Abstract
The article describes and analyzes the process of discovery, arrival and transformation of neoshamanic group Camino Rojo in Uruguay. Following the trajectories of the organization’s leaders, psychologist Alejandro Spangenberg and his son-in-law Alejandro Corchs, whose parents disappeared during the civic-military dictatorship (1973-1985), Camino Rojo's practices, discourses and aesthetics are contextualized as part of the new forms of indigenous spirituality which have been strongly consolidated in the continent as from the 1990s. Camino Rojo is analyzed based on studies on the New Age and neoshamanism, although these limited categories are deliberately used with functional purposes in order to delimitate the case study. One of the text's main objectives is to show the specificities of the articulations that take place once Camino Rojo is unfolded in Uruguay, away from its Mexican origins. Even though the use of sacred plants such as ayahuasca, as well as other practices like sweat lodges, Vision Quest, and Sun Dance, are highly significant for Camino Rojo, the article specifically targets the articulations generated by the life trajectories of the mentioned leaders. Thus, it follows the links between Uruguay's Camino Rojo and Gestalt psychology, which adds to Corchs' strong discourse of love and forgiveness. As a result, Corchs' life trajectory, which is determined by his links to the Uruguayan dictatorship, are reconstructed, allowing him to rise as a charismatic leader with much public exposition in the media. Finally, in the last twenty years, a process of legitimation of the Camino Rojo organization is observed in Uruguay
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Notes
For a complete overview of shamanism and neoshamanism, see Znamenski (2007).
Aurelio Díaz Tekpankalli, born in Michoacán in 1950, a chicano (a term commonly used to refer to Mexican-born migrants in Chicago) is the founder of the Fuego Sagrado de Itzachilatlan movement. Tekpankalli and his institution abandoned some lines of mexicanidad and the native American churches, and become focused in disseminating the native people’s knowledge throughout South America and Europe. Aurelio was also “one of the key organizers of the Peace and Dignity Journeys in 1992, which consisted of a march that went across the American continent from Alaska to Patagonia, a contra-cultural ceremony in the context of the commemoration of five hundred years of the discovery of America” (De la Torre and Zúñiga 2017:90) (Translation by the authors).
An institution created to disseminate the knowledge of native peoples throughout South America.
The Vision Quest, which got to be known down South through Tekpankallis, has its own design. It was him who introduced the four-year quest format, starting by “planting oneself” (plantarse: to fast in isolation) for 4 days, then for 7 days, then for 9 days, and finally for 13 days. This design does not extactly correspond to the Lakota format, according to the testimony of Alejandro Mendo, researcher and participant of Lakota ceremonies of high relevance for the context of mexicanidad, and one of the first to initiate the Sun Dance in Guadalajara (Interview in Guadalajara). In fact, Mendo states, among Lakotas the quest does not necessarily has to be repeated during four years, nor is their format based on increasing the amount of days of fasting and isolation. However, Aurelio Díaz introduces this design and turns the Vision Quest into a four-year cycle, in which the participant has the possibility to increase the period of fasting and isolation from year to year.
It was mentioned above that the mexicayotl line alluded by De la Torre and Zúñiga (2017) was led by Francisco Jiménez Tlakaélel. Tlakaélel is a key character in Mexico’s incorporation of the Sun Dance. In 1980 in Arizona, Tlakaélel is invited by spiritual Lakota leader Leonard Crow Dog to visit his community in Rosebud (South Dakota). According to Aldo Arias, Tlakaélel traveled to Rosebud together with a group of students, was initiated in the Sun Dance and “after two occasions he went to South Dakota to dance, the group of dancers grew, so Tlakaélel decided to bring the Sun Dance to Mexico. That was how chief Leonard Crow Dog authorized Tlakaélel to make this ceremony in México in 1982” (Arias 2011:37. Translation by the authors). As observed by Scuro in a field visit to a group of dancers in Mexico, the dance consists of a meeting that includes fasting and dancing, sweat lodges and where dancers eventually make blood sacrifices. These subjects will be revisited along the article. The work of Arias (2011) is an excellent way to expand on the matter.
Spangenberg explains that one day a man came to his house saying he had read his first book. The visitor was a Uruguayan psychologist who was living in Brazil for some years and was a member of UDV (a Brazilian ayahuasca-based religion). When this man met Spangenberg personally, he said: “you have to come and drink ayahuasca. I didn’t know what it was... and we drank ayahuasca in his partner’s house, who was our colleague at the gestalt center.” The narrative builds the series of facts occurred as a result of “destiny,” as if Spangenberg had never looked for any of that himself.
The genealogy of mexicanidad has the priority of retrieving the callpulli as the main social organization form. This is achieved by overcoming the conflicts generated by the stage of incorporation of the Sun Dance by the mexicayotl. The land plays a crucial role in this neoshamanistic line, Camino Rojo. Furthermore, the land is a necessary condition to carry out the Camino Rojo’s typical activities such as the Vision Quest or the Sun Dance, since they need broad space. Land conflicts have been present since the beginnings of Camino Rojo. See Arias (2011), among others.
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Scuro, J., Giucci, G. & Torterola, S. Camino Rojo from Mexico to Uruguay. Spiritual leaderships, trajectories and memory. Int J Lat Am Relig 2, 248–271 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41603-018-0055-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41603-018-0055-4