– The Shipibo People – Plant Knowledge Keepers of the Amazon –
SHIPIBO PEOPLE AND LIFE IN THE AMAZON
The Shipibo are a remarkable indigenous tribe living in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. They boast a renowned ancestral plant medicine tradition, focused on the spiritual wisdom within nature. Caya Shobo is a sanctuary where true Shipibo plant medicine tradition is practiced in its home environment, for all who wish to know its beauty, wonder and healing power.
Since 2007, the founders of Caya Shobo have studied with high-level Shipibo shamans to know their way of life first-hand. Over the years we’ve learned a great deal about these generous people and their unique wisdom tradition.
We’re excited to share some of our understandings of the history and culture of the Shipibo people. And, especially their knowledge for working with Ayahuasca and many other Amazonian Master Teacher Plants. We believe that Shipibo traditional medicine represents a living treasure from the ancient natural world. And this is a treasure that holds potential to bring profound healing benefit to the whole planet.
In Caya Shobo’s Ayahuasca Retreats in Peru you can experience the powerful healing song (Icaro) treatments from genuine high level master Shipibo shamans (Onányas). You can learn for yourself how the Shipibo shamans directly connect with the wisdom Teacher Plants through traditional Plant Dieta practice.
SHAMANIC HEALING TRADITIONS OF THE AMAZON JUNGLE
Paleo-Indians arrived in the Amazon jungle from the north some 10,000 to 30,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence suggests shamanic practices involving medicinal plants dates back to at least 1,500-2,000 BC. But several indigenous Amazonian tribes estimate their plant medicine traditions are at least 3,000 years old.
Many different Amazonian cultures and shamanic healing traditions work with the entheogenic brew Ayahuasca. And each tradition has its own body of knowledge and unique model of healing and learning. For example, the Santo Daime or União de Vegetal churches of Brazil, Los Taitas of Columbia, and numerous shamanic traditions in Ecuador.
In Peru, some traditions are highly recognized for their knowledge of healing sickness and trauma with medicinal plants and healing songs. The Mestizo, Quechua-Lamista, and Shipibo traditions share a common appreciation for particular medicinal plants called Teacher Plants. They see Teacher Plants as actual People who we can meet and converse with. (Rather than simply as resources, as we tend to look at plants in the west).
These tribes use Plant Dieta as the main shamanic practice for engaging directly with Teacher Plants. The Shipibo approach to Plant Dieta practice is considered the most demanding. This is because it involves many years of dedication and strict discipline of food diet and lifestyle to acquire the highest levels of shamanic knowledge and power.
But for centuries, the Shipibo have been highly respected by other tribes in the Amazon for their advanced knowledge of medicinal plants. And for the exceptional healing skill and spiritual knowledge of their master Shipibo shamans (Onanyas).
SHIPIBO – AN ENDURING ANCIENT CULTURE IN THE HEART OF THE AMAZON JUNGLE
The Shipibo are one of the oldest and largest tribes of the western Amazon basin today. Their population today is estimated at around 35,000 people.
The ancestral territory of the Shipibo people runs north and south of Pucallpa, along the Ucayali River, the main 2,700 km long headstream of the Amazon River. The Ucayali river system offers abundant resources in its waters and alluvial soils. Today over 150 Shipibo villages are dispersed along the tributaries and lakes of the Ucayali river.
And the Shipibo people have been able to resist being conquered by incoming cultures over the centuries. This is largely because their settlements are so diversely located throughout the jungle. However, they did actively trade with the Incas, Spanish priests and Brazilian colonialists. And today they display a similar relationship with the influx of western shamanic tourism.
The Shipibo continue to speak their native language as a first choice and maintain a strong connection with their rich culture and traditions. And their deep connection with the nature of the rainforest infuses all aspects of their life: physical, cultural and spiritual.
SHIPIBO COSMO-VISION AND ART
Shipibo people hold deep spiritual views about this physical world and other ‘invisible’ worlds as experienced realities, rather than as fantastical myths. Their vivid cosmo-vision incorporates beliefs about a sun creator and divine beings, the origin and structure of the universe, and the journey of life and death within it.
In fact, Shipibo believe we can actually see, meet and learn directly from the spiritual essences within nature, plants and animals. Also elemental phenomena and other beings, who communicate with us through dreams and visions, especially in Plant Dieta practice.
Each community boasts craftsmen and women who create strikingly beautiful works of pottery, embroidered textiles and beaded jewelry expressing their cosmo-vision. Especially Maestra shamans create especially beautiful works depicting their shamanic visions from Plant Dieta.
SHIPIBO HOME, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LIFE
Each Shipibo settlement houses a population of around 100 to 500 inhabitants in houses called Shobo. Shobo are wood platforms built on poles above the ground to withstand annual floods, but typically do not have walls. There is usually a large central area where the family lives, eats and sleeps, and makes handicrafts. Also, this is where shamans drink Ayahuasca, share visions and dreams, and conduct shamanic healings.
Most families hunt wildlife and fish, and cultivate crops (rice, peanuts, yuca, etc). General herbal healing knowledge is common. However, only a few families in each community tend to specialize as shamanic healers.
