Coca, and the Spiritual Traditions of the Andean Shamans

PDF of an Article first published in Sacred Hoop magazine with an extended interview with Andean curandera, Doris Rivera Lenz. By Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley.

Coca, and the Spiritual Traditions of the Andean Shamans PDF Article

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Shamans of Peru CD - Sacred Chants, Icaros, and Music

The haunting, plaintive music of Peruvian shamans was recorded by the Eagle's Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism at ceremonies in the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon rainforest.

Although the chants and icaros have an organic relationship to the medicine plants and shamanic journeying of each particular ritual, and are primarily intended as devotional music for inner-journeying. It is equally possible to listen to the hypnotically beautiful sounds in their own right and simply enjoy them for their otherworldly loveliness.

WAVE MAGAZINE REVIEW.

The Shamans of Peru - Ceremonial Chants, Icaros, and Music

This unique set of recordings documents a collection of ceremonial chants and Ayahuasca icaros on CD.

Tracks 1-3 San Pedro ceremony held in Puruchucu, at the head of the Rimac valley. The ruins of this sacred site or huaca date back to pre-Inca times and have been accurately reconstructed. Setting the scene for the ceremony, three musicians play replicas of pre-Hispanic instruments. Alonso del Rio says: ‘while keeping to their original tuning, we have explored the instruments musical possibilities to give an idea of what the music could have been like in pre-Colombian times. The melodies came to us through the ancestral memory evoked through medicinal plants like San Pedro and Ayahuasca’. Instruments: the ceramic notch flutes of the Chincha civilization, Nazca panpipes or ‘antaras’ with their special tuning similar to Oriental scales, and Nazca drums.

The Mesa Nortena is a particular ceremonial tradition best conserved in the region of ‘Las Huaringas’, high and remote sacred lakes in the northern Department of Piura. There are probably only a few good maestros who continue this ancient tradition in Peru today. The rest simply work with the externalities of the mesa, while giving their clients minimal doses of the visionary San Pedro cactus. Originally more importance was given to the medicine, which must be in the organism of the participants as well as the maestro for the power to flow. The mesa then served to intensify the power of the plant.

An altered state is needed to enter the symbolic world of the objects on the mesa (the word refers to the altar as well as the ceremony itself). The abundance of macerated plants, perfumes and smells employed in the mesa function to move the feelings associated with one’s memories. At a deep level, sensations are translated into vibrations which the medicine brings to consciousness so that associated hurt and pain can be ‘re-membered’ again and a new attitude can emerge. The singado, or absorption of macerated tobacco juice through the nostrils involves another power medicine which is used to intensify the San Pedro at regular intervals.

The instruction from the maestro to pour up the left or right nostril reflects the notion of duality found in shamanic disciplines all over the world: masculine and feminine, hot and cold, upper world and earth, expansion and contraction, flowing and stagnant. Illness arises from one of these polarities loosing equilibrium. The word singado comes from the Quechua word singa meaning nose and is perhaps an Andean notion of Pranayama! Also audible in the following two mesas 4- 5 are the clicking of chontas, or black bamboo sticks used for cleansing people’s auras and the spraying from the maestro and assistants’ mouths, of perfumes and plant macerations over the participants.

The tendency to commercialise a tradition is inherent in urbanization and seeing things for their utility and business. For example mesas are sometimes held so that lawyers win legal battles. Piles of documents are laid on the mesa so that the power works on them and they win their case. In this way a shamanic ceremony is degraded to folklore. We can try to reconstruct the original tradition to how it was in pre-Colombian times and remove the images of Sarita Colonia and the other saints, crucifixes, photos etc., which have accumulated throughout the centuries and evolved the mesa into the mestizo tradition which survives today. Left behind are the ancient stones, magic plant brews and the enchanted waters of the lakes of Las Huaringas, being the original elements, which have survived underneath.

