Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca ayawaska pronounced aja waska in the Quechua language is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shrubs from the Psychotria genus. The brew, first described academically in the early 1950s by Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, who found it employed for divinatory and healing purposes by the native peoples of the Amazonian Colombia, is known by a number of different names .

A notable property of ayahuasca is that neither of the ingredients cause any significant psychedelic effects when imbibed alone. they must be consumed together in order to have the desired effect. How indigenous peoples discovered the psychedelic properties of the ayahuasca brew remains unknown.

In Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, and to a lesser extent in Brazil, "ayahuasca" or "ayawaska" is Quechua for "spirit vine" or "vine of the souls"; aya means "spirit" while huasca or waska means "vine". The spelling of ayahuasca is the hispanicized version of the name; many Quechua or Aymara speakers would prefer the spelling ayawaska.

The name is properly that of the plant B. caapi, one of the primary sources of beta-carbolines for the brew. Other terms include:
 cipó (generic vine, liana), "caapi", "hoasca", "vegetal", "daime" or "santo daime" in Brazil
 natem amongst the indigenous Shuar and Achuar people of Peru and Ecuador
 yagé or yajé (both pronounced jaˈhe) in Tucanoan
 shori among the Nahua people of Peru.

Sections of Banisteriopsis caapi vine are macerated and boiled alone or with leaves from any of a number of other plants, including Psychotria viridis (chacruna) or Diplopterys cabrerana (also known as chaliponga). The resulting brew contains the powerful hallucinogenic alkaloid N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and MAO inhibiting harmala alkaloids, which are necessary to make the DMT orally active.
 
Brews can also be made with no DMT-containing plants. Psychotria viridis being substituted by plants such as Justicia pectoralis, Brugmansia, or sacred tobacco, also known as Mapacho (Nicotiana rustica), or sometimes left out with no replacement. The potency of this brew varies radically from one batch to the next, both in potency and psychoactive effect, based mainly on the skill of the shaman or brewer, as well as other admixtures sometimes added and the intent of the ceremony. Natural variations in plant alkaloid content and profiles also affect the final concentration of alkaloids in the brew, and the physical act of cooking may also serve to modify the alkaloid profile of harmala alkaloids.