On November 9th, 2020, I entered the “Naneuh” dieta, my second long dieta after the Kaizuma I wrote about last time. I dieted with a fruit the Yawanawà call “Nauneuh,” also known as “Genipapo.” This was a three-month dieta with the same food and drink restrictions I described, such as no pure water, no sweets, and no sex but also isolation in the jungle.

Genipapo is a dark blue fruit from the Amazon jungle that the Yawanawà use to paint their faces. Some call this dieta the “Avatar” dieta as we turn blue, like in the Avatar movie… Chief Nixiwakà and Puttany met with the Director of Avatar, James Cameron and he financed a ceremony place in the village to thank them for their visit.

Chief Nixiwakà opened the dieta “in the pot,” a large pot full of dark fruit that would activate with special prayers. They are not standard songs; they are very complex old Yawanawà prayers that feel so strong everyone is asked not to drink too much plant medicine during the prayers. It was an occasion to verify the power of prayers as the medicine activated in a way I had never felt before. I only had one cup of plant medicine but was feeling a powerful force that would usually require me to drink much more of it.

The ceremony ended late, but that was just one part of the initiation. The next day, I would have a completely unknown experience drinking the dark fruit the Chief prayed on for breakfast!

In this dieta, my whole body was about to get painted with the naneuh and I also drank a full cup of it.

It isn't easy to drink with an indescribable taste. It was thick with a solid “earth” taste. I felt like I was drinking pure ink.

“Do not vomit it!” They said. “Most Yawanawà who drink it end up purging it, but please do not if you can.” I held it in my stomach, refraining from a massive purge many times.

After drinking it, my spiritual teacher Peù painted my whole body with it. He was very serious and very concentrated, and so was I. I was already going through the strong reactions it was creating in my stomach but focused on staying calm while Peù was painting me with the fruit juice.

For the Yawanawà, the Naneuh is an essential initiation for babies to open their spiritual path. The whole body of the babies gets painted (lighter than adults), and they receive just a few drops of the fruit in their mouth, not a full cup as I did. I would say I drank about half a liter of it.

After drinking Naneuh, I passed out in a hammock for about eight hours straight with very vivid dreams. Naneuh is said to open the dreams of those who want to get on a spiritual path. Dreams are significant for the Yawanawà. They give access to the same spiritual space they access with plant medicine; they receive guidance in them, talk with spiritual guides, or even receive new songs for themselves or for others to sing.

The beverage was so strong that I went into sacred geometries and visited many sentient beings or “spirits” the whole afternoon. When I woke up, I could only find the force to walk to my bed and sleep some more as the night had taken over. Millions of animals started singing; I could hear birds, thousands of insects, and many frogs. I could not tell what was real or what was a dream anymore.

When the sunrise came, I could hear hundreds of parrots flying around; they were in my dream, too; I could see their eyes closed.

I woke up laughing as hard as I had ever laughed. I dreamt that someone gave me an elephant horn to wear around my neck. It was so big I could not stand up with so much weight around my neck. I laughed at my ego. I laughed so hard at myself for picturing myself with the most significant and heaviest animal part I could have dreamt of. “This way, I can show everyone how big my ego is!” I laughed so hard. I could not stop laughing. I stood up and laughed some more. It’s good I was isolated in the jungle because my laugh was so loud it would have awakened the entire village.

Whether we like it or not, indigenous people work with spiritual objects of animal teeth, feathers, seeds, and symbols. I love them. I love them a little too much, so much that I can laugh at myself when I wear them. Indigenous take them very seriously, and they are part of the dieta work; they symbolize protection, and I often feel many energies wearing them.

My dream of an elephant horn was not far from the truth; a few days before taking the naneuh, I received from Vinyà, who is one of the best artists in the Yawanawà tribe, a huge crocodile tooth. It is so big it is nearly unwearable. I found it so big that instead of wearing it, I hung it by my bed, and it entered into my dream, turning into an elephant horn, as if a crocodile was not strong enough… What was I thinking…

The Amazon Rainforest crocodile is a caiman in the alligator family. The Yawanawà hunt them and often eat them for breakfast. They are also endangered, so I have seen indigenous breed them and release thousands of baby crocodiles in the river.

I never wore this Caiman tooth, but I still have it. I like feeling its power. I have worked constantly with my ego since I worked with plant medicine. I rarely wear much in ceremonies anymore; I feel too much like demonstrating ego if I do. Putanny once told me that the most advanced masters do not wear anything; only those who need power outside themselves do and show it off. A good way to do it is to work with these objects during dieta, by myself, but not in public, or hide them under a shirt. That tooth is challenging to hide, even under a sweater. These spiritual objects also tend to scare children and possibly give them scary dreams.

The boa is one animal that most Yawanawà don’t like approaching anything about. I saw some work with boa skin or bones and received some collars made with boa bones, but I never wore them.

Do these spiritual objects carry any power, or are they just a representation of our ego or lack of ego seeking protection from powerful animals? When I touch these objects under plant medicine, I feel energy from them. Sometimes powerful, sometimes nothing at all. I can also often feel the energy of those who prepared them. Sleeping next to them can give me powerful dreams. This can sound entirely wild for you; I understand that. I will never know what is true or what is just imagination.

I can never say for sure that these objects “do something” or that they are just random symbols, but they seem to have an energy of their own. Indigenous and spiritual masters from around the world and any culture or religion have been working with such objects, so if they don’t do anything, then our imagination is powerful.

Back to the big laugh.

I often laugh at myself. Sometimes very loud. It happened to me to laugh very loud at myself in the middle of a ceremony. I don’t do that anymore as I learned to control the force and keep these emotions to myself, especially to avoid distracting or disturbing those around me. In my experience, the correct behavior is to be always in meditation and quiet unless there is a specific task to perform or a specific song. Everything I do or say must be done with intention and consciously. If it is just spontaneous, I lose control of myself.

