At Arkana, we embrace many other cultures for various ceremonies, like the Wirrarika for our Peyote ceremonies and the Mazatec for our mushroom ceremonies, both in Mexico.
But our ayahuasca ceremonies are authentically led by Shipibo healing traditions.
Arkana’s highly-trained Shipibo Master Shamans come from an unbroken lineage of plant medicine knowledge passed down through thousands of years of indigenous Amazonian culture.
They’re lovingly dedicated to the healing processes of our guests and work closely with Ayahuasca and other master plant teachers of the jungle with healing songs (icaros), capabilities, and knowledge with honor for truly profound work.
The Shipibo work with the spirit, healing illnesses at a soul level.
Let’s take a deep dive into the Shipibo culture and spotlight our lead shamans.
Who are the Shipibo?
For over 2000 years, the Shipibo indigenous tribes in the Ucayali region of the Amazon River basin have been considered the caretakers of the jungle.
Previously two distinct tribes, the Shipibo and Conibo, they became a single tribe due to intermarriage and cultural similarities.
To this day, they maintain many of the traditions of their ancestors, including the ritual use of Ayahuasca and other plant medicines of the Amazon.
With one foot in the past, while living in the 21st century, they strive to uphold the wisdom gathered from millennia of living in the richest and most biodiverse region in the world.
The population of the Shipibo is approximately 20,000, concentrated mostly around Pucallpa in the Yarina Cocha and Ucayali river region, an extensive indigenous zone. Most others live in scattered villages over a large area of jungle forest extending from Brazil to Ecuador.
They remained largely isolated from other civilizations until the rubber boom of the 19th century.
During this time, Shipibo were employed as wage laborers in agriculture and timber extraction for mestizo bosses and patrons. They also had interaction with Westerners in the form of physicians and nurses, Protestant missionaries, and representatives of the Peruvian government.
Today, the Shipibo people range from the well-acculturated, such as those living near the frontier city of Pucallpa, to moderately acculturated groups who reside in remote areas downriver.
However, their culture at large remains under threat due to constant pressure from colonialism, corporate resource extraction in the rainforest such as oil speculation and logging, narco-trafficking, and the influence of missionaries.
The Shipibo and Nature
Regardless of their familiarity with Westerners, the traditions and culture of Shipibo living are characteristic of many other indigenous tribes that maintained a close connection with the land.
Family and community are important aspects of their culture, both for social connection and for survival.
Sharing of labor is common within tribes. Both men and women of the Shipibo traditionally performed all aspects of agricultural work, although men did the strenuous task of felling trees.
To this day, both men and women also fish and collect wild foods, although the latter is more often done by women. Women also cook, care for children, perform most of the housework, and manufacture ceramics, textiles, and beadwork.
Men build houses, make canoes, manufacture weapons, and carve wooden artifacts but more typically work as wage laborers and may be away from their families for weeks at a time.
Teachers of the Jungle
Perhaps the most important aspect of Shipibo culture is their deeply-rooted spirituality, with an emphasis placed on plant spirit shamanism. For them, much of their knowledge comes from the plants themselves, particularly when it comes to healthcare and their worldview.
This is evidenced in their pottery, textiles, baskets, art, and beadwork, which display patterns representative of the harmonious energy field that pervades all things. Underlying these designs is the concept of an all-encompassing reality of oneness that can challenge the typical Western mind.
These patterns represent not only the oneness of creation, the non-dualistic nature of all things, the union or fusion of perceived opposites – they are also an ongoing dialogue or communion with the spiritual world and powers of the Rainforest.
The visionary art of the Shipibo brings this paradigm into a physical form. Interestingly, the icaros, or healing songs, sung during their Ayahuasca ceremonies are the audial representation of these patterns – a shaman can look at the patterns and sing the corresponding icaro, or hear the icaro and translate it to its corresponding pattern.
In this way, their practices, products, and culture as a whole embody the rich and complex cosmological system that is their heritage.
Icaros - Healing Songs of the Plants
The main avenue through which healing takes place during the ceremony is via sound frequency, or vibration. A sound is a common form of healing across many ancient and traditional cultures.
During training, shamans undergo strict dietas with various plant teachers from the jungle – that is, they consume some of the plants they are working with (typically in tea form), enter into isolation, and adhere to a strict diet which excludes most foods, salt, oil, fat, sugar, and energetic transfers including sex – in order to receive the healing capabilities and teachings from that plant.
