Valentine’s Day may have come and gone but love and sex live forever! So, while we’re still in the afterglow of all this emphasis on coupling—in every sense of the word—now feels like an excellent time to recount this weird but magical tale surrounding the jagua fruit and the part it reportedly played in the invention and attraction of love and sexuality. This story, from the Shipibo Indians in the Peruvian Amazon, can be found in my book, Jagua, A Journey into Body Art from the Amazon.
From a hiding place, a man watched as a male tapir* threw a jagua fruit into a lake, using it in the same way that fishermen use bait to attract fish to the water’s surface in order to spear them. But here, the tapir used the fruit to attract a pretty Snake Woman so he could have sex with her. Observing the tapir’s technique, the man became so excited that he resolved to do the same, resulting in mankind’s first successful act of intercourse.
You too can use the jagua fruit to attract love! Don’t have a fruit handy? No problem! At Earth Henna, our Black Jagua Temporary Tattoo Kits come with freeze dried jagua powder, to which you add water to reconstitute the juice. The juice is then added to the gel provided, which magically becomes the jagua gel that you squeeze into your applicator bottle to create gorgeous jagua tattoos on your skin (or you can buy the gel pre-mixed from us too). I say, if you can’t get your hands on an actual fruit, do the next best thing. A suggestion:
–Once you’ve made your jagua gel, pour some into a large leaf of any kind. Fold up the sides of the leaf and wrap it with biodegradable string. Throw your magical packet into a nearby body of water, like the ocean or a lake or pond (not a swimming pool or toilet—not magical or romantic—and wait for your new love to appear!
* A tapir is like a large pig. They inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, and southeastern Asia.
Photo courtesy of Pexels.
