"Deep in the jungles of South America, tribal shamans snort dried tree sap to enter into the realm of the spirits." "The trees, the animals, the rocks, the water - all have a spirit:" "Some with the power to heal, others bring disaster and death." "These nomadic hunters have, for untold generations, thrived on nothing more than what nature has provided." "But now their decision to settle in one place for good is upsetting their way of life." "Can they remain the guardians of this primeval land?" "These Sanema shamans have taken vast quantities of hallucinogenic drugs in order to communicate with the spirits." "I've been living with them for a few weeks and they have invited me to become a shaman and to enter, with them, into the spirit world." "My name's Bruce Parry." "I'm an explorer and expedition leader." "I've spent a year visiting some of the world's most remote people to see how their lives are changing." "I think there's only one way to really understand another culture, and that's to live as they do, to become, for a short while, one of the tribe." "I'm flying over the largest jungle in the world." "I'm in Venezuela and I'm heading south towards the Brazilian border." "My final destination is a village deep in the jungle inhabited by the Sanema people, who are one of the tribal communities otherwise known as the Yanomami." "They're one of the best-known tribal groups with a fascinating cosmology." "They believe in a dream world inhabited by the spirits of everything around them." "The people I'm going to live with enter their spirit world through dreams and hallucinogenic drugs." "In the coming month, I want to gain an insight into their world too." "The Sanema live in the highlands between the Orinoco and the Amazon., just inside Venezuela's border with Brazil." "I'm heading for a Sanema village on the Caura River." "There are no roads and their village doesn't have an airstrip, so to reach the Sanema, I need the help of another tribe, the Yekuana." "Buenos dias." "Good flying." "Bueno." "Bueno." "The Sanema and the Yekuana have a colourful history." "The Yekuana moved to this location nearly two centuries ago to escape their aggressive neighbours to the south of here." "Once settled, they established trade links with westernised societies to the north." "This place has got a football pitch, a radio, an airstrip, everyone's in clothes." "It's totally acculturated." "The one thing they're missing is a ball that works." "It's like a lead weight." "The language, lifestyle and beliefs of the Yekuana are surprisingly intact." "But compared to the Sanema, who I'm going to visit, this is a thoroughly modern village." "The Sanema have had little direct contact with outsiders." "The few Western goods they do possess have all come from the Yekuana." "The Sanema followed the Yekuana here, pushed out of their former territory by tribal conflicts and attracted by the possibility of acquiring metal tools by trading or raiding." "But the Yekuana now had guns and after a bloody battle in the 1930s, they became the dominant tribe." "Now the Sanema work for the Yekuana as hunters or labourers in exchange for cloth and metal knives." "I'm looking forward to being with the Sanema." "I've read about them." "The thing that fascinates me most is this..." "It's the fact that, to them, their dreams are as much part of reality as their waking life." "This realm of the spirits, this dream world that they enter through dreams, but also hallucinogenic drugs, and how that all mixes up with their pure concept of what is around them - it's fascinating." "And for me to spend some time with them and try and, in a little way, understand this spirit world is really quite a daunting prospect, actually." "I've just learned the word for "hello", which is "makitupaswakile"." "And the next obstacle I've got is in their culture, you are not allowed to use their name in their presence." "So, I don't know how I'm going to get around that." "Makitupaswakile." "Julio, how are you?" "Julio, my translator, greets me and we enter the village." "Makitupaswakile." "There are no headmen as such in Sanema society but the most potent shamans - those with the greatest powers of healing - are respected by all and tend to take a lead in community matters." "It turns out they each have a Spanish name in addition to their Sanema name, and it's fine to use this in their presence." "The elder taking the lead tells me I can call him Sosa." "The village has been expecting me but they're baffled why I've travelled so far to come and visit them." "My aim is not to be treated as a tourist but to be a member of the community." "So if there's work to do, I'd like you to make me work as a member of the community." "And, finally, it is my hope that I can understand little a bit about how you see the world." "I'm especially interested in the shaman side of the Sanema." "So if I ask many questions about that, I hope that is OK." "It's just what I was hoping for." "I find the elders are very willing to teach me about their culture and history." "I learn that the village has been here no less