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Chichaja (Gaultheria insipida)

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neurohack

neurohack

Rising Star
During the ICPR congress in Amsterdam last october, I went to a lecture about Chichaja. Called 'the female ayahuasca'. Some tribes in Colombia use it. They use this plant on itself, not in combination with a DMT plant. But before or after ayahuasca.

Found a link to an abstract of the research that was behind this talk. The talk was by the same guy. Here is the link.

Has anyone some knowledge about this plant? The above is all I could find in addition to the lecture.
 
Check out Entropymancer's Guide to Researching Psychoactive Plants: Resource List. There's a lot of good links there for finding information.

A search for "chichaja" on Google Scholar turns up an article (in Spanish) about medicinal plants used by the Inga people, including chichaja. A search for "Gaultheria insipida" turns up several articles where the plant's relationship to other related species is analyzed by phylogenetic analysis. There's also a chemotaxonomic analysis paper, and a handful of other things.

A search for the species on the Biodiversity Heritage Library turns up 11 publications that mention the plant (all can be read on the site).

In The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens, Schultes & Hofmann mention an unidentified species of Gaultheria used in the Peruvian Andes. In his Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants, Rätsch mentions a couple species of Gaultheria as being used in the preparation of chicha -- though I'd recommend following the information back to his sources for more details, since info coming from Rätsch is always suspect... unfortunately he cites five sources in the section that contains the claim, and it's not clear which of them is the one you'd want to pursue.

Hope that gives you enough to get started on. Would be interested in hearing what you find.
 
Thank you help me find out more.

I followed the links you gave and found the spanish article, which I couldn't read very well. But from what I gathered it didn't go in depth about the use and properties of the plant.

Biodiversity Hertige Library didn't turn up anything, both with 'gualtheria insipida' and 'chichaja' as search string. Maybe I overlooked something?

Both books you mention aren't in my shelve (yet), nor have I found a download link to the works. So I have to wait for these.

Overall I am still looking for people who can tell some more about this plant. At this point we can be certain that a) it exists and is used in a tradition b) it has entheogenic properties. But not much more can be said. We have a mystery 😁 .

Soon the ICPR lectures will come online and I can post a link, so you can all hear the stuff that triggered me to find out more.
 
neurohack said:
Biodiversity Hertige Library didn't turn up anything, both with 'gualtheria insipida' and 'chichaja' as search string. Maybe I overlooked something?
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Their search doesn't have any spellcheck on it... it looks like you transposed the "a" and "u" in Gaultheria. Here's a link to the search results. The ones that I read were mostly botanical descriptions with minimal commentary... but it would probably be worthwhile to check all of them just in case.

I also found this site with a google search for chichaja + Gaultheria. It mentions that Gaultheria insipida is used to treat chronic pain, but no further details beyond that.

As far as the chemistry of the plant goes, it looks like it's only been studied for chemotaxonomic purposes. That study looks at flavonoids, so it may or may not be relevant to the psychoactive properties of the plant -- see nen888's Passifloras of Interest..(& MAOI plant Flavonoids) for some discussion of potential flavonoid psychoactivity. Still, your best bet is probably to look at closely-related species and see if any of them have been chemically studied. Gaultheria is a pretty diverse genus (it includes things like wintergreen and salal), so to figure out which species are most closely related, you should check out the phylogenetic studies that include G. insipida alluded to in my earlier post.

Also there's this library record for a book. It seems to indicate that "chichaja" can also refer to Gaultheria glomerata... so that species might be worth looking into as well.

Soon the ICPR lectures will come online and I can post a link, so you can all hear the stuff that triggered me to find out more.
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Looking forward to it... sounds intriguing!
 
Morris Crowley said:
Their search doesn't have any spellcheck on it... it looks like you transposed the "a" and "u" in Gaultheria. Here's a link to the search results. The ones that I read were mostly botanical descriptions with minimal commentary... but it would probably be worthwhile to check all of them just in case.
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Aaah, now I see. A little error crept into the topic title as well. Can a moderator please correct it? The correct topic title has to be 'Chichaja (Gaultheria insipida)'.

Edit: done it myself.
 
@Morris Crowley, thanks for your help. I went through the links you supplied and they give some hints, so there is progress :) . There is more to be found, but it doesn't touch the thing were interested in here. Guees it will take some time, patience is your best ally, information will come.

However, we can do a little speculation. From memory I can summarize it a bit: After ingesting the plant-material people lie down and wait. There is a huge difference in the effects on both men and women. It is harsh and focuses on feminine aspects. In males it typically induces a kind of regret toward the way they used to see and treat women. For women I don't know what it specifically does.

I asked about the purposes it was being used for. Ie, healing and/or sorcery. The answer was that shamans usually use the plant to cleanse themselves after they did sorcery on ayahuasca. This cleansing aspect is considered to be very deep. Also, the experience in general is not fun or amusement.

