When I first heard about the jagua fruit, as used by the indigenous people of the Amazon jungle, I immediately assumed it would be associated with magical and mystical beliefs. Why? For one thing, there’s something surreal about how, when you grate the flesh of the fruit and squeeze it, the color of the juice is clear like water. But after a little while, it oxidizes and turns BLACK. Weird, right? Turns out I was not wrong. I did a lot more research on the jagua fruit and the Indigeous people who use it, and ended up writing a book! Here are a couple of passages from the chapter titled Jagua Magic from my book, Jagua, A Journey into Body Art from the Amazon.
To Acquire Strength
Peruvian shaman and painter Pablo Amaringo says that the caballo piripiri plant is ingested to acquire great strength. To do so, the plant must be combined in equal parts with the jagua fruit and poured over the body. One must then avoid sun, salt, sweets, garlic, liquor, and pig fat for eight days while also abstaining from sex, or socializing with anyone who is sexually active.
What?? No garlic for eight days?? People will do anything to acquire strength.
Preparing for War
Painting the body with juice from the fruit of the jagua tree was an integral part of pre-attack rituals of many Indigenous people of the Amazon because the black designs on the skin helped create an appearance of fierceness. Usually the women painted the men on the face and body with strong wide stripes, as well as with broken, wavy, and narrower lines complemented by dots to create an imposing and bone-chilling effect upon the people being raided. In addition, it conferred upon the Indians chameleon-like powers, in that they were able to remain camouflaged among the leaves and trees before bounding into the open in order to surprise their unsuspecting victims in full blue-black, frightening, war-painted pomp.
For example, men in the Sapara community of central-eastern Ecuador paint their faces with jagua in order to look like tigers—with two stripes on the chin, two on either side of the mouth (like whiskers), two tracing the eyes to the hairline, and four on the forehead. This design is specifically meant to protect them and give them strength. Women painted themselves too.
Charge!
You can use our jagua temporary tattoo kits to acquire strength, prepare for war, or just look awesome with some cool tattoos by clicking here!
Image by Pascal Giacomini