The magic of food: Yãkoana

While listening to Jove Spucchi's presentation on the spiritual, ritualistic, and magical entanglements between food and human consumption in this year's Alternative M.A. program, I was reminded of a film I watched some time ago about the Yanomami community: Urihi Haromatipë – Curadores da Terra-Floresta (2014)[1] by Morzaniel ƚramari Yanomami. The film stayed with me, firstly because it was the first I had ever seen directed by a Yanomami filmmaker, offering a completely different pictorial order and mise-en-scène from my Western worldview and cinematic sensibilities. The way the film approached storytelling and visual composition felt deeply rooted in Yanomami perspectives, challenging my assumptions about how films can be made and seen. Secondly, the film's content - composed of long, meditative shots capturing a series of shamanic rituals to heal the Amazonian forest - gently guided my gaze toward an invisible and intangible reality, that "other side" we often call magic. It presented a worldview where the forest is not just a backdrop but a living, sentient entity, deeply intertwined with the spiritual practices of the community.

I recalled the film during Jove’s lecture because of one particular scene: the preparation of yãkoana. As Jove spoke about the connection between food and magical rituals, I kept visualizing the careful preparation of yãkoana in Morzaniel’s film. Yãkoana is a sacred food offered to the xapiripë, the great spirits revered by the Yanomami community. Shamans consume it to connect with these spirits and, through them, engage in a dialogue with the forest, listening to her needs, desires, and the wisdom she holds.

The preparation of yãkoana involves heating the bark of trees from the Virola genus, known for their hallucinogenic properties. The heat causes the resin to melt and separate from the bark, which is then drained into a bowl, allowed to solidify and ground into a fine powder. During rituals, shamans inhale this powder to enter altered states of perception and connect with the xapiripë. What’s particularly fascinating is how Yanomami rituals embody a cultural mythology where food holds magical properties. Though yãkoana isn’t considered ordinary nourishment, it is revered as the food of the gods - a sacred sustenance that enables shamans to traverse spiritual realms and maintain the delicate balance between the human world and the forest.

Jove spoke about plant allies, and this idea deeply resonated with Yanomami practices, where yãkoana stands as one of their most vital companions. This sacred plant acts as a connective thread between their cosmogony and the vast Amazonian forest, a world rich with more-than-human life. Yãkoana enables dialogue between humans and non-human entities - spirits, animals, and plants - serving as a bridge that transcends visible reality. It allows shamans not only to communicate with these beings but also to nurture relationships with their ancestors, mediating the needs and desires of all entities.

It’s a striking example of how the magic of food can serve multiple purposes: from the simple act of nourishing our bodies to facilitating profound spiritual connections. In the case of yãkoana, it becomes a means of cultivating mutual care and balance within the forest's intricate web of life, highlighting the powerful entanglements between sustenance, ritual, and the more-than-human world.

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This article is a contribution from one of the participants of The Gramounce Food & Art Alternative MA 2024-25. Their writing is inspired by one of our seminars, or responds to a similar field of interest within food & art.

[1] The film can be seen on Youtube.