than 20 years." "Surprising, as traditionally Sanema move location every two or three years." "But then I get distracted from the conversation." "I can't concentrate with this going on." "We were talking about the origins of this village, how long they've been here." "Meanwhile, one of the shamans is just going off on one." "The chants are the songs of the spirits that live in the chest of every shaman, stringing their hammocks between his ribs." "What really strikes me, apart from the spectacle of a man who looks like he's lost his mind, is that no one else is taking a blind bit of notice." "First things first." "My sleeping arrangements are sorted out and I'm given a hammock made of bark strips." "Though most of the villagers here have fancy fabric ones - no doubt supplied by the Yekuana." "It's not comfy, believe me." "It's good." "Check that... out!" "Comfort personified." "I've been invited to live with Eloy and his wife, Totuloshoma, who immediately puts me to good use." "I'm rewarded with the Sanema's favourite stimulant, a wad of dried tobacco leaves stuffed inside the bottom lip." "It's very strong and causes an instant flow of saliva." "That is... grim stuff." "It's acrid, it's really sharp." "And it does get you high." "It's tobacco, so it works on your head." "Feeling a bit woozy, light-headed and... mouth fills with saliva." "And I swallowed a bit." "What a day, what a day!" "And what a way to finish it." "Sleep is important to Sanema shamans and I'm sharing a hut with one." "It's in his dreams that the spirits visit the shaman and may foretell the future." "If he sees evil approaching, the spirits within him must sing to ward it off." "I've had better nights' sleep." "The hammock didn't work for me." "I broke half of them and didn't get much sleep." "And first thing this morning, I wake up and they stick this in my gob." "It's going to be a tough one." "I was greeted this morning... by this guy dressed up like this, with his bow and arrow." "And I get the feeling I'm out hunting." "Yes!" "Perfect." "Thank you very much." "How does that look?" "Warrior-like." "Traditional forest peoples are viewed as the model of sustainable living, taking only what they need from the forest and never overexploiting their resources." "They're skilled hunters, and have a big impact on animal numbers." "But as soon as the game near the village is depleted, they up sticks and move on, allowing the wildlife to recover in the area they've left." " Ah!" " Oooh." "By a whisker." "Literally." "It's just a romantic illusion to think that all indigenous peoples tread lightly on the ground and are at one with nature." "Because they are just human communities." "The same as the rest of the human communities around the world, they are just as capable of upsetting the balance and manipulating nature." "But having said that, there are some communities, indigenous peoples, that I think have a very special relationship with the world around them." "And I do think, perhaps, the Sanema are one of those." "The way that every plant and animal and beast and person and wind and rivers - everything has a spirit." "That if you upset it, it'll take revenge." "Fear of retribution from the spirits of the animals they've killed may be what prevents them from killing more than they need to survive." "We haven't encountered much game and return empty-handed." "But I suspect that's my fault for slowing the hunters down." "Totuloshoma, or Mamma, as I've taken to calling her, has taken my role as her adopted son to heart." "She keeps me busy but today she's dressing me up for a special occasion." "I'm going to watch the village elders shamanising." "The painted symbols are the signs of the different spirits and the feathers represent reflected light, glimpses into the spirit world." "It's a community event." "Four out of five Sanema men are practising shamans." "The women usually just watch." "Some told me they don't like to enter the spirit world as they might expose their vulnerable young or unborn children to attack from evil spirits." "The shamans take sacena, a hallucinogenic snuff made from dry tree sap, in order to waken the spirits known as hekula sleeping inside them." "As the spirits wake, they begin to sing." "Each chant of the shaman is the unique song of a hekula spirit." "The main virtue of the hekula spirits is their ability to defend the shaman and everyone else in the community from evil spirits - the commonest cause of illness and other misfortune." "But a shaman must be able to control the spirits within him as they are not inherently benevolent." "A powerful shaman, in control of many hekula spirits, and therefore with a large repertoire of songs, is able to cure many diseases and ward off sorcery." "Today, I was hoping just to observe but the shamans are keen to get my initiation under way." "A small amount of sacena snuff should attract the hekula." "It's like having ants up your nose." "And... things are definitely more vivid and... motion's a bit blurred." "It's changing." "It's very strange." "Cos I've only had a little bit of snuff." "But