Borrachero thinking

Abstract

For many Indigenous communities of the Colombian Andean–Amazon, sabedores are healers who steward plant knowledge across physical and spiritual territories. This article focuses on Brugmansia (Borrachero Culebra), a potent Solanaceae cultivated for centuries by Kamëntšá, Inga, Quillacinga, and Siona peoples. First documented by ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes in 1942, Brugmansia remains central to Indigenous medicinal and cosmological practices. Through a dialogue between Kamëntšá media maker and land defender Ayënan Quinchoa Juajibioy and geneticist Dr. Federico Roda, the text explores plant agency, human vulnerability, and inter-epistemic exchange. Produced within the SNSF-funded research project Plants_Intelligence. First published as “Borrachero, ‘Teufelsatem’, Engelstrompete: Was möchte diese Pflanze von uns?” in Unter Pflanzen (Museum Sinclair-Haus, 2025).