Free Taita Juan
On Tuesday, October 19, 2010 while en route to leading traditional ayahuasca ceremonies in Oregon, indigenous Colombian healer Juan Agreda Chindoy was detained in the Houston International Airport. He was formally arrested by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for possession of his traditional medicine Ayahuasca. He is now being charged as a federal criminal and is facing up to 20 years in federal prison.
Taita Juan is certified by his community and by the Colombian ministry of health as a traditional healer. He is one of the few remaining indigenous spiritual leaders in the world that holds the ancestral medicinal knowledge of an ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing. Taita Juan is a father, a husband and a godfather to more than 20 children. With more than 3000 supporters from several countries in the world, his life and work have touched many.
Due to an outpouring of support, the strongest legal team possible has been developed to effectively defend Taita Juan’s rights.
Please help at this critical juncture by donating whatever you can by visiting the website: Free Taita Juan
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Comments
Taita Juan bust
Due to an outpouring of
Nice information, many thanks to the author. It is incomprehensible to me now, but in general, the usefulness and significance is overwhelming. Thanks again and good luck.
Computer repair Austinvery good
very good
You don't bring Ayahuasca to the police state
As much as I deplore the arrest of Taita Juan, who is responsible for telling him it would be safe for him to bring ayahuasca into the U.S.?
The simple fact is: We live in a police state in the U.S. and you have no reasonable expectation of getting this through airport security.
very good
No question, Taita Juan's
No question, Taita Juan's arrest is a travesty, Zezt. As soon as we received word of it, and could verify that it was not just a rumor, we assigned an article to one of our volunteer contributors, Morgan, and he turned it around overnight, referencing all of the info we had available. It'd be great if someone would research and write a longer article about Taita Juan and the circumstances of his arrest. Are you up for it? Email me at ken (at) realitysandwich (dot) com.
www.classic-autoloans.com
what you really do, but
Ayahuasca in the US
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Zest: There's lots of people and lots of attention on this.
Recent word, or rumors at the very least, is that the charges against Juan will likely be dropped.
I've no other information or detail on that, other than that.
In addition, someone on the ayahuasca.com forum has posted the following:
by arno adelaars » Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:55 am
It may be good to give some background to Taita Juan Bautista Agreda.
He comes from a family of wel known Kamsá (or Cametsá) shamans from the Sibundoy Valley. His father is Taita Martín Agreda, a shaman with a very good reputation all over Colombia. His father is in his nineties now. His brother is also a shaman called Taita Floro Agreda.
The valley is high in the mountains.The Agreda family lives at 2600 meters above sea level. It can be really chilly there at night. The Putumayo river is still a small stream so high in the mountains, but it is steep there and it goes down very fast. It means the people traditionally living in that area, mainly Kamsá and Inga, a bit further down also Siona and Kofán, know a big variety of plants. Not only plants from the jungle, but also plants from higher regions. This fact makes the shamans of the Sibondoy a special breed. The Sibundoy Valley is also the place on earth with the highest variety of Brugmansia species. It is said that every shaman used to have his own variety. Ayahuasca is only one of the many different medicines being used by the Taita's. When I visited the valley with the ethnobotanist Christian Raetsch he found a treasure of rare hallucinogenic plants.
Juan Bautista had learned from his father how to hunt monkeys with a blowpipe in his childhood. When we visited their house the first time in 2004, no jungle in the vicinity was left. What used to be a lake had dried up, and the jungle had become pasture land for cows. The family still lives in a traditional way, and people come to them for healing. Every time I visited them, there were patients being treated. Juan Bautista and his wife have a shop in Sibundoy, the main town of the Sibundoy Vall. They sell ceremonial artefacts and a whole range of remedies. Juan Buatista's wife is very talented in making bracelets and necklaces in the typical Kamsá style. Juan Bautista is a distinguished painter. He paints his amazing visions in strong colours. They are full of snakes and jaguars and mythical beings. I have to look if I have any of them in digital format.
arno adelaars
Anger misplaced
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Has anyone heard...
venting
How is this going?
I jsut read the two posts by zezt
So what has happened?
This is a worthy cause, right.
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My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.Taita Juan está LIBRE / Taita Juan is free.
It is with great joy in our hearts that we write to update our community with news that the criminal charges against Taita Juan have been dropped as of today, November 16, 2010. At some point within the next couple of days, the court will begin the process of transferring Taita Juan out of prison and into the immigration authorities who will make arrangements for his return to Colombia. We will have more details by the end of today, in the meantime thank you again for keeping this prayer alive and strong. We did it!
I would like to take the opportunity to pass along this message from Pastora Chicunque,, member of the Kamentsá community of Sibundoy Putumayo, Colombia.
Acá en Sibundoy, la mayoría de los taitas están muy preocupados por el Yagecito. Nosotros lo que queremos es protección para la planta sagrada.El Yagé es una medicina tradicional que se a venido compartiendo de generación en generación por miles de años. Es una planta milenaria que estamos conservando. Los que trabajamos con la luz de esta planta estamos preocupados por las dificultades que en el exterior nuestro trabajo y la planta genera. Es por esto que necesitamos respeto a nuestra tradición milenaria y protección a nuestra medicina; El Yagecito como la llamamos es una medicina y es la luz para el mundo entero. No quiero que le corten el paso en su recorrido sanador por el mundo. Me gustaría que legalizen la luz del yajecito y no la luz del alcohol. Nosotros acá queremos o pedimos al mundo entero protección a la planta sagrada.
Here in Sibundoy, most of the Taitas are very worried about “ Yagecito”. What we want is protection for this sacred plant. Yagé is a traditional medicine, which has been shared from generation to generation since thousands of years. It is a plant we are working on its conservation. The ones, who are working with the light of this plant are worried about all the struggle the plant itself generates abroad. That is the reason, why we need respect for our traditions and protection to our medicine. “El yagecito”, the way we call it is a medicine; It is a light for the whole world. I don’t want to see its mission to be interrupted. I would like to legalize the light of “ Yagecito” and not the light of the alcohol. Here, we want and ask the whole world protection for this sacred plant. Pastora Chicunque Agreda
Free things are almost every
sajid