The Geometric Designs of the Shipibo-Conibo in ritual context - Angelika Gebhart Sayer

Journal of Latin American Lore 11:2 (1985), 143-175 Printed in U.S.A.

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The Geometric Designs of the Shipibo-Conibo in Ritual Context

ANGELIKA GEBHART-SAYER Universitiit Tiibingen

This essay attempts to demonstrate that the intricate design art of the Shipibo-Conibo Indians of eastern Peru may once have been a codified system of meanings, a vehicle of communication. Although certainly not a veritable writing system, it may well have constituted a graphic device comprising symbolic, semantic units, in perhaps a mnemotech nical arrangement and was employed in ritual context.' Present-day indigenous understanding of the meaning of the designs is fragmen tary at best. The prime, almost obsessive, motivation of the Indians to preserve the art style, regardless of the loss of semantic content, is their continued belief in its overall spiritual, ethical, aesthetic, emotional, and medicinal significance, which provides both the indi vidual and society with a mode of differentiation, integration, identity, and meaning (see Gebhart-Sayer 1985). Until about two hundred years ago, Shipibo and Conibo households were densely covered with geometric designs. It is said that the house posts and beams, the plaited interior of the thatched roof, the box shaped woven mosquito tents, boats, paddles, kitchen and hunting equipment, finely woven cotton garments of men and women, as well as the heavy headwork attire, were lavishly decorated with designs (Fig. 1). 'The study is based upon nine months of fieldwork in 1981 and two months in 1983

in the village of Caimito, generously supported by Mr. and Mrs. Peter G. Wray of Phoenix, Arizona, and the Breuninger and Bosch companies of Stuttgart, West Ger many, respectively.

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ANGELIKA GEBHART-SAYER

Figure 1. Men's festive attire as used until the 1950s.

The face, hands, and legs bore the characteristic filigree ornaments (Fig. 2). The choreography of the festive round dances (Fig. 3) followed an imaginary pattern on the ground. Even today, each person carries within his body a spiritual pattern related to his well-being and bestowed on him by his shaman. The sight of a village must have been impressive against the background of the forest wilderness and must have filled the inhabitants with a sense of sophistication when they compared them selves with less artistic neighboring groups. It seems that the horror vacui principle, which characterizes the style, formerly embraced the entire visible world and-as we shall see-even the invisible world of the spirits. What has survived of this cultural preoccupation with the refined and the reticulate are textile painting and embroidery, ceramic painting, the plaiting of headwork, an occasional facial pattern, and, above all, the invisible "marking" of individuals with body patterns spiritually projected onto the patient's body by a shaman during a healing session. Essentially, Shipibo-Conibo therapy is a matter of visionary design application in connection with aura restoration. Since all individuals

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Figure 2. Facial design for festive or healing purposes, made with the juice of the Genipa americana fruit and lasting four to five days.

undergo therapeutic treatment starting in early childhood, we may depart from the fact that every person feels spiritually permeated and saturated with designs. The designs are permanent and remain with a person's spirit even after death and help identify him as a Shipibo Conibo in the other world. Very little is known today about the semantic content of the designs. With the exception of woodwork designs, where women sketch and men carve, all art is produced by women. Elders retain some knowledge of the therapeutic applicability and spiritual origin of the patterns, but in general today's artists are no longer initiated into the design messages. The Indians assert that "our present comprehension of the designs is but the vanishing odds and ends of what our grandparents used to know about them." Moreover, many of the allusions in the designs appear to have been accessible only to the shamans, even though women carried out their actual rendering. The artists' terminology for design compo nents reveals some symbolic content but is primarily descriptive. Hence it is conceivable that women have always worked with the designs on a more material level and developed their own technical terminology,

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a; (])

Figure 4. Choma beer storage vessel by the Caimitoan artist Jisosa, with canoa design around the equator and quene design around the neck.

while the shamans might have utilized a separate, symbolic, and perhaps occult terminology which no longer survives. The design style comprises two basic substyles: (I) the quene, a linear composition either curved or angular (Fig. 4, upper design); and (2) the canoa, a blocklike, angular composition in bold lattices often visualized in a positive/negative way (Fig. 4, lower design). All designs are based on the principles of horror vacui, symmetry, and evasive direction of line. The lines are uniformly spaced and interlock loosely, thus creating the impression that they could be compressed onto a smaller area. The symmetrical repetitions could be continued endlessly, were they not trimmed and anchored at the edge of the design field. This anchoring of border lines accounts for the static quality of the style. In quene layouts, complexity of composition and long stamina of the formline are highly valued. Ending lines are mostly adorned with a small figure filled with solid color and called vero (eye, seed). Secondary lines accompany the formlines on both sides, and tertiary filler work is inserted into the remaining empty spaces. The term "baroque style"2 seems appropriate to describe the growing inclination of younger women to reduce the thickness of the formlines while intensifying filler work. Often, the formlines are only slightly broader than the filler lines and 'See Roe's comprehensive research on the Shipibo-Conibo art style, for example, Roe 1979, 1980, 1982b.

