Shipibo-Konibo Medicine: Onanyabo, Plants, Baths and Respect

What Shipibo-Konibo medicine is

Shipibo-Konibo medicine is the ancestral medical tradition of the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo people, who live mainly along the Ucayali River and its tributaries in the Peruvian Amazon. It is practiced by onanyabo (singular onanya), who are ancestral medicine masters trained over many years. The tradition understands health as a matter of relationship between a person, their community, and the living world of plants, rivers and forest.

This is a living tradition, not a historical curiosity or a wellness trend. In Shipibo-Konibo communities, plant knowledge and care for the sick are part of family and village life. Researchers in Peru have also documented Indigenous health workers who combine traditional practices with services from the Ministry of Health. In this guide we describe what the tradition is understood to involve, what the research and Indigenous organizations say, and what to consider before engaging. For the shorter profile, see the Shipibo-Konibo medicine page.

We write about this tradition as outsiders, and we try to say so plainly. Where a meaning belongs to the tradition, we attribute it to the tradition. We do not claim that any practice treats, cures or heals a condition.

Who are the onanyabo, and why not say shaman?

An onanya is a person trained in the knowledge of plants, song and the forest, in the way the Shipibo-Konibo understand these things. The word is used in the community, and its plural is onanyabo. English speakers often reach for the word shaman, but many Shipibo-Konibo practitioners have asked that outsiders stop.

The organization ASOMASHK, the Asociacion de Onanyabo Medicos Ancestrales Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo, was founded in 2019. According to its own account, it grew out of a gathering of practitioners in Yarinacocha convened by the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo representative council. At that gathering the participants rejected the words shaman and shamanism as imported terms that do not fit their tradition, and adopted onanya instead. The group now counts more than 140 associated members. Using the word onanya is a small act, but it respects the right of a people to name its own practice.

Becoming an onanya takes years. Research among healers in East-Central Peru, including Shipibo-Konibo participants, describes an apprenticeship built around dietas, in which a trainee works with particular plants under strict conditions and under the supervision of one or more master healers. The researchers recorded 55 plant species used in this training and described a sequence that moves through purification and cleansing, sensitivity and intuition, strengthening, and protection and defense. These are descriptions of the tradition, and they come from healers themselves.

What the tradition involves

Practices differ between onanyabo and communities, and no single list applies everywhere. These are the elements most often described in the literature and by practitioners.

• •Plant medicine. Often called vegetal medicine, this is the use of many plants, prepared as teas, baths, steams and other forms. Knowledge of which plant to use, and how, is held by the onanya.
• •Baths. Water infused with leaves and flowers, traditionally understood as a way of cleansing or renewing a person. Research with Indigenous nurse technicians in Ucayali lists baths among the practices they use alongside biomedical care. See our guide to Amazonian floral baths.
• •Purges. Preparations taken to induce vomiting or cleansing, which the tradition associates with clearing the body. Purging has real physical risks, covered below.
• •Tobacco. Tobacco is used in Amazonian practice in several ways, including being inhaled or blown over a person. The tobacco species involved is often reported to be Nicotiana rustica, which has a much higher nicotine content than commercial tobacco.
• •Song. Songs known as icaros are sung in ceremony. The tradition understands them as an essential part of the work.
• •Ceremony. Ritual gatherings, often at night, in which plants, song and the onanya come together.
• •Dieta. A period of restricted food and contact, taken with particular plants. Dietas are central to training and, for visitors, are a safety concern.

Ayahuasca is one plant medicine within this wider system, and it has become widely known outside Peru. It has its own profile on Gyfts at the ayahuasca ceremony page, and we do not cover its pharmacology here.

Respectful engagement: the Yarinacocha Declaration

The most important thing a visitor can know is what the Shipibo-Konibo themselves have asked for. The Yarinacocha Declaration, as summarized by ASOMASHK, expresses concern about the loss of plant knowledge and its transmission to young people, and about the effects of colonialism, industrial encroachment and the growth of spiritual tourism. It opposes what it calls spiritual extractivism, the taking of Indigenous spiritual knowledge and practices for outside benefit.

Among its proposals are training young Shipibo people in their own communities, since foreign apprentices outnumber local ones, and asking foreign practitioners and students to respect the Shipibo people's self-government and their push for cultural, economic and social self-determination. It also calls for ways for those who benefit from Indigenous medicine to contribute to Shipibo empowerment, and invites onanyabo to organize so they can ask for fair rights and wages. A follow-up statement on the globalization of ayahuasca was published in 2019.

In practice, respectful engagement tends to look like this.

• •Use the word onanya, and do not call yourself a shaman or an onanya after a short course.
• •Support Indigenous-led organizations and the training of young Shipibo-Konibo people.
• •Pay fairly, and prefer arrangements where the onanyabo and their communities are the ones who benefit.
• •Do not copy songs, designs or ceremonies for profit, and ask before photographing or recording anything.
• •Learn before you go, and accept that some things are not open to visitors.
• •Treat declining to take part as a respectable choice.

Who may offer these practices is a question for the Indigenous community to answer, not for outside platforms. For that reason Gyfts does not currently list these practices as services that practitioners can offer.

Why safety and context matter

The tradition has also been affected by violence connected to foreign visitors. In April 2018, onanya Olivia Arevalo Lomas, aged 81, was shot and killed near her home in the Ucayali region. News reports said a prosecutor later named a foreign visitor as responsible, and that the same man was killed by a mob. ASOMASHK describes her death as the event that prompted the first gathering of practitioners at Yarinacocha. We mention it because respect for Indigenous leaders and communities is a matter of safety for everyone, and not only an ethical preference.