Track 4 Mesa with Alejandro Sanchez. Maestro Sanchez lives in Comas, a distant suburb of Lima which began in the 1960s as a shanty town. It is surrounded by impressive parched stony desert hills. The maestro’s house is at the end of a road near the cemetery and overlooks this immense settlement from where he draws his clients. Sanchez was born in Sondorillo near the legendary sacred lakes of Las Huaringas. At age 11, while still at school, he seemed to have perceptions and to be able foresee things accurately. His astonished teachers thought he was having hallucinations and called for maestro Florentin Garcia. Later Alejandro became his apprentice and learned from him the secrets of plants. The strangeness of these ceremonies can be seen as part of the ‘trappings’ of rituals in general. Strangeness serves to trick the rational mind so that it will not interfere with the subtle processes taking place in the subconscious. When we are fully awake, things can indeed seem strange… ‘people are strange, when you’re a stranger…’ as the song by The Doors goes. A part of healing is recovering the lost gift of perception, the feeling of being alive again.

Track 5 Mesa with Leopoldo Vilela who was also born near the celebrated Las Huaringas in Radiopampa, an extremely cold place at 3,500 meters altitude. He was 90 years old and in very good health at the time of this mesa which was also held in the ruins of Puruchucu. At three years old he was sent outside to look for herbs for his mother who was suffering from a stomach ache; there he knew he would become a curandero. He used to watch his father who was clairvoyant and assisted people in his community to find their animals when they were lost. He used tarot cards and looked into bottles of aguardiente (firewater) with grains of corn of different colours at the bottom Don Leopoldo improvises sessions for groups and individuals, which may continue for hours. These are full of idiosyncrasy, and characterized by warmth, dedication and playfulness, which is quite touching at times. The seemingly endless sequence of bottles of tastes and smells and other procedures are often extremely weird while his inadvertent remarks and caresses on his guitar (of his own manufacture) often provoke smiles and laughter in all present. Human beings have an instinctive awareness of other people’s conscious states of mind. When another person, a shaman, is authentic and spontaneously creative in the moment, this has the power to focus the mind, stopping it from verbalizing and rationalizing. A sense of pure wonder is evoked.

Track 6 Closing calls. The conch shells or pututus, still used in Andean communities today, are handed down from the Incas who obtained them from the Caribbean. They are used for convening meetings and ceremonies.

Tracks 7-9 Shipibo icaros of Mateus Castro, a shaman living outside Pucullpa in Yarinacocha. The arts of the Shipibo, especially textile designs, are closely related to ayahuasca icaros. The words of the chants are symbolic stories telling of the ability of nature to heal itself. For example the crystalline waters from a stream wash the unwell person, while coloured flowers attract the hummingbirds whose delicate wings fan healing energies etc. You might see such things in your visions but the essence which cures you is perhaps more likely to be the understanding of what is happening in your life, allowing inner feelings to unblock so that bitterness and anger con change to ecstasy and love. To awaken from the ‘illusion of being alive’ is to experience life itself.

Tracks 10-16 Dona Cotrina Valles was born in Agua Blanca, Department of San Martin. She apprenticed herself to a maestro in 1979 and later came to live in Iquitos with her husband. Today she lives alone with her children. It is very unusual for a woman to be a shaman in urban situations although they do exist amongst indigenous peoples. Amongst other limiting beliefs, it is thought that women break taboos as they are unable to take dieting seriously because of demands from their husbands and that when they go shopping in the market they will have contact with menstruating women or people who are mal dormida, (ie. a person who has been making love all night). The diet is a vexed question in the city as the temptations of rich spicy food as well as sex are greater than in the rainforest. As all shamans will tell you, Dona too, says that sex is bad. The ‘mother plant’ loves you and if you make love to another person, you are being unfaithful to her. For this reason it is often said that Ayahuasca is jealous, and if you do not respect her, she makes you ill instead of healing you. You will also not be able to see any visions. The ill effects from not respecting the diet are called cutipa and range from a sense of trauma and stress to skin problems. Dona’s chants are sung in Spanish and Quechua, as also are the chants of Javier Arevalo which follow. Both Dona and Javier are mestizo shamans, that is to say their ancestors moved to the Amazon from the Andes, rather than being indigenous to the Amazon as the Shipibo are. The melodies of mestizo icaros have an Andean structure and are sung partly in Quechua, a language of the Andes.

