Different shamans alternate in Ashi Meraya, on a regular basis. Doña Ercilia and Maestro Heberto are currently the main resident Shipibo shamans in our centre. When groups are booked in, depending on the size of the group, we may also have Don Hector, Don Walter and/or Don Mariano or Don Alfredo working with us. Below you will find a most accurate profile for each and all of them. Enjoy!!
Doña Ercilia
Doña Ercilia by a Lechecaspi teacher tree in Ashi Meraya
Photo Courtesy: Isabel Grau
Doña Ercilia – a most genuine indigenous shaman curandera from the Shipibo-Conibo ethnic group of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest – began her first diet with plant teachers at the age of 10, and has so far accumulated a cumulative work experience of 31 years in the field of Amazonian shamanism. She apprenticed under the tutelage of Shipibo master shaman Don Jorge Ahuanari (her own father) first, then, respectively, with Don Iologio Brito Fasanando (her grandfather) and Don Antonio afterwards.
Maestra Doña Ercilia preparing a ritual flower bath in Ashi Meraya
Photo Courtesy: Isabel Grau
She committed and distinguished herself in following very disciplined and impeccable long shamanic diets, with dozens and dozens of different teacher plants and trees, including – among many others – Ayahuasca, Azucar Huayo, Aya Uma, Remocaspi and Chullachaqui caspi, as well as different varieties of shamanic perfumes and Fuego de Capirona.
Doña Ercilia burning a virote extracted from a patient in Ashi Meraya
Photo Courtesy: Isabel Grau
Her shamanic specialization – in Shipibo tongue – is oyushun yube tsecati, meaning “extracting virotes“. Virotes are a very mysterious thing, specific of Amazonian shamanism, witchcraft and sorcery. They are magical darts which can take – in the physical world – the form of a black spine, a thorn or a sharp object intended to cause harm on to an intended target. Indeed, guests who attended our retreats and had the privilege of seeing Doña Ercilia in action, have seen with their eyes her shamanic extraction capabilities, and have directly witnessed the extraction of solid objects like small dark/blackish stones, a black dart/thorn – and in one instance – even a whitish worm-like live thing from the body of patients.
She specializes in dealing with impossible cases, where sorcery (brujeria), witchcraft (hechiceria) and/or black magic have been at play.
Her teachers thought her many healing arts alongside defensas (i.e. warding off malevolent attacks from brujos or hechiceros).
Doña Ercilia is a *very traditional* healer, as authentic as you can get amid the Shipibo people and community – increasingly acculturated and exposed to Western influences – nowadays. She had *no previous contacts with Westerns before May 2011*, and we feel very privileged to have established a bond of pure shamanic fellowship with her.
A gem of genuinity coming from the heart, she has a humble, gentle, pragmatic, very down to earth and reserved nature. A true rarity in our days…
In line with the Shipibo tradition, Doña Ercilia prepares the Ayahuasca brew employing ayahuasca vine cuts and the leaves of the chacruna bush.
Maestro Heberto (Coshi Niwe)
Maestro Heberto belongs to the Shipibo-Conibo ethnic group of the Peruvian Amazon. He descends from a lineage of indigenous Merayas (the highest-level shamans for the Shipibos) and Onanya (shamanic healers). His grandfather, Don Guillermo Ramirez, was one of the last Merayas belonging to the Shipibo culture.
Maestro Heberto performing the Merayas‘ Magical Fire Ritual
Photo Courtesy: Isabel Grau
He is native of the community of Maputae (also known as Quebrada con Greda), a place where many Merayas and Onanya gathered to conduct their shamanic rituals and ceremonies. All throughout his childhood Heberto was constantly and directly exposed to the shamanic teachings of his grandpa (Guillermo) and grandma (Lusmilla), who passed on to him their knowledge. Thanks to them he had also the privilege of receiving the Arkanas (spells of protection) and shamanic energies of two elderly Merayas: Don Lucho (Guillermo’s brother) and Bawan Sani (Guillermo’s cousin), in the last stages of their earthly life. Years later, Heberto began his shamanic diets under the guidance of his grandparents and other shamans (from the Shipibo as well as from the Ashaninka and Cacataibo ethnic groups), who transmitted him their shamanic powers.