This post-naneuh laugh was, without any doubt, the longest and strongest laugh of my life. It was like an awakening to my ego.

Why did I like so much receiving these powerful objects and wearing them?

The equivalent in our world would be to show off a diploma on the wall of your office. We see it in doctors’ offices worldwide; it is also widespread in the U.S. to enter a businessman’s office and find it full of a collection of photos and souvenirs of a company going public, distinctions of any sort, etc. The French still distribute the “Légion d’honneur” to thank some French citizens for what they did for their country. Some who received it will wear a small symbol sewn on their jacket.

What does this have to do with wearing teeth or feathers in the jungle? Some of those objects are also rewards or symbols for a work achieved. After completing four Sundances, sun dancers receive a "baston” or a wood stick. I received feather headpieces after my dietas, and many indigenous believe they can only be worn if the person went through long and demanding dietas. One cannot ask for them or buy them; they are gifts. They are symbols but objects “a person of knowledge” can work with. For the Yawanawà, they are tools. “Once you are in the force, they give direction.” I saw many things with mine on plant medicine; I saw them connect to my brain.

Feathers and spiritual objects are powerful reminders of the teachings and the work done.

They are dangerous in a way, too, when taken out of the Amazon jungle.

I occasionally wore them in ceremonies in Europe, and they first triggered the “whites” who started thinking all kinds of negative things about me. “Who does he take himself for? ", “Cultural appropriation!” “He needs so badly to look like an indigenous person. He must be so wounded or traumatized.” It was almost each time an avalanche of criticism. That’s how the feathers are so powerful outside of their context. Even indigenous people get triggered when they see a white person wearing them if they do not have the context of all the work accomplished. I talked to a master I did not know much and asked if I could wear mine. He said, “If you did long dietas, yes.”

Feathers made me an immediate target outside of the jungle.

Do I need them? No. Do I like them? Yes. That is how I learned, and I wore them in the jungle for about a year. They were gifts for my work. Facing all the judgment and destructive thoughts of my fellow Western “tribes” was an excellent occasion to ignore criticism, though. It is very white, the “you should or should not do this.”

Kuauhtli, a good friend with a lifetime of experience with the medicine, told me once, “I don’t have a problem with people thinking I should not be wearing feathers. It is their right to think this way but their problem, not mine. If people tell me I should not wear feathers, I ignore their problem.”

Kuauhtli calls it “Cultural appreciation.”

I don’t wear them much outside of the jungle anymore, only when I do my work. I don’t need to be more visible than I am. They create too many negative reactions. Maybe I should wear them only when I am sure that I want to create such reactions… In my village, I never get any negative reactions; my friends there gave them to me, so they like me wearing them.

The commerce of such objects is not suitable for preserving nature. Nobody should be buying feathers and animal teeth as it will create a business of people killing them just to make art. I talked with a few Chiefs about this practice and even suggested it was time for it to stop since most of these animals are endangered. I received this answer each time: “We have been working with these feathers and objects for more generations than we can remember; it is not up to non-indigenous people to tell us what we should do or not.” They increasingly understand that the forest and the animals that go with it are disappearing, and some regenerate the jungle and breed animals.

Yet, I cannot help thinking about the Buddhist model of “no killing of animals.” The Buddhists also work with powerful symbols, but they are not made with dead animal parts; they are painted or made of metal.

We abuse the Earth everywhere, not only in the Amazon jungle. In Ibiza, there is a place called “Crystal Mountain,” with giant crystals carried worldwide and brought there. The Kogi from Colombia I encountered a few times says that crystals are not meant to make necklaces or be extracted from where they were. They are energy sources, and that is where it is for a reason. The range of human belief is unlimited. Leaving things where they are is the best practice, as humans are often the problem, not nature.

We don’t need any of that stuff and can find our strength inside of ourselves, but I must admit I like wearing them now and then, especially those objects given to me when I completed a dieta.

I found myself entirely black the next day. The paint would last about three weeks. It felt like becoming someone else.

I started the three months diet with the classic Yawanawà dieta food, some green boiled banana (not sweet), and some corn. I was going to lose about 10 kilos during this diet.

Dietas are hard as we spend weeks with little food and no pure water in small quantities. I was hungry all day long.

I received many healings from Chief Nixiwakà and planted many plants and trees. We consume plants and receive from nature; we also need to help nature. In dieta, we also bury any remaining food from what we eat so that animals don’t eat it.

In the Yawanawà tradition, if animals eat any remaining food, we lose some knowledge of the diet, so we must be cautious. This is also why we cannot look anyone in the eye or touch anyone, as information that was for us could be lost, or energy that we should not receive might get in us, sometimes for a long time. We also clean regularly using white smoke from a resin of a tree they call “Seuhpa,” similar to “Copal” in Mexico but with a strong scent from the jungle. I love it.

I stayed in the “dieta houses,” little houses made for isolation. Hundreds of cockroaches, insects of all kinds, spiders, and even rats entered the houses every night. I got used to them as it was useless to try to remove them. If I wanted to remove them, more would return, so I gave up and learned to walk around and live with them. I got no bites apart from mosquito bites, but my body was getting used to them, so I got almost no allergies or marks anymore. It also seemed like the whole body paint was protecting me from them.

Beautiful “borboletas,” or butterflies, visited me constantly, symbolizing transformation.

The Naneuh dieta that opened was a profound learning period, and I would receive many teachings during ceremonies with Chief Nixiwakà and the whole tribe.

I was even learning songs from little children. Here is Isku Kua teaching me some!

More teachings from the dietas to come in the following days!

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