Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia [Paperback]

Richard Evans Schultes (Author), Robert F. Raffauf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1992

Professors Schultes and Raffauf in this new book take us on a journey to a place where healing with plants is the norm, and where ritual and magic play an essential role in everyday life. This book is the story of a time that was- when the Amazon Indians, living in their verdant and expansive rainforest, had a minimum of contact with cultures of the outside world. Thus, we have a firsthand picture of traditional life in this region. This is an exceptional photographic essay accompanied by detailed descriptions of the Amazon Indian's use of medicinal and other sacred plant substances. Included are over160 of the most significant photographs ever taken on this subject.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Quite simply a masterpiece...Vine of the Soul deserves to be read by everyone interested in rainforests, indigenous peoples, shamanism, hallucinogens, ethnomedicine, and conservation. -- Mark Plotkin, V.P. Plant Conservation, Conservation International

We have here a wonderful integration of ethnobotany, chemistry and photography to produce a book that will long be an important historic record of one of the threatened cultures of the world. I hope that readers learning about ayahuasca, the vine of the soul, and other psychoactive drugs discussed here will have their concern heightened for the future fate of the Amazon Indians and their societies. -- Ghillean T. Prance, Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, from the Forward

About the Author

Richard Evan Schultes is Jeffrey professor of Biology and Director of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University (Emeritus). Robert F. Raffauf is Professor of Pharmacognosy and Medical Chemistry (Emeritus) at the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions of Northeastern University in Boston. Both are Fellows of the Linnean Society of London.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Synergetic Pr (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0907791247
• ISBN-13: 978-0907791249
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,970,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful and absorbing tour of faith and spirituality, February 9, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia (Paperback)

The collaborative work of Richard Evans Schultes (formerly Jeffrey Professor of Biology and Director of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University) and Robert F. Raffauf (formerly Professor of Pharmacognosy and Medicinal Chemistry, College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, Northeastern University, Bost-on), Vine Of The Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants And Rituals In The Colombian Amazonia has been newly re-issued by Synergetic Press and is an informed and informative exploration of the religious beliefs and superstitions of the people native to the Colombian Amazon River area. Here studied are tribal sacred dances, art, petroglyphs, and architecture, hunting and fishing rituals, and more. Vine Of The Soul is wonderfully enhanced with different black-and-white photograph, and text captions describing particular aspects of the Colombian Amazonian native traditions represented therein. A beautiful and absorbing tour of faith and spirituality, Vine Of The Soul is a core addition to personal, professional, academic, and community library Amazonian Studies reading lists and South American Indian reference collections.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Photo Essay of Colombian Amazonia, September 15, 2008

By 

Brian Allen "neotropical birding" (Manistee, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Vine of the Soul: Medicine Men, Their Plants and Rituals in the Colombian Amazonia (Paperback)

This is much more of a picture book than I had expected but it is a fascinating book. For the most part of it's 270 pages there are full page photos of plants, places and traditional people of Amazonia engaged in the use of medicinal plants, traditional art or music. Accompanying the photos are brief one to two paragraph descriptions of what peoples use the plant, where they are located, where the plant is found and what its traditional usage is.

The black and white photos are of places rarely seen including sacred waterfalls, rock formations, unique endemic forest and plant communities that are not often depicted in photographic books on the amazon region.

This is a great book to thumb through and read as your curiosity is caught by one page after another showing a scene of extensive forest, a cliff-side pictograph, a strikingly bizarre flower. It is not a detailed text of ethnobotany, it is more like coming across an explorer's own notes and pictures that gives you a sense of privilege to view.