Shamans Online
A project of the Living Bridges Foundation

Second Meeting of the Medicine Men
The Shamans Interviews

Asencio Partiachi Macca | Zacharias Florez Zorilla | Mario Korisepa Cunambio | Edgar Valles Flores | Mariano Darikere Sembeo | Mateo Italiano Toribo | Alberto Manqueriapa Vitentes |

Name: Asencio Partiachi Macca

His father was a Huachipayri and was born in Shintuya. When his father died his mother went to Harakmbut. He mixes the languages of Harakmbut and Huachipayri. He says that he is in the second level because he can cure adults. He learned by his own means and some from the elders who where willing to teach; although some of the elders did not want to teach for fear of losing their power.

Asencio says:

“I’d like to mention that the government has not helped us, although we have a strong desire to learn the traditional medicine. We would like to be valued and respected. The government has always forgotten us. We would like the government of the cities to think carefully before legislating to kill us. They can’t give us laws when they don’t know how we make a living. For example, now the law forbids us to fish in the lakes. What would we live of? In the same way they are forbidding us to walk on the trails. We would like to be able to continue our lives in the same way that our ancestors lived. The forests have been this way for centuries.

“The people who need to be controlled are the ones who destroy things, cut the trees, and that is why we are forbidden to cut trees. Before, we were able to use the woods because we were natives. Not having any wood has made us poor. I wonder, since they don’t want us to fish, to walk on the trails, to cut wood, do they want us to disappear?

“We have given them alternatives to preserve our culture by telling stories, writing books. We also proposed to preserve our culture by creating a cultural preserve of the communities: Shintuya, Shipetiari, Diamante, Boca Ishira, San Jose de Carene, Puerto Luz, Baurraco Chico. All of our communities united and asked the government to create a reserve. We have been waiting for ten years. I hope someday they’ll listen to us.”

Name: Zacharias Florez Zorilla.

His native community is Diamante and Yine Piro. Zacharias is also representing Reynaldo Laureano Etere and Louis Diaz Cushichi Miari of the same community.

Zacharias says:

“In Diamante, where we live, there were two very old medicine men. One has died; he was anxious to teach others, especially how to drink the chicha. Up to now you needed a teacher to show you how to drink the chicha because of the dose. Together with Reynaldo we have been practicing traditional medicine since 1986 without fear. We have not yet drunk the chicha but we are on the road of learning. We would like to get to the level where we can learn from the plant. I think we can get to the same level as the masters since we are young and we know the importance of the diet. We understand this very well. We also want to learn to drink the Chicha to acquire more knowledge. We come to these meetings and we can learn from the masters.

“The message that we want you to listen to is that we have great desire to learn but we have our families and we need to have some support so that we can dedicate our time and effort in learning about the traditional medicine. Our elders advised us to learn about medicinal plants but they died and our children also want to learn but they don’t know what to do.

“They are not even getting adequate schooling (a school with one teacher…when the teacher doesn’t come, there’s no school). Since we don’t have money to send them to Cuzco, Puerto Maldonado or Philcopata, It would have been interesting for the government to allow our children the access to scholarships or to give us enough means for our children to get education about the forest.”

Name: Mario Korisepa Cunambio

He is a Huachipayri. He was born at a Head of Q’ero (his son, Willy Korisepa Dreve translates the words of his elder father).

Willy says:

“My father was born in Q’ero and has lived with the Machiguengas, Toyeris, and he still remembers that he knew the city of Puerto Maldonado when it was only part of the forest, and now it is a big city. He speaks Huachipayri, Machiguenga, and Maracaire. He is the eldest person in his community and people treat him as a medicine man. They all know that he has saved the lives of many children that were almost dead. I am still in the process of learning as his son, but I have the desire to learn from my father.

“We have a little farm to which I dedicate a great deal of my time and effort to; but in some moments I learn from my father (who is anxious for me to learn since he thinks he will soon die) but he also wants to teach others. He has to trust the others since other people sometimes come with other interests. My father and I speak a lot and I learn that I like that.”

Mario says:

“Many people come to the forest to cut the trees, to lie to us and destroy families, sons and daughters. I hope some day that we will be able to live freely within our own community. With respect to the cures, I have drunk plenty of chicha; but I haven’t in ten years, since in some of the meetings with AMERTRA there was not much control or discipline, and from those meetings many bad interpretations cam out. That was why I stopped drinking.

“I would want to suggest that these meetings have a good organization and good goals and that each medicine man be prepared when they come to a meeting by doing his own concentrations and acquiring more energy. With respect to the curing center, there has to be one is Shipetiari. It is very important for the medicine men to have their own health center, outside of the community, where he can concentrate and cure.”

Name: Edgar Valles Flores.

He is from Yine Piro. He was born in Manu Mouth in the Manu river. His father is Adrian Valles.

Edgar says:

“I have been working for many years with the traditional medicine. I use tobacco cigarettes and I can cure illnesses of the wind (or gases), bruises, and dislocations. I apply plants. My community accepts me as a medicine man, and I can cure children and adults. My father taught me, since a medicine man cannot come from nothing. One always has to learn from someone. I also learn from my community, because there are people that know how to cure others.

