Piaroa Shaman at FITVen2013 Says Come Visit Village

You don't meet an authentic Piaroa Shaman every day. Joaquin Marquez and his son Alfredo came to Mérida all the way from Sabanito de Pintao in Amazonas State to take part in the International Tourism Fair,  FITVen2013.

It's hard to imagine the attraction of a tourism fair to an indigenous leader who has spent years trying to preserve the cultural traditions of his people, but Joaquin says he understands the need to integrate into mainstream society, albeit on his terms.

There are about 15,000 Piaroa (Wotuja in their own language) living in the Orinoco-Ventuari region of Venezuela's Amazonas and Bolivar states. Their most sacred monument is the dramatic, tabletop mountain known in Spanish as Cerro Autana, a popular destination for adventure tourists.

For the Piaroa, the Autana is the stump of a giant tree of life that once held all the fruits of the forest. When it was felled a giant flood engulfed the land, creating the world of the Piaroa but connecting them forever to the mythic pre-flood world.

While the majority of Piaroa now wear western clothing and are increasingly part of the cash economy they still hold on to traditional beliefs and customs.

Joaquin and Alfredo are keen to encourage more tourists to visit the village of 62 people that Joaquin founded as a young man.

They want the people of Sabanita de Pintao to benefit from the money they make by selling the beaded knecklaces, carved maracas, shamans stools, woven baskets and dance masks that form part of their culture.

Just 25 minutes by car from Puerto Ayacucho, the capital of Amazonas State, Sabanita de Pintao is on the road to a famous petroglyph carved into a high rock wall known locally as the Piedra Pintada.

Many people who visit the indigenous market in Puerto Ayacucho are struck by the dramatic masks and bark cloth costumes made by the Piaroa, which represent mythical creatures such as the monkey and the peccary, and are used in ritual dances.

If you want to visit an indigenous group that are proud to wear their white cotton guayucos (loincloths) and show you their heritage, then Sabanita de Pintao is a good place to start.



Follow my FITVen2013 trip on Instagram by clicking here:

Check out a video clip of Piaroa kids snacking on Tarantulas:

A Piaroa Creation Myth: Buoka and Wajari, the first men

Sanema: Video of Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

When British TV adventurer Bruce Parry visited a Sanema village in Venezuela for his BBC documentary series Tribe he found a people living between two worlds: the traditional world of the shamans, ebene snuff and hekura spirits, and the encroaching modern world with its medicines, metal cooking pots and machetes.

The Sanema are one of the four branches of the Yanoama language group, which includes their more famous cousins the Yanomami.

Cast in a subservient position to the dominant Ye'kwana people of the Caura River basin, the Sanema no longer live the nomadic lifestyle of the past and now face shortages of traditional hunting foods as the jungle is depleted of game.

Parry jumps into Sanema life with both feet, becoming an apprentice to a visiting shaman called Sosa who tells him that when shamans are in a trance after taking the hallucinogenic snuff they can see the Sanema spirits called hekura or hekula.
The hekura, Sosa says "are tiny beings, two centimetres or so high, which occupy all animate and inanimate things, from trees and streams to animals and humans."

"A powerful shaman can invite particular hekura to occupy him. The spirits crawl in through your feet or arsehole and up into your chest cavity, then hack away at the foliage which they believe to be there. They then string up a hammock between your ribs and start to sing. This is the song you hear coming out of the mouths of the shaman."

Parry finally tries the hallucinogenic ebene snuff, known as sakona to the Sanema and yopo to the Yanomami. Made from virola bark and other plant extracts, it is a powerful drug.

"At first I felt very light-headed and soon I became dizzy," writes Parry in the book of the series, "Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World" (Michael Joseph Ltd, 2007).

"The other shamans danced around me, chanting, and I began to have crazy visions. the shamans became holograms, as if a 3D image of each had been imposed on top of their existing forms. I could see straight through them and these new auras."

Click here to read Sanema Myth on Origin of Fire

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Endo-Cannibalism

Click here to read Yanomami vs. Sanema in Venezuela

To see Bruce Parry's fascinating book of the TV series "Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World" click here:



To get the complete DVD Box Set of the BBC TV series, including Bruce Parry's stay with the Sanema of Venezuela, click here: