Shipibo Healers
The Shipibo community consists of about 24,000 people living in over 110 village communities concentrated in the Pucallpa region and is situated to the north and south of the city of Pucallpa. Shipibo communities are mostly situated along the Río Ucayali and nearby oxbow lakes. The Río Ucayali connects with the Río Marañon to form the Río Amazonas (Amazon River), the longest and largest river in the world. The Shipibo people are primarily artisans, hunters, and fishermen and some practice slash-and-burn agriculture. Primary tools are machetes and spears. Virtually none of the Shipibo villages have electricity. Contact with the contemporary world (including the government of Peru) - has been sporadic over the past three centuries and almost nonexistent before that. The Shipibo are noted for a rich and complex cosmology, which is tied directly to the art and artifacts they produce. They have been a constant target of Christian missionaries since initial contact in the late 17th Century.
Shipibo women make beadwork and textiles, but are probably best known for their pottery, decorated with maze-like red and black geometric patterns. Like all other indigenous populations in the Amazon basin, the Shipibo are threatened by severe pressure from outside influences such as oil speculation, logging, narcotics trafficking, urbanization and missionaries.
Despite over 300 years of contact with Europeans and Peruvians and the conversion of many Shipibo to Christianity by missionaries in the 1950's and 60's, the Shipibo tribe maintains a strong tribal identity retaining many of their prehistoric shamanic traditions and beliefs. Chief among their traditions is the Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) ceremony, arguably the most ancient, traditional and untainted by commercialization.
Ayahuasca is commonly depicted by Shipibo artisans, who are well-known for their intricate designs, on their pottery and colorful fabrics depicting their Ayahuasca-based cosmology. The geometric designs used by Shipibo artisans are quite unique. As might be expected, their pottery was initially very simple and used as containers to preserve food. With time, pottery and designs have become more and more complex. The sophisticated designs and geometric patterns of the ceramics are passed from one generation of artists to another. The pieces are extremely soft and light weight and their technique is all done manually without the use of pottery wheels. The art form of the Shipibo is little understood by the outside world. To the artists, it is not something that they are taught, rather they are inspired to create their distinctive patterns. The women, rather than the men in the village, are the artists. Commonly the women will work together to produce a single piece. Each of the women seems to be moved by the same artistic spirit and one woman can interrupt her work and then assign another woman in the village to complete a particular piece. When the artwork is finished, the resulting piece will look like it was made by a single artist. This really is communal art at its finest.
The Shipibo hold the Ayahuasca ceremony as art, so, although there are male Curanderos, it is the women that most often are chosen for the ancestral Icaros to be transmitted and they are the main performers at the ceremonies, transmitting through their magical ceremonial songs their nurturing feminine mother energy, their souls and hearts.
There are many theories about the meaning of the unique intricate Shipibo geometric patterns. Some anthropologists consider it an ancient language form; others hypothesize that the patterns represent a mapping of the rivers of the Amazon. Some even believe the patterns represent the shapes of the Anaconda. While anthropologists may not be able to agree on the meaning, art lovers can appreciate the beautiful designs, the soft curves and the pristine yet original look of the Shipibo designs. Part of their designs also comes from their mythology:
God created Bari, the Sun, and Use, the Moon, to always travel across the sky without ever meeting but Bari decided to speed up in order to kiss Use. From their passionate encounter the jungle dwellers were born when a flash of lightning split Use’s womb open and seven children descended to earth on a blazing staircase.
These holy children discovered fire, invented arrows, taught men how to wisely use forest fruits and animals, and also how to make pottery. They spread throughout the rain forest and became the ancestors of all the existing Amazonian tribes. When their work was done they ascended to the skies and their father Bari, the Sun turned them into seven bright stars forming the constellation of "Huishmabu”.
This constellation and their mythology are also reproduced from ancestral memories in Shipibo pottery and lovely embroidered textiles. Their priorities are very different from ours. To them family and people come first, objects and products come next. Smiling in their huts, surrounded by their families, Shipibo women work very hard in the manufacturing of pottery and textiles, but they always find time to caress their children, to look after them, to gossip with other women and to laugh. Most of the Shipibo live South of Loreto and North of Madre de Dios, in the Ucayali region. They occupy 40% of the Lower Forest. In order to make rational use of the scarce arable lands, Shipibo do not dwell in huge settlements, but rather scatter themselves along river banks in groups of no more than 40 families. These groups keep in touch among themselves by travelling along the rivers and very few of them have access to the road. Each family group forms a native community, an organization which follows a co-operative trend. Shipibo democratically elect their traditional group heads as formal leaders. The various Shipibo communities relate among themselves on a horizontal basis and are extremely proud of their identity, showing always their support and solidarity to other Shipibo.
TierraMítica is supported by the whole Shipibo healer community and our Maestras come from many different communities deep in the jungle, organized and assisted by Aroldo Rojas. Every few weeks, they return to their villages and families to take care of domestic affairs, renew themselves and rest. They are seamlessly replaced by fellow Maestras, exactly in the manner of interchangeability that they use to perform their traditional art. They are accompanied by the amazing voice, energy and experience of Reuben, our master of ceremony, an incredible Curandero holding deep knowledge of the Plantas Maestras and the spirits of the forest.