Rao — medicine, and who carries it

Rao is the wide word usually translated 'medicine' — and it names a category of relationship, not a substance. The tradition distinguishes non rao, our medicine — plant medicine — from nawan rao, the foreigner's medicine — the Western kind (nawa = outsider). The one who carries it: onanya — literally 'one with knowledge', from onan, wise, plus -ya, to have. And oni — ayahuasca — was taught to us as onan + ni: ancient knowledge.

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