The Shipibos and Origins of Ayahuasca

So how did someone think of combining ayahuasca vine and chacruna leaves to make what we call Ayahuasca today? A common question with a fascinating answer and wonderful cosmology around it. This story begins in times of the Incas. At that time, the whole of the Shipibo people amounted to about thirty families, all living in ten houses in the Kumankaya lagoon in the Amazon. This being the glory days of the Incas, they were very powerful by virtue of their great faith, spiritual knowledge and connection to God, and so they could work a variety of trades in ways we would call miraculous in the present day. For instance, they had the ability to very finely cut big blocks of rock for constructing their houses and buildings, and also engrave them with great detail. Scientists can’t figure this one out, but one can see drinking Ayahuasca (and dieting Coca, the medicine of the Incas) how they did it: they had a bird with a long beak, the tip of which could get so hot it melted and cut rock. Crafty. Being contemporary and in close proximity territorially, the Incas shared with the Shipibos a lot of their trades: hand pottery, textiles and embroidery, jewelry, arts, and even the kene, the patterns you see all over the maloca mats and that so uniquely identify the Shipibos nowadays. They also shared a lot of their spiritual knowledge and experience, which put the Incas and the Shipibos at a similar level of power. In these days, though Ayahuasca was not yet known, the concept of dieting medicinal plants to connect to their spirits and acquire spiritual knowledge was already in use. And so it happened that at the time, the curaca, the authority of that Shipibo village whose name was Rai Nita, was dieting Noya Rao. And while dieting Noya Rao, he had a dream with the spirits of this tree saying to him: “Go to such place in the jungle and you’ll find this plant. Go to this other place and you’ll find this other plant. Mix them, cook them, and drink that brew. This is a powerful medicine you can use.” In waking, he did as he was told, finding indeed the plants where the dream indicated, preparing them and drinking the brew. This is how Ayahuasca was first “discovered”. It is worth noting that the ancestral shamans of those days didn’t diet to learn the medicine as we do today, for a few months or a year, but for five, six or even seven years at a time. In these long diets, they would acquire truly great spiritual knowledge and powers—such as being able to levitate using the airs of Nihue Rao, predict the future, or even go to visit the Sun. These shamans are the merayas, advanced doctors in the science of spiritual medicine. Some time after the discovery of Ayahuasca, the curaca of the Shipibo village, again guided by Noya Rao, ordered his people to gather Noya Rao leaves. They had observed that when the fruits of this tree fell in the river and fish ate them, they would fly (and hence the name: noya means to fly, rao medicine). So they gathered a few canoes full of Noya Rao leaves, crushed them, and laid them all around the perimeter of the village, encircling it completely. With this, the entire village —people, houses, ground and all— elevated into the air, all without making any rumbling sounds, and began to cruise across the sky hovering about two hundred meters above the ground, until it landed in Contamana, on the Ucayali river. The Shipibos played drums and flutes during this whole passage. This moment is known as the enchantment of the Shipibos. The age those people had at that time, that same age they have now; they do not die. They also cannot be found or told apart unless they want to be, despite them still going out among people to get their provisions and goods. They have layers upon layers of spiritual protections to ensure this. This moment was also the enchantment of the Noya Rao tree, for which reason it can no longer be found physically—you might be able to see a glimpse of it from afar, but you won’t be able to find it. Rai Nita and Corin Bari, his wife, along with the people in that village, are spirits and owners of the Nihue and Noya Rao trees. Because of this enchantment, Noya Rao cannot actually be dieted anymore. One can, however, connect with it spiritually, and therefore also see it in Ayahuasca ceremonies. It’s common to diet Nihue Rao, which does still exist physically, and connect with Noya Rao through that same diet. The Incas also became enchanted at the time of the enchantment of the Shipibos, and they too are immortal. Unlike the enchanted Shipibos, which are mostly found in the spiritual Cumancaya and in the jungle (these are the chaikuni), the enchanted Incas live in underground cities made of gold, which one can see dieting Coca. They too have extensive spiritual protections and cannot be found or distinguished when out and about. That is, unless you match their seven year diets… This is an excerpt from “The True Medicine: The Nihue Rao Guidebook to Ayahuasca and Master Plant Diets.” You can read the full guidebook here.

