Traditional Herbal Cures

For the treatment of constipation and accompanying gastric pain, such as caused by megacolon of Chagas’ disease, or even for congestive heart failure, Kallawayas used guayusa and sayre with an enema syringe to purge the patients. Tobacco is a particularly favored Andean remedy of long usage; it was widely used as a purgative and narcotic in pre‑Columbian times.

Two species of tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum and rustica (sayre ), were sources of narcotics in the Americas during the Incario (Elferink 1983; Schultes 1967, 1972). Nicotine was absorbed through the membranes of both the nose and anus by means of sniffing or the insertion of wild tobacco.

Guayusa and sayre were used by Kallawayas as early as A.D. 400, as indicated by a herbalist’s tomb found near Charazani that contained snuff trays and tubes for nasal inhalation, a gourd container for a powder, leaves from Ilex guayusa (Loes.), enema syringes, and a trephined and artificially deformed skull (Wassén 1972). Their purpose can only be guessed at: were they for medicine, stimulants, beverages, or ritual paraphernalia? The leaves are rich in caffeine, and guayusa was, and still is, used as a stimulant beverage in South America; for example, the people of Pasto, Colombia, still drink it. During the seventeenth century and after, the Jivaros of Rio Marañon drank it daily to stay awake, particularly when they feared attack by enemies (Patiño 1968). The Maynas of Peru and the Pinches of the Rio Pastaza region in Ecuador and Peru drank it for stomach disorders.

The ancient Kallawaya medicine man was equipped with enema syringes which were buried with him. One was made from a reed about 14 cm long, with a dried bulb of intestines tied to the tube with a cotton thread. Similar instruments appear in the Ollacha Valley of Bolivia, where Quechua Indians use them for enema syringes. The Jivaros of the Amazona region use similar syringes and prepare enemas from plants to purify the stomachs of male children. Andean diviners sometimes received enemas with narcotic fluids to enhance their spiritual powers (Tschudi 1918). The use of enemas during the Incario was important for warriors, who received douches before battle to become strong in battle (Guaman Poma 1944). Shortly after the Conquest, the medicinal qualities of sayre became known in Spain, where it was called a “holy weed” (Garcilaso de la Vega 1963).

Even today, Kallawayas claim that wild tobacco is an effective vermifuge and parasiticide. The Andean pharmacopeia featured potent parasiticides and vermifuges because of selective aspects or uses of certain plants able to kill predatory organisms. Kallawayas sometimes sniff tobacco leaves to induce sneezing for congestion and blockage of body parts. Air is understandably considered a vital fluid that must flow in and out of the nostrils; mucus must therefore be eliminated. Sniffing tobacco and guayusa not only cleanses these passageways by causing sneezing, tobacco also stimulates the cardiovascular system when nicotine enters the bloodstream. Thus some of the debilitating effects of chronic Chagas’ disease are meliorated.

Andeans conceptualize breath, samay, as a life force animating them and as a fluid element joining them with other vitalizing principles of the environment. Shortness of breath due to cardiac irregularities deeply puzzles Andeans, who feel that their lifeline with the natural world around them is cut off. The blockages of the esophagus, heart, and colon inherent in Chagas’ disease further turn the hydraulic processes inward in a damming effect of centripetal movement. The health of Andeans is believed by them to be a continual exchange of fluids with animals and plants, because they breathe the same air. For example, Kallawaya diviners communicate symbolically with the earth by blowing on their ritual offerings, which are then burned inside the earth shrines. Symbolically, breathing in and out is the means by which Kallawayas become united with their animals, land, and plants. Among a different ethnic group of ritualists, the people ofAusangate in southern Peru call their shamans samayuh runa, “ people possessing breath” (Jorge Flores, in Custred 1979). These shamans commune with the hill spirits by taking deep breaths. Breathing in is the way knowledge and power are received from the spirit, and breathing out in ritual context is the way they place themselves in the offering made to the earth.

Within the first millennium, humoral theories in Europe, Asia, and Africa held similar assumptions that the body’s physiology is a distillation process in which productive fluids are distilled from primary fluids of food, air, and liquids, and toxic fluids are eliminated in sweat, urine, and feces. These humoral theories, especially the Hippocratic‑Galenic ones, assumed that the humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) were regulated according to principles of balance.

Kallawayas echoed European humoral theory in regard to fievre (fever), and they still treat acute cases of Chagas’ disease with cooling remedies. Andeans are primarily concerned with balancing the hot with the cold in dealing with fievre, rather than recognizing the fact that it could refer to parasitemia (parasites in the blood) and distinguishing acute phases of malaria, Chagas’ disease, and leishmaniasis. They refuse to bathe someone with a high fever in alcohol, which for them is classified as a hot remedy and should never be used to treat a hot disease (fievre ). Because chagasic parasitemia is deadly for infants, health workers need to recommend a therapy that Andeans classify as cool, such as chamomile teas and baths (however, this varies with the region).

Andean humoral theory differs from Hippocratic‑Galenic theory in that health is seen not as a balance of humors but a processional motion of concentration and dispersal of the humors (air, blood, and fat) (see Bastien 1985, 1987a). Health is the maintenance of this centripetal and centrifugal motion, and sickness is associated with either loss of fluids or the inability to dispel fluids. Andean pharmacopeia is complete with herbal matés (teas) ingested to increase fluids, and enemas and purges to expel fluids. Incidences of chagasic congestion of the colon, esophagus, and heart provide a physiologically based etiology corresponding to Andean ethnophysiology. This explains why traditional healers use purges and enemas to relieve the megasyndromes of Chagas’ disease. It also provides some insights into their curing rituals.

Kallawaya herbalists employ concepts of hydraulics and centripetal and centrifugal motion in regard to the empirical use of medicinal plants. They attribute problems to the accumulation of fluids within the central organs. Herbalists determine hydraulic forces by taking the pulse. One elderly herbalist, Juan Wilka, classifies bloods as strong, weak, frightened, and exhausted. In one instance, he diagnosed the pulse of a patient as weak because a landslide had thinned her blood with water. He suggested that she receive new blood by transfusion. Kallawaya herbalists refer to the qualities of blood according to four symbols: hot, cold, wet, and dry. These qualities refer to the blood being too fast (hot), too slow (cold), too thick (wet), and too thin (dry). Herbalists diagnose these qualities by reading the pulse. Sometimes they combine qualities: hot and wet blood is associated with energetic people and refers to fast‑moving blood with much fat. Herbalists frequently associate symptoms of Chagas’ disease, especially empacho, with a pulse that is cold and wet. This implies that primary and secondary body fluids have accumulated and are unable to flow properlythere is need for strong emetics and purgatives.