Cultural appropriation of traditional indigenous medicine in Europe

In recent decades, the phenomenon of traditional indigenous medicine being
promoted outside its territory by people who do not belong to an indigenous
community or have the appropriate training has
increased.
This can be described as a cultural appropriation that has reached the international level and
has led to people who are unfamiliar with the cultural development of indigenous communities and their
ancestral territories making profits
in the name of selling exotic spiritual practices.
However, this situation is not new; in the 1960s, the hippie movement was very close to ancestral
medicines from Mexico and indigenous cultures in the United States, which led to the
commercialisation of plants such as peyote, datura or mushrooms such as the so-called "sacred
children". This fad led to the exposure of the indigenous sages of that
time, some of whom lost their skills as healers after agreeing to disclose the
use of sacred plants.
Nowadays, the peak of ceremonies based on the use of plants from the
Amazon region, combined with the salvatory fervour of ecological movements, the
increase in psychiatric illnesses and the association with religions, that are
spreading in certain
environments, has led to a break in the harmonious understanding of the indigenous world, which is
already threatened by the existing colonial processes, the dispossession of territories, the
forced relocation and the changes of modern society.
This rupture and the global approach have allowed the appropriation of plants such as yagé and yopo, the
increased deforestation of the jungle for their cultivation, the great threat to sacred species such as the
jaguar and the anaconda and others, as well as the disharmony within communities due to
spiritual tourism.
In this context, the way healing practices are
performed by people who do not belong to an indigenous community and do not have the appropriate
skills deserves a critical look that leads to an alternative solution to the already growing
social crisis of indigenous communities in Colombia and other Latin American countries.