The Jivaro Religion

The Jivaro believed that the factors of life and death existed not in our world, but in a higher dimension. The world we see and live in was not even considered to be real by the Jivaro. The only way to travel to the “real world” was through hallucinogenic drugs such as Datura juice. Even babies and children were fed these drugs by their parents to introduce them to “reality”. The whole point of entering this different realm was to obtain an arutam (vision) soul, which is a certain type of soul that can produce a vision. According to the Jivaro religion, a person who possessed one arutam soul was immune to death by physical violence or poison, but was still susceptible to illness. When one obtained two arutam souls, they were considered to be completely invincible and impossible to kill by any means. Having at least on arutam soul was presumed to be an essential for the survival of young boys and men. They were expected to have one before …show more content…
Therefore, many men will go on killing expeditions. The Jivaro also believe that possessing this soul heightens one’s intellectual, physical, and moral aspects resulting in an overall power called kakarma. Usually, one’s friends and family can tell that they have acquired an arutam soul simply by the change in their personality. However, the keeper of the soul cannot tell others that they have it, or it will dessert them forever. This is how men lose their arutam souls. However, they can obtain a new one if they kill someone on their killing expedition. This exchange of souls was believed to increase the kakarma in one’s self. Therefore, repeated killing was the way to power. When a man dies (unless by cause of disease), he does not have any of the souls that he housed temporarily in his body while he was alive. However, at the moment of death, two of his own arutam souls are born. These “new souls” come into existence for the first