“Now in these meetings I am also learning and I am very interested. We would like more support to learn about natural medicine. My father is a good medicine man. He is at the fourth level. We would also like to have medicine men who work continuously and who visit the different communities and learn and teach. We should have more meetings like this where the elders participate and teach us.”

Name: Mariano Darikere Sembeo.

He was born in Q’ero, is a Huachipayri, and is seventy-three years old. He can cure fear (spasms), nervous stress, headaches and body aches. He uses psycho-magic as a cure, but he also uses plants like matico and una de gato; these are plants used to bathe the body, especially when the body aches and has cold. The curious thing is that he doesn’t drink chicha, and just recently has decided to plant it in his garden.

With these meetings he has enthusiasm for using the chicha. Since he is of an advanced age, he knows illnesses and he knows how to cure, and he expects to get more knowledge by using the chicha.

Mariano says:

“My father taught me to cure using the psycho-magic. Later, my mother taught me and Alejandro Jahuanchi taught me as much as my mother. Alejandro was like a son to me since I raised him from the time his father died.

“I do not want too many people from the city. They should stay in the city. I would like the forests to stay as they are, without being hurt. I always listen to the messages of the forests. They ask me to take care of them: ‘Take care of me. Don’t kill me! Don’t punch your machetes in my soil because you wound me. Don’t cut me in the rough way.’ We have to take care of the forests.

“Few people can hear the messages from the forests, which come at night. First, you hear a sound that is very different, like a moan. The sound wakes me up and then I hear the message. Other messages come in my dreams. The plant appears like a real person, but with a more pure skin. This way the plants come and ask me not to be rough with them. Medicine men should be very alert and listen to the messages from the plants.

“Those spirits come from everywhere, from the sky, from the depths of the forests. We gather the spirits and when we cure it is from them. Sometimes I fell very sad with the messages, because I suffer in my own body what the forests are suffering. It is good to be in good communication with the soil. We need to ask it to forgive us for having hurt her. When the forests talk to us they give us the energy.”

Name: Mateo Italiano Toribo.

He is Machiguenga.

Mateo says:

“My job is to cure the children. They come to me, usually with the fear (spasms). I also cure adults with rheumatism and mental illness with plants from the forest. In some cases I don’t use chicha, but in others I do because with the plant as a mediator, I can blow and sing and call Ayahuasca, the mother who gave man the power to be able to cure. My work is to lead a life so I can save lives; though sometimes I cannot save them and they die. This happens when the souls of the patients has already left his body.

“La Ayahuasca teaches us that the spirit of someone is very far away. I was born in Urumbamba in the Kamisea, in the Shivangore community. When I was a child some foreigners with the Bible came to our community and they told us not to use the Ayahuasca or the Piri Piri or other plants that were contraceptives, or fertility plants, or others to cure diarrhea. The Catholic fathers forced us to cut those sacred plants. They only wanted to talk about Christ and they said that the Bible could be the only one to save us.

“In that way we forgot many ceremonies and plants, and we took pills to cure ourselves. But I was lucky; when I went to Pulcalpa I met other medicine men that continued to use the traditional medicine. I thought that I would try to preserve our customs and rescue the cures and our culture. So I went back to Manu and I began to rescue our customs.

“I was a sanitation technician, which helped me to acquire practice with medicinal plants. In those times I met my friend Glen, who took me to other places. I learned to drink the chicha in Sepahua, Ucayli River. My first experience with the chicha brought me some visions. I was with my father-in-law. I ask questions and I learned and understood a lot of new things. In eight months I learned very well how to handle the plant.

“I am happy about the interest all feel for the forest. There was a time when our people were only interested in the cities. Seeing the interest in the plants and in our forests encourages me. We do need an office that supports us. A school where we could teach our children how to cultivate and use plants is ideal, because our children are our future. If they cultivate plants, they don’t have to go to the forests all the time to take them. I think it is also good if the specialists from other counties come and teach us how to make ointments to have an income, but always with an association to a group such as FENEMA.

Name: Alberto Manqueriapa Vitentes.

Alberto says:

“I was born in the ancient community of Amalia. I have Huachipayri blood on my father’s side, and Machiguenga on my mother’s side, and I speak the two languages well.

When I was eight I was brought to the native community of the Huacaria. I remember that there was an office called SINAMOS (without owners), that wanted to unite all the Huachipayris and Machiguengas, since neither of us had permanent lands. We were scattered and the colonizers used to take our lands and mistreat our families. This organization got us together. We all had to learn both languages, and we learned to live together. We got our blood mixed and our ceremonies, too.

“But one day the Catholic Mission San Franciscana came and forbid all our ceremonies, our cures, our rites, the use of our arrows, and even to speak our dialects. They also wanted to build a church, but happily, we opposed it with great strength. We didn’t want their images to come into our communities, nor in our dreams. We fought (opposed) them. They said that we could continue with our natural way, and it was a miracle that we were permitted to do so.”

Updated: July 19, 2004

©1999-2004, Living Bridges Foundation

| Home || Confederation  || Meeting || Interviews || Garden || Memorial || Donate || email || Living Bridges |

Living Bridges Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Projects are funded from grant awards and donations.