“We used to educate our children at home. In the old days we would teach them what they needed to learn about the Shipibo way of life. The girls would learn how to sew, make ceramic pots, cups from the kaoiba tree, care for the animals, cook food and tend the fires. The boys would learn how to hunt, catch fish, carve, gather firewood and build houses or shades. Our children would learn about our culture through stories told around the fires and sewing circles of our communities. We lived a quiet and peaceful existence with children roaming free and bathing in the ‘Cochas”, river inlets. All of our sickness was cured by the plants native to our home, which for the Shipibo have always been sacred and also have their own spirits and gifts. The jungle provided all of our food and shelter and trees laden with fruits we can no longer find would fill our bellies along with the plentiful fish from the rivers. When we would eat we would lay banana leaves down and come together and eat as one community.

Over time the modern world came to us, the white men came to us, the one from cities came to us.  The trees began to be cut down and the rivers became more polluted. The fish, once plentiful in the individual communities began to move further and further downriver as we watched the arrival of bigger and bigger fishing boats. The men were no longer taking what they needed but more than they needed to make an exchange for money. It was the same for the trees, loggers came in and offered our Shipibo brothers and sisters, schools and hospitals in exchange for the right to come into our communities to begin began felling the trees for money. Over time more and more buildings were built in wood and then brick and so our once jungle communities, for those in the centre, became surrounded by noise and roads.

Education began to change as well, historically we educated our children in our communities about our way of life, our way of life was our education to our children. As things progressed and more and more from the outside came in children began to read and write in our native tongue of Shipibo-Konibo. The teachers were coordinated by our communities and in our communities. A group of trusted tribes people were responsible for ensuring our children’s education. More time passed and our children were required to attend schools in the city and learn in Spanish and the Peruvian Education department took over the coordination of teaching professionals for our children, another step away from our tribal roots. For our communities along the river teachers are sent to teach our children still in Shipibo-Konibo but often these teachers do not arrive to the schools and there is little resources to build quality schools for all of our children living in the communities along the Ucayali.

We are watching our children forget their roots, forget our dances and our way of life. The world will keep on turning and our children will be called to the modern way, this is life, but it saddens us to watch our way of life disappear year by year. To watch our language, disappear year by year along with the stories of our origin. Our children are becoming ashamed to be Shipibo, embarrassed to dress in our traditional garments and not knowing how to converse in Shipibo. There are those who still remember, but so many are forgetting. Those of us who remember wish to be heard and for our voices to carry on the winds to those who can hear.

We call to the world for help, to build a cultural centre where we can invite our children and families to remember our way of life, Where we can reignite the Shipibo fires and be proud again of who we are and where we come from. To remind our people of the wisdom of the plants and their ability to heal us. We watch so many of our peoples going to the pharmacy to heal, this is not the Shipibo way. The plants have always healed us when we were able to live with the plants and our beloved jungle, when we lived in harmony with our jungle not against it.

Our way of life was already in danger of disappearing and now that COVID has hit we are being forced by circumstance and need to move further and further from our tribal ways to survive this changing world.

We call for the help of the world now to assist us in creating together a place for the Shipibo to remember together the value of our way of life and all that it brings. This is our dream and you can find out more about are cultural centre dream here.’

Tantamunay stand with the Shipibo in support and service of this dream. The founder of Tantamunay originates from England where she has observed the cultural impact of moving away from the natural life over her own ancestral history. Many generations back, England was a sea of green and forests, a place with its own magic and mystery, with its own sacred plants and rhythms in full flourish. The native healers of the UK were burnt, persecuted and forced underground alongside the destruction of 80% of the U.K Forest. Since then, the UK has lived through 7 generations of movement away from the natural rhythms and towards the world we know today. The observed result is that thousands of seekers are leaving their Western Worlds in search of those still connected to the earth wisdom, to heal them in many ways of the impact to the soul and body of this separation, one of those peoples are the Shipibo. This observation is one motivation for Tantamunay, that the story shall not repeat for the Shipibo. 

Together we call for the support of the world to protect the true heritage of these ancient peoples

‘When I was a little girl, I was always surrounded by jungle and would eat from the trees laden with fruit and always be dressed in the native clothes of the Shipibo as is our customs. My brother and I couldn’t read or write. Then they sent the ‘gringos’ , foreigners. They had learnt our language well and were ‘bilingual’ they taught the first teachers how to teach in the schools how to read and write in Shipibo. This was ok at first as they taught us in our own tounge, Shipibo-Konibo. Now most of us are having to learn in Spanish and are culture is being lost. Was it good they came, I don’t know? When the Mestizo clothes started to come I cried, I cried and screamed as I didn’t want to wear the clothes of anyone but my tribe. I have watched the world I knew change completely in my lifetime and its changed so fast, when I was small it was trees and abundance, now its all about the money and everyone is wanting their share. Please help us to have a cultural center so we can keep a small part of our world alive. “