Manuela with a Pomarrosa tree
Amazon rainforest, Perú
A Shipibo healing song for the trees by medicine woman Manuela Mahua
P L A Y
Manuela is a curandera, a traditional healer working with plants and an energetic way of healing. She lives in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest and is part of the Shipibo-Conibo, an indigenous people living along the Ucayali river (a large tributary of the Amazon river) in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest.
The Shipibo-Conibo are distinguished by their extensive knowledge of medicinal plants and their rich and complex cosmology. They keep cultural traditions that stretch far back in time and have kept their ancestral healing practices and rituals alive.
Trees and plants are very central in their traditional healing practices and are key elements to their culture, informing much of their artistic work and rituals. They have a spiritual connection to the rainforest and maintained the knowledge and wisdom on how to live in a reciprocal relationship with the natural world.
Like other indigenous populations throughout the Amazon basin, they are threatened by severe pressure from outside influences such as oil extraction, logging, palm oil cultivation, deforestation, commercial overfishing and narco-trafficking. Global weather changes have caused drought followed by flooding which also threatens the Shipibo-Conibo means of sustenance.
The Amazon rainforest is the most biodiverse place on Earth that houses countless species of trees. The best way to protect the Amazon rainforest is to empower the Indigenous People that have lived there, in harmony with nature for thousands of years, to continue to thrive as natural guardians of their environment.
A B O U T M A N U E L AManuela Mahua, also affectionately called Yoxan (grandmother in Shipibo language) by many in her community, is a Shipibo curandera, a traditional healer working with plants and an energetic way of healing. Manuela has a vast knowledge about the local healing plants and trees and the Amazon jungle is her pharmacy. She comes from a long line and family of healers and has been studying and working with plant medicines for her whole life. Everything about her way of life has been informed by the jungle - the plants, the animals, the spirits of the forest and the river. Manuela is a keeper of the ancestral ways, traditions and healing practices of her people.
She is standing by a Pomarrosa tree, also known as rose apple (Syzygium jambos).
First nation people around the world protect 80% of biodiversity on Earth. They are the guardians of our planet’s forests and the keepers of the wisdom on how to live in harmony and right relationship with all life on the planet.
Indigenous women in the Amazon play a vital role in the protection of the rainforest. They are the guardians of the forest and the ones who have nurtured, protected, and defended the Amazon rainforest for centuries. They protect and defend our collective future.
Photography by Liv Milani
Voice and music mixing by Joanna Lero