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tend, therefore, to optically stand back behind the busy load of fillers Where formlines continue to be strong and the fillers become ver dens: , the � ller ":ork r� cedes to for� a gray background. Considering . that _m pr� vwus tlmes fillers were utlhzed sparsely and in autonomous � onfiguratwns, the new development in tertiary work represents a loss m wealth of forms. Nevertheless, the development of such "fashions" indicates that Shipibo-Conibo design art is a living art, not an artificially revived or nostalgic art. Designations for some d� sign components refer to body parts (head, . w� ngs, �ands, eyes; see Ftgs. 5-7). Others are named in accordance with thetr clearly realistic renditions (for example, man or snake; see

;

S SHIPIBO-CONIBO GEOMETRIC DESIGN

the remaining knowledge of figs. 8 and 9 ). My earlier studies explored yer 1983, 1984, 1985, art-Sa (Gebh lism Shipibo-Conibo design symbo ibo design perception o-Con Shipib porary note 2). Central to contem Ronin. Being the nda, anaco c cosmi the of is the symbolic complex all conceivable nes combi snake world this s, mythical donor of the design ronin quene. called be may s design all , designs in its skin pattern. Hence

Figure 5. Head motif. Figure 8. Two small chomo vessels with joni quene (man design). Courtesy Peter Koepke.

Figure 6. Wings or hands motif.

Figure 7. Eyes motif.

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Figure 9. Small chomo vessel with two-headed snake design. Courtesy Peter Kgepke.

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But a design with a very long meandering formline may be called ronin quene because "its ends are difficult to see" (Fig. IO). More or less realistic snake renditions appear on pottery on the occasion of a per son's recovery from a poisonous snakebite (Fig . 9 ), a celebration called rono-aca-picoti ("to emerge from what the snake did"). Yet another perceptual level recognizes the ophidian shape in the very structure of the vessels: the winding clay ropes of the construction technique present the coiled posture of the resting world anaconda who, with its spiral body, encircles the cosmos just as the clay ropes encircle the vault of the vessel. Ronin-rau is also the symbolic designation for the above mentioned shamanic therapy in which the shaman heals his patient through the application of a visionary design.

Figure 10. Ronin design. The vero-yushin-quene ("eye spirit design") represents a special, somewhat ambivalent design category. Although nowadays fashionable on pottery and textiles, this design is brought into malevolent context by the shamans. It is composed chiefly of curved lines arranged around a center cross (Figs. II and I2). The "eye spirit" of a person, which upon death leaves through the pupil of the eye, comprises two aspects. In part, it rises directly to "God in the sky," but its negative aspect goes astray as a caya spirit or an ota shadow, to travel in the clouds and on earth, eat garbage in the villages at night, and to terrify people with its monotonous whistling. At times it kills those who get too near it and inhale its odor or touch its aura. In the mind of the average villager, these designs are related to the graveyards and tomb crosses introduced by the missionaries, and to the custom of drawing death-related designs into the ashes spread over the graves, a practice attributed to both mourning women and spirits of former times. The shamans of Caimito report a rather feared category of previous shamans, among them the renowned artist and shamaness Vasamea, who cultivated steady contact with these spirits of the deceased, manipulated their designs, and em-

Figure

11. Back of man's embroidered shirt with

vero-yushin (eye spirit) design.


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the help of the vero-yushin only in cases where a missing person is suspected to be dead. Shipibo-Conibo designs are said to be rooted in the earliest mythical past. Ronin showed the designs of its magnificent skin pattern to an ancestral woman. This compartmentalized skin pattern comprises all designs conceivable. The smallest, finest, and most appreciated (in sha manic context, the most powerful) designs are found around the tail, just before its end point (shama), where all force culminates. Ronin is one of the most powerful spirits recognized by the Shipibo-Conibo, the ultimate food controlling entity coiling around the edge of the world. It is the "mother of all fish," and its belly holds the "prison of abducted souls." It appears physically in disguises of every kind, often some kind of large ophidian, and may be encountered during fishing excursions or in the forest. Although basically fond of humans, it is feared daily by even the most acculturated Indians, and is said to have a "radiating, electric, vibrating power, blinding light, hypnotic attraction and a desire to draw people into its aquatic home." The Script Issue

Figure 12. Embroidered chitonti (skirt) with vero-yushin (eye spirit) desig n

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played them for evil machinations. To argue that it is precisely these vero-yushin designs that are so popular today on the women's skirts draws but a shrug of a shaman's shoulders since a design alone does not make sorcery. My prime informant insisted that once materialized on textiles, ceramics, or other media, a design loses its spirit ("ya no tiene anima") and thus its potency. 3 He added that he himself seeks

An interesting speculation about the allegedly hieroglyphic nature of the Shipibo-Conibo designs began with a note published by Alexander von Humboldt after his travels to South America (Humboldt, p. 2 1 1).• During his stay in Lima in 1802, Humboldt met the Franciscan mission ary Narcissus Gilbar (Father Girbal's name is misspelled here) who had been living among the Shipibo and Shetebo at the mouth of the Sarayacu River since 1790. Girbal informed Humboldt of certain Panoan "copy books" made of fine cotton fabric pages, a thread binding, and a palm leaf cover, their format corresponding to that of the missionaries' copy-books. The pages contained human and animal figures as well as many isolated characters, orderly and symmetrically placed on lines and believed to be hieroglyphs. According to the Indians, these books were handed down by their forefathers. They contained "occult things which no stranger should be allowed to learn" or were referring to "travels and old wars with the neighboring hordes" as Girbal was told by Manoa Indians (who were actually Shipiboes resettled by the mission aries). (It is interesting in this connection that one of my Caimitoan informants claimed that the designs were formerly used like geographical maps.) Girbal had met an old Indian who was explaining the book's

'It occurs to me that this statement might imply that designs lose their potency at

'The German edition unfortunately carries no date. Karl von den Steinen, in his critical

the hands of women, since only women render the designs. Future studies will shed more

summary and juxtaposition of the daring speculations that this note gave rise to, uses

light on this suspicion.

the French and earlier edition, "Vues des Cordilleres," of 1810.

