Why Ashi Meraya?
Shipibo Mythopoesis: Ashi Meraya
Shipibo legends tell the story of Ashi, the primordial Meraya, the very first among all Merayas who shape-shifted himself into a semi-divine being, after having obtained unequaled supernatural powers. Ashi - the Grand Meraya – was the first to discover, identify and give names to the different teacher plants, trees and vines of the Amazon rainforest. He was honored and revered by all the Shipibo people and shamans alike as a semi-divine being blessed by supernatural powers. To honor the memory of Ashi, the greatest of all Shipibo Merayas, we decided to give our shamanic retreat centre in the jungle the name of Ashi Meraya.
”Shipibo Meraya”, Visionary painting by Shipibo Artist Dennis Laurenzio Ramirez Lino
Photo Credit: Laurencio Ramirez Cairuna
Ashi Meraya is first and foremost a Centre for Diffusion and Dissemination of Amazonian Plant Medicine and a School of Traditional Shamanic Apprenticeship. Here you will witness and take part in ancestral indigenous shamanic practices, and experience intense healing in the framework of sacred rituals with Ayahuasca, the visionary “Vine of the Soul” and a dreaming journey with the plant teacher Toe’.
It’s thanks to the inspiring work and unpublished manuscripts left by Shipibo writer – and himself a Meraya – Don Guillermo Ramirez Guimaraes (“Soi Rahua”), to their discovery by Heberto Hiran Garcia Ramirez and to the memories of Don Laurencio Ramirez Cairuna – former Shipibo shaman (who apprenticed, as Don Alfredo, with the last of the Shipibo Bancos), writer and storyteller – that we are able to re-awake the spirit of this myth deeply embedded in the Shipibo-Conibo culture, and in its shamanic traditions.
We have now developed new, exciting additions to our Ayahuasca and Shamanic Plant Diet/Initiation retreat programmes and offer participants a direct exposure to the Merayas’ rituals. Click here to read more about the ancestral shamanic rituals of the Shipibo top-ranking shamans.
For those who are not familiar with the word “Meraya” this is the Shipibo version of the mestizo word “Muraya”, and refers to one of the three topmost category of shamans in the Peruvian Amazon, alongside that of the “Banco” and the “Sumiruna“. One could also be a “Banco Meraya“. That of the “Meraya“, in particular, was the specialization of the Shipibo people of the middle Ucayali.
Learn more about Bancos by clicking the link below:
Tags: ashi, ashi meraya, gran meraya, meraya, shipibo ancestral rituals, shipibo meraya, shipibo meraya ritual
