The Orator of Mestre Raimundo Irineu Serra: Dialogues, Memories, and Verbal Arts

In the research conducted and in the writing woven here, I approach and seek to dialogue with Luiz Mendes; with the memories anchored in his living body and the poetic voice that emanates from that body. A voice that resonates within and from the Daime doctrine, from mystical ecstasies, from Amazonian contexts. And, in contact/dialogue with this elder, and with the community established around him, I propose to revisit a dimension of “Daime culture.” The stories, songs, and lectures appreciated bring to light knowledge constituted within and from the epistemology of Ayahuasca, the science of Daime, and the aesthetics of diasporas. Living traditions and literatures forged in the melting pot of people and cultures around the world which, albeit subtly and within processes of conformity and resistance, subvert hegemonic patterns and can contribute to decolonizing the imagination.

Knowledge and practices from which the Daime poetics of Luiz Mendes do Nascimento, the Orator of Master Raimundo Irineu Serra, flourish.

*Following alongside his wife and his large family a long life dedicated to Daime, this elder born in 1940 in the heart of the Amazon in Acre (and who died in 2019) constituted a living collection of Mestre Irineu's doctrine. Orator, shaman, poet of diversity, narrator, teacher, artist of the word, storyteller, man of memory, herald of King Juramidam, minstrel of God, centurion, advisor, partygoer, nightingale; godfather Luiz.