Conversation with Benjamin Ochavano, Peru 2002

Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley interviewed Shipibo Ayahuasca Shaman Benjamin Ochavano in the Amazon jungle of Peru, who is in his seventies to discuss how Ayahuasca can help those Westerners seeking personal growth who have embarked on the great journey of self-discovery and exploration.

Indigenous peoples and early civilizations have developed the uses of powerful hallucinogenic plants such as Ayahuasca over thousands of years, and their effects are highly dependent on the context of the ceremony, the chants, and the essential personality of the shaman, all of which can vary. with surprising results.

Various urban uses have emerged recently and some of them are spreading, while some traditional shamans travel the world, thus Ayahuasca is gaining recognition in Western civilization. But what really is the potential of these ancient plants and how can we get the most out of them?

I started drinking ayahuasca when I was 10 years old, with my father, who was also a shaman. When I was 15 years old, he took me to the jungle to do plant diets, no one saw us for a whole year, we had no contact with women, nothing. We lived in a simple dairy, sleeping on leaves with only a sheet over us. We made diets with plants: ayauma, puchatekicaspi, pucarobona, huairacaspi, verenaquu.

He would take each plant for 2 months before moving on to the next, a whole year without women! The only fish allowed is boquichico, a vegetarian fish and mashed bananas that turns into a thick drink called pururuco in Shipibo, or chapo without sugar.

Then I had about a year off before going back to my uncle, José Sánchez, for another year and 7 months of dieting in the little Río Pisqui. He taught me a lot and he gave me chonta, rattlesnake, hergon, nacanaca, cayucayu. He was a chontero, a kind of shaman who works with darts (in the spirit world), so called because the real darts and arrows for hunting are made from the black splintered bamboo called chonta. A chontero can throw darts with positive effects such as knowledge and power as well, and he knows how to suck and take out poisoned darts that have caused him illness or disease.

To finish he gave me chullachaqui caspi. Then I began to live with my wife and work as a healer in Juancito in Ucayali. Then I went to Pucallpa where I still live part of the time I’m not in my Paoyhan community, where my Ani Sheati project is.

The most important teacher plant is Ayauma chullachaqui. Then Pucalo puno (quechua) the bark of a tree that grows up to 40 or 50 meters. This is one of several plants that is consumed along with tobacco and is so strong that you only need to take it twice. Requires a 6 month diet. You drink it in the morning, then you go to bed, you are in an altered state for a whole day afterwards.

Another plant is the Catahua whose resin is cooked with tobacco. You must make sure that no one sees you while you take it. It puts you in a dream of powerful dreams.

Ajosquiro is from a tree that grows up to 20m, with a pungent aroma like garlic. It gives you mental strength, it is very healing and makes you strong. It removes feelings of laziness, gives you courage and self-esteem, but can be used to explore the negative and positive side. You can be alone in nature and feel in the company of many. It introduces you to the psycho-magical world that we have inherited from our ancestors, the great Morayos (= shamans in Shipibo) so that you acquire knowledge on how to heal with plants.

The word ‘shaman’ is recent in the Amazon (coming from Asia via the Western world in the last 10-20 years). My father was known as moraya or bank, or in Spanish curandero. A curandero can specialize in being a good trickster or a shitanero who hurts people.

Virjilio Salvan, who is now dead, now dead, introduced me to a plant that he said was better than any other plant: Palo Borrador, maestro de todos los palos (master of all plants). You smoke it in a pipe for 8 days, blowing the smoke over your body. On the eighth day a man appears, as real as we are, a Shipibo. He was a chaycuni, an enchanted being with a typical costume…cushma or woven tunic, beaded necklace, etc., and he told me: ‘Benjamín, why have you smoked the tree for me?’

‘Because I want to learn’ I said. ‘Since I was little I wanted to be Moraya’

‘You must go on a diet and smoke my tree for 3 months, no more,’ he said. ‘And you can eat whatever fish you want…it won’t matter’…and he listed all the fish he could eat. “But you must not sleep with any woman other than your wife,” she said. And I have followed this advice to this day.

Three nights later, sounds were heard under the ground and large holes opened and the wind blew. Then everyone, the whole family began to fly. And from that day I was moraya.

Today I still fast on Sundays.

What do you think about Westerners coming to take plants in the Amazon?

It is good that they come to learn, that we share and that there is an exchange. This is what I would like to do in my Paoyhan community. But the Ecuadorians stole our outboard motor.

How could Amazon plants help people in the West?

It can open our minds so that we can find ways to help each other. It can help them find more self-fulfillment in life. If a person is very shy, for example, it can help warm his heart, give him strength and courage.

They have a different system in their countries, when we travel there we feel underestimated just like when you come here you have to be accused of being here. When we meet and become brothers, solutions arise. To get rid of vices and drug addictions, for example, there are plants that can easily cure people.

Monkey penis is a thick tree, which I have used to cure two foreign women of AIDS. The name means “monkey penis”. I saw in my ayahuasca vision that they were sick and I diagnosed them with AIDS. I boiled the bark of the tree and made 6 bottles which they drank every day until they were finished. They had to go on a diet too. No fish with teeth, salt, fruit or butter. The toothy fish eats the plant so that it cannot penetrate the body. After this you get so hot that steam comes out of the body. In the jungle there is no AIDS, only a few cases in the city of Pucullpa.