Studying Indigenous Medicine

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE -- The Amazon has a long history of human set-tlement. Contrary to popular belief, sizable and sedentary societies of great complexity existed in the Amazon rainforest. These societies produced pottery, utilized sections of rainforest for agriculture, and managed forests to optimize the distribution of useful species.

The notion of a virgin Amazon is largely the result of the population crash following the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth century. Studies suggest that 11.8 percent of the Amazon's terra firma forests are anthropogenic in nature, that is, resulting from the careful management of biodiversity by indigenous people.

However, unlike those using current cultivation techniques, these Amazonians were attuned to the ecological realities of their environment from five millennia of experimentation, and they also understood how to sustainably manage the rainforest to suit their needs (jacksbromeliads.com).

INDIGENOUS MEDICINE -- The documentary segment concerns the therapeutic use of an ancient tribal medicine prepared by shamans known as Ayahuasceros. Its principle ingredients are a vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and leaves (that act as an MAOI like Prozac). The active molecule may be DMT. But study has been banned, perhaps due to pharmaceutical company intervention. It is of no use to "cure" when it is so possible to "treat" chronic illnesses like depression.

B. caapi -- also known as Ayahuasca, Caapi, or Yage -- is a South American jungle vine of the family Malpighiaceae. It is used to prepare Ayahuasca, a decoction that has a long history of entheogenic uses as a medicine and "plant teacher" among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon Rainforest. It contains the beta-carboline harmala alkaloids and MAOIs harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine.

The MAOIs in B. caapi allow the primary psychoactive compound, DMT (which is introduced from the other primary ingredient in Ayahausca, the Psychotria viridis plant), to be orally active. The stems contain 0.11-0.83% beta-carbolines with harmine and tetrahydroharmine as the major components.