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 Estela Muñoz Vásquez and has three relatively young children, Carlos Andrés, 17 years old, Ricardo, 15 years old and Lali, 13 years old. He points out that so far he has attended and healed more than 2,800 people, both nationals and foreigners, in his career as a shaman.