It all started very early though, with a storm and the Gods of the Winds stealing his soul, when Heberto was only a two year old infant. Read more…
Don Mariano
Don Mariano (Shipibo name: Shawan Sani) is an exquisite 73 years old master shaman, also from the Shipibo ethnic group of the Amazon, whom we treasure and love for his humbleness, inner beauty, moving icaros, silent knowledge and integrity.
Shipibo shaman Don Mariano (“Shawan Sani”), in Ashi Meraya
Photo Credit: Heberto Hiran Garcia Ramirez
Native of the Tahuanì area (in the province of Atalaya, Ucayali department of Peru), he dieted – since the early age of fifteen – with many different types of palos maestros (teacher trees) – like Chuchuhuasi (Maytenus ebenifolia), Chiricsanango (Brunfelsia grandiflora), Shihuahuaco (Dipterys sp.), Timareo, Coresa, and Renaquilla (Clusia rosea) – along with plantas maestras (teacher plants), like Coca (Erythroxylum coca), Toe’ (Brugmansia suavolensis), Piñon Colorado (Jatropha gossypifolia), Mucura (Petiveria alliacea), Piripiri (Cyperaceous sp.), Motelillo (Fittonia verschaffeltii), Ajos Sacha (Mansoa alliacea), and sogas (vines) – including Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis sp.) and Sacha Motelo. He even dieted with hongos de vaca (magic mushrooms !!), and the perfumes Agua de Florida and Camalonga. His teachers were Don Eliseo Capitan, a Shipibo maestro palero ayahuasquero and espiritista, and Don Rosalino Rengifo, a Shipibo shaman, with a great knowledge of Ayahuasca.
Don Mariano sings his captivating icaros (shamanic power songs taught by the plant spirits) exclusively in the Shipibo-Conibo idiom of his people. Those who did have the privilege of listening to the magical songs of Don Mariano during an Ayahuasca ceremony in Ashi Meraya, may remember and still feel the sheer beauty, sweetness and relentless power of his melodies. The true spirit of Don Mariano could be appreciated at his best in altered states of consciousness, during the Ayahuasca rituals, when his voice changed, and at times turned into a mysterious vocal duo, projecting the archetypal image and spirit of the shaman, in a timeless, beautiful, and moving fashion. Fruit of relentless long diets with plant teachers, his Spirit-gifted icaros are a blessing for us all. Don Mariano – when not cultivating his chacra (agricultural land allotment) or doing his diets with the plants – is in Ashi Meraya.
Don Hector
Resembling a Franciscan monk from the Middle Ages (!), Don Hector is a Shipibo Onanya (master shaman), native of the Shipibo community of Roaboya.
Shipibo shaman Don Hector
Photo Credit: José Garcia Ramirez
He began his first diet at the age of fifteen. With the exception of his only Shipibo teacher, Don Juan Cauper Sanchez, Don Hector maintains that his only maestros were the plant spirits (genios de las plantas) themselves. During his diets with plants, in complete isolation in the rainforest, he received in dreaming the visit of spirit beings that taught him his icaros (magical tunes) and revealed him the secrets of the shamanic healing. Don Hector is renown for being a very compassionate and serious teacher, for the outstanding beauty of his icaros, for withstanding the intoxication with Ayahuasca to levels rare even among Shipibo shamans.
Don Walter
Don Walter (Shipibo name: Chono Tsoma), originally from the native community of Nuevo Loreto, in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. He is a Palero Ayahuasquero and a master herbalist (Naturista). Don Walter has distinguished himself for doing his work with much love and enthusiasm.