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content to a group of young people. Despite the Indians' objections, the missionary managed to obtain one such book and dispatched it to Lima, where it was inspected by a number of Humboldt's acquaintances. It was later dispatched to the convent of Ocopa but never reached its destination. Humboldt suspects that it might have been lost or smuggled off to Europe. Girbal promised Humboldt he would procure another copy, but to my knowledge the subject is not pursued in Humboldt's work. It seems as if during the heyday of the Sarayacu mission, the Indians had started to cast what was their traditional design coding system "inherited by their forefathers" into a new form, the general external appearance of the Spanish books seen at the mission. Many accounts of the recent Indians reveal that their forefathers of early missionary times were desperately trying to obtain some of the missionaries' books. Even recent Indians still consider the missionaries' rejection the major fraud in their entire history of Spanish contact. Karl von den Steinen initiates his survey of the Panoan hieroglyphic speculations by pointing to the immense importance Girbal's document would have had to the study of cultures (1904:9): But the most peculiar discovery ever made with the South American native peoples, which would represent something no less important than Mexican cultural documents south of the Amazon, seem to be the illustrated copy-books of the "wild Panoans" of the Ucayali, filled with hieroglyphic paintings, on which Alexander von Humboldt, during his stay in Lima, came to know some details from Father Narciso Girbal.

And he terminates with the following passage (p. 12): For "to read" the Panoans use the charming expression "the paper is talking to him." On their cotton fabrics ...they may have painted pictographs of wars ... or other former experiences and made them into copy-books of missionary fashion. But it would have been of greater interest to allow one of these copy-books, with the necessary explanations, to talk to us, too-it is useless to speculate after the books were lost. ... As far as the interpretation of the colored pictures as a genuine "hieroglyphic writing system" is concerned, one may remain cool considering the fact that while numerous South American petroglyphs have been approached as if hieroglyphic scripts, not a single one was confirmed as such.(My translation)

Diaz Castaneda, who spent years among the Conibo of the mouth of the Pachitea River approximately one hundred years later, and whose knowledge of Conibo culture was intimate, noted in connection with the designs: "Into the spaces between the main lines representing a figure, a kind of popular hieroglyph is drawn, the variety of which is


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very great" (p. 314; my translation). He added two drawings (see Fig. 13) that show the independent character of these fine "filler" elements so drastically simplified in modern design art. Unfortunately, like Girbal, Diaz Castafieda seems to have had little success or interest in gathering native information on the semantics of these "glyphs." The French anthropologists S. Waisbard and R. Waisbard relate the mysterious glyphic books mentioned by Humboldt to a tradition that was still practiced when they traveled the Ucayali in 1956. A finely woven strip of white cotton fabric (about 15 em wide and 70 em long), delicately painted with designs and called quirica ("book"), s was pre pared for each child entering puberty. The book was folded in leporello (screenfold) manner and stored until the person died. Then it was ex tended over the chest crosswise and buried with the person. The Wais bards note: "Since the famous hieroglyphic books of the Panos men tioned by Humboldt are unfortunately . . . undiscoverable, this could lead to new and exciting discoveries, since it could be the only form of aboriginal writing known in present Peruvian Amazonia" (1959;27 ; my translation). Unfortunately, no other "eyewitness" reports on the subject. We must therefore rely on accounts of the contemporary Indians themselves, who readily recall book-related instances they have heard about from their "grandparents." In Caimito, people remember an old man from a neighboring village who treasured a book by his father-in-law, a shaman. In 1978 his son, an enthusiastic Adventist, made him burn the document since "it contained matters of the devil." It was an ordinary school copy-book from the mission, filled with minute red and black designs. Among the many people who remembered the book was a young woman, Olga, who as a young girl had managed along with her girlfriend to secretly get hold of the book, although the old man kept it well hidden. The girls had just started copying some of the designs when Olga's grandmother discovered them and forbade them to have any contact with the book. It contained "the dangerous affairs of the spirits." Olga claimed to have never forgotten the four designs she had by then finished copying. She drew them on paper for me (two are shown in Fig. 14). The people of Caimito regarded the four designs as examples of outstanding design art and sometimes referred to them as a measure of quality when discussing designs. The Caimitoans are also acquainted with the strips of painted cloth, although in a context different from the Waisbards' description.Appar ently, the most potent and feared of the early Shipibo-Conibo shamans were those who worked with the spirits of the dead, the vero-yushin. 'Loan word from Quechua, where the term quillca refers to sequences of geometric signs modified by rotation, reflection, and change of color.

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Figure 13. Delicate fillers between the thick form lines of the cross design (from Diaz Castaneda 1922:308). The drawings by Diaz Castaneda show that around the turn of the century, filler work between the form lines of the designs were more independent and versatile than today. He assumed that the fillers had hieroglyphic function.

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< Figure 13 (Continued). Types of fillers (from Diaz Castaneda 1922:318). Other than the more common shamans who concealed themselves in their mosquito tents to practice (the tents are of a dense fabric and are not transparent like the mosquito nets used elsewhere), these high-rank ing shamans sat on a platform, in public view during the entire seance. A man of such eminence would own a leporello book painted on both sides with black fineline designs and solidly colored vera (the seminal design elements mentioned above). There used to be one design on each page, all of which had their individual names. The edge of each page was outlined with colored stripes, the kind still woven into cotton

