I'd love to hear mostly from people who are themselves indigenous or otherwise have personal ties to indigenous communities (i.e. not simply those who have been on many retreats/ taken it many times). As someone who intends to apprentice in the future, there are a lot of ethical questions that arise in considering this path.

I'll start by providing some context for the central question here:

I do not believe that anyone outside of an indigenous community can become a shaman of that communities' tradition. I also believe that any claims of being a Shaman, through whatever training, certification, etc. even those provided by indigenous communities to foreigners, are utterly meaningless in the context of status outside of those communities (although they can hold important merit concerning the issues of financial equity, intellectual fidelity, and right to indigenous self-determination).

Shaman healers do not spend their entire lives training in order to become a special rank or earn a certificate. They do it to serve their communities and the earth, to commune with the spirits of their land, and to fulfill whatever spiritual goals are essential to their own communal and individual backgrounds. Any status or certificate that is added onto that, to my mind, is bullshit in terms of making even the most well-intentioned foreigners "authentic shamans".

Not to mention "shamanism" as an epistemological category doesn't really exist aside from western academia, vis-a-vis Mircea Eliade and other early anthropologists. What we modern western people know as "shamanism" is in fact a vast multitude of sacerdotal practices, religious ontologies, and soteriological beliefs that may or may not even include plant substances. Even within ayahuasca shamanism there exists no hegemony of practice or tradition, although many significant recurring patterns can be identified across tribes, regions, and individuals.

At the same time, I truly believe that people from any culture and background can benefit others through psychedelic rituals, given the right intentions, understanding, and practice.

If the plant is really the true healer, even if it is only a catalyst which opens people up to healing, then how can anyone legitimately say that only shamans can help others to heal through this plant medicine? Although I sympathize with anti-colonial sentiments and the right to indigenous self-determination, this claim is ultimately hypocritical when it comes to the actual process of healing itself.

Having said that, not anyone can heal through plant medicine, and in fact there are far too many eager foreigners who have not undergone the necessary inward reflection of personal values and intention to be able to benefit others. Many of these people (as exist in all spiritual/ religious circles) are in fact using the facade of tradition and spiritual enlightenment to mask their immense egotism and greed. Hell, even many indigenous practitioners face this very same problem, as all people do to varying degrees.

Still, I believe that there are non-indigenous people who, while unable to legitimately claim the title of "shaman" for themselves, can certainly benefit others through the inherent power of plant medicine; particularly when the people they wish to serve come from the same cultures (generally) as the one they grew up in.

Thus, I think the question for most people wanting to study plant medicine is not; how can I become a shaman? But, rather; How can I learn plant medicine from plant-medicine Shamans authentically, and how can I ethically integrate what I have learned into my own practice with the culture/ community that I wish to serve?

I'd especially love to hear your thoughts on this last question, especially indigenous people or from those who have integrated traditional plant medicine into their own services for others. Even if you disagree with me completely, please keep it respectful and intelligible so it can be a good resource for others to refer to in the future.

TLDR: How can non-indigenous people learn from plant medicine shaman authentically, and how can they integrate what they learn into their own practices most effectively in order to serve others?

I've included some relevant links below:

https://umiyac.org/2019/11/01/declaration-about-cultural-appropriation-from-the-spiritual-authorities-representatives-and-indigenous-organizations-of-the-amazon-region/?lang=en

http://www.forums.ayahuasca.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=43130