'Sacred tea' helps indigenous people find 4 children in the Amazon rainforest

On the 39th night at the camp, Manuel Ranoque performed the Amazonian indigenous ritual of drinking sacred "yagé" tea, in order to "open his eyes" to find the children.

On the night of June 8, a group of exhausted indigenous people gathered in a camp surrounded by towering trees and dense vegetation in the middle of the Amazon jungle. They and Colombian soldiers had been searching for four children lost in the jungle for 39 days, since the plane carrying them crashed on May 1.

Day 40 was a pivotal moment, when the entire search party was exhausted after weeks of fruitless searching. They sensed that the Forest Spirit was not yet willing to help find the four missing children.

A Colombian soldier stands next to a plane that crashed in the Amazon rainforest on May 18. Photo: AP

Indigenous volunteers and Colombian soldiers discovered many hopeful signs such as baby bottles, half-eaten fruit, and dirty diapers. But the relentless rain, harsh terrain, and the rapid passage of time drained their spirits and strength.

The indigenous people believe that when the body, mind and faith become weak, they will not be able to find the children in the forest. So that night, Manuel Ranoque, the father of the third and youngest children, decided to perform yagé, one of the most sacred rituals of the Amazonian indigenous people.

It is a ritual preparation of a bitter tea made from ayahuasca, a wild vine that grows in the Amazon, and the chacruna shrub. For centuries, the hallucinogenic herbal tea has been used by people in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil as a cure-all for all manner of ailments.

Henry Guerrero, a volunteer who joined the search, said his aunt had prepared yagé for the group. They believed the drink would open their eyes and lead them to the children.

“I told them, ‘There’s nothing we can do in this forest. We can’t find the children with our eyes. The last resort is yagé,’” said Guerrero, 56. “The trip took place at a special moment, something very sacred.”

After the natives finished preparing the yagé, Ranoque sipped tea, while the others watched him for the next few hours.

Late that night, they were disappointed when Ranoque told them the ritual had not worked. They packed their belongings, preparing to leave the forest the next morning.

But before they set out from the forest early on the morning of June 9, village elder José Rubio decided to drink the remaining yagé, believing it would help him find the children.

Rubio suddenly fell into a trance, sometimes vomiting because of the side effects of the psychoactive tea. This time, he said the tea worked. Rubio believed his vision had been opened, allowing him to see the children and told Guerrero: "We will find them today."

Rubio's statement gave hope to the search team and they decided to stay in the forest and continue their efforts.

Yagé, an herbal tea made from the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the chacruna shrub (Psychotria viridis), has hallucinogenic effects. Photo: Wikipedia

The four children, Lesly, Soleiny, Tien and Cristin, grew up in Araracuara, a small Amazonian village in a remote area of ​​southern Colombia that can only be reached by boat or small plane. Ranoque said the children were happy and independent because he and his wife, Magdalena Mucutui, were often away from home.

Lesly, 13, was quiet and mature. Soleiny, 9, was playful. Tien, who was almost 5 when the accident happened, was very active. Cristin, who was 11 months old when she went missing, was learning to walk.

At home, Magdalena Mucuti grew onions and cassava, which she turned into flour to feed her family and sell. Lesly learned to cook at the age of eight. She looked after her younger siblings when her parents were away.

On the morning of May 1, the four children, their mother and an uncle boarded a light aircraft to the town of San José del Guaviare. Ranoque had left the village, which lies between rebel groups and decades-old drug plantations, a few weeks earlier. Ranoque said he was under pressure from people involved in the illegal activity, but declined to provide details.

“The work there is not safe,” Ranoque said. “It is also illegal, and there are other people in the field I cannot talk about because I would put myself in greater danger.”

Ranoque said he left his wife 9 million pesos ($2,695) before leaving the village to buy food, necessities and pay for airfare. He wanted the children to leave the village because he feared they would be recruited by rebel groups in the area.

The mother and her five children were on their way to meet Ranoque when the pilot of the Cessna light aircraft declared an emergency due to engine failure. The plane disappeared from radar screens on May 1.

