Jeremy Narby is an anthropologist and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. Narby grew up in Canada and Switzerland, studied history at the University of Canterbury

University of Canterbury

The University of Canterbury , New Zealand's second-oldest university, operates its main campus in the suburb of Ilam in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand...

, and received a doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

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Narby spent several years living with the Ashaninca in the Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

vian Amazon

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

 cataloging indigenous

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....

 uses of rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 resources to help combat ecological destruction. Narby has written three books, as well as sponsored an expedition to the rainforest for biologists and other scientists to examine indigenous knowledge systems and the utility of Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shrubs from the Psychotria genus...

 in gaining knowledge. Since 1989, Narby has been working as the Amazonian projects director for the Swiss NGO, Nouvelle Planète

Nouvelle Planète

Nouvelle Planète is a non-profit organization founded on Albert Schweitzer’s examples, ideas and ethics; it is strictly neutral in religion and politics, and works to support small practical projects in countries in the southern hemisphere, setting up direct relations between people in the North...

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Books

• The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
  The Cosmic Serpent
  The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge is a 1998 non-fiction book by Jeremy Narby. Narby performed two years of field work in the Pichis Valley of the Peruvian Amazon researching the ecology of the Asháninka, an indigenous peoples in Peru....
  
  (1995) ISBN 0-87477-911-1
• Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge (2001) edited by Narby and Francis Huxley ISBN 1-58542-091-3
• Intelligence in Nature
  Intelligence in Nature
  Intelligence in Nature: An Inquiry into Knowledge is a 2005 non-fiction book by Jeremy Narby. The book continues Narby's quest that began in The Cosmic Serpent ....
  
  (2005) ISBN 1-58542-399-8
• Psychotropic Mind: The World According to Ayahuasca, Iboga, and Shamanism (2010) ISBN 978-1594773129

External links

• "The Cosmic Serpent" an interview in ascent magazine.