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textiles. The shaman would claim to have received the designs from the eye spirits. When the master took his book out of the box, the women would gather around in order to have a lesson in design art. Often coming in large numbers and from remote villages, they brought pieces of cloth, bark paper (the bark from the local lecythus tree is used to manufacture an excellent white paper; personal communication Robert Carneiro), and clean wooden slabs or paper from the mission. The sessions could last several days during which the shaman explained the designs and the women studied until exhausted, increasing the power of their shina (mind, intellect, creativity, vitality). Outstanding artists exercised spiri tual and physical discipline such as fasting, sexual abstention, contem plation of designs, and the enhancement of the tena (image of the inner eye, imagination, reflection) before they arrived at the sessions, generally with the help of medicinal plants, and were sometimes "crowned" by the shaman with an invisible quene maiti (design crown). These crowns further enhanced a woman's shina capacity and her social status. Certain young men over the age of twenty (possibly the shamans' novices) were also introduced to the design meanings. The Waisbards mention two "schools of magician-sorcerers" on the Huallaga River (Waisbard and Waisbard 1959:68, note 2), where part of the Panoan population had been relocated by the Jesuits around 1670. Some shamans would take the women's pieces of cloth into their mosquito tents. Animal voices and foreign utterances indicated that the shaman had contacted the spirits and was conversing with them. Somewhat later he passed the pieces back from underneath the tent, now preciously painted by the spirits. It was on these occasions that the shaman must have acted most conspicuously as a switchman of art and dominating ideas, as a perpetuator between the past and the present, and as a pontifex on the artistic bridge between the temporal and the spirit world. His ultimate task was the visualization of ideas, the transformation of spirit messages into culturally meaningful configurations. He was also a selector of themes which he passed on and which were then reproduced in manifold varieties and edited for the general public on pottery, textiles, and other media. The girls' puberty feasts during which the absolutely· finest in clothing, adorn ments, and pottery came together were great forums of art display, if not publication of coded religious or other information. On the occasion of the girls' puberty ceremony, the shaman carried an occult type of book contained in a wooden box on his head while he danced, accompanied by two women. During the dance, the book was handed to consecutive female dancers wearing the "complete festive dress." As we know from Roe's excellent descriptions of the ceremony (1982a), the young girls were dressed up for their clitoridectomy more

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elaborately than anyone else. It was probably the young initiates them selves who were entitled to carry the book. Manuals of such ritual significance may still exist in the more conser ��tive villages. Caimitoan elders saw them in use until the 1950s. Perhaps It IS but a matter of extended traveling to trace them. The recent shamans of Caimito are making extensive use of a different kind of "literature"· visi? nar� books called "design medicines" visible only to the shama� dunng his ayahuasca experience.6 These are fundamental requisites of the therapeutic seance, consulted like a reference book, and suggest to � he healer possible diagnosis and therapy. They are said to be folded m leporello style. Their utilization is discussed below in more detail. Because of the obscured semantics of the design tradition, it seems doubtful that a motif-by-motif decodification key, the only acceptable proof of the (former) existence of a code system, will ever be at hand. Karl von den Steinen was rightly skeptical. The fact that the term quir �ca or qui �lca is of Quechua origin would have to be given some . co? sideratiOn m future studies, and the impact of the bibles and cate chisms, those exotic "speaking" treasures of the early missionaries that must have profoundly upset the world view of the Indians at the time of first contact, ought to be carefully analyzed. H?wever, while research continues and this essay may encourage studies by other ethnographers in the Montafia, we should bear in mind that the Shipibo-Conibo Indians live in an area where mnemonic codi fication was, or is, not uncommon. The northwest of South America bear� witness to other indigenous code systems, such as the geometric appliques of the Cuna (see Nordenski<>ld 1928, 1930), the mnemonic wooden slabs of the Northern Yu'pa or Macoita (see A. Lhermillier and N. Lhermillier 1982), and the tocapu signs on Quechua and Aymara �ueros and ponchos. The Shipibo-Conibo tradition of weaving narrow nbbons of considerable technical and ornamental complexity for wrist and ankle decoration might well be linked to the Waisbards' cloth strips and the Inca custom of weaving high-ranking information into the narrow woof stripe which many ponchos displayed at the waist or con cealed within the inseam (see Barthel 1970, 1971; Jara 1973). 'It is typical of recent Shipibo·Conibo acculturation and secularization that most shamanic objects (like the book), which were previously utilized during the sessions are of

�ow

;

reduced to a visionary/spiritual existence. The shaman's crown, ring, or par

�1s costume are other examples. ?

While earlier generations wore two types of body

des1gns, namely t e visible skin design and the permanent invisible healing design, the _ cus om IS now w1del reduced to the latter, immaterial type. Actual facial and body

� � eslgns

�

�

are hard t fmd among the recent Shipibo-Conibo. This is consistent with my mformants . assertiOn that early shamans invariably were more powerful than the contemporary ones, and with the general feeling that the present state of affairs is a mere shadow of previous conditions.


