Shamanism as a Strategy of Domination: BrujerÍa in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the Middle of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Abstract:This article argues that shamanism, often regarded as witchcraft or brujería, was a significant tool for the Ecuadorian state in the Amazonian Oriente frontier in the middle of the twentieth century as it sought to administer the region. By studying how colonists and petty officials confronted shamanism and its practitioners, we learn that this cultural practice among the region's indigenous peoples provided a way for the state to increase its power in the region by policing and condemning it. Furthermore, colonists and other powerful individuals could co-opt shamanistic threats to pursue personal agendas and control over resources like land and labor. Though shamanism was in some ways incompatible with the state system and national identity that Ecuadorian state-makers sought to bring to the region, it was nevertheless a way for outsiders to ingrain themselves. Shamanism, including the drinking of ayahuasca, served a vital cultural function for Amazonian indigenous people, but its importance could be taken advantage of. This article examines Ecuadorian press and periodical accounts of shamanism among indigenous peoples of the Amazon and draws upon archival evidence of conflict and competition for resources from the Oriente region of the Napo and Pastaza Rivers during the 1940s-1960s. Informed by theoretical contributions about shamanism from historians and anthropologists of Amazonia, I demonstrate that in the arena of state formation and national identity, shamanism was a dynamic factor of domination often overlooked.