Jurema

Jurema is the sacred tradition of the interior peoples of northeastern Brazil, the non-Tupi groups the Portuguese lumped together as Tapuia, who made sacred drinks from parts of the jurema tree. The Kariri and Pankararu, among others, drank it, and their pajés, or shamans, served it at gatherings for religious and healing rites.

The drink, together with tobacco smoke and ritual song, brought on a trance in which the Encantados, the spirit masters, were thought to speak through the shaman. Early European chroniclers noted the drinking of jurema and these spirit-possession rites.

Under colonial rule the cult was driven underground. Hybrid Catholic-indigenous movements called Santidades appeared in the 1500s and 1600s, and into the 1800s to drink jurema was held to be witchcraft; many Indians and caboclos were arrested for attending a jurema gathering.