Over the years of getting to know them we have found Shipibo to be incredibly sweet-natured and sensitive people. They enjoy a good joke but take their time to build trust and loyal friendships. High-level Shipibo shamans encounter many challenging personal learnings through their years of disciplined Plant Dieta practice. And it is these special individuals who tend to display the highest degree of kindness, humility and compassion.
CAYA SHOBO’S SUPPORT FOR SHIPIBO AND PERUVIAN FRIENDS
The welfare of the people we work with is a key concern for us. Our on-site team today comprises Shipibo, Mestizo and non-indigenous Peruvians. They all hold deep respect for the work we do and we feel honored to call these people our true friends.
However, for many in Peru there is generally poor access to education, housing and modern health services. With growing costs, pollution and climate change, erosion of territories, and declining access to food and water, life is ever more challenging.
We are dedicated to helping wherever we can. We’ve found the best way of having a real impact is by giving directly, rather than through uncertain charitable organizations. So, we continuously help our team and their families gain access to improved housing, emergency medical support, and educational opportunities for their children. And we also give support to our local community by way of infrastructure, supplies, and other aid.
We feel a special level of commitment to the Shipibo people who generously share their help and knowledge with us over the years. To honor these gifts we dedicate ourselves to upholding and preserving the true Shipibo tradition and managing this project with profound integrity.
PRESERVING THE SHIPIBO PLANT MEDICINE TRADITION
Ayahuasca is growing in popularity worldwide. But the traditional ways of Shipibo shamanism are paradoxically in decline. Attending large Ayahuasca ceremony groups exposes the shamans to intense energies. Historically shamans clear these energies by way of intensive Plant Dieta practice. But Plant Dieta work is sensitive and requires strict discipline. So, with so much focus on Ayahuasca ceremony without Plant Dieta, it often makes more sense for shamans to simply give up their active Plant Dieta practice altogether.
At Caya Shobo we foster an environment which is supportive for everyone to enter Plant Dieta practice. And this allows our shamans to follow their traditional practices in a good way. Because, as we grow in our understanding of traditional Plant Dieta practice, the shamans feel even safer and more supported to continue in their practice.
Together we are working to sustain their remarkable ancestral knowledge. That’s why the Shipibo tribal council has endorsed Caya Shobo for the integrity with which we honor the medicine, the master shamanic healers and their ancestral tradition.
We invite all guests at Caya Shobo to take time to get to know the indigenous and local people working here. While they may be shy at first, they hold a wealth of knowledge and joyful energy to share. And they can offer insights into a more rich and healthy relationship with life than many of us Westerners have ever, or will ever, encounter elsewhere.
Rafael was born into a family of Ayahuasca Curanderos in the Shipibo village of Santa Rosa de Dinamarca, 5 hours journey by riverboat to the south of Pucallpa. Growing up immersed in the world of Ayahuasca, he observed his parents and the men and women of his extended family always working in healing ceremonies and guiding plant dietas. At the age of 18, his curiosity to learn more about this path inspired him to open his first plant dieta, and he has since been learning and dieting with different master plants over the past 15 years.
Meeting Walter you immediately recognize his natural warmth and humility as a person, as well as his impressive capability as an experienced Onánya Maestro healer. His beautiful, lower toned voice and variety of melodic Icaros can transport you to a place of peace and reconciliation with your life’s experiences and your healing path. Walter is always solid in the middle of the storm.
Maestra Maricela is a highly experienced Shipiba Onánya curandera and Raomi herbalist. Born in the Alto Ucayali river village of Roya, south of Pucallpa, her father Nicolas Vardales is a well known Shipibo medicine man with a strong famileal lineage of medicine knowledge. At age 13, in receiving treatment for some serious health issues of her own, Maricela began to learn about the healing properties of Amazonian medicine plants. She continued dieting with different master plants until she started working with Ayahuasca in her early 30’s.
Immersed in the medicine world her entire life, Maestra Lucinda is the eldest daughter of renowned Shipibo Onánya Maestro Pascual Mahua Ochavano, born in the Shipibo village of Paoyhan or ‘Water of the Pearls’ located on the banks of the beautiful Ucayali river, north of Pucallpa. When she was a tiny infant of 4 months old her father opened her first learning dieta to bring her the advanced knowledge of the Noya Rao “Tree of light” of her ancestors.
Orlando also belongs to the famous family Mahua. His great-grandfather Manuel Mahua was renowned as one of the most powerful Onánya shaman in the entire history of the Shipibo tribe. Manuel’s daughter Manuela, grandmother to Orlando, is also a well – known living Onánya Maestra. Manuela brought up Orlando from early childhood and opened his first medicine plant dieta at age 7. 
Fernando Levi, also born in the village of Paoyhan, is the grandson of Pascual Mahua, and, like his father, his grandfather and many generations before him, Fernando has inherited the Shipibo name “Sani Piko” which means “The Great Medicine Men.” This legacy of ancestral knowledge and the discipline Fernando has brought to developing its power within himself is clearly evident in his Icaros, in his medicine and also in his extensive knowledge of master plant dieta for healing and learning.
Francisco (or Pancho) has been working with the Shipibo medicine path since his early 40’s, and is now in his late 60s.
As a teenager, Pablo felt the call of the medicine, but without access to knowledgeable teachers in his own family or community, he pursued his own learning path with Ayahuasca in the way of the ancient Shipibo Maestro Onánya – by entering the jungle alone and following the call of the plants in isolation dieta.