Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca, the visionary medicine of the Amazon, is typically used in formal ceremony by the maestro to open and close the dieta.
Tobacco
The Amazonian form of tobacco, smoked as mapacho or ingested as rapé, is often used during dietas for energetic cleansing and connecting with the spirit of the plant or tree being dieted.
Deep Healing
Each master plant or tree is characterized by its ability to offer a special type of healing. Many believe that successful completion of a dedicated plant dieta offers more healing than any other type of healing modality.
Shamanic Apprenticeship
The dieta is the process by which apprentices from the Amazonian tradition of vegatalismo (plant-based shamanism & healing) learn to become curanderos (healers).
A critical perspective on Shipibo shamanism and ayahuasca retreat centers in Peru | Selected excerpts from "Ethnicity Inc., Shamanism Ltd." by Bernd Brabec de Mori_____________
"While the former discourse of power was held by missionaries, soldiers, merchants and settlers, from this time on, scholars and tourists quickly characterised the Shipibo, among others, as “masters of ayahuasca,” thereby taking over from their colonial predecessors as the makers of discourse about what is especially “Indigenous.”
"The confluence of these two situations created an alleged win-win situation for both the Moderns and the Indigenous: the Moderns obtained their “eco-spiritual health” by providing coin and the Indigenous obtained that coin (and related power) by providing ayahuasca. One problem here is the power relation that remains, perhaps even more so, a colonial one."
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"A “classic” image of colonial power includes:
(i) a hard-working or even enslaved majority of Indigenous peoples who do not benefit from the interaction
(ii) an elite among the Indigenous peoples, often divided among themselves, but well sustained and kept divided by the colonial power
(iii) intermediaries from the colonial power who speak the vernacular language and have a certain understanding of the local culture (the “good guys” in the movies)
(iv) a form of re-conceptualizing industry that transforms extracted resources into saleable goods, and
(v) unknowing or well-meaning consumers who buy those products and fuel this commercial machine with money."
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"This image of radical coloniality is directly congruent to the structure of contemporary ayahuasca neo-shamanism."
"For example, fees in 2019 (precovid) for a three-week “spiritual retreat,” including a series of ayahuasca ceremonies, varied between USD 2,000–4,000, in all-inclusive lodges or centres that are led by Western/Northern or urban “facilitators” (ie. the “good guys” or intermediaries, iii. above)."
"Most often, smaller or more remote lodges are led by Indigenous “shamans” themselves (ii. above). These lodges can rarely be booked via internet; prices are significantly lower and participants are mostly fewer."
"The winning teams are renowned “shamans” cooperating with skilled “facilitators” who have direct links to New Age or eco-alternative circles in Northern countries."
"In many cases, the communities in which these lodges are hosted, remain separate, and Indigenous people not directly working for the lodges are often excluded from the benefits and hold no high opinion of the people visiting and running these lodges."
"They must see for themselves how to make their living, and where they belong, and have to still engage in fishing, hunting, logging or other extractive work."
I really appreciate this Conversation. As an Anthropology student in The US and a supporter of Indigenous Rights and Sovereignty... It is challenging to know what the "right" thing to do is. We aren't being taught all the subtle ways that our best intentions are actually reinforcing the problems. What are suggestions for westerners to get educated on actually being helpful? I've sat with Indigenous Tribes in Conversation but don't understand clear , universal answers that I can relate for my "culture" across all issues, as the diversity is so wide across lands and regions. I truly appreciate The Indigenous Tribes who are generous in their patience with westerners who really want to be helpful but are still ignorant.
Hello
"Beginning in the early 1800s, the U.S. government set up and supported more than 400 boarding schools designed to extinguish Indigenous culture and assimilate young Native Americans into white society. The goal, in the words of one of the first school’s founders, was to “kill the Indian in him and save the man.”"The schools often required the children to take on English names and give up their style of clothing and hair, as well as their traditional languages, religions and cultural practices."
"Children were forcibly removed from their homes. By 1893, the Bureau of Indian Affairs received congressional authorization to withhold food rations and supplies from American Indian families who refused to enroll or keep their children in boarding schools."
"The boarding school system was used as a “weapon” not only to break the children’s bonds with their families and culture but to take Indigenous peoples’ land, according to a Senate report released in 1969."
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"Students were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the schools, and substandard health care, malnourishment and overcrowding contributed to rampant disease, according to an Interior Department report published in May."
"At least 100,000 Native American children are estimated to have attended the boarding schools, which operated across 37 states with the last ones closing in the late 1960s."
