Pass the Pipe

Question: Okay, what is this I hear about singing to a rikramanta to visit other planets?

I'm afraid we will not be a lot of help on this one, but we'll give you what we've got.

This question is referring to the concept of singing an ikaro, a musical spell or incantation performed by shamans in some parts of South America. There are various kinds of ikaro, addressed to various different deities, spirits or forces in order to ask them for blessings, avert their displeasure or offer them appropriate respect, depending on who they are and what they represent.

However, the rikramanta is a lot less concrete. The only mention of it I have ever been able to find is in Pablo Amaringo's Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, which is a fairly recent (1999) book written by a practicer of modern-day Amazonian shamanism. In that book, the rikramanta is mentioned in passing as "a snake with arms and female breasts" whose ikaro may be sung "to visit distant planets". That's literally the entire body of information on the thing; the few sparse websites a Google search can dig up just quote the same book. The word itself is of indeterminate origin, with Amaringo's book translating it as meaning "one with strong arms" but failing to mention what language that might be in (presumably one of the Amazonian ones?).

Since that's the sum total of information we've been able to find anywhere ever, we have to conclude that the idea of the rikramanta is probably a modern folkloric one rather than anything recorded in ancient times, and further that we don't really know what region it might be from or whether it's a widespread belief. The idea of rituals to the creature to enact space travel is probably not literal in this case; the book is dedicated to visions brought on by use of the hallucinogenic ayahuasca drug, so it's more likely it means that such a ritual might grant a shaman a vision of another planet or a spiritual but not physical visit there. The idea of interplanetary travel is obviously a modern one, and is probably a relatively recent invention.

Sorry - that's all we know! Modern shamanism is a legit place to look for Scion inspiration and current religious pratices, but it is after all modern and therefore may have drawn its practices or ideals from much more recent sources than ancient beliefs. If you're interested in Amazonian shamanism, there are plenty of first-hand experience-style books like Amaringo's to explore.