The Shipibo World

Understanding the Shipibo Cosmovision will help put your dieta in perspective and context.

Every culture has its myths and legends but to the Shipibos, their founding stories are more than quaint cultural artefacts. Within the Shipibo Cosmovision, these myths penetrate and inform their everyday world and are held in many cases to be literally true.

An intimate connection

The Shipibos have spent thousands of years living under the stars and in intimate contact and communion with nature. This understanding of the Cosmos is being eroded by the modern world, but much of this belief system remains healthy and intact today. It is the glue that binds society.

The Shipibo understands that everything in the Universe is One, and life itself is about returning to harmony, health and peace (the jakon nete, or ‘lifegiving world’). It is vital to cultivate harmony with each other, harmony with the spirits of nature, and harmony with the beings of the sky.

Wishmabo Jonibo (Star people)

Long ago, it is said, there were seven sons of the Sun and the Moon. And these seven brothers descended to the earth as children with great powers. But because they were different to the rest of the rainforest people, they were persecuted and threatened. In order to escape, the youngest brother built a staircase out of magical arrows so they could return to Nai Nete (the Sky World).

But on their journey home, they had to cross a crocodile-infested lake, where the youngest brother had his legs bitten off! Finally, transforming themselves into ants, they reached the sky and turned into the seven stars which make up the constellation Pleiades.

Among the stars (Wishtinbo in Shipibo), the Pleiades were particuarly vital to the ancients of the Amazon, who organised their agriculture and fishing seasons according to the movement of these stars. Even now, on a starry night, some Shipibo elders can point out many Wishmabo constellations in the Wishtin Koroa (Milky Way), including our legless hero!

Wishmabo Jonibo also means ‘interdimensional travellers’.

How the Shipibos see the world

All of existence is held within an invisible matrix of vibration that can be directed and molded at will by curanderos and shamans who know how to weave whole worlds into beautiful harmony. This ‘kene’ (Sacred Geometry) is given voice in the ikaros used in Ayahuasca ceremonies and form in the ‘kewe’ designs embroidered by Shipibo women on clothes and materials everywhere you go.

Every existing thing has a an owner (an Ibo). The Ibo teaches them everything they need to know to fish, hunt, weave and craft; to perform all the activities and make all the things they need for the functioning of society and to do so in a way that is in sustainable harmony with their natural environment. The plants and animals also have their Ibo – and among the most powerful Ibo of all are Ronin (the Anaconda or Cosmic Serpent) and Wiso Ino (the Black Jaguar). Oni (Ayahuasca) also has its Ibo, and takes a central place in the medicine allies of the plant kingdom. The need for harmony is not limited to the land, the lakes and rivers – it is also vital to maintain good relations with the Sky, since it is a reflection of the Earth.

Komankai, home of the Shipibos

Long, long ago in the upper reaches of the Ucayali river lay a village called KomanKeneya. Nearby stood a magic Noya Rao (“the medicine that flies”) tree whose leaves rustled when there was not a breathe of wind and whose branches were covered in the most beautiful patterns. When its fruit fell into a lake, the fish that ate it started to fly!

A wise elder had the idea: if we surround our village with this fruit, surely it too will fly up into the sky! The next morning, he spread the magical fruit around and told everybody to stay put in the village. But his nephew took no notice and went off fishing. But then the earth began to shake as the village broke free of the land and took off into the air! The poor nephew ran back to the village shouting ‘Koka, Koka’! (‘Uncle, Uncle!’). But it was too late. Some say the nephew lived the rest of his life with the jaguars of the forest and even transformed into a bird that you can still hear singing ‘Kokakoka’ today.

Where the village once stood is the lake of Komankai, a few hours upriver from Pucallpa, and the spiritual home of the Shipibos. There you can find a large hole in the ground where the village took flight! It can still be reached if you are determined, but beware – it is well guarded by biting flies and mosquitos!

Shipibo medicine practice

A characteristic of the Shipibo culture is the relationship its people have with plants and herbs. Hundreds of medicinal herbs are used by the community, mainly by Onanyas (healers such as Don Pedro) who have an encyclopaedic knowledge of their properties and virtues (as well as their dangers), and can use them to cure diseases, including conditions for which Western allopathic medicine has no solution. Part of the Onanya‘s practice is to travel during Oni ceremonies to the most distant spiritual worlds and dimensions to find the origin of a patient’s illness or the cause of some disharmony in their community, and bring back the cure for the wellbeing, guidance and protection of the people. They were revered as priest-doctors and enjoyed a preeminent status within their groups.

This is why it is so critical that the medicine of Don Pedro is preserved for future generations and is not allowed to pass out of human knowledge. And this is the task to which Rao Kaibo dedicates itself.