"An untold number of children never returned home, their bodies often buried in unmarked or poorly maintained burial sites hundreds of miles from home. The total number of students who died at the schools could be in the tens of thousands, according to the Interior Department."
"The consequences of federal Indian boarding school policies, including the intergenerational trauma caused by forced family separation and cultural eradication, were inflicted on generations of children as young as 4 years old and are heartbreaking and undeniable,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American person to serve as a Cabinet secretary, said in June."
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“We know so little about the institutions,” said Preston McBride, a historian who is currently studying disease in federal American Indian boarding schools located off reservations."
"McBride said that while causes of death varied among the students, tuberculosis was the single largest killer. Students also died from a variety of infectious diseases, accidents and wounds. He estimates at least 40,000 students are likely to have died while attending the schools and could be buried in unmarked graves across the country."
“Boarding school policies caused diseases to flourish on each campus,” McBride said. “The schools were sites of militarized discipline, institutionalized malnutrition, systematic overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, poor medical care, and forced labor unsupported by a balanced or sufficient diet.”
"His research also shows that Native American students in off-reservation boarding schools were many times more likely to die than their comparably aged white counterparts."
“School-aged children, the healthiest demographic of any population, shouldn't die in the numbers that they did, even in an era before antibiotics,” McBride said."
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“I want America to face up to its genocide,” said Alex White Plume, 71, a former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe who attended two boarding schools in South Dakota but not Red Cloud. “American genocide is what it is.”
A former Native American boarding school reckons with its dark past
www.nbcnews.com
A former Native American boarding school reckons with its dark past
Letter from the IV Indigenous Ayahuasca Conference | September 25 to 29, 2022We, Indigenous Peoples of the Shipibo-Konibo, Huni Kuĩ, Ashaninka, Yawanawá, Noke Koi, Inga/Union of Yageceros Indigenous Doctors of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC), Nukini, Puyanawa, Shanenawa, Shawãdawa, Apurinã (Pupykary), Jaminawa-Arara, Kuntanawa, Nawa, Manchineri, Ashaninka del Alto Perene, Yanesha del Puerto Yunnako, Nomatsiguenka, Ashaninka y Machiguenga del Rio Apurimac-Cusco, Yaminawa, Marubo, Yepá Mahsã-Tukano, Anishinaabe, Arhuaco, Tubú Hʉmmʉrimasa, , Kichwa of Sarayaku, Kofan, Jiaki, Wixárika, Potiguara, Omágua Kambeba, , Apolima-Arara, Yanomami, Guarani Mbyá, after intense debates:
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We affirm that Ayahuasca is the connecting thread of life, an ancestral knowledge that has resisted colonization and remains alive in the culture of various indigenous peoples, its guardians since time immemorial. We emphasize that the indigenous teachings are an inspiration for the changes needed to protect life on the planet and to revise the very idea of humanity.
We call for the recognition and respect of all our territories: physical, material and immaterial, the demarcation of indigenous lands, and respect for the knowledge that sustains them.
We emphasize that the spirituality of indigenous peoples is not limited to healing the body and mind of individuals, but is a vehicle for healing, protection, and communication with the territories and all the beings that inhabit them, our ancestors, their stories, chants, and dreams. Thus, we care for beings in all their life forms.
We questioned ourselves about the challenges and opportunities of the present moment in the world. We call attention to the role of youth in strengthening their knowledge of indigenous medicines with responsibility and creativity. We regret that young people cannot have the same intimate relationship that our grandparents had, we know that we have deep pains to heal collectively, and we pay homage to our ancestral medicines for their power of healing, teaching, and communication with the territory.
Violence against women is a symptom of the colonial disease in our territories. In this meeting, marked by the strength of their presence, we made a commitment to care with love and defend the integrity of our children, youth, mothers, and grandmothers, taking a stand against any kind of violation of their rights. We also commit to caring for our elders.
We assessed the impacts on the cultural, political and ecological dynamics of our communities that come from the commercialization of biodiversity and the expansion of ayahuasca and associated medicines among non-Indigenous people, now and in the future. We are mindful of the importance of reforestation and the conservation of indigenous medicines.
We will promote exchanges between indigenous peoples with the aim of sharing experiences and guidance on the ethics of care and diets, food, respect for principles, conservation of our different ways of life, management of ecosystems, strengthening of collective rights and the fight to end violence against our cultures.
We will promote exchanges with indigenous peoples who seek ayahuasca as a means to reconnect with their own spiritualities and medicines, with guidance and teaching from experienced indigenous spiritual leaders. Despite territorial differences and distance, ayahuasca speaks the language of each people and revitalizes each culture.
