Canadian allegedly lynched in Peru 'gentle' seeker of 'deeper meaning,' friend says

CBC ^

[BenLurkin]

Yarrow Willard said the Comox Valley-area man had travelled to Peru several times to experiment with ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink, at rainforest retreats.

Ayahuasca, a concoction combining an Amazonian vine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), is not normally associated with violence.

...

In a bizarre attack the 41-year-old was allegedly lynched by people in the Ucayali region of the Amazon rainforest who Peruvian authorities say believed that Woodroffe was involved in the shooting death of an 81-year-old traditional healer.

Olivia Arevalo Lomas of the Shipibo-Conibo ethnic group, an Indigenous healer and rights activist, was fatally shot on Thursday and Peruvian authorities described Woodroffe as her client.

...

Woodroffe grew up in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island.

In recent years, he worked odd jobs and did some professional diving, living around Courtenay and Cumberland, at times in an RV...

"He is a little bit of a, I'll call it a shit disturber. One of these people who likes to poke, and likes to test the boundaries of people's beliefs, but is very much a gentle person underneath all that. This man has never had a gun or talked about anything along that line."

...

Willard said contacts in Peru told him Arevalo Lomas was attracting tourist dollars and could have been a target of many political forces. She advocated for the environment and had recently opened up a lucrative healing centre offering ayahuasca experiences to so-called "gringos."

Willard fears that his friend, who could be "disruptive" may have become a scapegoat in the complex political environment around this kind of tourism.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...so-called "gringos."..."

Gee, I've never heard this racist and disparaging term before.

So exotic and mysterious, it is.