Track 17 Despacho to Pachamama in the ruins of Pisaq. A despacho is an offering to the Earth Goddess, Pachamama, which nurtures all life on earth. The ceremony symbolizes the reciprocity of nature and speaks back to her saying ‘we understand the message and we have the same attitude’. The word despacho was mistakenly translated into Spanish after the Conquest as pago, meaning payment, to imply a satanic pact with dark forces. As each participant made their contribution to the despacho convened by the Shamaness Doris Rivera Lenz ‘La Gringa’, Kike Pinto, played pre-Colombian instruments. The first piece is a Harawi from the Department of Cusco played on a quena, or notch flute, made from the wing bone of a condor. This little melody has been handed down from Inca times, thanks to its incorporation into Catholic mass in Colonial times. The second piece is a Haylli from San Pedro de Castas, Department of Lima, played on a ch’iriqway, or antara (panpipes), made from condor feathers. The melody also has pre-Hispanic roots and has survived in a form played on the chirisuya, kind of oboe, of probable Moorish origin. This track is ended with some calls on the putu, or conch shell. Kike Pinto is a lifetime musician and researcher of traditional Andean music. He has recorded several CDs and is curator of his own Museum of Andean Music in Hatunrumiyoq, Cusco.

Tracks 18-26 Javier Arevalo comes from Nuevo Progreso, a community of 50 families on the Rio Napo. Many generations of his family before him were shamans and already at 17 years old he knew this was his future. However when he was 20 his father died from a virote (poisoned dart in the spiritual world), sent by a jealous and malicious brujo (sorcerer) in his community. Soon after he began his two-year retreat in the rainforest with his maestro grandfather, dieting many plants, later to become his ‘doctors’. During his time in the wilderness he realised that it was better to leave God to punish the brujo who killed his father, and he decided to be a healer not a sorcerer. There are several different kinds of icaros, at the beginning of the session. Their purpose is to provoke the mareacion or effects, and, in the words of Javier, ‘to render the mind susceptible for visions to penetrate, then the curtains can open for the start of the theatre’. Other Icaros call the spirit of Ayahuasca to open visions ‘as though exposing the optic nerve to light’. Alternatively, if the visions are too strong, the same spirit can be made to fly away in order to bring the person back to normality.

There are icaros for calling the ‘doctors’, or plant spirits, for healing, while other icaros call animal spirits, which protect and rid patients of spells. Healing icaros may be for specific conditions like manchare which a child may suffer when it gets a fright. The spirit of a child is not so fixed in its body as that of an adult, therefore a small fall can easily cause it to fly. Manchare is a common reason for taking children to ayahuasca sessions.

Tracks 18 Llamada de mareacion in which the spirits of various healing plants are called, here the huacapurana, a tall tree with hard wood, whose bark is used for arthritis. Huacapurana is also used as an arcana, or spirit to protect the body. Also the remocaspi whose bark is used to reduce fever and cure malaria.

Howard G. Charing, is an international workshop leader on shamanism. He has worked some of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Philippines. With Peter Cloudsley, he organises specialist retreats to the Amazon Rainforest. He is the author of the best selling book, Plant Spirit Shamanism.

Visit the website for info about our Andean and Amazon Ayahuasca Retreats

Shamanism and Drumming for the Shamanic Journey

The Shamanic Journey is a technique which facilitates a visionary experience into expanded awareness. This activates our imagination and creativity, and allows us to bypass linear, familar and rational thinking. In this state of expanded awareness we can find new insights, perspectives, and ways to resolve problems.

Drumming for the Shamanic Journey, with Leo Rutherford & Howard G. Charing
It is a CD specifically made for this. It comprises; two 20 min solo and 40 min double drumming.

What is Shamanism?
Shamanism is the oldest way in which humanity has sought connection with Creation. The origins of shamanism go back at least 40,000 - 50,000 years to Stone age times. All of us have evolved from shamanic cultures, it is our roots wherever we live.

A shaman knows that all things are alive and ‘walks with one foot in the everyday world and one foot in the spirit world’. Contemporary shamanism is the application of these ancient timeless ways to life here and now.

Shamanism is not a belief system. It is a path to knowledge which is gained through experience of life, through rituals, ceremonies, prayers and meditation, trials and tests. Knowledge is something that works, that stands up to the test of time, that is known from the inside.

Cosmology of the shaman
Shamans divide non-ordinary reality into three other regions, the upper, lower and the middle worlds. Each has its own characteristics and whilst each individual traveller experiences initially their own version, once one becomes a proficient journeyer, it is amazing just how connected we all are at these levels.

The Lower world is the place of instinctual knowing where our animal-like powers reside and where we can find practical earthly help and guidance.