We will promote exchanges between the indigenous spaces and organizations that were present at this conference, to learn more about each experience and articulate joint actions. We will bring together the experiences of institutes and indigenous centers that have already been created to discuss our practices and challenges, aligned with the internal reflections of each people or community on the forms of use of medicines.
We will promote new meetings about the use of indigenous medicines.
We are concerned about the misuse of our names, our words, and our traditional vestments. Faced with these cases, we demand compliance with the legislation on cultural appropriation and the development of new instruments for intellectual protection and image rights.
We reflect on the construction of a code of ethics that can suggest legitimate ways to share indigenous medicines with the non-indigenous world, in accordance with the teachings of the elders, coupled with diplomatic work in the name of justice and well-being for all humanity.
We affirm that the spirituality of the indigenous peoples is not for sale, but can be shared with a profound ethic aligned to coexistence, to the teachings, to the ways of relating to the territories from which our knowledge is born. And if this happens, the legislation in force must be respected.
We will continue the process of creating the Council of Indigenous Spiritual Leaders, to improve upon the work that we have already undertaken. The council will have as one of its premises to be a guiding and mediating instance with the non-indigenous world, capable of aggregating and spreading the message of peace and protection of life, with a commitment to guaranteeing respect for indigenous knowledge, sciences, and medicines.
We identified the need for clear contracts and attention to commercial activities involving traditional indigenous medicines.
We note the importance of incorporating new social technologies for project management to qualify the effective use of resources and financing processes in the communities.
We emphasize the importance of having specific sacred spaces to perform ceremonies, where spiritual cleansing is previously performed, to strengthen the cultural and spiritual practices in harmony with the beings of the location, both in the villages and in urban indigenous communities.
We are inspired by experiences of creating spaces for the integral formation of young people who can act in cultural, economic, political, and spiritual processes, as well as learn about medicines. We will prepare the children to defend the territories and encourage the learning of native languages and other cultural elements of our peoples, in order to think critically and creatively about their connection to their ancestry.
We believe that the protection of plants and animals is linked to the food sovereignty of our peoples, always in an integrated way with the school and other community actions, according to the reflections of each community.
We will seek to approach a dialogue between traditional indigenous medicines and non- indigenous medicine, so that they are recognized and valued, with the indication of integrating them into public systems of physical, emotional, and mental health.
We will seek ways to protect the abundant riches of our territories, uniting as brotherly/sisterly peoples with security and autonomy, allying ourselves with non-indigenous partners who work in true dialogue with our thoughts of living well. We see this union as a way to overcome crimes against the memory and cultures of our peoples.
We are attentive to the context of the borders between different countries that involve our territories in the continental Amazon, to the challenges posed to our articulation as brotherly/sisterly peoples, because for us our territories have no borders. The rainforests are life systems that also extend to other territories, and the commitment to their balance involves making our native knowledge visible. We will confront local situations of diverse threats to protect the land and the forest, and we need support to access the necessary technologies to register and monitor invasions in our territories.
We emphasize the need to weave alliances between the peoples on this border strip and conduct ethnozoning of all indigenous lands.
We affirm that the separation of knowledge into areas and the differentiation between molecules, substances, plants and products does not correspond to indigenous thinking about the spirit and life of the beings that heal us. We warn about the dangers and serious consequences of the death of our territories, the misuse of our medicines, and cultural appropriation. We highlight the importance of prior and informed consultation, the violence of the extraction of our knowledge, of biopiracy, and we stand against the threats of exploitation and exclusion of our peoples.
We warn that threats to life and territories do not only come from logging companies, gold miners, and drug traffickers, but can also be camouflaged in the beautiful narratives of non-governmental organizations, companies, and missionaries. Therefore, our leaders and wise men and women must be protected.
We call upon indigenous and non-indigenous technicians and academics to combat misinformation and lack of awareness in institutions, cultural appropriation and appropriation of our medicines. We call upon them to be bridges for the revision of old paradigms, the creation of new models, legal advice, development of instruments, public policies and institutional dialogue, based on our demands, with respect for cultural identities, indigenous sciences and respect for their research and teaching methods.
We will confront the criminalization of ayahuasca in its use by indigenous spiritual leaders outside their home territories, because we are all one family.
We demand the immediate release of people arrested for transporting and using ayahuasca in countries like Mexico and Spain, in cases where our leaders are being denounced as criminals and traffickers of illicit substances. We stand for the autonomy of indigenous peoples to handle their traditional medicines.
