Fragrant Ecologies: Aroma and Olfaction in Indigenous Amazonia

This chapter explores vernacular notions of chemosensation in lowland South America. The indigenous Makushi people of northern Amazonia gather fragrant tree resins from the forest for various uses, including in shamanic healing. These resins are usually collected from ritually significant incense trees known as haiawa gum trees. The intensely fragrant resin is used in healing rituals, wherein it is burned around the sick person with the intention of expelling pathogenic spirits from their body. The aromatic smoke envelops the patient as the healer recites healing incantations known as taren, a treatment called “smoking out” in the local vernacular. In shamanic rituals proper, too, the burning of tree resin is combined with the smoking of tobacco cigars and the consumption of a special entheogenic drink (“piai-juice”) infused with bitter shamanic plants. These shamanic plant substances tend to have extreme chemosensory qualities. In this chapter, I explore the sensorial efficacy of fragrant and bitter plant substances in Makushi ritual healing. As I argue, their healing power lies in the entanglement of bodily substance and spiritual essence manifest in their potent sensory properties. This requires a deep engagement with indigenous theories of personhood, corporeality, and the senses―both human and plant. In exploring this salient ethnobotanical example, I make some theoretical and methodological comments on the sensory anthropology of smell and chemosensation. I propose sensory ecology as a fruitful lens to understand these more-than-human sensorial engagements. Understanding chemosensation holistically requires us to draw upon methods and frameworks from across the social and biological sciences, as well as, crucially, from indigenous philosophies of life.