How Ayahuasca Is Supporting the Yaqui in Healing Addiction
A Yaqui-led effort in Sonora is using ayahuasca and cultural renewal to support healing from addiction and strengthen community ties.
In Sonora, Mexico, beneath the shade of mesquite trees, busy hands string colorful beads. Yaqui tribe members are processing the previous night's ayahuasca ceremony. There is much to discuss. Some are confronting methamphetamine addiction. Others are grappling with cartel violence or the generations of struggle to defend Yaqui land and water.
"At first, I didn’t know about the medicine. But the first time I took it, it helped me strengthen my path in our culture," says Yoomasali Sewa, a Yaqui woman studying Indigenous law at Universidad del Pueblo Yaqui. She says she was criticized by other Yaqui for consuming ayahuasca, which is not a traditional medicine within the Indigenous nation. Still, Sewa says the experience resonated with her, sharing that “ayahuasca activates the knowledge that, many years ago, our elders and grandparents taught us — the values of our culture and of nature."