58CHAPTER 3 Culture When writer John Wray visited his cousin, an aid worker among the Amazonian Shuar community in a part of Ecuador accessible only by canoe or small plane, he was greeted as an honored guest. His hosts in the village of Pampansa invited Wray to the home of a local community leader, where they would share a bowl of chicha, an alcoholic beverage traditionally offered as a friendly greeting to visitors (Wray 2010). While Wray was honored by the warm welcome and knew that his hosts were offering him a traditional drink as a gesture of friendship, he reports that he would “have given almost anything to escape.” That’s because in Pampansa, women prepare chicha by chewing on fermented yucca root and spitting into a large barrel, where the beverage accumulates before being transferred into a ceramic bowl for drinking. After Wray’s cousin Martin downed his bowlful of chicha, which their hosts described proudly as the best in the region, a newly refilled bowl was placed in front of Wray, who paused, wondering how he had ended up in this situation. After all, a year earlier he had visited Martin in a neighboring village and had managed to take only a sip of ceremonial chicha. This time, Wray found the chicha’s odor overpowering, likening the smell to “an old man’s false teeth.” Now, out of respect for his hosts, he was faced with guzzling the entire bowl. In search of a way forward in this unfamiliar—and, for Wray, very unappetizing—situation, Wray recalled something that made the idea of drinking chicha more familiar and eased his sense of anxiety. He thought of all the times he had tasted someone else’s saliva: “Hadn’t I tasted spit countless times before? What was chicha drinking, after all, but French kissing once removed?” With the inspiration of this familiar activity in mind, Wray quietly gulped down his portion of chicha, paying respect to his host’s generosity.
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