Balché...anyone tried it or know the complete recipe..

[Chiral]

I can't find an awful lot of info on this drink...Wiki has some explanation of it HERE but I can't find too much other info regarding this ancient sacred intoxicating drink used once by the Maya...how ever i have found a travel diary of someone who has taken part in the ritual use of this drink and this is what they had to say about it...

The big event with this tribe is the all day Bal Che Ceremony.

We all gather around 10 AM in a large open thatch-roofed palapa called the GodHouse along with much of the village. Women sit around the periphery as the men wearing their traditional long white cotton robes congregate toward the center.

All of us sit mixed together on the dirt floor, Indigenous and Gringo alike. A little uncomfortable at first, but as the day progresses, familiarity surfaces as inhibitions are loosened.

Chan Kin is sitting near a post with three of the tribal elders. Not standing on circumstance, and with not much pomp or ceremony he hands out empty coconut shells.

Filling his from a 500 year old clay jug full of Bal Che he takes a swig, then hands the jug to the old Indian next to him. Thus the jug gets passed around in the beginning of this Ritual Observation for the Gods.

The drink is made from the bark of the Bal Che tree. After scraping the bark, it is laid in one of those long Mahogany canoes set just before the GodHouse. Water is added, then the whole brew is covered with Banana and Palm leaves and allowed to sit for three to five days.

What emerges after the fermentation is a lightly alchoholic wine that brings a slightly psychedelic effect, tastes somewhat bitter, yet is surprisingly smooth. It is the Sacred Drink for these Lacandones.

All during the day, the ritual observation consists of continually refilling our coconut bowls with Bal Che, quaffing liberally. Everyone in the village drinks their fill, constantly returning to the always full jug to pour more into those coconut bowls.

The purpose is to become inebriated. Eventually, passing out somewhere near the GodHouse, dreams and visions arise. These are considered significant, they have mystical meaning.

Sitting near Joan and Jim, we are 'Going Native', just pouring down the brew and gabbing. This is what it's all about, as the medicine enters my blood, conversation becomes easier, and we just become naturally familiar.

Barry hands me a native cigar and I light up, laughing at this unique assembly of Indigenous and Gringos all under one roof.

I had participated in Native American ceremonies back in the States. Those mostly with White people, a few Indians. Out here, I am in the minority and feel a little shy.

Most of the conversation is meaningless in the context of words. Just everyday talk about the jungle, the heat, the beauty of this village, the lack of modern conveniences, the armies of ants that are everywhere.

Underneath, a current of communication far more real. A connection between people that makes me feel closer, more intimate with my fellow adventurers, and with the Indigenous surrounding me. We smile awkwardly at each other, acknowledging our sharing the cup of Bal Che and our shared humanity.

Although we live in different worlds, there is a common bond of unity here, toasting and drinking Bal Che.

Chan Kin is speaking with other villagers. A couple of men are arguing heatedly. Occasionally, Chan Kin just nods, grins and says a few words. The men eventually cool down, seem to come to an agreement.

The Shaman is adept as he helps settle old quarrels, negotiates settlements between differing parties, consciously bringing the tribe closer together.

Barry occasionally interprets the gist of conversations and explains that this ceremony is used constructively to maintain cohesion as a tribe.

Old disputes are dropped, new intimacies between neighbors are recognized. The old Shaman is like a Maestro directing the cacophony of individual music to create a symphony.

Through it all the old man just keeps refilling his bowl and drinking. Much later, after everyone has staggered away, he just gets up and walks away toward his house, as if all he had been doing is drinking water the whole day!

Now it is time to pay homage to the Gods. In the Center of the GodHouse are seven clay pots. Their spouts each wield a molded face. These gruesome and seductive appearances are worshipped as representatives of the spirit world.

Among them are the ultimate God, Hatchwanik, and the god of foreigners, hatchakum, and Sukakum, god of the underworld.

The pots are handmade out of brown rough clay, crudely fired in a local oven. The faces resemble some caricatures of ancient gargoyles displayed in the basilicas of old cathedrals.

Some with strikingly long noses, others with darkly piercing eyes. In an odd fashion they almost seem alive with a consciousness dwelling deep inside the clay.

Half animal, half human, these too are crude and novel renditions of the deities. Perhaps they are in fact those divine beings.

Two young people cover these faces with a shiny brown substance. It is jelly-like with patches of bark and small sticks protruding from mounds.

This is Copal, the resin gathered as sap from a tree. It hangs thick and musty around the pots, mingling with the burned remains of other frequent offerings. This is food for the deities.

As the old Priest, Chan Kin, begins to chant in a sing-song voice, each pot is lit from a burning branch. The thick sweet aroma billows in clouds covering the pots, expanding and surrounding all of us in veils of mystery, curtains of ambiguity.

The smoke drifts upward, spiraling out of the palapa, as the Copal, food for the Gods, is consumed. The ancient chanting drones on, amidst a dreamlike haze, I sway back and forth. Inside, the Bal Che is affecting my perception.

Outside, my senses are reeling from the music and smoke, and I am somewhere in an unknown cosmos. These Gods are laughing!

Toward evening some of the others, swaying back and forth, toppling over, have come to their limits. A few are helped out of the GodHouse and toward their own homes. Others are seen passed out on the grass.

I'm feeling plenty woozy, the old posts supporting this palapa sometimes disappear and all I notice is the jungle surrounding me. What is out there? Just beyond that brush the wildness begins.

