O N E · R I V E R
E x p l o r a t i o n s · A n d · D i s c o v e r i e s
I n · T h e · A m a z o n · R a i n · F o r e s t
b y · W a d e · D a v i s
(S i m o n · a n d · S c h u s t e r)
r e v i e w e d · b y · R o n · H o g a n
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Ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes was the epitome of the nineteenth century British naturalist/explorer, the sort of scientist who could spend months in the wild collecting plant samples, except for one thing -- he was born in East Boston in the twentieth century. Sent to Harvard in the 1930s, he confounded his family's hopes that he would become a doctor when he took a part-time job as a clerk in the college's Botanical Library. A little over a year later, he was in Oklahoma interviewing Indians about peyote and eventually ingesting the drug himself, though it had little effect on him, causing him only to see colors. 
Within a decade, after expeditions into Mexico that led to the botanical identification of legendary Aztec hallucinogens and the 'magic mushroom,' Schultes took a twelve-year sabbatical from Harvard, where he was now a professor, to explore the forests of the Northwest Amazon in Columbia. He returned to teaching in the 1950s, argued with a colleague in the psychology department named Leary about the proper spelling of the word psychedelic, and mentored a new generation of researchers who would carry on his research, including alternative health guru Dr. Andrew Weil and author Wade Davis.
In a monumental combination of biography and natural history, Davis does more than tell the story of Schultes' travels. He also remembers his own South America in the mid-1970s when, accompanied by fellow Schultes protegé Tim Plowman, he searched for the botanical origins of coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived. It was a journey that was made possible by Schultes' support of their research, but also one that was clearly inspired by his example. The landscapes they found were much changed from those their mentor had explored; the damage of industrialization to the rain forests had accelerated rapidly (and of course has continued to do so). But this destruction was only the culmination of a process that spanned centuries. All of the locations that Schultes and Davis visit are permeated by the Spanish assault on the native cultures that they found. Much of their research, in fact, is an attempt to rediscover aspects of Amerindian culture which were driven underground and known to westerners only through disparaging references in the journals of missionaries who saw the use of hallucinogenic drugs, even for the religious or medical purposes which they fulfilled for the indians, as the work of Satan.
This is a work of vast knowledge about a specialized field, but Davis' greatest strength as a writer is the skill with which he humanizes the process of scientific discovery. The enthusiasm, the inquisitive spirit with which first Schultes, then his students, plunge into the jungle is present on every page, as is the sincere attempt to understand the native cultures of Central and South America on their own terms. In many cases, the botanists are the ones who are able to establish the closest relationship with the indigenous people, precisely because they are the only white men who want to do nothing more than listen to the villagers and look at their plants. They are the people who keep their eyes and ears open to everything that takes place around them. Wade Davis has done more than that, however -- he has matured to the point where he has not only understood the significance of what he has witnessed but also been forced to mourn its passing. One River was not directly inspired by the continued despoiling of the Amazon forests, but by the death of his close friend Plowman in 1989 of AIDS. Although he hits elegiac tones throughout the book and is relentlessly honest about the extent of the cultural and ecological damage done, Davis' spirit never gives in entirely to these losses, and the book ultimately celebrates ways of life that were able to survive centuries of oppression and the adventurous spirit that brought knowledge of those ways of life back to the western world.
Drown