The Poison Toad

Paper Summary:

This paper portrays Guyana as a mix of religions and cultures by describing the use of tribal medicine. Some examples are the poisonous toad, Bufotenine, and various hormones. The mixing of the old world religions with the new world religions is the main theme of this paper.

From the Paper:

"When comparing cultures, it is difficult to imagine a culture more different from our own then Guyana. Located on the northern shore of South America. Guyana declared independence from Great Britain in 1966 and became a republic in 1970. Since then, it has transformed from a socialist economic structure to a capitalist economic structure. The entire country is slightly larger than the state of Idaho. The population growth rate is only .23% as of 2002 according to the CIA World Fact Book and the net migration rate as of 2002 was -6.28 per 1000 adults. There is a high infant mortality rate of just over 38 deaths per 1000 live births and almost three percent of the adult population has HIV. The most common ethnicities are Eastern Indians, at 50% of the population, this is followed by blacks who make up 36%, American Natives make up seven percent of the population with the remainder being made up by whites, Chinese and mixed races. About 50% of the population claims Christianity as their main religion, another 35% are Hindu, 10% are Muslim and 5% marked some other religion. The official language of Guyana is English, but American Indian dialects are widely spoken, as is Creole, Hindi and Urdu.

Religion and custom are not static. When followers of more traditional religions came to Guyana, they did not fight as much as they did in the north. Instead, Meso America and South America are known for incorporating elements of traditional Native American religions into their own religions. For example, think of the Day of the Dead in Mexico. That is the most obvious example to the mixture of Catholicism and native religions, or at least one of the most well known. Similarly, as the Christians and others worked to convert the Natives to their religion, the Natives held on to certain aspects of their own religion. It is through this that a nation can be 50% Christian and still practice shamanism, the two are blended and the locals don't really see a problem with it, but the Pope might beg to differ. Using frog poison as a hallucinogen was an important part of the rituals and the medicine of the people in South America, including Guyana."

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