The Upper world is the word of spirit teachers, cosmic beings, great wise elders, ancestors who appear usually in human form. Their help and guidance is often perceived to be more general and philosophical.

The Middle world is both the everyday physical world that we live in, the world of ordinary reality, the tonal, and also a parallel non-ordinary version of our world.

It is a CD specifically made for shamanic journeying, and to do this, the drums have to be as monotonous as possible and maintain a consistent beat between 205 to 210 beats per minute. At this specific beat, the brain is stimulated to synthesise natural beta-endorphins which facilitate a person to move into what is known as the ‘second attention’, an altered state of awareness, or shamanic state of consciousness. This state of awareness facilitates the shamanic journey.

A Shamanic Journey to the Lower world.

To begin, find a place that you feel comfortable and will not be disturbed for about 30 minutes. When you are ready, lie down comfortably, and darken the room, or at least cover your eyes. It is easier to journey in non-ordinary reality in the dark. Remove tight clothing, take off your shoes and allow your breathing to move to a gentle rhythm. Relax for a few minutes, focusing on being centred, and grounded.

When you are ready visualise or imagine, a place which reminds you of the Earth, a place which you know of. This place should be a real place, perhaps somewhere you have visited, or seen in a film or photograph, and it can be anywhere, a hill, mountain, grasslands, forest, by the ocean. At this place allow yourself to perceive an entrance or opening into the Lower world. This entrance can be a hollow tree, an animal burrow, a cave entrance, a man-made opening e.g.; a trapdoor, it can any entrance into the ground or water. You will find that the right entrance will feel comfortable to you, take a minute or so to study it in detail.

Now when you are ready, enter into the opening. The beginning of the tunnel may appear dark, it may angle down in a slight incline, or it may incline steeply. The tunnel may appear to be ribbed, and often it bends, sometimes it may become spiral-like, but it will always lead downwards.

Continue down the tunnel until you come out of doors into a landscape. If you come into a cavern, you will need to move outside and into the landscape, there will be an exit for example a door or an opening which will enable you to do this, it should be easy to get sight of it.

Now in the landscape, just look around. It may be daytime, night-time, forest, woodland, or near water. Extend your senses, listen, can you hear anything, the sound of birdsong, the sound that the wind makes as it blows through the tree tops, perhaps the sound of running , flowing water. Feel the ground underneath your feet, feel the ground pushing up against the soles of your feet. Sense the wind, the breeze, sense the movement of air around you. What does it feel like? Have an awareness of being there.

If you want to explore the landscape, remember where the entrance is, keep track of where you go. Just as in any ordinary-reality journey, it helps if you keep a note of landmarks so you can retrace your steps to return.


• Track 1. Solo Drumming (with call back) 20 minutes with Leo
• Track 2. Solo Drumming (with call back) 20 minutes with Howard
• Track 3. Double Drumming 9with Call back) 40 minutes with Leo & Howard

Cover notes

The CD comes with detailed notes describing the cosmology of the shaman, and instructions for a journey.

Technical information

The drumming was recorded live directly onto digital tape at Sync City recording studio in London. The drumming was played in the 'live-sound' studio and no sound modification process was used.

Both drums were single headed frame drums. For the double drumming track, both drums were held facing each other in a position to optimise the natural reverberation.

The recording engineer was Wan Hewitt, himself a professional drummer. He has been dubbed the 'drummers darling' due to the great live sound he gets.

Howard G. Charing and Leo Rutherford are accomplished international workshop leader on shamanism. They have worked some of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Philippines. They have authored a number of books on Shamanism. The Drumming for the Shamanic Journey CD is available from Eagle's Wing. For ordering information Visit their website www.shamanism.co.uk

Icaros, the Magical Chants of the Ayahuasca Shamans

by Howard G Charing

The Shamans of the Amazon, exhibit a close union with the Natural World. This powerful emotional and spiritual bond, enables them to commune with the powers of the Rainforest. Singing the chants or Icaros, is a way that this bond is expressed, and the Rainforest responds.

I recall one night time Ayahuasca ceremony, held in a small clearing in the Amazon rainforest. It was a beautiful clear night, there was no moon, and the sky was filled with hundreds of thousands of glistening stars; just looking up at the sky made my head swim. We were surrounded by trees and bushes, but could only discern their shapes and silhouettes. It felt as if I was in nature’s primordial theatre. When I had drank the Ayahuasca, the shaman started to chant his Icaros, and within a few minutes, there was the song of birds, fireflies flitting everywhere, the jungle around us was responding to the chants of the shaman. It was an exquisite experience, and the following day, when I discussed the opening experience, with the birds and insects appearing when he sang the first Icaro, he replied, “the first chant was to summon and ask the birds, and the insects for their protection”.

