogne, G. “Use of tobacco purging in the therapeutic process”. p.150.
