Testimony of the Paje of Rio das Cobras - 1978

      - Pajé: For us, don’t have medication, since old times we didn’t use the white man’s medications. We use those weeds, like this one, this cypress is also medication for us. There are more herbs, there is lots of medication around, we use it, because our Father left it for us. It has come from above. Now we use the white man’s medication. Time passed, now we use white man’s medication. Before that we used only herbs.

- Cláudio: And from the Guarani religion?

- Pajé: That God sent it to come down to us like this, God sent it. The Father is above us and he says to us that once you come into this world, you grow like this, but you have to stand it. It goes on, then we grow up. In the old days I created medication like that.

- Cláudio: And can you tell the story of the pipe?

- Pajé: The pipe was knowledge that came from above, too, in the old days, it was like that. We have to use the pipe, I didn’t learn it, I learned a little, that God left it for us.