In the Spirit of the Jaguar

by Sanna Djurhuus (Faroe Islands)

Making a local connection Colombia

I booked my flight to Leticia on a whim. I wasn’t supposed to be going there, but from this southernmost tip of Colombia I could take a water taxi across the river to Santa Rosa in Peru, then a ferry west on the Amazon River to Iquitos, and from Iquitos book an airplane that would carry me south to Lima where I had arranged to meet a friend from home. It wasn’t even ten years ago, yet us backpackers were still carrying large paper guidebooks inside our heavy packs, frequenting internet cafés to plan city meet-ups in chat forums and finding our next hosts on dedicated travellers’ pages. It was there I found the man in Leticia who offered me to stay at his finca in the middle of the rainforest. In a hammock, outdoors, sheltered under a roof made of dried palla tree leaves, surrounded by spiders, encapsulated by an oversized mosquito net, but most importantly – for free. His name was the ‘Spanish guy with the earrings’, and he instructed me upon leaving the airport in Leticia to walk up the dirt road until I reached the intersection and wait for the bus heading to the right. The address was simple: tell the bus driver to drop me off at ‘kilometro 11’. Confused but infused with the inherent naivety of being young, white, Western and woman, I followed his brief without questioning, first trotting down the wrong dirt road that lead me to the entrance of a restricted military base, then back towards the airport, and finally up the correct road where I waited two hours until the bus arrived. No smartphone, no podcast, no e-reader. Just waiting. I boarded the bus, and we commenced down the only road leading away from Leticia and its conjoined neighbour on the north bank of the Amazon River, the Brazilian town of Tabatinga. In the calm pace of lives untouched by rush, the bus slowly continued its way north past the small nameless villages by the roadside inhabited mostly by native Amazonians and known only by their distance from the more important colonial settlement: kilometro 3, kilometro 5, kilometro 6, kilometro 9, kilometro 11. Beyond that some ten or fifteen more kilometres of dirt road and scattered villages continued, and after its abrupt ending in the middle of nowhere followed seven hundred kilometres of impenetrable Amazon forest. On the fourth evening the full moon rose and hid behind dense clouds, and the shaman across the road from the Spanish guy with the earrings was going to prepare mambe. I was invited to join. I crossed the road after the sun had set and headed down a path surrounded by thick bush, and partly due to constant power outages across the whole province, partly due to electrical lights being scarce around this part of town, the fire underneath the large black iron skillet outside the cottage where the coca leaves were roasting was the only light that illuminated the night. Although I had been expected, the shaman kept too busy to pay my arrival any attention and kept his focus on meticulously turning over the leaves. Ten minutes passed. Half an hour, then three quarters. After almost an hour of quiet concentration, he finally opened his mouth. Never taking his eyes off the fire, he started detailing in his colloquial Spanish how that night he had been busy. Occupying the Jaguar that his spirit was allowed to embody. Roaming the forest. Searching. Listening. Hunting. And finally fighting the Condor of a rivaling tribe over a dispute that started years ago when they had killed the Eagle form of his father’s spirit, leading to the physical death of his ancestor and his ascension to the role of shaman. Completely enthralled by the story and eager for more information, the only thing I could think to ask him was which religion this meant him and his ancestors believing in. And suddenly, as if pulled from his trance to realise that I was in his presence, he stopped and paused to look at me, gauging whether my intentions were genuine. After reaching a decision still unknown to me, he replied phlegmatically: - Somos Catholicos. Obvio.