The Coca Page

While I pulled from a variety of sources for this page, including my own experiences, I would particularly like to credit Catherine Allan's informative book The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identify in an Andean Community, 2nd Ed. (see the recommended reading page) for the specific details on phukuy, chewing coca, and for the information on the role of coca in Andean society.

The coca plant, specifically the chewing of coca leaves, has a very special, important, and fundamental role in the Andean culture and in Andean mysticism. It is from the coca plant that cocaine is manufactured, which is an unfortunate association, for the difference between chewing coca leaves and using cocaine is vast, the chewing of coca leaves being about as psychologically and physically stimulating as a good cup of tea, or as Alan Ereira remarked in his 1991 film From the Heart of the World, the coca leaf that is chewed by the Andean people 'is as far from refined cocaine as rye bread is from rye whiskey' (cited in Bolin, 1998, see recommended readings).

Mythological Beginnings

The culture of the Andes is as blend of the original, pre-conquest, mysticism and the Catholicism that was imposed upon them by the conquering Spanish. In several sources I've run across a similar account of how the benefit of chewing coca leaves was discovered. The first person to chew coca leaves was Mary, mother of Jesus, who while wandering through the wilderness deep in grief for the death of her son absentmindedly pulled some leaves from the coca plant and began chewing them, and found solace for her distress.

Physiological Effects

When chewed, coca acts as a mild stimulant and suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, cold, and fatigue. It provides a few useful vitamins and minerals and is widely used in the Andes to help the body cope with high altitudes. From this it is obvious why chewing coca leaves has played an important role in the Andes, where people regularly face very hard work at very high altitudes. Coca tea is legal and commercially available in Peru, and hotels in Cuzco (11,000 feet) traditionally offer it to newly arriving guests to help them adjust to the altitude.

The Use of Coca in Ritual

The use of coca leaves in rituals involves the creation of kintus. To form a kintu three perfect coca leaves are taken from a bag of leaves, they are then held at the finger tips of both hands by the stem end, either as a bundle or slightly fanned. If the kintu is to be used by the person who formed it then the leaves are held green (non-veined) side up, if the kintu is to be given to someone else then the green side faces the person to whom they are to be given.

After a kintu has been formed, or received, the person usually performs a ritual known as phukuy. In a phukuy you hold the kintu in front of your mouth and gently blow your finest energy (i.e. your sami in the form of energetic filaments) into the kintu and perhaps beyond. If beyond you announce your intent to send your filaments, blended with those of the sacred coca leaves, to connect with the filaments of other aspects of the Cosmos. A common phukuy is to connect with the Pachamama (the great being who is the planet Earth), the Apus (the beings who are the great mountain peaks), and your community. In this way you are at that moment connecting your self to those other entities, inviting them into your ceremony. Wiith this connection you may also express desires, such as connecting with a chakra (an agricultural field, a daughter of Pachamama) to ask permission for cutting into her with a plow so that you may grow your crops, or connecting with an Apu towering over a valley you have just reached to ask permission to enter.

After phukuy kintu's are then either chewed or placed in a despacho (an offering made to the Pachamama or the Apus or some other sacred being). Despachos are then buried in the ground (for the Pachamama) or burned in a fire (released into the Cosmos).

Reading Coca Leaves

Coca leaves are also used in divination ceremonies. In the ceremonies I have seen the leaves are placed in a bag, which is then thrown onto a table top. The coca leaves roar out of the mouth of the bag as from a beast and onto the table, and the paq'o then carefully sorts through them looking at the orientation and condition of the leaves, interpreting their significance as he does so.

How to Chew Coca Leaves

When chewing coca leaves they are not to be ground up by the teeth and then swallowed, instead a somewhat chewed wad is stored in the mouth and then slowly increased with the addition of more leaves. A small bite from a hard ball of compressed ash, known as a llipt'a, might be added, which further releases some of the chemicals in the coca leaves. Once a pretty good wad is established it is kept in the mouth for about 45 minutes and then discretely discarded (but not by spitting, which would be inappropriate for such a sacred plant).

The Role of Chewing Coca Leaves in Andean Society

The social chewing of coca is called hallpay. It is a common ceremony when people meet--perhaps gathering together to work in someone's field in the morning--to spend some time sharing and chewing coca leaves. An invitation to chew coca is an invitation to have a social interaction. The subsequent sharing of kintus provides a nonverbal way for everyone to express and acknowledge their relative status, as the custom is that you give kintus in order starting with the person in the group you believe has the greatest status. Thus chewing coca leaves and passing out kintus both connect people together and provide an expression of the social order. And it doesn't stop there, for the phukuys that are performed after the kintus have been received draw the participants into relationship with the Pachamama, the Apus, and other sacred aspects of Nature. Thus, when the Andean people meet for hallpay they invite into their circle the vast and beautiful forces of Nature. Chewing coca is thus a vital part of both Andean society and their connection with the sacred.

It's a Crime

The Andean culture is caught up in, and is being threatened by, the wake of Western culture's insanity over the use of drugs. Western scientists invented the process of turning coca leaves into cocaine in the 1800's (involving the use of 41 chemicals and a 100 to 1 reduction in volume from leaf to dug), in doing so they created a drug that was far more powerful (and dangerous) than the simple act of chewing coca leaves. Our culture then moved coca outside of the context of connecting with the sacred and binding people together in social intercourse and turned it instead into a recreational drug. When people began to suffer from the use of cocaine Western governments made it illegal, which then guaranteed that powerful and violent crime lords would arise to profit from its cultivation and distribution. Today the Andean countries where coca is grown are suffering greatly from our invention, abuse, and subsequent criminalization of cocaine. The war on drugs is being fought on their soil, soldiers are fighting crime lords, violence and corruption are rampant in those areas where coca is grown on a large scale, and the people are caught in the middle. Herbicides are being sprayed over their land to destroy the coca plants, poisoning Pachamama, and making the land incapable of growing crops for many years. Even the basic right of the Andean people to chew coca leaves is in peril. Technically, international drug treaties require the Andean people to stop chewing coca and for their governments to insure that happens. I say technically, as there has been resistance to that provision of the treaties and as of now some of the Andean countries still treat coca leaves as legal substances (while outlawing cocaine). Please be aware of this situation, and if you ever have a chance to educate others, particularly politicians, about the difference between chewing coca leaves and abusing cocaine, and the vital and sacred role the coca plant plays in Andean culture, it would be a wonderful opportunity to help the Andean people, to keep them from having to suffer from our cultural insanity.

The Coca Shop