If I wander too far this whole dream could turn nightmarish.

Anything can happen deep in the Rainforest. This is not the Zoo, those Jaguars and Snakes aren't kept behind cages. Not to mention all these poisonous trees. Just a brush on my skin, I've got a rash for life. Or worse!

I don't know this world, yet. And here is exactly where I need to be. I won't deny it. When I step back, out of the certainty that I'm surrounded by knowledgeable and supportive people, I feel a little lost.

Not knowing how to communicate with these natives and unsure of what to do, how to act. Sometimes I feel foolish, and more than a little like a child. Hell, even the children here know more about this jungle than I do! This is alien and more than passing strange.

Joan knows what she is doing. It seems like always. She is always comfortable and moves appropriately in any given circumstance. I'm impressed, and realize that more than just taking this interesting trip into the jungle, I need to learn from her!

That's what this exploration is about. How to travel into these obscure places, how to act, to be, what to say or not say, how to connect on a human level with cultures totally alien to mine.

More than an exciting venture into this particular world, I realized that what I signed up for was to learn from this woman. All that research back in the States just prepared me to step off into the unknown.

It did not address the everyday reality of confrontation with the unknown on basic levels like what to eat, what types of clothes to wear, how to encounter native tribes, what to offer or not offer as gifts.

Most of the Anthropologists I spoke with were very hesitant closed and doubtful. This even occurred continuously as I encountered other well-known 'authorities' in Central and South America.

They all speak of five to ten years of study and relationship building before the slightest door begins to open.

Joan herself is a Shaman of another breed, and has dwelled amongst many tribes. Perhaps the greatest insight I may receive here in the Lacandon will be from her.

This is the key, and it's up to me to absorb this teaching, drink from this well as deeply as possible.

I stagger out of the GodHouse, full of Bal Che, rolling over on the warm grass. Almost immediately I feel a whirling cloud encircle me in a sublime stupor. I have not been drunk it seems in years, and this is a kind of drunkenness. Yet not exactly.

Visions keep arising in my consciousness, or semi-consciousness. I have fallen into a lethargic state, not asleep and not awake. Sort of like a waking dream.

Images of the Natives I am with surround me. Chan Kin is there, smiling that abundant grin with his stogy hanging from his lips. He is prancing about madly like some monkey while next to him, wearing an all white dress and feathers in his hair is his son, Chan Kai-Ume.

The young artist Shaman, appearing and disappearing in a gray fuzzy cloud that seems to be filled with animal images as well. Is he a Shapeshifter?

These progress onto other pictures, of other people, strange ragged costumes and what seems like a different jungle altogether.

The light and the texture of the air are altogether of another place, another Reality. The foliage is different, leaves broader and larger and even more lush and full than here in the Lacandon. The insects larger, louder and more colorful. Even the facial features of the indigenous are different from these Mayans.

I don't recognize anything, and have a sense that what I am imagining is absurd.

The images dart past on surfboards of light and even the smell of the copal changes slightly, yet is eerily present as I seem to lose all bearings of time and space.

This is no ordinary dream! Who is that old man with a necklace of bones grinning wildly through the mist? My body is filled with terror and awe, and even that is just some bubbling volcanic madness rumbling in this fondue.

sounds very interesting and am wondering if it's possible to make a brew of it here although like most things here we are probably lacking the plant material to brew it up.

H.

[gerbil]

if you go to matrixmasters.net and look through the podcasts, Christian rastch has done a talk on the lacandon indians, I'm pretty sure he goes a bit into balche in this talk, (either that one or one of his others). I can't quite remember how much info is in there, but remember a bit of a mention, well worth a listen to besides the balche content anyway.

[Chiral]

Ahh hah....as soon as you mentioned Rastch I grabbed my encyclopedia of psychoactive plants and found a fair bit of info on Balche`preparations and different additives.

Some barks and additives have come from Acacia cornigera or horned acacia.... agave americana var, expansa.... pulque agave and psilocybin have been used to make a more visionary Balche`... Lonchocarpus violaceus or Balche` tree is the traditional tree for making balche` strips of bark are fermented with anything from bananas to honey and even datura flowers....the bark contains Rotenone and Longistylines which are chemically related to kavains and kavapyrones...apparently peyote powder has been used as an additive also in some parts...mmmm she is an interesting drink...be great for a summer backyard mini doof...

[t st tantra]

you know rotenone is a systemic insecticide or something similar......used for treating plant infestations......

t s t .

[Zaka]

Ahh hah....as soon as you mentioned Rastch I grabbed my encyclopedia of psychoactive plants and found a fair bit of info on Balche`preparations and different additives.

Some barks and additives have come from Acacia cornigera or horned acacia.... agave americana var, expansa.... pulque agave and psilocybin have been used to make a more visionary Balche`... Lonchocarpus violaceus or Balche` tree is the traditional tree for making balche` strips of bark are fermented with anything from bananas to honey and even datura flowers....the bark contains Rotenone and Longistylines which are chemically related to kavains and kavapyrones...apparently peyote powder has been used as an additive also in some parts...mmmm she is an interesting drink...be great for a summer backyard mini doof...

Irie,

Just to say, we have a lot of Lonchocarpus violaceus in flower right now.

Will note the trees & collect seeds in due course.

Maybe I should harvest some bark?

Does anyone know how to prepare as an insecticide?

Respect

Z