Each plant has its own energetic healing pattern, which is channeled by the shaman through song.
In this way, during the ceremony, the shaman is accessing these healing patterns of energy, which transform through the vessel of their body to a chant or icaro.
The icaro is therefore a conduit for the patterns of creation, which then permeate the body of the shaman’s patient, bringing harmony in the form of the geometric patterns to re-balance the patient’s energetic body.
The Shipibo believe that our health is a direct result of the balanced union between mind, body, and spirit.
If an imbalance in this occurs, such as through emotions of fear, hate, or anger, or external factors that the patient has picked up, this will generate a negative effect on the health of that person.
The shaman will re-establish the balance by chanting the icaros into the body of the person.
The shaman knows when the healing is complete, as the design is clearly distinct in the patient’s body. Oftentimes it takes multiple ceremonies to complete this, and when the completed healing designs are embedded in the patient’s body, this is called an Arkana.
This internal patterning is deemed to be permanent and to protect a person’s spirit going forward.
As a result, the patient is able to act from a place of energetic harmony, rebuilding their relationships with themselves, others, and the world, and working from their heart, rather than their head.
Our Shipibo Healers
We currently work with the most powerful healers from the Shipibo tribe.
Maestra Justina
With over 40 years of experience, Maestra Justina is undoubtedly one of the most gifted healers of our generation. A direct descendant of a long line of Merayas, the Shipibo's highest-ranked Shamans, she is the heiress of all of their ancestral knowledge and carries their tradition proudly.
She was born in the quaint community of Vencedor, in the banks of the Pisqui River in the upper Ucayali. From an early age, she was very intuitive and in touch with her dreams and the world of the Chaikunis, ascended spirits who are the guardians of the jungle; she felt a special connection with all plants and trees. Yet it wasn’t until her teenage years, that she answered this calling committing herself to the world of plant medicines under the guidance of her uncle, who taught her the traditional ways of the old world Shipibo Onanyas (Healers).
Her first plant dieta consisted of a two-year stint with Camalonga, the master plant that equipped her with the knowledge to perform Shamanic Surgeries on patients; an extremely rare skill she practices every week at Arkana. In the following years, she continued expanding her medicine chest dieting a wealth of over 50 plants and trees while working as the healer in her community.
We are honored and feel privileged to have her lead our team of Shamans at Arkana. She is the living embodiment of all true virtues of the quintessential jungle healer.
Listen to some of her Icaros here
Maestro Eligio
Eligio was born deep in the Peruvian jungle in the native community of Vencedor, a 24-hour boat ride from Pucallpa. The son of Maestra Justina and Maestro Cesar comes from a pure lineage of Meraya Healers and is one of the most promising talents in the Amazon.
He started working with the plants at the young age of 14 when he concluded his first Noma Rao dieta under the guidance of his mother. For the past 9 years, he has continued honing his skills in the plant world working alongside his family in his community healing visitors from all over the world.
A father of 3 beautiful children, Eligio is proud to represent the new generation of Shipibo healers and strives to be a role model for other Shipibo youth. He is young in years yet carries the wisdom of his ancestors and brings an amazingly powerful youthful energy that delights all those he works with.
Maestro Misael
Maestro Misael is a native of the small fishing town of San Francisco de Yarinacocha on the banks of the Ucayali River, in the Peruvian Amazon.
The town is famous in the region for its strong tradition of vegetalismo shamanism using the wealth of medicinal plants that grow in the surrounding area. Misael was born into a family of talented and dedicated healers. From a very young age, Misael developed his love of plants and started developing his talents under the tutelage of his father Maestro Herminio.
At 16, he concluded his first long-term dieta, working with one of his favorite trees: Ayahuma; soon thereafter he met Maestra Justina and decided to apprentice under her in the town of Vencedor. He has now worked for over 15 years with medicine, dieting a myriad of plants and trees.
Maestro Misael is a warrior of light and works purely from his heart at the service of others. He is fully committed to walking the medicine path with integrity and will go out of his way to make sure the people who come to Arkana are healed deeply on all levels. His intention is to serve all of humanity with humbleness.
If you’d like to experience the magic of the Shipibos in person, our team would be honored to have you at our next retreat.
Feel free to reach out to jose@arkanainternational.com for any questions.