suddenly..." "And it's weird." "I kind of feel more in tune with these guys dancing around than all the straight faces." "I caught the eye of a straight guy and he didn't make sense." "And in a weird way he did." "Today was a spectacle, to say the least." "Like something..." "Like nothing I've ever seen before." "I even know..." "I took a little bit of drug and I joined in." "For me, it's just opened up more questions, really." "I'm just gagging to know what it is that makes these people tick and what's going through their minds when they're doing their shamanising." "Quite the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen." "I've switched to a fabric hammock and got a better night's sleep." "The shamans seem a little tired but aren't suffering any other ill effects from yesterday." "I take the chance to find out more about becoming a shaman myself." "I know I have to invite the hekula spirits to set up home inside my chest." "Will the spirits visit me in my dreams?" "Somehow I doubt it but perhaps if I immerse myself into this culture, my dreams will change." "But receiving a song from the spirits?" "I don't see how that can happen." "I don't understand Sanema and I can't imagine an English ditty, however poetic, sounding much like the chant of a hekula spirit." "The pace of life here is gentle and relaxed but there is work to be done." "The fires burn all day and night and require a lot of wood." "It's the women who collect it with their children, so that's Juliana and me." "Go on." "The men and women have separate chores and right now it feels like the women get a raw deal." "The men hunt, shamanise, clear new gardens and build houses." "But the women's tasks seem monotonous and backbreaking." "Leave this and start there, OK." "Shit." "Hup!" "Nearly." "I don't mind admitting I find that hard." "These women are so strong." "They do this day in, day out." "They didn't bat an eyelid at me..." "My vain attempt to chop wood." "Look at my hands." "It just makes you realise..." "how tough these people are." "That was hard." "I really need a wash." "Ah!" "Back in the village, I make a startling discovery." "Juliana is not Mamma's daughter." "She is Eloy's second wife." "I know that Sanema women marry at a young age, usually before puberty, but Juliana can't be more than ten years old." "I ask Mamma about it." "The marriage won't be consummated for some years yet, but it goes to show that matrimony is often more practical than romantic." "So what do the young girls think about marriage and romance?" "Juliana tells me about her relationship with Eloy." "When I arrived, I was told the village has been here for 20 years, which doesn't compute with the Sanema's nomadic lifestyle." "One of the elders explains." "I had perceived the laid-back lifestyle as carefree contentment." "But now it seems like resignation to a new way of life they have chosen but are not entirely happy with." "It begs the question, why haven't they returned to their old ways, packed up and moved on?" "Usually, the main reason for a village to shift location is the increasing scarcity of animals to hunt in the surrounding forest." "These people are now heavily dependent on their crops, rather than wild game - the staple being yucca root." "I ask Mamma whether she is happy living so close to the Yekuana." "The epidemic she attributes to the witchcraft of a neighbouring tribe was the result of diseases brought into the area, probably by illegal miners." "Mamma and her people have learned that modern medicines are a cure for the sorcery that they believe still haunts the jungles they came from." "Neither Mamma nor Eloy have been particularly well these past couple of days." "Eloy has barely left the hut." "They've sent word to the medic living in the Yekuana village, asking for medicine, and he sent a boat to pick them up and bring them to his clinic." "The film crew and I were screened for all infectious diseases before we came here, so the illness may be due to food, insects or contact with traders on this river." "There are a lot of diseases in the jungle but a fair few of them have been brought in from the outside." "Those diseases, the local inhabitants - indigenous peoples - have no immunity to or traditional cures for." "So more and more these days, they are reliant upon Western medicines and cures." "Although the Sanema may at times feel exploited by the Yekuana, the relationship doesn't appear to be one of animosity." "Together, they have established an association to protect the rights of both ethnic groups." "The medic is a Yekuana from this village trained on a government grant to administer medicines throughout the area." "It's clear to me now why, despite some unhappiness, the Sanema are not keen to move away from this place." "Traditional medicine still continues in this Sanema society." "The shamans, after all, are first and foremost healers." "A baby is sick and the shaman is drawing out the evil spirits that have caused the illness." "We're off on a hunt." "It's traditional for the hunters and their families to leave the village for days, trekking