After 40 days in the dense Amazon jungle, the four children were found. The military had a large search operation in the area, but it was the indigenous people who found the children after taking the jungle drug Ayahuasca, also known as yagé.
– Those who take yagé see far beyond what we see, says Luis Acosta, coordinator for the indigenous population.
Early in the morning of May 1, a plane crashed in the Amazon rainforest in southeastern Colombia. On board the plane were the four children, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1, along with their mother, a leader from the family’s village and the pilot.
The three adults on board were found dead when the plane was located two weeks after the crash.
But the four siblings had disappeared without a trace – until last Friday. Then came the happy news that the siblings had been found alive after 40 days in the jungle.
According to the indigenous population, the children could be saved thanks to the hallucinogenic drug yagé, better known as Ayahuasca.
“Doctor, panther, tiger and cougar”
They were members of the area’s indigenous population who found the children deep in the Colombian jungle. On Friday morning, the search effort began with the group taking part in a yagé ritual. This was announced by population coordinator Luis Acosta at a press conference.
– They were found by one of the indigenous people’s guardians who took yagé – and with the support of the army’s technology, he says.
Acosta believes that the jungle drug helped the group see deeper into the jungle. Ayahuasca is a powerful hallucinogenic brew consisting of several different plants and roots found in the Amazon. In the West, yagé rituals have become popular recently and are sold as a spiritual journey.
– Those who take yagé see far beyond what we see. He becomes a doctor, a panther, a tiger and a cougar. He looks beyond because it is a holistic medicine. He had the ability to look, he says.
The children are being treated at a military hospital in the capital Bogotá. Under the circumstances, they are doing well, but are dehydrated and malnourished, says Minister of Defense Iván Velásquez after having
visited them in the hospital. The country’s president paid a visit on Saturday.
– My eldest daughter has told me that their mother lived for four days and before she died she told them to leave to look for me, says the father Manuel
Ranoque.