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Design Therapy

As indicated above, the healing designs of the Shipibo-Conibo are perceived from the spirits and projected onto the patient's body in a spiritual, nonmaterialized manner. There are some indications that a shaman may read the designs of his vision analytically in linear pursuit of individual configurations, but in general the design visions are de scribed as being overall, nonanalytical impressions of entire patterned "pages" or "sheets" flashed rapidly in front of the shaman's inner eye and vanishing as soon as he tries to have a closer look.7 The shaman's spiritual knowledge, his spirit comprehension, and interactions form a complex system that deserves detailed study apart from the present essay. These matters are, to a large extent, veiled from the patient and the other nonspecialists. The patient might snatch a few disconnected details from the shaman's songs, but in general he does not comprehend the shaman's spirit struggles and conferences that take place above his sickbed, or the shaman's otherworldly voyages. All he is told about his sickness is its origin and the precautions to be taken. Ideally, he places himself in the hands of his doctor and refrains from asking questions. 8 One important condition of the therapy is the aesthetically pleasing environment into which the shaman and the family place the patient. He is carefully surrounded by an ambience designed to appease both the senses and emotions. Visible and invisible geometric designs, melodi ous singing, and the fragrance from herbs and tobacco smoke pervade the atmosphere, and ritual purity characterizes his food and each person with whom he has contact. The patient is never left alone in his mosquito tent during the critical time of his illness. This setting induces in the patient the necessary emotional disposition for his recovery. But how is this indigenous concept of aesthetics to be understood? The term quiquin refers to several notions of "correctness" and "beauty." Although it implies primarily a pleasant visual, auditory, or olfactory experience evoked, for example, by harmony, symmetry, accurate performance, or cultured refinement, the term is not limited 'Reichel-Dolmatoff describes the ayahuasca visions of the Desana as symmetric light patterns "perceived as superpositions on surfaces," as a "multitude of small luminous images" clustered or strung together, zigzagging or assuming network and checker patterns. He also points out that acoustical stimulation is important to attain a "bright and pleasant vision" (1978:8-12). These descriptions coincide in all aspects with descrip tions of Shipibo-Conibo visionary experience. Hence we may assume that the graphic perceptions are a phosphenic retina function triggered by the alkaloids of the drug. 'The external proceedings of ayahuasca sessions have been described elsewhere. See, for example, Roe 1982a and Meyer 1984:57.

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to sensuous experience; it includes ideational values like subtlety, rele vance, appropriateness, and cultural correctness. A harmoniously formed and well painted vessel is quiquin just like a village kept free from plant growth. Quiquin rarebo are genuine relatives; a quiquin ainbo denotes a woman of good upbringing and appearance. Quiquin also refers to the treatment of a sick person if the shaman works in an appropriate, traditional, sophisticated, and aesthetic manner, that is, employing, songs, designs, fragrance, and ritual purity in a truly Shipibo Conibo manner. We shall now see how the shaman operates with qui quin - ness on three sensory levels-visual, auditory, and olfactory and how they are synaesthetically combined to form a therapy of beauty, cultural relevance, and sophistication. The shaman uses several invisible requisites richly embellished with designs. These include the medical book with its delicate, minute designs drawn by the Hummingbird spirit, the shining crown received during initiation, and the crossed bandolier which is the "mother and root" of the quenyon, the gruel-like substance, which he carries in his chest and may bring up to his mouth to suck the afflicted body parts. Among the visible painted requisites are the shaman's garment, the tari (Figs. 15 and 16), the occasional facial painting of the patient (Fig. 2), the painted vessels the shaman uses for the ayahuasca potion or tobacco water, and the vessels used for the patient' s food and washing water perfumed with fragrant flowers. Each case of illness requires the attendance and assistance of a differ ent set of plant and animal spirits. Only Nishi lbo, the master spirit of the ayahuasca vine, is necessarily present at all sessions. Nishi lbo pro jects the luminescent geometric configurations before the shaman' s eyes shortly before he visits the session personally. These are luminous phoshenic visions that cover everything within the shaman' s sight. With the assistance of his helper spirits, the shaman now begins to interpret the vision as a quiquin design medicine. As soon as the floating network touches his lips and halo, the shaman issues melodies that correspond to the shiny visions. Describing the phenomenon, the shaman says, "My song is a result of the design image, " a direct transformation from the visual to the auditory, in some way comparable to our musical notes and their auditory realizations. There can be more than a hundred designs in one song. The songs are heard, seen, and sung simultaneously by Nishi lbo, all attending spirits, and the shaman. Hence the shaman blends into a choir of spirits while the villagers hear but his solitary voice. If the patient' s relatives now join the shaman in singing (their singing necessarily lags slightly behind since most of the texts are ad hoc crea tions and unknown to them), a two-sided choir builds up in which the shaman plays the conspicuous role of an acoustic hinge between the spirit


Figure 15. Shaman wearing in front of mosquito tents.

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tari (cushma, traditional men's garment), seated

Figure 16. Healing session shortly before arrival of the patient. The bottle contains ayahuasca potion.

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and the village worlds. The compelling force of this chorus is directed against the spirits held responsible for the patient' s illness. As voices meander through the air, a second transformation takes place, visible only to the shaman. The song now assumes the form of a geometric pattern, a quiquin design which penetrates the patient' s body and settles down permanently. According to the shaman, the healing pattern is a result of his song. Unless he falls ill again, it remains with the patient even after death to help identify his spirit as a Shipibo Conibo in the other world. The Hummingbird spirit, Pino, described as the "writer" or "secretary" among the helper spirits, now hovers above the patient and lets the design configurations drop onto the patient' s body, swishing, whirring, humming, busy with tiny move ments. The shaman explains: Pino writes the quene outlining the therapy and the song. It grows little by little. Just as each word in modern writing is different, so are the individual signs (lena) of the design. At first, the sick body appears like a very messy design. After a few treatments, the design appears gradually. When the patient is cured, the design is clear, neat, and complete. In my visions, I watch Hummingbird hover above the patient. With each swish of his wings, a part of the design emerges. He also draws with his beak and tongue. If the design refuses to become clear, I know that I cannot heal the patient. I am not told the meaning of the indi vidual design elements, but I know by my overall impression of the designs what I have to sing. I feel that designs and melodies are rotating. Some designs can make a person even more ill. They are not made by Hummingbird, but come out of the mouth of a sorcerer. They are detached like figures, not flowing like handwriting.