Testimony of the initiation of Maestro Amaringo

We share a brief testimony of the ayahuasquero master Ricardo Amaringo collected by the Shipibo communicator Policarpo Sanchez. The career of Maestro Ricardo Amaringo In my visit to the Nihue Rao Spiritual Center, located on the outskirts of the city of Iquitos in the Nanay River basin, I met with brother Ricardo Amaringo Benetillo, “Sani” in Shipibo name, a recognized Shipibo ayahuasquero master, 58 years old, from the Native Community Vista Alegre de Masisea, upper Ucayali. I share below his fascinating testimony of initiation into the world of ancestral knowledge of traditional medicine and the practice of Shipibo shamanism. Maestro Ricardo Amaringo begins this testimony pointing out that he had a childhood and youth with many difficulties, shortages and even of direct affection from his biological parents: his father Raúl Amaringo Benetillo and his mother Ercilia Ahuanari (who died at the age of 30). Due to their lack of knowledge and the impossibility of assuming the responsibilities of his upbringing, they gave him up for adoption to some uncles and aunts so that they could raise him in their family. He continues, saying that: “I was initiated in the first steps of shamanism when I was 14 years old. Before, back in 1980, in the upper Ucayali, as it is part of our culture, I was offered to marry a Shipiba girl of 12 years old or so, which I had to refuse, because my inner self told me that I had to fulfill a mission, so taking on a family responsibility at that time was not yet part of life.” “At the age of 17 I was already taking ayahuasca regularly. But I want to say that before this big step in my life, I was incredulous of shamanism. Like all young people abandoned by my biological parents, being in the city of Pucallpa, I went through the consumption of marijuana and cocaine, I suffered great sufferings, I cried a lot in my loneliness, in those days, in my solitude. I cried a lot in my loneliness, in those moments I resorted to drugs.” With a voice between his throat, half sobbing, Amaringo says: ‘My God, why did you make me like this, I was crying’. I had a lot of hatred for people, for children and young people my age, a lot of resentment.” “In those times I also passed by the house of the teacher Guillermo Arevalo, in Yarinacocha. I saw that his family lived happily, they ate well, his children were in better conditions than me. So, I asked Guillermo Arevalo to teach me shamanism. I am going to think well, he nodded to me. He told me this because he knew that I was at that time a boy with bad thoughts (rami shinanya, in Shipibo).” “Guillermo Arevalo denied me to be my spiritual maestro, my initiator, because he knew that I had bad thoughts. At that time, I thought that the shamans, onanyabo, merayabo, necessarily had to have a maestro initiator, that only through the maestros or through their guidance came the shamanic knowledge. Then, asking other elders, they told me that in the old days, the beginners of shamanism used to diet (samati in Shipibo) without a teacher, but from the power of the master plants themselves, from the properties of the plants (raobo in Shipibo). Of course, obviously the spiritual accompaniment of someone experienced and spiritually ordained for this purpose is needed.” “An adult woman named Maria, told me, start the diet with the plant ‘marosa‘ (name in Shipibo). I began to diet. Great was my surprise, that with the diet of the ‘marosa‘ I forgot the I forgot about drugs, alcohol, it cleared my mind of my mental disturbances. Before I was totally traumatized, I felt tired, bored, lazy (chikishires, in Shipibo).” Master Ricardo Amaringo points out with forcefulness and certainty that thanks to the diet of plants he got rid of his addictions to drugs and mental disorders or mental imbalances. “Samatax ea benxoa iki”, says Don Ricardo Amaringo with a smile on his lips. “My chakra, my mind had blocked, I had so much doubt, distrust, resentment, confusion of my life (shinan tsokax, in Shipibo), I had even reached the thought of suicide. The addiction to drugs has a solution, with the ícaros and the ingestion of ayahuasca can be healed,” says with experience and as a personal testimony, the maestro Ricardo Amaringo. “Ayahuasca and the master plants have transformed me, they have centered my life, ayahuasca itself has cured me, the spirit of ayahuasca itself,” says Master Ricardo Amaringo emphatically. “So, the body, the soul and the spirit are even in conditions to meet the gods. The master and sacred plants take us to the power of God. Then I did Toé diet with white flowers.” “Then I went on a diet with Nihue Rao (name in Shipibo), medicine of the air in Spanish. I had obtained this plant in a creek that passes through the land or mountain where the Tushmo population center is currently located, in Yarinacocha.” “Nihue Rao samati riki nete kepenti“, that is, with this plant the possibilities and powers to find the different worlds of healing and goodness are opened, according to Ricardo Amaringo. “After a year of dieting with these master plants, Guillermo Arevalo found out about it and sent for me. I had told him that I was just initiating myself, but the maestro, Guillermo Arevalo, had already seen me through ayahuasca and considered that I was already in a position to cure or conduct ayahuasca sessions or rituals. So I began to work in Yarinacocha with the master Guillermo Arevalo.” Currently, Mr. Ricardo Amaringo Benetillo is a prestigious ayahuasca master, a renowned spiritual leader, who has been managing for more than 15 years the growth and positioning of the Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual, without having studied any major Western academic training. His entrepreneurial success is worthy of astonishment and admiration. He married at 35 years old with Mrs. Dany