Schneeball Records
distribution: INDIGO
A trance journey in the amazon jungle
It is the nighttime tryst in a ritual:
A lover, a shaman, the profound secret jungle, the universe and I
It is the nighttime tryst in a ritual:
A lover, a shaman, the profound secret jungle, the universe and I
Night. I’m walking on a small jungle path. Beside me the wide river, el Agua Rico, shimmers in the moonlight. Now we are shrouded beneath giant trees, surrounded by a swarm of shifting shadows. Startling sounds of cracking twigs. I’m clasping onto Miguel. There is no path that I can distinguish. Only scattered spots silver of moonlight falling silently upon huge leaves. For how long? Time no longer exists.
We enter a clearing in the forest. A roof of leaves. On one side, in the corner, a small fire. The ritual voice of the yachak, the shaman, sounds strange in the night. Laughter. To call the spirits, he tells them myths and stories. Long blue and red feathers protrude from his nose and ears. His face is painted red. He wears a crown of feathers, a jaguar skin around his shoulders and a blue gown. A picture of pure power. I urgently need to piss. The yachak interrupts himself. He tells me in broken English: “Don’t go there. The spirits are here, behind the fire.” I feel insecure. Noisy crickets, frogs, mosquitoes and lonely birds create the symphony of the night-wrapped jungle. We sit silently for a long, long time. Then, with an old tin cup, the man scoops a thick liquid from a big jar. He begins to chant. He invites us to drink the juice of ayahuasca, the holy plant, which offers us visions. It helps us to get in touch with the magical world around us, with the spirits of the jungle and healing, and it teaches us how to live. The taste is bitter, very bitter. The surupanga of dry leaves rustles close to my ear. I relax in spite of my growing fear. I hear voices, sounds and music which are coming closer to me out of the now luminous jungle thicket. The visions grow more intense.
One moment I’m present, listening to the singing shaman and the crickets, then I’m again absorbed by the powerful dreamlike images in my inner world. Looking up, I see big holes in the leaf roof above my head. Rays of moonlight dance in the space. The idea of making this CD was born here. It is the nighttime tryst in a ritual: A lover, a shaman, the profound secret jungle, the universe and I. Two cosmic visions encounter one another: my rationalistic worldview and the magical world of the Amazonian Indians, who still live in a time when everything is connected to everything else. NOCHE DE RITUAL is meant to be precisely this – an encounter. There is a space where the shaman sings alone. There is another space where my visions are transformed into music. Both worlds interweave to form this musical trance journey. The next day we speak to a chief of the Cofan Indians. He likes the idea of creating a CD. He views a project like this one as a good opportunity to share Cofan culture with people from outside. Ten percent of the income from the CD will be for the village. Jokingly he says, “We’ll rebuild the roof of the ayahuasca house so that the rain won’t fall in anymore.” One of the riches of Ecuador is the ethnic diversity of its Indian groups, the majority of whom live in the Amazon region. The Cofan people belong to a small tribe with only three villages situated in the jungle close to the Agua Rico river near the Colombian border. They are the only tribe which refused to allow oil companies access to their territory. The survival of this ethnic group is jeopardized by the coca war, which the USA carries into this zone as part of its “Plan Colombia.”
Iris Disse is a vocalist, actress, theatre- and radio-maker, international expert for experimental radio, and the composer of “Acoustic Arts.” She has lived in Ecuador for the past seven years and has won numerous international prizes for her reports on native Indians.
We enter a clearing in the forest. A roof of leaves. On one side, in the corner, a small fire. The ritual voice of the yachak, the shaman, sounds strange in the night. Laughter. To call the spirits, he tells them myths and stories. Long blue and red feathers protrude from his nose and ears. His face is painted red. He wears a crown of feathers, a jaguar skin around his shoulders and a blue gown. A picture of pure power. I urgently need to piss. The yachak interrupts himself. He tells me in broken English: “Don’t go there. The spirits are here, behind the fire.” I feel insecure. Noisy crickets, frogs, mosquitoes and lonely birds create the symphony of the night-wrapped jungle. We sit silently for a long, long time. Then, with an old tin cup, the man scoops a thick liquid from a big jar. He begins to chant. He invites us to drink the juice of ayahuasca, the holy plant, which offers us visions. It helps us to get in touch with the magical world around us, with the spirits of the jungle and healing, and it teaches us how to live. The taste is bitter, very bitter. The surupanga of dry leaves rustles close to my ear. I relax in spite of my growing fear. I hear voices, sounds and music which are coming closer to me out of the now luminous jungle thicket. The visions grow more intense.
One moment I’m present, listening to the singing shaman and the crickets, then I’m again absorbed by the powerful dreamlike images in my inner world. Looking up, I see big holes in the leaf roof above my head. Rays of moonlight dance in the space. The idea of making this CD was born here. It is the nighttime tryst in a ritual: A lover, a shaman, the profound secret jungle, the universe and I. Two cosmic visions encounter one another: my rationalistic worldview and the magical world of the Amazonian Indians, who still live in a time when everything is connected to everything else. NOCHE DE RITUAL is meant to be precisely this – an encounter. There is a space where the shaman sings alone. There is another space where my visions are transformed into music. Both worlds interweave to form this musical trance journey. The next day we speak to a chief of the Cofan Indians. He likes the idea of creating a CD. He views a project like this one as a good opportunity to share Cofan culture with people from outside. Ten percent of the income from the CD will be for the village. Jokingly he says, “We’ll rebuild the roof of the ayahuasca house so that the rain won’t fall in anymore.” One of the riches of Ecuador is the ethnic diversity of its Indian groups, the majority of whom live in the Amazon region. The Cofan people belong to a small tribe with only three villages situated in the jungle close to the Agua Rico river near the Colombian border. They are the only tribe which refused to allow oil companies access to their territory. The survival of this ethnic group is jeopardized by the coca war, which the USA carries into this zone as part of its “Plan Colombia.”
Iris Disse is a vocalist, actress, theatre- and radio-maker, international expert for experimental radio, and the composer of “Acoustic Arts.” She has lived in Ecuador for the past seven years and has won numerous international prizes for her reports on native Indians.