While he watches Hummingbird write the healing design, the shaman uses his painted garment, the tari, to fan away the malignant nihue (wind, pneuma, aura) of the disease-inflicting spirit, which again "sounds like the wings of Hummingbird." Nihue hampers the formation of the healing design. In a specific case of swollen liver, high fever, and hemor rhaging diarrhea, for example, a motif called nai cano mahueca ("con secutive curves in the scaffold of the sky") was applied by the humming bird, a design including many zigzags. Before the hummingbird is able to apply the healing design, the shaman, with the help of his fragrant herbal bundle, brushes away the "mess" (m6e) on the patient's body. Spots and shadows are traces of nihue indicating that the healing process is not yet completed. The number of treatments required to complete a healing design depends on the tenacity with which the disease-inflicting spirit is able to contaminate the design. Generally, a shaman needs three to five treat ments of approximately five hours each, during which the spirit inces santly tries to stain or smudge the gradually emerging design with its


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evil countersongs and harmful aura. When on a disease-inflicting tour, these spirits may also attempt to open the tightly sealed vessels of design song medicines stored in the cloud villages of the tree spirits and pro tected by guardian spirits, to let the shama (massed potency) of the medicines (which are actually songs) escape and vanish. The shaman counters such attacks with an intensification of singing and helper spirit intervention. In certain cases, the shaman will climb the tower or tree that connects him to the cloud villages to procure personally the medicines (songs and herbal recommendations). Or he will descend into the water to free an abducted soul from the "soul prison" of the cosmic anaconda at the aquatic edge of the world. A number of therapeutic measures are applied directly to the patient. During the daytime, for example, the shaman dispenses herbal remedies (the Shipibo-Conibo know many), helps prepare blood-circulating nettle lashings, steam baths, ablutions, inner purifications (vomiting, enemas), and prescribes facial and body painting. The patient is kept on a diet that excludes, among other things, bought food "which has been in contact with metal" (during the canning and bottling processes), foods containing fat, sugar, salt, and fruit. The patient must be protected from impure influences, such as menstruating women and couples who have "united" the night before. Tobacco smoke, the fragrance of flowers, and certain aromatic ointments from the pharmacies in town are substantial components of the treatment in that they lead helper spirits to the sickbed, ward off opponent spirits, and intensify respiration and relaxation. If the patient' s destiny is to die, a condition the shaman is able to read from the unsuccessful body design, he will tell the patient after the first few sessions that he is unable to cure the disease. If the treatment is successful, the healing pattern is "covered" (tapado) by a protective finish, the pana. For this purpose, the entire body of the patient is "covered with songs." The pana shelters the weakened patient against shocks from menstruating women or sexually active couples, as well as from malevolent spirits and shamans. Should further treatment be necessary, the pana must be removed with the help of certain songs. Although the pana acts as a protective shield, it is easily destroyed, for instance through breaking of the diet, and the old disease may appear again. Many diseases are nihue afflictions and are cured with the spiritual body designs (quene rau or yora quene).9 They may be defined as "loss is 'The second major medicinal agent applied is nete (light). However, this complex of little relevance in this essay.

166


of the anima," "rainbow stroke," "shock," "hypnotic spirit magne tism," and so on, and attributed to an inimical shaman or an animal, plant, or other spirit. Although research has not been very successful in the realm of harmful designs, one mode of inflicting disease appears to be the sung projection onto a person's body of a design resembling a double projectile point

or any nonspecific pattern received from the spirits and used by the shaman together with the name of the person to be harmed or influ enced. '0 Ronin, with all possible patterns united on its body, is brough t into play in this instance, provided the shaman has command over this most awesome of all spirits. An evil body design is said to be clouded and difficult to diagnose. It is sometimes equalized with nihue, the harmful spirit aura. But with the help of Nishi lbo (the ayahuasca spirit), the shaman "reads it as if with an X-ray machine." Once an evil pattern is diagnosed, the shaman can "unravel" it and wind it onto an imaginary spool, erase it with his shamanic broom, lift it off as if peeling it, etc. All these transactions are accomplished through singing , the texts of the songs revealing much about the techniques involved. The vero-yushin designs described above seem to be as ambivalent as most other shamanic issues. Discussion of them arouses controversy among the Indians themselves. The relation of the designs with the spirits of the dead (a clearly negative association) and sorcery on the one hand and their popularity on textiles and ceramics on the other obscur es their function and meaning. Another method for inflicting harm is the withdrawal through the shaman of a healing pattern he once gave to a patient. This is, alleged ly, "'The ambivalence of the shamanic practice in Amazonia is well established. The Shipibo-Conibo shaman is no exception, being both healer and sorcerer. Not only is he himself ambivalent, but his helper spirits are too. The same spirit that assists in curing may be sent to harm a person. But conditions are not that simple. In the terminology a shaman uses after defeating a harmful spirit, it is conspicuous that such spirits are never extinguished or killed by the shaman. They are simply driven away. Langdon

( 1 979a:64, 77) describes how the Siona shaman directs the disease-inflicting substance back to its origin. Reichel-Dolmatoff ( 1 97 1 : 1 30) reports that the Desana shaman has to promise to the master of game animals to cause the death of a certain number of people (own or alien) in exchange for game animals. The Warao "Dark shaman" feeds human sacrifices to the Lords of the Underworld to guarantee the duration of the world, the Gods, and the young generation (Wilbert 1 975:1 74). In the Siona case, the shaman knows where the evil substance is going, but it is uncertain whether he also knows the substance to cause harm at its place of origin, that is, whether he uses the substance to hit back, thus simultaneously harming somewhere else and caring for his own people.

