Shaman beats vine of the dead in Colombian rain forest. He prepares Ayahuasca from Amazon ingredients. Ayahuasca (pronounced [ajaˈwaska] in the Quechua language) is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with the leaves of the Psychotria bush. It was first described academically in the early 1950s by the late Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes who found it employed for divinatory and healing purposes by Amerindians of Amazonian Colombia.