César Calvo - "The Three Halves of Ino Moxo"

When Manuel Cordova-Rios was 13 years old, a tribe of Amahuaca Indians kidnapped him; he adopted the name Ino Moxo (Black Panther) and eventually became high priest of the hallucinogenic powers of the ayahuasca plant used in religious ceremonies. Calvo's quest to the inner sanctum of the shaman's domain resembles the mystical journeys of Carlos Castenada. More captivating than this autochthonous mythology are the scattered anthropological interludes of Amazon tribal life, like the treatise on the art of head-hunting. While the translation captures the oneiric, obtuse flavor of the original, it substitutes nontraditional spelling (e.g. Keshwa for Quechua) and stumbles over the proliferation of indigenous words, making the 22-page glossary absolutely indispensable. An enlightening but nonessential purchase.