SHIPIBO-CONffiO GEOMETRIC DESIGNS

167

very easy to accomplish and presents quite a temptation to the shaman: "I have to keep controlling myself so that this idea does not enter my head; 1 might wish to apply this practice on my own people." If a patient whose design has been withdrawn falls ill, the new sha�an whom he might then consult can immediately recognize that the p ahent is without a design. Healing designs from earlier cures are smudged by new diseases. Obviously, a person places himself in the hands of his do�tor not only during therapy, but for the rest of his life. " This explams wh� the Shipibo-Conibo are so careful in their choice of doctor, and �hy It . would be absurd for them to recommend doctors to one anothe: Kinship proximity plays an important role, and it is understandable If �arents are eager to lure a shaman son-in-law into the family. The social an� psychological implications of these close ties between a shaman and his former patient appear to be significant and deserve further study. ·

Returning to the visionary shamanic book previously disc�ssed, we may now conclude that the Indians' view of th� book co�pnses b�th the general (ayahuasca-induced) capacity to perceive the rapidly fl�shi�g "sheets" of designs or the floating variety that covers everythm� m SI'ght' and the mentioned imaginary volume that .the shaman receives . mformant' s account from the spirits during his initiation. The semor of his initiation adds some ethnographic substance to the latter:

�

I had been practicing with small portions of shahuan-p�co [' :t e maca-:v's moulting"; an unidentified parasitic plan� forlll:e�ly used m Shipibo-Combo shamanism as a hallucinogen instead of or m additiOn to ayahuasca] for a long time. This is a very strong drug which not every shaman could endure. I ra�k the j uice of the leaves with water and tobacco juice, and I also bathed With it.

�

In the Desana case it is obvious that caring for one's people and harming are closely inter ade for related. A case for such an interrelation between caring and harr ing could be _ the Shipibo-Conibo if it could be shown that the shaman, wh1le expelh g evil forces

�

�

�

�

f om a patient intentionally directs them to certain targets (perhaps a distant enem ), r ther than jus dismissing them into space. One step in his directi n mi_ght be my maJ_or mf ormant's answer when 1 asked him why he was very s1ck and losmg h1s. force. He said, "I healed many during my life. Now they are hitting back. , Th o e "h1tt"mg back" are

;

:

�

�

�

·

either the inimical spirits and shamans whom he upset so many times, or those people _ whom he harmed perforce by exposing them to the harmful forces released thr �g h1m, f econc1hat10n the with concern profound the Considering not. or be it intentionally

�

�

�

�

0 posites, with reciprocity, ambivalence and balance in general so cons•stently found m _ _ L wland cultures (including the Shipibo-Conibo), the latter speculatiOn m1ght be not

�

entirely off the track.

. ''Among the Warao Indians, lifelong dependence on the shaman exists for some women

(Johannes Wilbert, personal communication).

168

ANGELIKA GE;BHART-SAYER


Then came my chief experience with shahuan-peco. Twelve hours after drinking the potion and bathing with it, about noon the next day, it started to thunder, and I heard crowds of spirits making much noise. The four masters of the plant appeared in human disguise. They were very angry with me and denied me their knowledge and power. When I was shaking a lot and almost fainted, they took hold of me and dashed me around within the four corners. Two of them were standing in the opposite corners to throw me back. When I was almost dead, Ani-Ino, the great j aguar, arrived, very beautiful and shining . He grabbed me by the neck with his mouth, and sucked my blood to reduce my weight so I could fly. He carried me through the air for many hours, up to the clouds, into a great remoteness.This is how a shaman learns to travel through the air and to see things from above. In the clouds, he meets all the tree spirits who help to heal the sick, for example doctor anta -yushin (a tree-spirit and bone doctor). During my vision, I was able to see all who passed by my house in their true nature, with their true intentions, and naked. Then there appeared the master of shahuan-peco himself. He carried a book in his hands, the leaves of which were still new and blank. Before he gave it to me, Hummingbird painted very fine designs into it with its delicate beak. In a book like that, a shaman can read about the condition of his patient and the way to help him. I often use the book when I sing.

Although it contradicts what was said about the overall grasping of rapidly flashing design "pages" in ayahuasca visions, I would like to introduce here a bit of information received from the same shaman which supports the claim that a shaman can (or could) also read a design analytically, that is, follow the individual motifs in linear fashion. Linear pursuit is an indicator of a former motif-by-motif reading tech nique. While discussing the reading of his shamanic book, the informant followed with his finger the meandering configurations of a design, starting at the lower right and continuing horizontally in serpentine ascent. In front of him were the two designs he had chosen from my comprehensive collection as the closest approximation of those of his visionary book (see Fig. 1 7). Belonging to the older, rectilinear design tradition, they are composed of two or more subfields displaying dif ferent patterns. Naturally, as a consequence of the semantic loss in design art, this linear reading technique, if it ever existed, became obsolete. Music and Geometric Designs

Yu'pa Indian shamans of Venezuela draw upon their nightly dreams when treating a patient. The following technique helps them to memorize their visions: the shaman sits up in his hammock immediately after the dream and, by singing, transforms the vision into a sequence of vocal sounds that represent the dream i mages. The resulting song remains engraved in the shaman' s consciousness and facilitates recalling the

Figure 11. Two racoti (woman' s mantle). This kind of rectilinear and very

IS spmtually minute design with bordering stripes of a different pattern n 1 928, plate 1 1 used by the shaman to heal the patient. From Tessman (upper) and plate 13 (lower).

