Shipibo & Upper Amazonian Shamanism

The Shipibo-Conibo people of the Peruvian Upper Amazon maintain one of the most detailed documented plant-medicine cosmologies in the Amazon basin, developed over many centuries of direct relationship with the rainforest.

Healing centers on the dieta — an isolated, disciplined period of engagement with a single 'master plant' teacher — accompanied by icaros (healing songs) and expressed visually through kené, the geometric patterns believed to encode the visionary and healing knowledge received through plant ceremony.

Shipibo healers (onanya) continue to lead ayahuasca and master-plant ceremonies today, and Shipibo plant knowledge has drawn significant ethnobotanical and anthropological research interest for its depth and internal coherence.