*We do not accept patents on ayahuasca and other indigenous medicines, and we disallow any appropriation for the purpose of developing commercial products that disregard our rights related to the associated traditional knowledge. We pledge to fight to break these illegitimate patents.
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Note: The term Ayahuasca does not replace the terminologies presented by each participating people, such as Kamarãpi, Uni, Huni, Dispãnī hew, Tsĩbu, Yage, Gaapi, Caapi, Hayakwaska, among others. However, since the first Conference it was agreed to use this term generically, comprising all other nomenclatures.
❤🙏❤
Vivan os povos da Floresta!!!!
"In 2004, the Amazon lost a staggering 28,000 square kilometers (roughly 7 million acres), but by 2012, that figure had fallen to just 4,600 square km (1.1 million acres), according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, known as INPE.""The destruction remained relatively low over the next few years (though it crept back up after 2012, partly because Brazil weakened a law that requires private landowners to protect a portion of their land)."
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"Then, in 2019, Jair Bolsonaro came into power. He stripped enforcement measures, cut spending for science and environmental agencies, fired environmental experts, and pushed to weaken Indigenous land rights, among other activities largely in support of the agribusiness industry."
“We’re witnessing a heartbreaking unraveling of that success,” Frances Seymour, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, wrote in a blog post last year."
"Between August 1, 2019, and July 31, 2021 — a period that largely overlaps with Bolsonaro’s first three years in office — more than 34,000 square km (8.4 million acres) disappeared from the Amazon, not including many losses from natural forest fires. That’s an area larger than the entire nation of Belgium, and a 52 percent increase compared to the previous three years."
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[Excerpt from the article: "Earth’s future depends on the Amazon. This month, it’s up for a vote." | www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/9/29/23373427/amazon-rainforest-brazil-jair-bolsonaro-lula-defores...]
That is just the beginning..... Right now they are building highways through all the major connection points to create a infrastructure that allows them to reach everywhere
Some people blame rapé for a variety of conditions, while others say that they simply do not like it.What I feel is that I can take small cups of ayahuasca, smoke a few mapachos after ceremony, and avoid many things; but it is hard to hide from a tidal wave of light and force that can arise from a strong rapé blown with a healer's force within the mareacion.
As Tuim Nova Era of the Huni Kuin once said: "When the force is not strong, you can feel the cura stirring. But it may not arrive to complete the work."
On a day to day basis, it has also become clear to me over the years that a practice with rapé has the potential to accentuate and aggravate the blockages, distortions, and unhealth that exist within me; like piling up homework that can only truly be completed (healed) with the strong force of the ayahuasca mareacion, guided by the curandero's song.
And then, there is the isolation dieta. Or as one Shipibo apprentice of maestro Gilberto Mahua once remarked to me: "After some time alone in dieta, you enter another dimension of healing and learning."
What a lifetime of work and studies.
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[Note: Even rapé marked as "from the tribes" may be mislabelled, poorly made, or lack the honest preparation of someone preparing sacred medicine. I highly recommend obtaining only from trusted sources when you know and have confidence in the background of the maker; approach each sitting as an extended prayer; and know when to take a break to avoid overuse or addiction.]
"Prayer for the Liberation of the indigenous peoples" by Eliane Potiguara _________
Stop pruning my leaves and taking away my hoe
Enough of drowning my beliefs and cutting down my roots
Cease ripping out my lungs and smothering my reason
No more killing my songs and silencing my voice
One does not dry up the roots of who has seeds
Spread across the earth to sprout
One does not erase from the grandparents — Rich memory
Ancestral vein: rituals to remember
One does not clip wide wings
For heaven is freedom
And faith is finding it.
Pray for us, my father-Shaman
So that the bad spirit of the forest
Does not bring about weakness, misery and death.
Pray for us — earth — our mother
So that these ragged clothes
And these evil men expire at the sound of the maracas.
Keep us away from misfortunes, cachaça, and discord
Help unity between nations
Enlighten men, women, and children
Erase, among the strong, envy and ingratitude.
Give us light, faith, life in the pajelanças [curanderismo]
Deliver us, oh Tupã, from violence and slaughter
In a sacred place by the stream
On full moon nights, oh Marça, call
The spirits of the stones for us to dance the toré.
Bring us, at the cassava feasts and pajés [curanderos]
A resistance of life
After we faithfully drink our chicha.
Pray for us, bird-of-heaven,
For the jaguars, peccaries, siriemas and capybaras to come
Encircle the Juruena, São Francisco or Paraná rivers
Encircle up to the Atlantic seas
Because peaceful we are nonetheless.