Shipibo master shaman Don Walter (Chono Tsoma), in Ashi Meraya
Photo Credit: Heberto Hiran Garcia Ramirez
Click here for info on the shamanic plant diet with Don Walter
A warm, gentle, humble, patient and compassionate healer – and with wonderful icaros too! – our Shipibo master shaman has his own style of preparing the Ayahuasca brew, which he prepares using Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis sp.) vine cuts, Chacruna (Psychotria viridis) and Toe’ (Brugmansia suavolensis) leaves, Mapacho (Nicotiana sp., black jungle tobacco), all mixed together with the actual Ayahuasca leaves.
Don Walter preparing Ayahuasca in Ashi Meraya
Photo Credit: Heberto Hiran Garcia Ramirez
The use of Ayahuasca leaves in the making of the Ayahuasca brew is – to the best of our knowledge – a rarity among shamans in the North West Peruvian Amazon. Sometimes, the fresh leaves of the Huambisa (Diplopterys sp.) and Chaliponga (Diplopterys cabrerana) plants are also added to the brew, to make it even more potent.
Ayahuasca cooking in Ashi Meraya!
Photo Credit: Heberto Hiran Garcia Ramirez
Interestingly, the names of the Huambisa and Chaliponga plants are sometimes used indistinctly by some botanical sources (as apparently referring to the same plant), but our Shipibo maestro distinguish the two, as part of the same genus, but being two different species altogether.
Don Walter had – as it’s current practice among many native shamans of the Peruvian Amazon – a rather ‘multi-ethnic’ shamanic background, re. his own apprenticeship. His teachers were Don Palomino Estrella (a master shaman of the Cacataibo/Cashibo ethnic group), Don Umberto Shapiama Cruz (an indigenous Cocama shaman)), Don Marcos Ricopa (a Campa-Ashaninka shaman), Don Leoncio Garcia Sampaya (an elderly Shipibo shaman and former maestro at Ashi Meraya) and Doña Lucia Cumapa Ocampo (a Shipibo shamaness).
Click here for info on the shamanic plant diet with Don Walter Martines Guimares
Don Alfredo
Master shaman Don Alfredo – whose native name Sinamano means ”very brave man” – is from the Shipibo ethnic group of the Amazon and currently the main shaman in the centre. He is a maestro Toesero (a shaman specialized in working with the plant teacher Toe’, i.e. the Brugmansia suaveolens), an Ayahuasquero (a shaman skilled in the use of Ayahuasca) and a Naturista (i.e. a master herbalist). He prepares a very potent Ayahuasca brew and sings his powerful icaros in the Shipibo tongue of his people!!
Don Alfredo preparing a Sweat Lodge in Ashi Meraya
Photo Credit: Heberto Hiran Garcia Ramirez
Don Alfredo – who started his first diet at the age of fifteen – had the great privilege of being in his youth a disciple of the last Shipibo banco (the highest possible rank of a shaman), Don Luis Cauper Guimaraes, also known as Don Lucho.
He has been living in the Alto Ucayali, in the Ashaninka community of Meranquiari, where he studied with master shaman Don Marcos Ocampo. In the last five years he lived in the Cashibo/Cacataibo Indian community of Mariscal where he studied with maestro Don Baltazar Estrella. He also had a female teacher, Doña Jesusa Pacaya, of the Cocama ethnic group. An expert in the curative properties of Amazonian medicinal plants, a Naturista (i.e. herbalist), a Toesero and – last but not least! – an Ayahuasquero, Don Alfredo has a unique style of working during the Ayahuasca ceremonies, flapping relentlessly his Cushma (Shipibo tunic) in front of the patient, during a healing session, in the fashion of a bird’s wing, to clear negative energies. Or else, his ceremonies may begin with a Prayer (oracion) followed by an Invocation to the Spirit of Ayahuasca.
His knowledge of the Sweat Lodge is the fruit of his direct exposure to the Ashaninka and Cacataibo indigenous people.
Photo Courtesy: Isabel Grau – Heberto H. Garcia Ramirez
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