So this is in short what I know about it. All is speculation ofcourse, I can't refer to the source (not yet anyway).
 
Hello friends.

I have a real interest in phytochemical research, just came to this plant because a presentation in "Psychedelic Science 2013" (
) but doesn't understand too much there (rare latin-english haha), so i got the original paper (attached):


Rodríguez Perez, L. & Murcia Roa, S. P., Is Gender Important in Consciousness Exploration? The Modification of Male & Female Consciousness with Chichaja Brew Exploration. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research | November 2013 | Volume 4 | Issue 9 | pp. 993-1000
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Apparently there are psychoactive effects with the consumption of this plant, there are some experiences reports in the research (i saw them in the video) and maybe, still a Shaman that use in ritual setting (centro Ornoyaco, Sibundoy - Colombia). It is important to clarify that i don't have commercial interest or any relation with the "healing center", just interested in psychedelic research.


Conclusion

Chichaja, “the female Ayahuasca”, is an almost unexplored matter. We would like to insist in the need to carry out an ethnobotanical research on Gaultheria insipida. Researchers can go to Colombia and contact shamans using Chichaja. We also need a chemical study of the active components of Chichaja. If the effects described here are proved independent of set/setting, it would be an important discovery in the world of psychedelic plants and ethnobotanic. We hope this text will be an introduction to further quantitative-qualitative work on the gender-based effects of Chichaja, and the possibilities Gaultheria insipida could offer in medical and consciousness research.
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Im planning to do my undergraduate thesis on preliminary phytochemical analysis, so maybe i'll have access to GC/MS but first of all, i'll try soon to contact the "ornayaco center" and participate in a "chichaja ritual", to convince me a little more about that issue (bioassay?) and check (if i can) the plants and parts used. For now, i found another species of Gaultheria (G. yunnanensis) and some phytochemical research, but really interested me the "diterpenoid" and "acid methyl esther" (called Gaultherin, alkaloid?) structures isolated in the studies.


Any toughts?, advice?, experience?, interest?. I'll post here any advance.

Thanks for your attention.
 

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  • +Is+Gender+Important+in+Consciousness+Exploration%3F+(Gaultheria+Colombia).pdf
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I tested this plant by GC-MS a couple of years ago, a sample that Leonardo sent me, and I could not identify any of the substances. There were no common tryptamines, nor beta carbolines, nor anything else similar. I'm attaching the .MS if you want to check, it's been a while and I might have missed something.

You can open it with openchrom or AMDIS or other programs, and use a library like SWGDRUG or another you might have access to, and see if you can at least tentatively identify any of the peaks.

This was a simple methanol soak IIRC.
 

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  • GinsipidaMS.zip
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Thanks a lot for digging this topic up, I'd never heard of Chichaja but now my interest is piqued, gracias! This is why I love the nexus 😁
 
fch.gaultheria.insipida.jpg


home -

This picture may be an illustration. But there are no further references...
 
Yesterday i was in a "paramo" (cold high lands) near of my home, where the botanical family "Ericaceae" is too common, but didnt find any Gaultheria. I'll search in other lands, thanks for the picture.

I'll keep you informed if i find something interesting.
 
Hi people,

good to see this thread evolving.

Hope this obscure plant gets known a little better.

Who knows I'm gonna try it one day! How about you?

Anyway I don't have much too add. That video from ICPR 2012 never came online. But it's same material covered in the Psychedelic Science 2013 lecture.

So please keep reports and other info coming here 😁
 
Hi everyone,
A short message to talk about my experience,
I've had a cup of this plant named Chichaja this morning in the middle of an ayahuasca ceremony. The first hour was very pleasurable with waves of cold and electricity going through the body which alternates with a warm sensation in the chest. Then the warm sensation became stronger and flew into the entire upper side of the body. My face started to burn and my back to be very very very painfull. In the same time the blood pressure became so low that I couldn't see nothing than colors and light and hear only a "buzz" in my ears. These sensations lasted about half an hour with an intense pain until I started to puke. I puked five or six times over the course of three hours. Then I had to stay laid down because of the blood pression wich did not allowed me to get up. Some friend helped me to go to the toilets, I had a big diarrhea and then started to feel really good mood. Now I feel all my muscles very weak and my nerves very sensitives, I feel a lot of energy flow into my body. Will rest and see what happens then ! By
 
One day after I feel a strong feminine presence in me, my thoughts are diferents, i'm focused on patience, confiance and receiving with the heart all the things I need instead of searching them with the head. I feel confortable in my body, some of the pains I had were realeased (mostly backpains). The Chichaja is curing sexual problems based on fear of not being powerfull enough to satisfy a women and not lasting enough time in the act.
I feel very good with the plant, it is obviously a good medicine of the physical body and a good teacher for the soul. I want to learn more from her, maybe I will search for a maestro who can make me diet her.
Thanks for reading y buena pinta con todos.
 
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