to where the game is more abundant." "But with the village having been here for so long, we'd need a major expedition to get to really good hunting grounds." "As it is, we walk for a day and then set up camp." "A termites' nest is used as kindling for the fire." "It burns well and the smoke repels mosquitoes." "Magic." "Yeah." "Tiny little dried caterpillars." "They're quite juicy." "They're really sweet." "Very nice." "Thank you." "Paolino is one of the few men who isn't a shaman." "He says the spirits warned him against it." "I ask him what he thinks of me being initiated." "That's really really nice." "Thank you very much for a wonderful..." "Yeah." "Next morning, I stick with Paolino as the hunters set off in different directions." "Not much luck." "We followed a few trails but they didn't come to much." "Then we came across Franco and his wife - it seems they found the lair of some animal." "And judging by the spore, I think it's an anteater, maybe an armadillo." "So..." "They're just excavating it now." "We'll see what it is when it comes out." "In the past, the Sanema would hope to kill tapir, peccary, monkeys and jungle fowl." "But this forest is nearly exhausted." "It contradicts my notion that they don't overhunt for fear of revenge from the dead animals' spirits." "It's an armadillo, asphyxiated by the smoke." "If ancient beliefs about the spirit world did once regulate hunting, they don't now." "I ask Paolino why he thinks there's less game to be caught these days." "It's no surprise that increasing contact with outsiders is beginning to dilute the Sanema culture and their belief in the spirits." "As for the poor hunting, he has another explanation, one that fits my own theory." "The only thing that was keeping these nomads in balance with nature was the vastness of the jungle." "They would just move on whenever game got scarce." "Now that they've settled, the game has mostly gone - the price they've paid for the promise of a better life with modern tools and Western medicines." "Wow, look at this." "Armadillo - my first taste." "Comes in its own plate, which is kind of fun." "And..." "That's a bone." "It's all right." "Bland." "Chicken, as ever." "Been boiled to death." "It's all right." "I'm thinking about the differences between my life back home and this community." "And one of them is, I think, that these people rely so much on the natural resources around them that any negative or detrimental effects on those resources, such as overhunting, they feel almost instantly." "Whereas for me back home, just about everything I purchase has come from such a long way away that I would have absolutely no idea at all if what I am buying is trashing the local resources of the area that it's come from." "Before I came here," "I heard that the government had assigned parts of this forest to logging." "I don't know if the Sanema are even aware of this threat." "How are you?" "You're looking much better." "I came looking for you..." "It's good to see Mamma looking healthier but I feel guilty for not bringing her a forest pig." "And we've already eaten most of the armadillo." "I've learnt a great deal about the lives of these people" "But I still feel a long way from truly understanding the bedrock of their beliefs - the nature of the hekula spirits and the power of the shaman." "It's time for me to go one step further." "For that, I need a large quantity of hallucinogenic tree sap." "This is it." "This is the one." "OK." "OK." "Perfect." "It doesn't look any different from any other tree." "This is the virola tree, where they're gonna collect the sap to make the snuff." "How exactly they extract the sap, I've no idea." "But let's go for it." "It's a very weird smell." "This sap here of the virola tree, which is weeping from the heat, is known to contain tryptamines, which work on the brain to inhibit certain passageways and it's that that gives it its hallucinogenic quality." "The final preparation is back in the village." "The dried extract is ground up with special leaves into a fine powder that can be snorted by the shamans and myself." "It's the eve before my initiation." "I know that the main ingredient of the drug I'm going to take is DMT, which is found in mushrooms and stuff, and that heightens the senses, more colours and sounds and vibrancy of everything around you." "But there's lots of other stuff involved in it too." "And I also know that it will mean that I, kind of - to use common parlance - will lose my mind, to a degree." "And that's scary." "My big day has arrived." "Cool." "Thanks, Julio." "It's different." "You're looking good." "I'm going to get painted up now." "I'm covered in red paint, haven't eaten for 24 hours." "Feeling light-headed." "Wearing a second-hand loincloth." "And I'm about to take an overdose of hallucinogen." "It's not my typical Thursday." "How are you, boss?" "I want the drug which gives the shamans the power to communicate with the spirits to give me an insight into how they visualise the spirit world." "I haven't got a song." "I... don't understand what's going on." "But today, I'm