Reports from within the tradition also warn of inexperienced or fraudulent providers. One published interview with a Shipibo healer in Pucallpa criticized the misuse of toxic plants as additives to ayahuasca and the harm they can do to unsuspecting tourists. The lesson is not that every provider is unsafe, but that visitors should rely on introductions from Indigenous organizations and communities, not on anonymous online listings.

What the research says

Shipibo-Konibo medicine has not been tested in clinical trials as a system, and it would be difficult to do so, because the tradition is relational, individual and tied to community. Its support is traditional use. What research exists is mostly ethnographic and ethnobotanical, and it describes what practitioners do and what they say it means.

A 2011 study in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology worked with 29 healers in East-Central Peru, 15 of whom were Shipibo-Konibo, and documented the plants used in initiation and apprenticeship. The authors concluded that the system of dietas is a fundamental component of everyday practice and of cultural continuity, and they argued for collaboration with Indigenous healers and recognition of their practices. A 2024 study with Indigenous nurse technicians from the Yine and Shipibo-Konibo peoples in Ucayali found that during the COVID-19 pandemic they used both biomedical and Indigenous approaches, including steam, massage, baths, infusions and remedies, and that this reflected their training in intercultural health. A 2024 paper in Medical Anthropology examined how Shipibo practitioners and international retreat participants understand purging and visions at a retreat in the Peruvian Amazon, and it approaches them as different frameworks that do not need to be reduced to one another.

What the research does not show is that these practices treat any condition. Laboratory studies of individual plants exist, but a laboratory result for a single plant is not evidence that a traditional practice has a health effect for a person. Where this guide says a practice is traditionally understood to cleanse, renew or protect, that is the tradition's meaning, offered with attribution.

Intercultural health in Peru

Traditional medicine in Peru is not only a private matter. The Ministry of Health has a sectoral intercultural health policy, adopted by Supreme Decree 016-2016-SA, which includes an axis on guaranteeing health rights for Indigenous, Andean and Amazonian peoples and another on promoting traditional and ancestral medicine. Within the National Institute of Health, the national center for social research and intercultural health, known as CENSI, is responsible for work on traditional medicine, complementary medicine and intercultural health.

Intercultural health means that health services try to work with Indigenous people's own concepts of health and illness, not against them. The 2024 research in Ucayali suggests that this can mean recognizing the creativity of Indigenous health workers and their own understandings of care. It also means that Indigenous people often use both systems at once, which is a reminder that traditional practice and biomedical care are not opposites. For visitors, the practical message is the same: tradition and medical care belong together, and neither replaces the other.

Safety and things to consider

Shipibo-Konibo medicine includes practices with real physical risks, which is why the Gyfts risk rating for this tradition is moderate, not low.

• •Purging. Vomiting and diarrhea can cause dehydration and an imbalance of body salts. People with heart, kidney or digestive conditions are at higher risk.
• •Tobacco and nicotine. Nicotiana rustica is reported to contain several times more nicotine than ordinary cigarette tobacco. Nicotine can cause nausea, a fast heartbeat, dizziness and, in excess, poisoning. People with heart conditions, high blood pressure or nicotine sensitivity should be especially careful.
• •Strong plants and ayahuasca. These can interact with prescription medicines, including antidepressants, and with some mental health conditions. A history of psychosis or bipolar disorder calls for particular caution.
• •Dietas. Long periods of restricted food, together with strong plants, can affect blood sugar, blood pressure and mood, and they require medical thought before you begin.
• •Pregnancy and breastfeeding. Many plants lack safety data, and some are traditionally avoided in pregnancy. Seek advice from a clinician.
• •Remote settings. Emergency care may be hours away. Ask how a provider handles a medical emergency before you go.
• •Never stop prescribed treatment. Talk with your clinician before you travel or take part in anything.
• •Legality varies. Plants and preparations used in the tradition are regulated differently in different countries. Check the law where you live and where you travel.
• •No substitute for care. Shipibo-Konibo medicine complements medical care. It never replaces it, and it should not be used to delay care for a serious illness.

If you are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, contact a licensed professional or a local crisis line first. In the United States you can call or text 988, and findahelpline.com lists services in other countries.

Questions to ask a provider

• •Are you Indigenous-led, and are the onanyabo fairly paid?
• •Is this provider connected to a Shipibo-Konibo community or to ASOMASHK?
• •Which plants, tobacco or purges are involved, and what are the risks?
• •How do you handle medication interactions and medical screening?
• •What happens if a participant needs emergency care, and how far is it?
• •How do you protect the privacy and knowledge of the community?

Related practices

Shipibo-Konibo medicine sits among Indigenous and plant-based traditions. The Amazonian floral baths page covers one gentle practice of the tradition in more detail. The ayahuasca ceremony profile covers that plant medicine on its own. If you are curious about gentler, plant-based approaches from other traditions, flower essence therapy is one place to start. You can browse more practices with the Gyfts explore tool, where each shows its own evidence context.

The bottom line

Shipibo-Konibo medicine is a living ancestral tradition, carried by onanyabo and organized today through groups such as ASOMASHK. Its support is traditional use, and its practices include real physical risks. The best forms of engagement are respectful ones: learn on the community's terms, use the word onanya, support Indigenous-led work, pay fairly, and speak with a licensed clinician before taking part in anything. You can find the practice profile on the Shipibo-Konibo medicine page.