Q&A with Korim Piko
What's the difference between a shaman and a curandero?
The term "shaman" was originally used to describe traditional healers in Siberia. Because of their renown, the term was adopted into the popular lexicon, and “shamanism” has become shorthand to refer to a vast variety of practices that have to do with moving and manipulating energy. Many individuals who have taken an interest in this area have self-applied the term “shaman” or “shamanic healer.” Some have trained in traditional lineages, some have not. As such, the term as it is used in the west is essentially meaningless. Among Amazonian practitioners, some eagerly take on the title of shaman so as to attract a western clientele familiar with that term. Others view the term with derision. As one of my teachers said to me, “shamans play with energy. Curanderos heal.”
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In the lineage of my Tobacco teacher, a spiritual authorization is required in order to attain the title of Curandero. Working with plants without this authorization can be risky for both the practitioner and the client. Once one has earned this authorization, bestowed by Nature and Spirit, his or her work becomes divinely supported and protected, and the true healing powers of Nature can be unlocked.
What did your training consist of? Who were your teachers?
I have trained with the Shipibo, a master mestizo tabaquero, and the Santo Daime Church. I began my plant medicine journey in 2011 working with the Shipibo people and began actively apprenticing in 2013 when I did my first training dieta. Dietas are intensive processes whereby one connects with a plant or energy over a period of time while observing stringent restrictions in their consumption and behavior (e.g. no sex, drugs, salt, limited food or fasting, and in the most traditional style of dieta, little to no human interaction).
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I moved to Peru in early 2014 and underwent training diets almost constantly for the next two and a half years, first within the Shipibo tradition and in the last half of my stay in Peru with my Tobacco teacher. In total I’ve undergone somewhere around 30 traditional diets with 40-plus plants and trees, each one ranging from a week to six months.
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Tobacco
My tobacco teacher prefers to keep his name private and has asked me to refer to him as Mamancunawa. Mamancunawa has healing lineage on all sides of his family, which hail from various parts of the Amazon jungle. His lineage, however, is his own, as he was given a mission by Spirit to spread the tobacco medicine into the world both by healing others and by training other curanderos like me.
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He is, by far, the most powerful healer I have encountered in my experience, working on a level far removed from other Amazonian healers. He began his training early. As he tells it, he first drank tobacco in the womb, and his childhood was filled with spiritual and visionary experiences. He began training as a healer at age 6 and by the time he was entering puberty was already an incredibly powerful curandero, often having to contend with jealous rivals who would attempt to do him harm (he has some wild stories about those times!).
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The immense capacity and power he wields is in direct proportion to the uprightness and dedication with which he approaches his mission. He spends 365 days a year at his center, where he offers diets both to train healers like me and to heal people of a variety of illnesses and maladies that include addictions, serious illnesses such as cancer and HIV, and cases of witchcraft. In the evenings, he receives lines of local people at his home seeking help and healing and he treats them on a free or donation basis. It is truly an honor and a blessing to be one of his apprentices.
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Ayahuasca
The Shipibo line I carry belongs to the Sinuiri-Ochavano family, which has maintained its home in a small village along the Ucayali river for generations. They are highly skilled healers of the utmost integrity who practice in a very traditional way, adhering closely to the ways of their ancestors, who belonged to a class of healers called Muraya. The Shipibo people debate whether any Muraya still exist in the modern world, but in the past, Muraya were those healers who had attained such a level of mastery that they lived equally in the world of spirit and matter. Don Pedro, the patriarch of the family, told stories of how his father, a Muraya, would disappear into the forest for weeks at a time and could survive taking with him only a machete because he could see the invisible people of the forest and receive their guidance and protection. Muraya were also capable of completely leaving their bodies during healing rituals in order to allow doctor spirits to inhabit them in order to carry out high-level healing work.
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This family has very deep healing roots and the depth of their knowledge goes beyond that of the vast majority of Shipibo healers. Training with them, I had the privilege to diet rare and mostly-forgotten healing plants that were utilized by their Muraya ancestors, and was regaled with amazing stories of animal medicine, a mostly-lost art among modern Shipibo . It is a true honor to have learned from this amazing family and to carry their healing line.
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Santo Daime
The Santo Daime Church is a syncretic Brazilian church that combines elements of Christianity, Amazonian vegetalismo (plant medicine), and Afro-Brazilian tradition into what is essentially a gnostic church of universal spirituality. I discovered my connection with the Daime in 2012, and am incredibly grateful for the teachings, growth, and spiritual assistance it has blessed me with.
What does the name "Korim Piko" mean and where does it come from?
In the Shipibo tradition, after one trains with the medicine for a length of time, the medicine will sometimes give that person a name in Shipibo. Partway through my apprenticeship, a Shipiba Maestra asked the medicine if she had a name for me, and the name she gave me was Korim Piko. Korim comes from the Shipibo word “kori,” which refers to a gold lip piercing that previous generations of Shipibo wore traditionally. It was considered a very attractive accessory. Piko means to liberate by shining light. Taken together, Korim Piko translates to “a beautiful, liberated man that liberates by shining light.”
What did you do before you became a curandero?
I was a lawyer. Please don’t hold it against me :)