Óni · ayahuasca, the vine
Banisteriopsis caapi
The vine itself — not the brew. Cut, pounded and cooked for many hours with the leaf. In our materials óni is the plant; the ceremony is something you do with it.
Medicine
Ráo:
the plants.
The Shipibo word usually translated "medicine" covers far more than treatment. It names a whole category of relationship between people and plants.
Shipibo teaching The Shipibo name comes first, in bold. Where a name is still with the speakers recording this course, we mark it. We publish a name when it comes from someone who speaks the language.
Shipibo name coming · chakruna
Psychotria viridis
The leaf cooked together with the vine. Its Shipibo name is one of the things we have asked our speakers for — chakruna is Quechua, not Shipibo.
Rome · mapacho, jungle tobacco
Nicotiana rustica
Far stronger than the tobacco in a cigarette, and used almost everywhere: blown over a patient, drunk, smoked, kept close. People who know only cigarettes are always surprised by how central it is.
Wáste · piri piri
Cyperus articulatus
A family of sedges, grown deliberately. Different varieties are kept for different purposes — healing, skill, protection, and for the hand that embroiders kené.
Shipibo name coming · ajo sacha
Mansoa alliacea
Smells of garlic; nothing to do with garlic. Dieted for clarity and for cleaning heaviness out of the body.
Shipibo name coming · bobinsana
Calliandra angustifolia
A riverbank tree with pink filament flowers. Associated with the heart, and with opening a person rather than hardening them.
Shipibo name coming · chiric sanango
Brunfelsia grandiflora
Named for the cold it produces — the body shivers while the plant works. A serious diet, not a beginner's.
Shipibo name coming · ayahuma, cannonball tree
Couroupita guianensis
The bark is dieted for strength and protection. One of the plants people mean when they speak of a diet that defends you.
Shipibo name coming · chuchuhuasi
Maytenus macrocarpa
Bark, usually in aguardiente or as a decoction. Taken for the back, the joints, and for endurance.
Shipibo name coming · renaco, renaquilla
Ficus insipida
A strangler fig that grows down into itself. Used for binding — for what has come apart, in the body and otherwise.
Shipibo name coming · piñón colorado
Jatropha gossypiifolia
Planted at the edge of a house. Used in cleansing baths and in protection.
Shipibo name coming · ushpawasha sanango
Tabernaemontana undulata
Dieted for memory and for grief — the plant people name when something has to be carried differently.
What outsiders most often miss: in Shipibo practice, the plant is rarely the point by itself. The point is the trained relationship — formed through dieta, maintained through discipline, expressed through song — bewá. A brew without that relationship is, in the traditional view, just a brew.
Where this goes deeper
How an onanya (healer)'s relationship with plants is actually built — and what the songs have to do with it — is the subject of the cosmology introduction and, in full depth, our forthcoming guide and advanced courses.
The wider pharmacopoeia
A working pharmacy. These are the ones people ask about most.
Beyond the plants every visitor hears about, Shipibo onanyabo — healers draw on a broad living pharmacy — teacher plants dieted over months, and everyday remedies for the body's troubles. A selection, by the names most used in the region:
- AyahuascaBanisteriopsis caapi — the vine at the heart of ceremonial healing, brewed together with the chacruna leaf.
- ChacrunaPsychotria viridis — the leaf brewed with the vine; said to open perception and to teach the connectedness of all beings.
- BobinsanaCalliandra sp. — a riverbank flowering shrub dieted for the heart — love, softness, compassion — and used to purify the blood.
- Noya Raopalo volador — a legendary "flying tree," rare and treasured, carried through certain healing families.
- Ajo SachaMansoa alliacea — "wild garlic," a blood cleanser and a foundational dieta plant said to clear buried grief.
- Chiric SanangoBrunfelsia grandiflora — a demanding teacher plant; the name means to "heal cold" conditions — it warms the body and is said to work on fear.
- MapachoNicotiana rustica — the sacred Amazonian tobacco, used for protection and to deepen the work; among the most potent plants in the pharmacy.
- Piñón BlancoJatropha curcas — called a "plant of light"; its resin cleans and heals wounds and sores.
- Piñón ColoradoJatropha gossypiifolia — anti-inflammatory and wound-healing; sap, leaves, and bark all used.
- Uchu SanangoTabernaemontana sananho — one of the strongest of the sanango family, dieted for strength and clarity.
- Camalonga — a seed medicine dieted for protection and cleansing, and associated with the healers' energetic "extractions."
- BoahuascaGouania lupuloides — a healing vine used for serious physical illness and to purify the blood.
- RenacoFicus / Coussapoa — a strangler-fig associated with physical strength and grounding.
- CapironaCalycophyllum spruceanum — a smooth-barked hardwood; the bark heals the skin and wounds.
- MarosaPfaffia iresinoides — a master plant dieted as a teacher of the water worlds.
- AchioteBixa orellana — the red annatto seeds; food, dye, and an antioxidant medicine.
- AlbahacaOcimum campechianum — wild basil; a digestive and cleansing herb used in flower baths.
- AzucenaLilium candidum — a gentle purgative taken to cleanse the body before ceremony.
- MucuraPetiveria alliacea — a pungent plant used against infection and to steady blood sugar.
- CocaErythroxylum — the sacred Andean leaf; in its natural form a mild stimulant and a remedy for altitude and fatigue.
- Rosa SisaTagetes erecta — marigold; calms the nerves and settles the stomach, used in soothing baths.
- Suelda con SueldaLoranthaceae — an Amazonian mistletoe, "bone heal," for fractures and joint pain.
- Oje BlancoFicus insipida — a latex tree whose sap is a traditional remedy for intestinal parasites.
Some of what has been written about this elsewhere: a 2021 observational study in Frontiers in Pharmacology (González et al.) followed participants in Shipibo ceremonial ayahuasca use and reported improvements in well-being measures. It is one study, in one context. The practice does not depend on it.