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Wizard of the Upper Amazon
by F. Bruce Lamb
Product Group: Book
Publisher: North Atlantic Books (1993-01-27)
ISBN: 0938190806
EAN: 9780938190806
Dewy Decimal #: 291
Paperback: 224 pages
Release Date: 1993-01-27
SKU: 38302
Condition: Like New
Comments: THE SOFTBACK BOOK! MIFFLIN, 1974. THE UNABRIDGED 1ST EDITION. SOFTCOVER BOOK AND PAGES ARE FINE! A FEW LIGHT NOTES IN PENCIL (NOT MUCH). Rapid shipping w/FREE tracking. GREAT PACKAGING . Air Mail. GR.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Wizard of the Upper Amazon is an extraordinary document of the life among a tribe of South American Indians at the beginning of the 20th century. For many readers, the most compelling sections of the book will be the descriptions of the use of Banisteriopsis caapi, the ayahuasca of the Amazon forests. This powerful hallucinogen has long been credited with the ability to transport human beings to realms of experience where telepathy and clairvoyance are commonplace. Manual Córdova, the narrator of these adventures is a well-known as a healer in Peru.
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Customer Reviews
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Light in a heart of darkness
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-02-02
6 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a second hand account that is written with beautiful clarity. The story, which was related by Manuel Cordova to the author, unfolds in an entirely believable way. It tells of Manuel Cordova's kidnapping when he was a teenager working for rubber cutters in the Amazon in the early 1900s. He was forced by a group of Indians to undergo a long march through the jungle, several hundred miles to a very remote, primitive Indian village. These Indians were of a fierce hunting disposition, and had fled into the interior because they refused to give into the slavery imposed on them by rubber barons.
Cordova must learn how to adapt to primitive, tribal conditions where a Chief must control his people's impulses enough to keep the tribe from spinning apart. The Chief must also assure that his people are able to thrive as hunters in a hostile environment, where a dense jungle covers almost everything and dangers lurk. Success as a hunter requires a lot of knowledge, and that knowledge is acquired not only through experience but through ingesting Ayahuasca (See "DMT, the Spirit Molecule" by Strassman). Cordova relates the extraordinary sessions that were very carefully planned and taken very seriously. By the use of chants and cues given by the Chief, the particpants experienced in unison non-ordinary sensual perception that brought them in touch with the life of the forest.
Although I felt some sympathy for these Indians, who had the wits to evade forces greater than themselves, I got the impression that they were basically an unruly, impulsive bunch easily influenced to the point of being motivated above all by vengence. The violence of their hunting lives seemed to supersede in large part a sacred regard for their environment gained from their shamanistic experiences. That was my impression anyway. For his part, Manual Cordova put his shamanistic experiences, his knowledge of native plants, and healing ability that he acquired to good use.
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Read it...
Rating (5)
Date: 1999-07-24
8 out of 13 customers found this reveiw helpful
If you are interested in shamanic subjects & are reading people like John Perkins and Carlos Castaneda, then you will want to read this.... which pre-dates those. This is a story not an essay or direct teaching, but understandings are there for the taking. I come away from this book (read in one day) appreciative but also with a vague wondering if the story is exactly as it seems... did it really happen? does it matter if it really happened?
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A beautiful and enthralling story
Rating (5)
Date: 1999-07-19
13 out of 16 customers found this reveiw helpful
An authentic account from the early twentieth centry of villiage life in the Amazon jungle. Told in a simple and direct manner, one is captivated by the sophisticated and complete social life of the Indian people. Since it is a first hand account , non-anthropological, one gets a glimpse of a way of life rich in religious, cultural and human acheivement. It offers insights into the way of life of the Huni Kui people, and into the Western way of life, both complete and wonderful in their own right, but utterly seperate. The civilization of the Huni Kui people is hard to relate to the animalistic, instinctual slavery of the greed driven capitalist world, where everything is reduced to its financial worth, as oppossed to its intrinsic value. Although the Huni Kui people are ultimately pragmatic about the world they live in, their intellectual integrity allows for recognition of the interdependence of all life. This is explored in the book through enjoyable tales of hunting trips, religious ceremonies and villiage incidents, revealing a taste of the satisfaction of an integrated way of life, apart from the materialistic fantasies engaged in by the machinistic,beurocratic Western worldview.
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