Yagé:Illness, suffering and healing precess in Bogota

• Main Authors: Tzu-Yun Hung, 洪子芸
• Other Authors: Mei Hsia Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/09850221832922570288

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 人類學研究所 === 101 === Since 80’s, the Amazonian traditional folk medicine “Yagé” has spread to Colombia’s mega city as Bogotá and Medellín, and has become a special medical treatment for the citizens. The citizens, mainly Mestizo high-educated people, artist, socialist, doctor and the so-called “white-collar” working class, embrace yagé not only as a medication, but also a spiritual remedy, which is able to lighten their difficulties of life, solve their social obstacles, cure their mental disorders and suffering memories. In this thesis, I interviewed more than 20 yageceros (people who take yagé) and wrote down 9 of their healing process and life histories, to analyze what is “diseases” and “healthy” in Bogotá yagecero’s context. I argue that this trend of “new shamanism” should be exanimated in the Colombia’s social context and violent history, in this context, new yagé define “diseases” as a spiritual-physical-social product, disease could be discomfort of the body, but also could be divorce, social unadapting, drug abuse, and conflicts with the others, in the other hand, “healthy” means to live with love and peace, back to the nature. To cure themselves, the patient have to take yagé and go into a magical spiritual world with yagé spirit, and have a ”journey” in the spiritual world, after the taita (shaman) “clean” his spirit, he will come back as a new person and start a new life. The hallucinogenic vision plays a very important role in the healing process, it gives the patient a whole new idea of life, sensation, consciousness and morality. From their body experience and hallucinogenic signs, yageceros redefine their meaning of life, reconstruct their social position, and try to build a new world with their yagé dream, to against the social and mental problems in capitalized and globalized Latin America.