Traditional medicines and ancestral knowledge. Embrace of the serpent (2015)
Medicina tradicional indígena, Plantas medicinales, ayahuasca, seguridad alimentaria
The film tells an epic journey where the confrontation of two different cultures is observed. In it two stories that occur in different historical times are intermingled. It begins with the meeting of Karamakate, a Cohihuano Indian, with a German anthropologist named Theo who is ill. He asks him to help him find the yakruna, a sacred plant, that grow where his people used to live and which he needs to cure his illness. After some doubts finally the Indian agrees to accompany him. Then the action takes place around 1940, when Karamakate is now an old Indian and has lost some of his memories. He meets Evans, an American ethnobotanist, who tells him that he is looking for the yakruna, a plant he met in a book written by a famous explorer who had been in those lands many years ago. The meeting reminds him of the one that happened approximately 30 years ago, and that still brings him back sad memories. The final scenes show, the decisions that Karamakate and Evans take against several dilemmas: to forgive or continue to distrust, to respect and try to understand the culture of the other or just use it for their benefit, to share the knowledge or let them die in oblivion.
Laura MORATAL IBÁÑEZ, Analía DOMÍNGUEZ, Marina WALLINGER, Pablo Rubino
Revista de Medicina y Cine / Journal of Medicine and Movies
https://revistas.usal.es/index.php/medicina_y_cine/article/view/19090