Overview of Alex Lucitante: La ciencia ancestral
This episode of Cruzar el Río centers on Alex Lucitante, a Cofán leader, healer, and human-rights defender from the Amazon border region between Colombia and Ecuador. The conversation explores how the Cofán people understand yagé/ayahuasca not as a recreational substance, but as a sacred, ancestral science tied to identity, territory, spirituality, and governance. Alex also explains how this knowledge has guided his legal and political struggle to defend his community’s land from mining, including a landmark court victory in Ecuador.
Who is Alex Lucitante?
- Cofán Indigenous leader from a lineage of taitas/chamanes and medicine keepers.
- Describes himself as:
- a tomador de medicina ancestral,
- an activist,
- and a defender of Indigenous rights and territory.
- Grew up learning from elders, starting in childhood, through ceremonies, dreams, songs, and discipline.
- His life and leadership are presented as inseparable from his relationship with yagé.
La ciencia ancestral del yagé
Yagé as sacred knowledge
- For the Cofán, yagé is the plant that connects them to:
- the land,
- their ancestors,
- the spirits,
- and divine knowledge.
- Alex emphasizes that yagé is not merely a chemical or an “hallucinogen”; it is a living relationship and a source of wisdom.
The story of Chiga
- Alex recounts a Cofán origin story:
- Chiga, a divine being, once lived on Earth.
- Before becoming invisible, Chiga left part of himself behind—his hair and eyebrow—planted in the earth.
- From that gift grew yagé.
- Another elder, Kankobue, was told that to find Chiga and heal, people must take the plant.
- The story also explains why yagé requires suffering, discipline, and respect:
- knowledge can be dangerous if it leads to arrogance,
- therefore, learning medicine involves trial, humility, and transformation.
Ceremony, music, and vision
- Yagé ceremonies happen at night, usually in darkness, after preparation and dietary restraint.
- Songs/cantos are essential:
- they carry the knowledge,
- connect participants to spirits,
- and translate nature into understanding.
- Alex describes the experience of hearing:
- water become music,
- wind become rhythm,
- and the forest become a living symphony.
- In this worldview, nature becomes music, music becomes knowledge, and knowledge becomes wisdom.
How yagé shaped Alex’s life
- Alex began attending ceremonies at around age 5 with his father.
- At 11, he accidentally took a much stronger dose meant for his father, which accelerated his path into medicine and spiritual learning.
- As a teenager, school and urban life made it difficult to maintain the strict diet/discipline required for working with yagé.
- Later, when one of his children became ill, he returned more intensely to medicine so he could learn to heal within his own family.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alex says he nearly died, then recovered through a ceremonial healing with his father.
Territorial defense and legal struggle
The threat
- In 2017, the Cofán community of Sinangoe noticed illegal intrusion:
- mining activity,
- poisoned fishing,
- heavy machinery,
- and growing environmental damage.
- The community organized quickly:
- patrols,
- documentation,
- guardia indígena,
- cameras and drones.
The victory
- In 2018, the community filed a legal case in Ecuador.
- A court later annulled 52 gold-mining concessions granted without community consent.
- The ruling affirmed:
- the right to prior, free, and informed consultation,
- collective rights,
- and the rights of nature.
- Alex and community leader Alexandra Narváez received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2022.
Law and medicine: two languages that must work together
Alex presents a central idea of the episode: Indigenous resistance requires speaking two complementary languages:
- The language of law
- useful for courts, governments, media, and outsiders.
- helps explain territorial rights in terms the Western world recognizes.
- The language of plants and spirit
- used to understand the land from within.
- gives leaders strength, clarity, and guidance.
His point is that one language alone is incomplete:
- law without spirit can be hollow,
- spirit without legal defense may not be enough to stop extractive projects.
Main takeaways
- Yagé is a sacred, inherited science for the Cofán—not a product, myth, or “hallucinogen.”
- Territory, spirituality, and political defense are inseparable.
- Indigenous leadership requires both:
- legal strategy in the outside world,
- and ancestral knowledge rooted in ceremony and relationship with the land.
- The episode frames suffering, humility, and discipline as essential parts of learning and healing.
- Alex’s story shows how ancestral knowledge can sustain both personal healing and collective resistance.
Closing note
The episode ultimately argues that the Cofán remain “la gente del yagé” by protecting the plant, the songs, the land, and the spiritual relationships that hold their world together. Alex Lucitante’s life becomes a model of how ancestral science can guide environmental defense, cultural survival, and Indigenous self-determination.