This page respects the original work's rights terms and independently introduces its bibliography, abstract, main results, and limitations. It is not a full translation.
About this resource
This is not a full-text translation of the original article. It is an independently organized detailed introduction, based on the SciELO paper and publisher information, to the research subject, scope of participant observation, principal concepts, and distance from Hapé/Rapé evidence. The paper centers on Nixi Pae—ayahuasca rituals led by young Kaxinawá shamans in cities—and did not directly study rapé composition, experiences, or health outcomes.
It is included in Hapé/Rapé Research as adjacent evidence showing how cosmological vocabulary, psychology, New Age practices, and participant expectations connect as Indigenous “forest medicines” move into cities. It should be read as context for urban ritual and cultural translation, not as direct evidence about rapé.
Study design
The author attended 18 rituals over 4 years from 2007–2011: 12 in Rio de Janeiro, 3 in São Paulo, and 3 in Florianópolis. The 1st 2 times he participated as an observer; afterward he introduced himself as a social-science researcher and received the organizers’ permission to observe stages of the rituals and related events. The article is an ethnographic case study based on field notes and repeated participant observation.
The urban rituals were led by 2 young Kaxinawá shamans and organized in part by psychology professionals influenced by Jungian psychology. Participants were primarily educated members of the urban middle class. The author analyzed not only rituals but interactions outside them, including learning and translating songs, organizers’ and participants’ explanations, and responses to unexpected events.
Content
The central analytic concept is a “synonym effect.” Kaxinawá vocabulary concerning Yube, spirits, and mythic beings is not the same as the urban organizers’ vocabulary of the unconscious, psychological states, and emotion. Within ritual, however, placing them as similar can establish a feeling of mutual understanding among participants. Rather than dismissing this as simple mistranslation, the author examines it as “ambiguous compatibility” that enables collaboration while retaining difference.
In settings where song pronunciation and meaning are taught, attempts to transmit knowledge to cities appear together with regulation of who may handle it in which context. Urban organizers speak about forest, purity, and psychological cleansing, while Kaxinawá statements and responses sometimes depart from those expectations. Cultural movement is not 1-way preservation; it involves negotiation, divergence, and reconstruction.
Results
In the author’s interpretation, urban Nixi Pae rituals place concepts of different origins—such as Yube and “the unconscious”—on a metaphorical continuum, enabling communication between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants. The important point is that participants can remain involved in the same event without complete conceptual agreement. At the same time, making terms synonymous may obscure differences and disagreement.
The study also records an occasion when organizers responded to a participant displaying severe distress and behavioral disruption and temporarily stopped the ritual. This was not a tally of clinically diagnosed adverse events, but an ethnographic record of a setting in which organizers used different spiritual and psychological explanations. The article did not test ayahuasca treatment effects and presented no result establishing benefits of rapé.
Limitations
This case study centers on 1 urban network and does not represent all Kaxinawá/Huni Kuin people, all urban rituals, or village practice. The researcher’s participation and roles granted by organizers may have influenced what could be observed and how it was interpreted. Participants, characteristics, attrition, and adverse events were not followed through a uniform instrument, so causal effects and incidence cannot be calculated.
The central substance was ayahuasca, and Hapé/Rapé was not an independent unit of analysis. The paper cannot support conclusions about nicotine, ash, free nicotine, bodily effects, dependence, or clinical efficacy of rapé. Even when several practices occur near each other in cities, evidence for each material must be assessed separately.
Safety
Ethnographic terms such as “healing ritual,” “cleansing,” and “self-knowledge” do not mean that treatment effects were verified through diagnostic criteria, comparison groups, or medical records. The record of an intense reaction indicates uncertainty in ritual management, but without a case definition or denominator its frequency and causal substance cannot be established.
This resource provides no participation or administration procedure for ayahuasca, rapé, or other rituals. An urban description such as “Indigenous origin” or “forest medicine” should not be treated as a guarantee of quality, safety, approval by an entire community, or medical efficacy.
Source and rights
Original source: Coutinho T. Forest Shamanism in the City: The Kaxinawá Example. Sociologia & Antropologia. 2016;6(1):159–179. DOI: 10.1590/2238-38752016v617.
The publisher’s rights page makes the article available under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY). This page does not rely on that license to provide a full translation; it independently reconstructs the research design and principal issues. Extended quotations, ritual procedures, and figures are not reproduced.