Manuel Córdova-Rios

Accordingly, following their group witness of the wild creatures one after another, each of the tribal members was better able to appreciate the instinctual nature of such an animal or a bird, and the stealth and techniques of their fellow hunters, all of which could be scrutinized and delicately appraised in each mind's eye.

One narrative described the first war, started by wife-stealing; chief Xumu associated this with the tribe's recent misfortunes stemming from the invasion of commercial "rubber cutters" (Sp: "caucheros").

[33][34] The teenager Nawatoto (HK: "Hawk"), the son of Natakoa and his wife Yawanini, had become a good hunter and was deemed ready to marry by his parents, which was later affirmed by the elder chief Shumu (Xumu Nawa) and a group of older men and women.

[66][67][68][69] Subtly prompted by the old tribal chief Xumu, the 17-year-old Manuel suddenly came to the realization that the Huni Kui could search for rubber trees in the forest, cut them down to collect the 'sap' and so obtain the valuable trade good: latex (Spanish: caucho).

There Córdova for the first time in years put on western clothes (ill-fitting, given him by the chief), and paddled alone aboard an improvised three-log raft loaded with chunks of latex to the river 'business office'.

In his guiding role, chief Xumu Nawa apparently employed different chants or icaros in order to steer and coordinate the subjective imaginations of individual tribal members, so that the ayahuasca sessions would become a shared experience among those participating.

The preparation and use of the plant is ritualized and accompanied by musical chants... [managed] by the guiding shaman to control the progression of visions and, in effect, to program them toward culturally-valued stereotypic patterns which aid in specific problems...

[88][89][90][91] These Donowan continued upriver, to a more inaccessible location, one near the upland headwaters of several rivers; "they withdrew to this most isolated area away from navigable streams to avoid contact with the invading rubber cutters".

Nonetheless, stored in the wounded tribal memory of the Huni Kui remained grievous, emotional scenes concerning family catastrophes, hence instinctual motivation to avenge the tribe's losses: the "murdered relatives and stolen children", and their former lands where they had hunted, tilled, and gathered.

[127][128] Not willing to commit to an absolute denial of authenticity, Carneiro nonetheless states that Córdova's story "consists of fragmentary ethnographic tidbits gleamed indiscriminately from many tribes and encased in a matrix of personal fantasy.

"[153]Lamb discusses,[154] with multiple citations to anthropological literature, each of Carneiro's points about Huni Kui tribal customs: chiefs, village size, clothing, weapons, ceremonies, tobacco, funerals, cannibalism, and myths.

Córdova then found work in the neighboring forests and rivers of the Peruvian Amazon, e.g., a return to being a rubber tapper, as a guide for timber surveyors, as a rural farmer, and locating plants for a pharmaceutical company.

It was a few decades afterwards, when he and his maturing family lived in the Amazon city of Iquitos, that he served as guide for a timber company, e.g., in a region near the Andes called the eyebrows of the mountain [Sp: las cejas de la montaña].

Of the collateral dystopias created by such advance, Córdova described one particular negative aspect, the seemingly contagious violence:[188] "The tribal lives of the forest-dwelling Indians of the Amazon were subject to devastating pressures by the invading rubber exploiters seeking riches... .

Among intrusions during the last five centuries: the military, missions, and traders; the government, settlers, and botanists; rubber, lumber, and oil; ranching, air travel, and urban retail; transistor radios, tourism, and mobile phones.

[199] Córdova had noticed a young student, Nieves Ochoa, at the Catholic Mission and Convent School for Girls located by the river settlement of Requena on the lower Ucayali at the mouth of the Río Tapiche.

While living on remote Áquino Isla, he attended a friend with a severe skin rash erupting all over his body that was thought to be leprosy but which Córdova diagnosed as pellagra (due to a poor diet), and a woman with a continuing flow of blood after childbirth.

After returning to Peru, at a jungle curare camp he had established, Córdova treated an associate's wife who for many years suffered from epileptic seizures; he made her a preparation containing fine powder from pedernal (flint) rock, which may contain lithium, a remedy chief Huanichi had taught him.

At Chazúta the local tribe, who considered illness the work of evil spirits, requested him to attend to a dying man, who Córdova found to be suffering instead from malaria and intestinal parasites; his herbal remedies improved his condition.

"[210] As a result of successful outcomes due to his herbal treatment of those suffering from ill health, Córdoba had established himself as a vegetalista in Iquitos – a good reputation he continued to earn in the region, and so became a popular healer.

In Manaus he found that his idle membership now helped him make contacts that would increase his commercial opportunities, e.g., here he met Douglas Allen, the president for the Astoria Company of New York then visiting Brazil.

He also enjoyed the friendship of medical doctors, Limirio da Costa and Mitrides de Lima Correa, with whom he traded his information on jungle plants and who in return enriched his understanding, e.g., of anatomy and physiology.

[214] After World War II, while Córdova was living in Manaus, his knowledge of the medicinal properties of Amazon plants attracted the attention of the Astoria Company of New York City, which dealt primarily in lumber.

Córdova in the Rio Tigre book mentions many times his sense of obligation, however difficult, to train an apprentice, to pass on to another the knowledge of medicinal plants he had received from chief Xumu of the Huni Kui.

In a sense, the book's information about herbs and stories about his experience as a vegetalista, as well as his views about health care and his practice insights into the healing arts, function as a testament to his training by chief Xumu.

[267][268][269][270][271][272] As part of his practice as a curandero in the Peruvian Amazon, following the initial interview of a patient with a difficult illness, Córdova would retire in the late evening to brew and drink ayahuasca, often witnessed by his wife Nieves.

Córdova relates that this procedure is advanced by ayahuasca in that by its use the curandero is able to peer directly inside the body of the patient and appraise overall health, the condition of specific organs, and the unitary balance of the energy flows, in order to reach a diagnosis.

[282][283] According to Córdova, once he had arrived at an understanding of the nature of the patient's illness, e.g., its source in a particular organ of the body, and so made his medical diagnosis, there then occurred within his mental vision a remarkable phenomenon: the spontaneous appearance of the medicinal plant associated with its remedy and cure.

If so, here would remain a mystery inherent in Córdova's practice of the healing arts, as it constitutes a key element in a necessary procedure (identifying the plant remedy), which continues to elude an explicit, adequate, and thorough explanation using principles of modern medical science.

[306][307] A long poem by W. S. Merwin (the recent United States Poet Laureate) offers a running account of the inner life of Córdova, starting with his capture, then his years living in the tribal village, ending with his return.