1 69

170

SHIPffiO-CONffiO GEOMETRIC DESIGNS


dream the following morning. 1 2 Thus, in a synaesthetic effort, a visual experience is transformed into an audio code. As previously indicated, the Desana need acoustic stimulation to attain "bright and pleasant visions." Likewise, the Shipibo-Conibo shaman engages in synaesthetic awareness. His songs can be heard in a visual way, so to speak, and the geometric designs may be seen acoustically. Reference to this phenom enon often occurs in the texts of the shamanic songs. For example, a medicine may be described as "my painted song," "my voice, my little painted vessel, " "my words with those designs, " or "my ringing pattern." This leads to the question of whether a direct structural correlation exists between individual design and musical elements. Preliminary com parison on a macro-structural level shows that certain form proportions indeed coincide, such as the division of the song into subsections of altered tempo possibly correlating with the divisions of the design into two or more subfields of different patterns. Perhaps the most obvious common feature is the symmetry characterizing the structure of both. Lucas (19 70: 70) observes that "An interesting parallel can easily be drawn between the symmetry in Shipibo music and the symmetry in the Shipibo artistic style." Symmetry prevails in the formal, melodic, and rhythmic characteristics of the songs. An example of a more complex consonance is the lateral symmetry of melodic inversion. 1 3 I n some descriptions of visionary designs, my informants equated the end-curl of a design motif (often adorned with a vero) with the dramatic finales of the individual verses of a shaman' s song in which the shaman squeezes the last bit of air from his lungs, and which are said to represent the shama (accumulated potency) of the song. Some kind of musical code must also have been involved when two potters sat together to practice what was called "the meeting of the souls." In older times, the two halves of a very large vessel (more than 1 m in height) were painted by two women simultaneously but independently. They sat opposite each other, with the vessel between them, unable to see the other woman' s half. By singing, they managed to tune in to each other' s mood to such an extent that they could paint two harmonizing and i nterrelating design halves. The women aspired the harmonious and unnoticeable fusion of their individual lines at the two sides, using only what must have been a melodious code to reach concordance. The texts of the songs are said to have been irrelevant. A word should also be said about the role of the textual content of the shamanic songs. When talking about their corpus of design-song

medicines, the shamans clearly refer to the melodies and not to the te xts of the songs. The texts are generally improvised and· vary from o ne situation to another, whereas the melodies amount to a stable corpus of about twenty or thirty "song medicines," divided into approximate ly eight categories. Another field of Shipibo-Conibo art that closely links geometric designs with music is dance. Two dances, nahuarin and masha, are still occasionally practiced in Caimito during the drinking feasts. In the masha, men and women hold hands to form a circle (Fig. 3). The leader of the dance advances, pulling the others along, while all sing. As they perform squares, circles, loops, meanders, and so on, without disturbing the circular or oval formation, their footprints "draw" an imaginary pattern in the dust. It would be interesting to analyze the relation be tween a particular pattern and the occasion it was danced as well as that between choreographic design and the song melody. It is doubtful that this sort of study will be forthcoming, however, in view of the practically extinct dance tradition. Fragrance in Therapy

I

I

r \ I

'

I

I I

l

I "Johannes Wilbert , personal communication. "Thanks to Rolf Stoll for his advice in musicological matters .

171

'

The utilization of fragrance both manipulates the spirits and e nhances the patient' s aesthetic awareness. The body is rubbed with selected essences. A bowl containing water and sweet-smelling flowers is placed next to the patient for frequent face and head baths. During the nightly sessions, the fragrance from tobacco smoke and the shaman' s herbal bundle (which he manipulates like a rattle) fills the air. The interrelation between fragrance and the song-designs is often referred to in the syn aesthetic descriptions contained in myths and shamanic songs. Spirits can be attracted by fragrance (ini ). Especially favored scents are those of flowers, herbs, certain tree barks, yucca beer and other alcoholic beverages, and such stimulating pharmaceutical products as agua florida or menthol ointments. Honey is the food of the spirits, who find its smell irresistible, while tobacco smoke makes a path in the air leading the helpers to the patient. Spirits involved in harmful machinations can be driven away with good smells as they are more interested in bad odors (for example, pisi or via). When the healing design is being sung onto the body of the patient, they try to ruin the pattern by singing e vil-smelling anti-songs dealing with the odor of gasoline, fish poison, dogs, certain products of the cosmetic industry, menstrual blood, unclean people, and so on. One of the Caimitoan ayahuasqueros who claimed to be predominantly a sorcerer was heard singing his "stink songs" about feces, breaking wind, kerosene, and cheap soap.

172


Design medicines are often described as being fragrant in the shamanic songs. For example, The (harmful) spirit pneuma swirling in your body's ultimate point. I shall tackle it right now with my fragrant chanting.

Or,

I see brilliant bands of designs,

curved and fragrant.. ..

As already mentioned, the d esign medicines (songs) are kept in tightly sealed vessels stored in the otherworldly spirit "pharmacies" within the spirit villages. Should an enraged spirit manage to lift the lid of a medicine vessel, the shaman's therapeutic power would escape. This power is imagined as the fragrance of the design-songs or the aromatic gas fizzing from fermenting yucca beer. Naturally, these vessels are the target of the disease-inflicting spirits and have to be carefully guarded. In its essential parts, the Shipibo-Conibo healing system may be understood as the application of a spiritual design message that is perceived both visually and rhythmically-melodically and is trans formed into culturally meaningful information. Messages from the spirit world need a mediating agent to be comprehensible for the village world. Visual, auditory, and olfactory perceptions are, therefore, introduced as a connecting link and bound together to form a syn aesthetic-and aesthetic-body of shamanic cognition.

SHIPIBO-CONIBO GEOMETRIC DESIGNS 1984

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The Geometric Designs of the Shipibo-Conibo in ritual context - Angelika Gebhart Sayer

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