Pandemics and Plant Medicine: The Story of Achiote
3.5 minute read
There is so much talk around cures for pandemics with the current COVID-19, that I am reminded of the story of achiote. Achiote is a seed that comes from a shrub (Bixa orellana) that is found in tropical regions. The Tsáchila, an indigenous people living in Ecuador, have used achiote as a plant medicine to prevent disease.
Around 500 years ago the Spanish first arrived in Ecuador and soon after arrived in Tsáchila territory. Upon their landing, they brought yellow fever and smallpox, new diseases to the indigenous people. As the Tsáchila became infected and began to die in large numbers the elders of the community became very concerned.
The Tsáchila people have always been greatly respected by their surrounding neighbors, because of their remarkable doctors or traditional medicinal healers. Within the living jungle they work with thousands of medicinal plants that are used to cure a variety of illnesses.
In the Tsáchila culture, Ayahuasca is one plant medicine that is used to diagnose a patient. When a member in the community is sick they go to the medicine healers, and they prepare the liquid brew that is drunken at night to first diagnose and then heal the person from physical, mental, and spiritual indisposition.
When smallpox began to kill many of their people, the medicine healers of the community called for a special meeting. The Tsáchila medicine healers conducted an ayahuasca ceremony to go to the space where all exits. The purpose was to consult for a solution to the disease.
In sacred union with ayahuasca, the spirit of the Tsáchila was able to transcend the limitations of time and space. In the ceremony they were brought to achiote, "mu" in the Tsafiki language. Achiote is a seed that when opened produces a deep red dye. They saw that by opening the seeds they could pull out the liquid. The vision showed that rubbing the paint of the achiote on the body and particularly on the scalp would provide a preventive cure to the smallpox.
After the ceremony, the wisdom keepers instructed the people in the community to collect achiote from the jungle and then showed them how to prepare it. After beginning the use of Achiote in this way, the people stopped contracting the disease.
I traveled to Tsáchila territory when filming for The Roots Awaken. I stayed with the Calazacon family. I was welcomed by Budy and Byron Calazacon, grandchildren of Abraham Calazacon, one of the great medicine men and leaders of the Tsáchila nation, who died in 1981.
Since the Tsáchila began using Achiote on their head to prevent smallpox and yellow fever, it has since become a part of their cultural identity. Just as I arrived at the Calazacon home, they were preparing Achiote to paint their heads. We walked down a small trail a few meters from the house to a large brush filled with the seeds. After picking enough, we walked back to a traditional house with a roof thatched from large leaves.
As I watched them prepare the Achiote I began to admire their resilience. The Tsáchila live in two worlds. I met Byron in the nearest city, Santo Domingo, that was filled with buses and people hustling through the streets. He walked proudly, dressed in his traditional clothing with his hair painted thick with Achiote. There is estimated to be around 2,000 Tsáchila left today.
After spending time with the Calazacon family, I was invited to participate in an ayahuasca ceremony with another family that lived several hours farther into the jungle. I prepared a small backpack and hopped on a motorbike. I passed hundreds of banana fields, and quite startled asked why there was grand monoculture production in Tsáchila territory. I was told that with the pressure of western influence they have adapted to become agriculturists, to make enough money to be able to buy sugar, oil, and other modern commodities.
Quite saddened by the news, I was silent the rest of the motor ride as small drops of rain began to fall on my face. Finally, I arrived quite wet to the home of the family where we would drink ayahuasca.
After a long night of a magnificent union with the Tsáchila cosmo vision and the energy that flows through all life, I opened my eyes to a bright sunrise. I was filled with great hope and sadness at the same time. The cure to illness exists in the magnificence of the jungle and the wisdom of indigenous people. I also felt a heaviness in my heart that these wisdom keepers have been facing over 500 years of oppression, and are quite literally at the brink of losing it all.
People like Byron and Budy are the last generation holding on to the power of knowledge around plant medicine that their ancestors have passed on. The city of Santo Domingo is encroaching closer to their territory day by day as influences to adapt to a western way of living is bulldozing into the minds of the youth.
However I am filled with far more hope than fear, as I remember the story of achiote and the time I spent in Tsáchila territory. The wisdom is still alive today and there is hope in the youth that are connected to plant medicine. Perhaps the answer to humanity's great problems have always lied in the storehouse of wisdom in the indigenous cosmo vision.
Written by Kumiko Hayashi - kumiko@therootsawaken.com