going to... lose control." "I know I'm just going to enter into it as fully as I can." "Go with it." "See what happens." "Lose it." "And, hopefully, by doing that," "I will understand more." "I haven't even had a pipe yet." "I've just had a few little snorts." "Because, I suppose, I haven't eaten for 24 hours," "I'm really feeling it." "It's so different to last time." "My whole head is swirling." "I'm very, very dizzy." "OK." "That was very strange." "My nerves... were twitching." "And I suddenly felt light-headed." "I was going to be sick." "I still feel very odd." "When I..." "When I close my eyes..." "I just feel like I'm..." "Big... multicoloured." "Shivering like..." "Rainbow..." "Stars..." "Just swirling around and going everywhere." "Really beautiful." "I'm torn between a strong desire to drift off into my own dream world, to let all this wash over me, and their obvious enthusiasm for me to join in their shamanising." "They so want me... to copy..." "Dribble... dance and sing, get hekula spirits out from inside me." "That's what they want." "I know they're desperate for me..." "I try to copy their sounds but it feels rather ridiculous." "This is clearly not the song of a hekula spirit and I can tell my tutor is unimpressed." "Then, a breakthrough." "At last, I memorise a line of Sosa's song and he's delighted." "He seems happy." "He seems really happy." "So..." "The more I sing, the happier he is." "So..." "That's what I'm going to do." "I can hardly stand." "I feel very strange." "I really want to lie down." "He's trying to drag me into his world." "I'm really suffering." "God, I'm so sorry, guys." "What is going on?" "I've only just noticed..." "This is what I look like." "Covered in all these stripes." "And I'm out in the sun." "I've got these guys." "I totally feel like I'm home." "Very strange, I look around." "There were just nods." "They know." "They know what I'm going through." "They know." "It's the truth." "I've entered their realm." "The feathers, the paint - everything takes on a new meaning." "All the people around me are the embodiment of the hekula spirits as the shamans had described them and the colours and dancing draw me in." "Now I understand the significance of the songs." "Repeating the mantras over and over again induces a trancelike state, just like heavy drumming or repetitive dance music." "It's worked, kind of, cos... they got me repeating that mantra before I got too nutty." "And now I can get back into it." "And it is." "It's a trance-inducing mantra." "And with all the visuals and the repetitiveness... and all the rest of it, it's absolutely designed to get you into a trance." "And that's what I'm in now." "The more I repeat, the more I'm in it." "I've got this great urge." "We're inside here, the sun is going down, it's really dark in here, but out there, in the sun, it looks wonderful." "And I've just got this urge to be there." "I've wanted to be there all day." "I'm going to ask these guys to come out with me." "Can we... outside?" "Yeah?" "Outside." "You come." "It's just so..." "I'm envious of these people... living in this place." "The feeling I have now is..." "It's just..." "Everything looks fantastic." "And I'm feeling I can see more, I can hear more." "And I'm also in touch more." "In some ways... it's alive." "Maybe that's their spirit world." "Next morning, the world is back to normal but I have some vivid memories." "I did get some really quite strong visuals at certain times." "And when I was inside, in the shade," "I honestly... saw all the dancers as hekula." "But the biggest thing for me was when I went outside," "I suddenly saw the jungle in a way I'd never seen it before." "And it did look more alive." "Now, whether that is my mind playing tricks on me because of the drug or whether, through taking the drug, I had extrasensory perception," "I'll never know." "But I can totally imagine that that jungle is the sort of place that they would see spirits living." "Of course, because their beliefs, their outlook on the world, are so very different to my own, they may have a very different experience." "And I suppose I will never know what they think of in their trance." "So that's pretty much the end of the road for me as far as much journey into trying to find out what it's like to be a Sanema shaman." "It's time to head home." "I've learnt a great deal about the challenges facing indigenous peoples during my stay with the Sanema." "The Sanema have been through many changes in their long history." "But the ones they face now as they seek to enter the modern world will be their toughest yet." "It's human nature to want an easier life and the lure of medicine, crops, tools and education seems to offer this." "But there is a trade-off." "Our world favours the individual rather than the collective." "And this village, for example, will struggle, I fear, to maintain its social structures as well as its special link with the natural surroundings." "My hope is that the Sanema and all indigenous peoples get a chance to develop in their own way at their own pace and on their own land."