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A Canadian man who travelled to Peru to study hallucinogenic medicine has been lynched in a remote corner of the Amazon rainforest, after he was accused by members of an indigenous community of killing a local spiritual leader, authorities said.
Police found 41-year-old Sebastian Woodroffe's body after a video was shared on social media, showing a man purported to be Woodroffe begging for mercy while being dragged by the neck between thatch-roofed homes. He was then left motionless on the muddy ground.
Officials had launched a search for Mr Woodroffe after the murder of shaman Olivia Arevalo, an octogenarian plant healer from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe of north-east Peru. They backed away from initial reports Mr Woodroffe was the principal suspect in Ms Arevalo's killing.
Both Ms Arevalo and Mr Woodroffe were killed on Thursday in the community of Victoria Gracia, officials said.
On Saturday, officials dug up Mr Woodroffe's body from an unmarked grave where he had been hastily buried.
Every year, thousands of foreign tourists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with ayahuasca, a bitter, dark-coloured brew made of a mixture of native plants.
The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, has been venerated for centuries by indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as a cure for all sorts of ailments.
But it is also increasingly consumed by Western tourists looking for mind-altering experiences — sometimes with deadly consequences.
In 2015, a Canadian fatally stabbed a fellow tourist from England after the two drank ayahuasca together in a spiritual ceremony a few hours' drive from where Mr Woodroffe was killed.
Canadian wanted to become an addiction counsellor
Ms Arevalo was a staunch defender of indigenous people's rights in the region. She also practiced a traditional form of singing medicine that the Shipibo believe removes negative energies from individuals and a group alike.
She can be heard singing a traditional plant song on the website of the Temple of the Way of Light, which describes itself as a plant-shamanic healing centre in the Peruvian Amazon.
Before going to Peru, Mr Woodroffe, from the town of Courtenay on Victoria island in British Columbia, said he hoped an apprenticeship with a plant healer from the Shipibo tribe would help his goal of changing careers to become an addiction counsellor using hallucinogenic medicine.
"The plant medicine I have the opportunity of learning is far deeper than ingesting a plant and being healed. It is not about getting 'high' either," he wrote on a crowdfunding website seeking financial help to advance his studies.
"It is true some of the plants I will be learning about do have a perception-altering effect, but these are a few plants out of thousands I will be working with.
"I am in this for the long haul. This is more than a 'job' to me. I want not only for people to recover … I want to turn them on to the wonders of existence, and have them leave as a renewed friend and lover of this thing we call life."
AP
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, drug-use, peru, canada