WAY OF THE SHAMAN
By Laura Ann Phillips
October 11, 2000
Ricardo
Cruz is an Amerindian shaman: a healer and holy man - a role found in most first nation tribes.
After
our interview at the Forestry Division’s Cleaver Woods Recreation Site in
Arima, Cruz and I were walking past the ajoupa – a replica of an Amerindian hut
and one of the main sights there – on our way out.
A
small group of students had just begun a tour there, and the forest officer who
was conducting the tour spotted us.
“Ricardo!
Ricardo!” he called.
Gesturing
to Cruz, the officer said to the students, “This is one of them.”
They
peered at Cruz in the dim light.
“This
is what they used to look like. See the
kind of hair?”
He
raised Cruz’s cap.
“So,
you have a real, live Amerindian in front of you,” the officer declared.
Cruz
quietly excused himself.
While
Amerindian cultures have become more accepted over the past 15 years or so,
their belief system remains little understood, still considered odd, backward
or evil.
The
writings of conquerors and colonials have helped to perpetuate those beliefs.
As
recently as 1968, a pamphlet entitled “The Amerindians in St Lucia”, by the Rev
C. Jesse proclaimed that shamans were “intermediaries of evil spirits.”
“From
serious accounts left by early missionaries,” he wrote, “it would seem proved
that the shamans dealt with the devil and were at times possessed by him.”
At
24, Cruz still remembers when first nation tribes were persecuted in the United
States where he grew up.
His
father, a member of the Taino tribe of Puerto Rico, used to tell people he was
Hispanic or mixed with Chinese.
Cruz’s
mother is Trinidadian, originally from Lengua, and a mixture of the Karinya and
Warao tribes.
The
terms indigenous peoples and first nations, Cruz said, were preferable to
“Amerindian” or “Carib” as names by which to describe his people.
“[The
names don’t] define what tribe you’re from or where you’re from, but they
reflect more respect for indigenous peoples, for first peoples,” said Cruz.
The
term “Carib” is a derogatory term, he said, introduced by the Spanish
conquerors.
“Carib
means ‘cannibal’,” he explained. “That
term was used to refer to people who fought back. That is the name which kind of stuck.
“Our
goal is to eventually phase that out.”
That,
and a lot of other things.
Like
the ignorance surrounding their collective belief system.
Stories
of what his people believe varies from tribe to tribe, Cruz said, mainly
because they were handed down through the oral tradition.
Inter-tribal
marriages swallowed up some of the details, too, but the philosophies, he said,
are essentially the same.
Indigenous
cultures believe that all life is connected and dependent – physically and
spiritually – upon the earth and the sun.
“The
Earth is our mother,” Cruz explained.
“Everything we need comes from the earth. The sun is a manifestation of God, who is our father.”
“The
sun is always there, looking over us.
From the sun, we get light, heat, gravity and time. Everything would perish without the sun.”
All
creation, he said – the rain, the sun, the plants – are manifestations of God.
Human
beings are just another member of that system which governs all things.
“Plants
take light and energy from the sun, people, or animals eat the plants, people
feed on the animal. People die and
break down and plants feed on them.”
But
humans have lost sight of their place in this system, Cruz said, believing
themselves to be higher, better than other life forms.
In
their culture, he said, that it is considered a manifestation of evil. When that happens, people can become like a
cancer on the earth – destructive.
“There’s
an opposition to God, a spirit which is jealous of him and wants to destroy his
world,” said Cruz. “He puts the idea in
man’s head that he should try to be superior to God.”
“The
Tainian belief (his father’s tribe) is that the Creator God had a brother,”
Cruz said. “When God started to create
the universe, his brother said he could do better.”
Details
vary in the oral tradition, Cruz pointed out, so even though the stories speak
of “God’s brother”, it isn’t a literal reference. Rather, they refer to someone close to God.
“The
creations his brother made remained in the world and started misinforming
people of their true place,” he said, “So man looks at the forest and says it’s
evil.”
“He
doesn’t know his place and brings evil on everything else.”
Another
part of the fall-out is that humans also began to fear death, Cruz said.
Some
also believe that colonization and violence were “suggested to a group of
people by evil spirits”, Cruz said.
Shamanism
may be in the Cruz’s ancestry. He knows
of relatives, and has heard of others, on both his parents’ sides of the family
who were so skilled.
But
the word “shaman’ is not found in the vocabulary of indigenous peoples.
The
tribal medicine man would have been called a “biai” (pronounced “bee-eye”) or
‘piai.”
The
origin of the word “shaman” is Scandinavian, Cruz said, and was adopted by
anthropologists to describe the medicine men and women they encountered.
Both
genders can be shamans. There is no
word in first nation cultures which differentiates between a male and female
healer, Cruz said.
Still,
it is a role for which one must be chosen.
Cruz
believes he was selected by the spirits, although, he said, he is not a
spiritual leader.
There
are, however, people who come to him regularly for guidance or with medical
complaints.
That
is why shamans must understand how the spiritual and physical worlds are
connected, he said, and about the medicinal properties of plants and animal
life and how to apply that knowledge.
“That
is what separates a shaman from a herbalist,” Cruz said.
Prior
to his death earlier this year, Cruz’s grandfather helped him along the path by
teaching him about the medicinal and spiritual properties of plants.
His
spirits, Cruz said, taught him the rest.
He
regularly spent periods of prayer and fasting in the forests to commune with
those spirits, he said.
Cruz
now lives with his wife, Jennifer, and 15-month old daughter, Ara, in the
Cumaca forest.
He
intends to pass his knowledge on to his children and keep a keen eye out for
the one who seems most accepting of the way – the one who the spirits may
choose as the next shaman.
In
the interim, he intends to help those around him experience the God who is all
around them.
“People
say God is all around but they don’t see it.
[They] always look to new life, focusing on the spiritual attainment of
that life, and take for granted their mother, the earth,” said Cruz.
“Have
your religion, but you still need to open your eyes to see what’s around you.”