page_title: Latua
section_title: Latua curing ceremony, as described by Rolando Toro
hierarchical_section_title: Latua / Magic tree of the Huilliche shamans: Latua and the Machi / Latua curing ceremony, as described by Rolando Toro
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: La danse du Sabbat.English: Dance of the Sabbath. Illustration from History of Magic by Paul Christian, Paris, 1870. Fantasy scene of nocturnal circle dance at a (European) witches' sabbath paralleling dance at Huilliche Latua ceremony [note also goat-headed Devil presiding].
context_page_description: Latua pubiflora Baillon, is the single species of the monotypic genus Latua Phil., endemic to the coastal mountains of southern Chile. A shrub or small tree to 10 m in height, bearing attractive, magenta-to-red, hummingbird-pollinated flowers, it is extremely poisonous – hallucinogenic in smaller doses – due to tropane alkaloid content and is used by Chilean machi of the Mapuche–Huilliche people in traditional medicine, as a poison and to enter trance states. Its elegant flowers and yellow tomato-like fruit are attractive enough to merit its cultivation as an ornamental.
context_section_description: [ Note: the brief account of a machitun ceremony given to Plowman by Rolando Toro (see above), although first-hand, based on personal observations made by the author in Chiloé, reads more like an account relayed to him by another, although this may simply be a stylistic choice ].
  Toro states that such ceremonies are always held at night and are believed to be effective in curing every type of infirmity, whether physical or mental, and likens them to "a witches' sabbath with curative ends". The night setting is readily understandable, given that Solanaceous narcotics like Latua dilate the pupils of the eye widely, as in low light intensities, a physiological effect which would make their use during the day unpleasantly dazzling for the consumer. The comparison to a witches' sabbath, however, has a literary flavour and conveys an impression of orgiastic behaviour somewhat at variance with the rather slow and sombre ceremony described, although certain parallels to conceptions of a night gathering of European witches are discernible.
  As in many types of New World, shamanic, curing rituals, not only the patient, but also the healer consumes "medicine": Toro describes the machi conducting the ceremony drinking doses of a Latua infusion at 20 -30 minute intervals in order to enter the altered state of consciousness in which healing is believed to be possible, before slowly beginning to sing and dance in a circle. The songs or chants consist of repetitions of the name of the plant intoxicant itself, rendered with variations of rhythm and tempo. Toro gives the following extract or sample:
  Latué - latué - la - tué
              La - la - la - tué
              Tué
              La - tué
              La - a - a - a (slowly)
  
              La - tué - la - tué - la - tué (fast)
  Toro describes the dance accompanying this rhythmic chanting as monotonous and characterised by a strange, inelegant rigidity reminiscent of catatonia [ see also Stereotypy ], the rhythms being marked by stamping of the feet and jerky movements of the head, while the arms are held out motionless "hanging like wings".
  This rhythmic, rather zombie-like dancing is kept up for some 4 -6 hours, interspersed with prayers which exhibit a syncretism between traditional Huilliche beliefs and Christianity - of which prayers Toro gives the following example:
  Con un tizón ardiendo
              [ trans: With a flaming torch ]
              Cristo quema el mal
              [ trans: Christ burns the evil ]
              De vientro de (...)
  
              [ trans: From the belly of ( here the name of the patient ) ]
  The physical aspect of the treatment consists of three actions believed to cast out the demons of disease from the patient's body: first he or she is slapped with the malodorous branches of another poisonous, Solanaceous shrub Cestrum parqui, known locally by the name palqui ; secondly he/she is made to drink an emetic potion [ingredients unspecified] and thirdly his/her face is covered with the skin stripped from the genitals ( scrotum?) of a goat. While the second treatment is obviously designed to induce vomiting, the other two also seem calculated to have the same effect. The inference is that the demons thought to be responsible for the patient's disease are believed to be living in his / her abdomen or, more specifically, stomach. Apropos of Toro's comparison of the Latua ceremony with a witches' sabbath, the token presence of goat genitalia recalls the traditional goat form and prominent genitals of the Devil, as featured in the testimony of early modern witch trials and in certain artists' depictions of the master of the sabbath.
caption: Fantasy scene of nocturnal circle dance at a (European) witches' sabbath paralleling dance at Huilliche Latua ceremony [note also goat-headed Devil presiding]. La danse du Sabbat, artist Émile Bayard: Illustration from History of Magic by Paul Christian, Paris, 1870.
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