Yage Pinta! Psychedelic Shaman Songs of

"Weaving in and out of the shaman's body, which is the same as the body of the song, these songs are the medium by which spirits are conjured, witchcraft laid to rest, and the universe put on edge. Treat them accordingly. They might change your life. They did, mine. They are sung by Santiago Mutumbajoy whom I taped with a cheap old tape-recorder at different times, mostly in 1976, when I was living with him and his wife Ambrosia. Their two room wooden house sat on a hill in the cloud forest near the town of Mocoa where the Andes drop into the Putumayo River Basin in southwest Colombia. Today their son, Luciano, carries on the practice there, while their daughter, Natividad, sustains it in neighbouring Caqueta province. For the whole night, under the influence of a hallucinogen called yagé, the healer sings his song the power of which is due not to words, lyrics, or poetry. Instead it lies in the quality of the sound and the way that sound creates pictures in your mind while dissolving your body. The singing is the key to the magical power. It is that power. It is what brings the healer and the patient into the realms of the spirits that lie within and behind every visible thing." Michael Taussig