The legend of the sacred vine, or the story of Dua Busẽ

The Huni Kuin legend of Dua Busẽ tells the story of how nixi pae, the ayahuasca, was brought to humanity.

Dua Busẽ lived with his family in a large maloca. One afternoon, while hunting, he found a genip tree by the side of the lake.

Many beasts gathered there to feast upon the genipap fruits, deer, wild boar, and tapir among them. Dua Busẽ set up ambush and waited inside.

A tapir approached to eat the genipap fruits. It picked up three fruits and threw them into the middle of the lake, as if summoning something forth.

From the waters emerged a woman of extraordinary beauty, bearing an ornate ceramic vessel filled with banana porridge for the tapir to eat.

The woman and the tapir made love while Dua Busẽ was watching from his hiding place.

Afterwards, the woman—who was truly a jiboia, a boa constrictor—returned to the lake’s depths, and the tapir left.

Dua Busẽ returned home, but sleep eluded him as visions of the woman with the tapir haunted his thoughts. The next day, at dawn’s first light, he seized his bow and returned to the ambush without telling his family. He did the same thing the tapir had done, throwing three genipap fruits into the lake. Foam arose from the waters, and soon after emerged the woman, bearing the same ceramic vessel of banana porridge she had offered the tapir!

Dua Busẽ hid at first, then suddenly seized her, shattering the vessel. The woman cried out:

“Release me! Who dares?”

She began to transform, first into a boa constrictor, then into a murmuru (a thorny palm tree), then into a jaguar.

Still, he held fast.

At last, Dua Busẽ spoke:

“I saw you making love with the tapir, and I desire you as well.”

She assumed her human form once again and declared:

“I shall be yours if you are unwed.”

Dua Busẽ struck a bargain, claiming he had no wife and wished to marry her. The boa woman prepared medicine for Dua Busẽ, gathered healing herbs, and dove with him into the lake, emerging in her underwater village.

There they encountered the stingray, armed with a spear, and the catfish with arrows, both with the intention of slaying Dua Busẽ.

The woman interceded, declaring him her husband. Further on, they met the electric eel bearing a war club, but at the woman’s behest, it too was calmed down.

The underwater village had everything, malocas, gardens, plants, and vegetables. At the garden’s edge, the woman bid Dua Busẽ waited while she informed her family she was bringing a man to marry her.

Her parents consented, and she returned for Dua Busẽ.

Time passed, and they bore two children, a daughter and a son.

One day, Huã Karu, Dua Busẽ’s father-in-law, who was in the lake, began to prepare ayahuasca. He gathered the vine and the leaves to prepare the sacred brew.

Dua Busẽ inquired:

“What brew is this?”

“A healing brew,” replied his father-in-law.

Huã Karu prepared the brew that afternoon and, as the evening fell and the ritual commenced, he asked his daughter to warn her husband not to partake.

The daughter went to tell her husband not to drink the brew.

“Should he drink, strange things may occur that he might not withstand.”

But Dua Busẽ’s curiosity prevailed, and he drank it…

His wife asked him not to, but he drank a large dose of it.

As the brew’s power took hold, Dua Busẽ began to writhe and retch.

In his visions, he saw a boa constrictor swallowing him.

He was glimpsing his future.

When his father-in-law saw this, he said:

“I warned him against drinking. Bring him forth so that I may sing for him.”

As his father-in-law began to sing, Dua Busẽ felt the boa’s grip tightening.

Dua Busẽ’s screams pierced the night until dawn broke. They then prepared medicine for his cleansing bath.

Dua Busẽ rested until one day he rose to hunt. His wife opposed this, but he went regardless.

He journeyed to the headwaters, where the stream feeds the lake, and there encountered Iskĩ, the enchanted armoured catfish.

Iskĩ spoke:

“Welcome, txai! I wanted to meet you.” Iskĩ was without hair and tail. “Listen, txai, while you live happily with the boa woman, your true wife and children starve. They found me and took my nea rani, the hair from my tail, so you must return to your land and care for your family, for they suffer greatly. Come, let me aid you!”

Iskĩ got medicine, applied it on Dua Busẽ’s eyes and said:

“Grab my hair and close your eyes.”

They travelled downriver until reaching Dua Busẽ’s family’s garden. There, Iskĩ cast him ashore. When Dua Busẽ turned and looked around, he recognised his family’s garden. As he entered his homeland… his family started shouting that Dua Busẽ had returned. Everyone gathered, questioning him and carrying him to the txitũte, a shaman’s small hammock, where he recounted his tale. His family forbade him from leaving the house, for fear of the boa. He dwelt with them for a time until one day he ventured out to hunt.

His lake-dwelling wife searched for him with longing and rage.

He said he was going hunting, but he will avoid the lake and take the land route instead. He spotted Cujubim, a kushu bird and shot it with an arrow. His arrow fell by the lake’s edge, in the lake’s drain, so he shot again and went back there.

He went to collect his arrows by the lake, and there encountered Bari Siri Ika, his daughter.

Then his daughter bit his big toe, singing “Sirĩ sirĩ sirĩ…” He stood frozen, watching in horror. Her song summoned his elder son, who attacked and devoured him up to the knee. He remained silent. Soon after came his wife. There was a tree in the middle of the lake. Dua Busẽ hung with arms spread against the tree as his wife ate him to the chest. Then Dua Busẽ began to scream, calling his relatives from the community.

“Come, my people, the boa is devouring me!”

They seized Dua Busẽ and managed to free him. His body grew limp, and from his hammock he spoke to his brother-in-law:

“When I die, bury me. After six moons, seek my grave. On the right side I shall become a vine, on the left side I shall become a plant. Take one measure of the vine, beat it with a wooden stick until the bark comes off, then brew it. Sing! I shall dwell within the vine and guide you.”

He explained all this to his brother-in-law as death approached. They buried him, and after six moons his brother-in-law visited the grave. There had grown the vine and the plant. He gathered both and followed the instructions. He brewed the nixi pae, drank, and the visions came. Much was revealed, showing the future, present, past, and truth itself. Thus was born nixi pae, and this is our story.