REICHELDOLMATOFF, GERARDO

(1912–1994)

Colombian anthropologist with particular interests inAmazonianpeoples, especially the Tukano and Desana in Colombia. In addition to general publications about the cultures of these people and their neighbors, Reichel-Dolmatoff wrote specifically about shamans (orpayé),cosmology, mythology, and “narcotic drugs,” includingtobaccoandayahuasca. InThe Shaman and the Jaguar(1975), he summarized that the principal spheres of apayéare the curing of disease, the obtaining of gameanimalsand fish from their supernaturalmasters, the presiding overritualsin the individual life cycle, and defensive or aggressive action against personal enemies.In all these aspects the role of thepayéis essentially that of amediatorand moderator between superterrestrial forces and society, and between the need for survival of the individual and the forces bent on his destruction—sickness, hunger and the ill will of others.

In his contribution toPeterFurst’s book about “the ritual use of hallucinogens,” Reichel-Dolmatoff argues that “the purpose of taking [yagé] is to return to the uterus” and thence to the creation of the cosmos and the establishment of society. Both knowledge andpurificationare obtained in this context. Reichel-Dolmatoff’s work is also notable for informing the shamanistic approach torock artand its attention toentoptic phenomena: when Tukanoans were asked to draw their mental imagery, they tended to fill the pieces of paper he gave them with rows of formalized and reduplicated geometric motifs comparable with their painting of the same motifs on the walls of their houses. The Tukano identified these reduplicated forms as images derived from what they themselves recognized as the first stage of theirtranceexperiences; there can be little doubt of their entoptic origin. (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978, 12–13)