Dismantling the Myth of “Mother Ayahuasca”:
Gender Dynamics and Cosmology within Mestizo Ayahuasca Shamanism,
Iquitos, Peru.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the impact that non-local ayahuasca participants have had on mestizo ayahuasca shamanism in Iquitos, Peru, with a focus on gender dynamics and cosmology. My thesis, based on 24 months of anthropological fieldwork between 2017 and 2021, argues that the commodified image of “Mother Ayahuasca” as a purely benevolent feminine being has been propagated through the Westernization of ayahuasca shamanism and its commercialisation for Western clientele with an increased emphasis on healing. Yet, as well as curanderismo (healing) practices, mestizo ayahuasca shamanism involves brujería (sorcery), and furthermore, sometimes sexual seduction and abuse, which I argue are rife across the ayahuasca industry.
Mestizo ayahuasca shamanism in the Peruvian Amazon is rapidly transforming through the influx of Western participants and the growth of a global ayahuasca industry during the last 30 to 40 years. Iquitos, Peru, is renowned for being an ayahuasca tourism hub and the epicentre of global ayahuasca use, whereby Western spiritual seekers arrive with what are often romanticised perceptions of Amazonia and ayahuasca. In participating in ayahuasca shamanistic curaciones (healing) rituals, Westerners are also participating in local practices that by default include brujería (sorcery/witchcraft) and “love magic”, a usual part of local seduction practices, but also, in some cases, related to occurrences of sexual abuse.
While Western influence and urbanization have increased women’s participation in ayahuasca practices, ayahuasca shamanism in the Iquitos region remains dominated by patriarchal structures. Indeed, Western ayahuasca drinkers seeking alternatives to oppressive patriarchal social and religious systems are often met with or re-create the abuses of patriarchy in this alternative context.
Yet, in contrast to typically Western perceptions of dualities of gender and cosmology being fixed, as represented by the commodified image of “Mother Ayahuasca” associated with “the Divine Feminine”, nature and healing, mestizo ayahuasca shamanism entails shifting dualities of gender and cosmology in a more volatile dynamic relationship. Ayahuasca is capable of manifesting in male or female forms and curanderismo and brujería are not gendered domains but historically and contemporarily interconnected and in some cases the same practices.
Drawing on Amazonian, feminist, gender, and ecological studies, and positioning itself within the anthropology of the non-human, my ethnography emphasizes the relational aspects of ayahuasca shamanism and the importance of shamanic agency in relation to ayahuasca. It analyses the contradictions between Western conceptions of ayahuasca shamanism and local mestizo beliefs and practices and tracks continual exchanges of understanding between Western apprentices and their maestros (teachers). My analysis reveals how hybrid forms of ayahuasca shamanism continue to emerge within the tourism setting and how alternative cosmological perspectives can co-exist in such hybrid spaces.
In the current climate of globalisation involving the ecological and MeToo movements, ayahuasca shamanism serves as a vehicle for the cross-cultural exchange of social, cosmological and medical beliefs and practices, and has brought feminist issues to the fore. However, I argue that the growth of the ayahuasca industry has also exacerbated ‘darker’ elements of ayahuasca shamanism, contributing to occurrences of brujería (sorcery/witchcraft) and sexual abuse. My analysis highlights the presence of shamanic warfare at the core of ayahuasca shamanism, showing how it manifests presently within the ayahuasca industry around individual practitioner’s battles for power, status, money, and, I argue, also women. It also records the emergence of novel interpretations of healing mental health problems within brujeria frameworks.