There are several different kinds of icaros, at the beginning of the session. Their purpose is to provoke the mareacion or effects, and, in the words of Javier, ‘to render the mind susceptible for visions to penetrate, then the curtains can open for the start of the theatre’. Other Icaros call the spirit of Ayahuasca to open visions ‘as though exposing the optic nerve to light’. Alternatively, if the visions are too strong, the same spirit can be made to fly away in order to bring the person back to normality.

There are icaros for calling the ‘doctors’, or plant spirits, for healing, while other icaros call animal spirits, which protect and rid patients of spells. Healing icaros may be for specific conditions like ‘manchare’ which a child may suffer when it gets a fright. The spirit of a child is not so fixed in its body as that of an adult, therefore a small fall can easily cause it to fly. Manchare is a common reason for taking children to Ayahuasca sessions.

The arts of the Shipibo, especially textile designs, are closely related to Ayahuasca icaros. The words of the chants are symbolic stories telling of the ability of nature to heal itself. For example the crystalline waters from a stream wash, cleanse, and purify a person who is unwell, while coloured flowers attract the hummingbirds whose delicate wings fan healing energies etc. You might see such things in your visions but the essence or core which cures you is perhaps more likely to be the understanding of what is happening in your life. These deep insights allow your inner feelings to unblock so that bitterness and anger can change to ecstasy and love. To awaken from the ‘illusion of being alive’ is to experience life itself.


The Icaros demonstrate the emotional bond between the shamans to the world of nature, and the spiritual powers of the rainforest. The Following Icaro ‘ Icaro Madre Naturaleza’, shows this relationship between man and nature.

English Translation by Peter Cloudsley.

Don't leave me, don't leave me
My mother nature
Don't leave me, don't leave me
My mother nature
For if you will leave me
I would die or of the pain
My tears of desperation
My mother nature
Yes you have the gift of life
Sacred purification in you hands
Blessed mother nature


Don't leave me don't leave me
My mother nature
Don't leave me, don't leave me
My mother nature
For if you will leave me
I would die or of the pain
Tears of desperation
The white veil that your you have
As it covers this child
Clean my body and spirit
With the breath or of your lips
Dearest miraculous Mother.

Don't leave me, don't leave me
My mother nature
Don't leave me, don't leave me
My mother nature
For if you will leave me
I will die of the sorrow
My tears of desperation
In the mountains or upper jungle
Where you give me peace and prosperity
Without regrets neither bitterness
Dearest pure Mother

Don't leave me , don't leave me
My mother nature
Don't leave me , don't leave me
My mother nature
For if you will leave me
I would die or of the pain
My tears of desperation
Where you Take a bath with the plants
Blessed Child put onto me
Your crown of health
Eternally in my heart

In Spanish.

No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
Por que vas i ti me dejares
Moriria o de las penas
Llantos y desesperaciones
Madre mia naturaleza
Si tu tienes el don de la
Santa purificacion en ti manos
Benditas madre naturaleza

No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
Por que vas i ti me dejares
Moriria o de las penas
Llantos y desesperaciones
El velo blanco que tu tienes
Como cubre a esta criatura
Limpia mi cuerpo y espirutu
Con el soplo o de tus labios
Madre cita milagrosa

No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
Por que vas i ti me dejares
Moriria o de las penas
Llantos y desesperaciones
En las altas o montanas
Donde pone paz y prosperaciones
Sin remordimentos ni rencores
Madre cita la pura

No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
No me dejes no me dejes
Madre mia naturaleza
Por que vas i ti me dejares
Moriria o de las penas
Llantos y desesperaciones
Donde Banas con las plantas
Obendita criatura ponme ya
La corona de la sanidad
Muy eternal en mi Corazon

Howard G. Charing, is an accomplished international workshop leader on shamanism. He has worked some of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Philippines. He organises specialist retreats to the Amazon Rainforest at the dedicated centre located in the Mishana nature reserve. He is the author of the best selling book, Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA). His website: www.shamanism.co.uk