The Colombian military searched for the plane and after 10 days of searching without finding any sign of the plane or the victims, a group of indigenous people decided to join in. They were familiar with the Amazon jungle and the families in the area. One indigenous person said he heard the engine as the Cessna flew over his house. This information helped them plan a search along the Apaporis River.

Soldiers and natives plowed through the forest, despite the dangers. One man was nearly blinded by a tree branch. Others began to develop allergies and flu symptoms, but they continued.

In the past, the army and indigenous groups hated each other, but in the jungle they shared food, water, satellite phones, GPS devices and hope.

Sixteen days after the crash, with spirits low, they found the wreckage of the plane nose-down on the forest floor. They assumed the worst had happened when they found human remains inside. Guerrero said he and the others began to dismantle camp. But a man approaching the plane said, "Hey, I don't see any bodies of children."

Guerrero approached the plane and noticed several objects that appeared as if someone had pulled them out after the crash.

The bodies of three adults were pulled from the plane, but no children, nor any signs that they had been seriously injured. The searchers changed tactics, relying on the evidence that the children were still alive. They no longer moved silently through the jungle, fearing insurgents as they had done before.

"We're going to move on to phase two," said Sergeant Juan Carlos Rojas Sisa. "We're going to use the loudest search method possible so the children can hear us."

They howled Lesly’s name and broadcast a recorded message from the children’s grandmother in Spanish and the Huitoto language, telling them to stay put. Helicopters dropped food and leaflets into the forest. The military also brought dogs, including Wilson, the Belgian Shepherd who had found the children’s milk bottle before they disappeared in the forest.

Nearly 120 soldiers and more than 70 indigenous people searched day and night for the four children. They taped whistles to trees for the children to use if they saw them, and used a total of 11 kilometers of specialized rope to mark the areas they had searched, hoping the children would recognize it as a sign to stay put.

They continued to find clues about the children, including footprints believed to be Lesly's, but no one found them. Some people walked a total of more than 1,500 kilometers in the process.

Many of the soldiers were exhausted and the army was forced to replace them. That was when Guerrero called the village and asked his aunt to prepare yagé tea. Two days later, the tea arrived with soldiers.

On the 40th day, after Elder Rubio drank the yagé, they again searched the forest, starting from the spot where they had found the diaper. The “sacred tea” did not help Rubio pinpoint the children’s exact location, so the groups scattered in different directions.

Hours passed, as the natives despaired of finding any new clues, when a soldier suddenly announced over the radio that four children had been found 5 km from the crash site, in a relatively clear patch of forest. Rescue teams had passed through this patch of forest several times but had not found the children.

"They found all four of you," the soldier told Guerrero, crying and hugging him.

The four sisters were found about 5 km from the plane crash site on June 9. Photo: AP

When she was found, Lesly was in a near-delirious state and unable to walk. Her siblings were also exhausted and severely malnourished, their limbs covered in scratches and insect bites.

The searchers quickly administered first aid and warmed the children, then called a helicopter to pluck them from the dense forest. They were taken to San José del Guaviare, then flown by military airlift to a hospital in Bogota, where doctors were waiting.

Colombian officials, medical experts, the military and many others praised Lesly's leadership. General Pedro Sanchez, who was in charge of the search operation, said the eldest sister, Lesly, fed her younger brother by mashing up fruit, mixing it in a box with a little water.

She and her siblings became a symbol of resilience and a lesson in survival around the world. The Colombian government prides itself on the cooperation between indigenous communities and the military as it tries to end the country's conflict.

"The forest saved you," said President Gustavo Petro. "You are children of the forest and now you are also children of Colombia."

Ranoque acknowledged President Petro's words, but added that indigenous culture and spiritual rituals saved his children. "It was the spiritual world ," he said, referring to yagé as the most revered ritual of indigenous people in the Amazon. "We drank tea in the jungle so that the goblins would release my children."

Hong Hanh (According to AP )

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