Show us our way like a river dolphin
Enlighten our star for the future.
Help play the magic flutes
To sing thee a song of offering
Or dance in a Iamaká ritual.
Pray for us, Shaman-bird
In the Northeast, in the South, every morning
In the fierce Amazon or in the heart of cunhã.
Pray for us, macaws, catfishes or armadillos,
Come to meet us — my God — NHENDIRU!
Make happy our mintã
That from indian bellies will be reborn
Give us hope each day,
Because we only ask for land and peace
For our poor -- These rich children!
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[Photo of the young warrior Djokrô on top of the great boulder of Kendjam @ Indigenous Territory Mekragnoti by Simone Giovine]
[Special thanks for the translation of this poem into English by Dieta group member Marina Alves]
Immersion into Amazonian Medicine & Spirituality___________
Chief Tuim Nova Era, his daughter Yeke Huni Kuin, the people of the Huni Kuin village of Espelho da Vida, and curandero Abraham Lozanobrioso, are organizing an immersion into Amazonian medicine & spirituality at the village of Espelho da Vida, located deep within the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil.
This is expected to be a first step towards realizing a collective vision of the organizers: to create an alliance between the pajés and maestro curanderos of the Amazon Rainforest across all tribes (along with their communities) with dedicated students of the medicine worldwide.
Consequently, pajés (spiritual healers-leaders) and their primary apprentices from the Huni Kuin, Yawanawa, Noke Koi, Shawãdawa, and Shanenawa tribes have also been invited and are expected to attend and perform healing works.
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When? December 30, 2022 to January 6, 2023 (participants must arrive into Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil between December 21-25)
Where? Aldeia Espelho da Vida, Acre, Brazil
How much? To be determined
How to receive more information? Message me on FB or email me at michael@plantdieta.com
Note: The official external organizer of this vivencia is Abraham Lozanobrioso. I will be a participant of the vivencia; assisting as a volunteer as much as I am capable of; and am simply helping get the word out to those who feel called.
ponteti - to straighten, to align (one's mind, thoughts, dieta, or spiritual connection).A Shipibo phrase sung in icaros that is as accurate in its energetic effect as any process I have ever experienced on the path.
After several years of Straightening with a capital S (or P), I looked at myself in the mirror during one ceremony and sighed, wondering how I had even survived until now as a functional adult.
Intercultural orgainzation Oni Xobo recognizing Shipibo maestro Benjamin Mahua, for his lifetime of service as a onaya (healer). Benjamin Mahua, together with his brother (the late Pascual Mahua), are widely considered the first Shipibo maestros to begin offering the dieta of Noya Rao, although their method of energetically passing on the dieta was described differently by each of them (Benjamin passed "chipsies" to his dieteros while Pascual gave the "air/wind" of Noya Rao).
Mr Miyagi gets a black belt ;)
So cute
I recently met up with painter Mauro Reategui Perez (an art student of the late Pablo Amaringo) in Pucallpa, who has set up a small ayahuasca center by the Boiling River of Peru (The Boiling River being one of the most energetically powerful places I have ever dieted in). Mauro offers ceremonies together with Shipiba curandera Teolinda Rengifo Sanchez and a young Ashaninka named Miguel Minarez, which makes it a unique blend of the Shipibo, Ashaninka, and Mestizo traditions in one setting.
[Photo is of Miguel, Teolinda, and Mauro]
Beautiful- thank you for sharing 🙏🏽 do they have a website or contact?
Yes, contact info please?
Hello , can you send me more info , thanks 🙏🏻
Photos of Niwe Rao. It was the first plant dieta of the late Shipiba Maestra Olivia Arevalo. She used to call to its spirit to open her ceremonies and thereafter, clean and guide her students and pasajeros (passengers, or people not on dieta and attending ceremony). According to her apprentice, it is the medicine of the wind that connects you to the world of medicine, allowing a dietero to discover the cities that exist within this world that are filled with rivers and flowers. And after a strong dieta, when these visions open as a grace for the dedicated dietero, Maestra Olivia stated that the merayas (the legendary/mythical shamans of times now past) would arrive to teach one how to heal and become an onaya (curandero).
Missing my friend and teacher Shipiba curandera Luzmila Mori. She washed me, bathed me, healed me, and taught me, while always speaking with such honesty about her own vulnerabilities and limitations within the medicine world. I realize now how rare this is and have grown to appreciate what she imparted, whether knowingly or not, even more today.
I feel blessed that I had the opportunity to meet her 🙏