Guimarães Rosa, Latin American spiritual landscapes and “ecumenical omelette”

ayahuasca and mediumistic trance in “Fita verde no cabelo” (1964)

Abstract

This exercise in prospecting possible future oikos, based on the intersection between poetry and the so-called “plants of strength”, focuses on analyzing the lexical field of spirituality that emerges in “Fita verde no cabelo”, a short narrative published by Guimarães Rosa in the literary supplement of the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, on February 8, 1964, presented as an innocent adult and transcultural version of “Little Red Riding Hood”. Based on the author’s statement that his entire work is aimed to the preparation of an “ecumenical omelette”, we analyze the hypothesis that this short story puts on stage the votive ritual of ayahuasca, an entheogenic preparation of Amazonian origin that, as indicated by the Quechua etymology of the term, would have the power to connect people with the spirit of their dead ancestors (“aya” means “spirit” or “ancestor”, while “huasca” means “bond” or “connection”). Thus, we prospected scientific studies, testimonies from shamans and case reports about spiritual communions, in which it is stated that ayahuasca promotes the expansion of consciousness and the attainment of ecstatic experiences of a spiritual nature, from individual self-knowledge to eventual mediumistic events. Images and expressions from the Rosian story are then analyzed in comparison with the liturgy, the creeds and the results of such a spiritual experience of Amerindian origin, which transcends the possibility of explanation through reason, the “Cartesian shrew” as conceived by the medical doctor and novelist from Minas Gerais.