For centuries, Shipibo-Konibo Maestras — the master healers and curanderas of the Peruvian Amazon Basin — have cultivated a profound and systematic relationship with ayahuasca and allied Master Plants. To the Shipibo, ayahuasca is not simply a medicine. It is a sentient plant-being, endowed with consciousness, spirit, and agency, whose teachings form the foundation of an epistemological tradition as sophisticated as any in the history of human thought. This tradition encompasses the practice of icaros — sacred healing songs transmitted through plant dieta — and a comprehensive cosmovision that offers its own philosophy of illness, dying, and what lies beyond. Yet this tradition remains largely undocumented on its own terms, and the Maestra as healer, philosopher, and theorist of consciousness remains largely unrecognized in academic discourse.

In collaboration with the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University, The Coe Lab is engaged in a landmark interdisciplinary research initiative to characterize and document the epistemological frameworks of Shipibo Maestras, with particular attention to how plant medicine is understood and mobilized in the contexts of serious illness and end-of-life care. Where Western biomedical discourse frames ayahuasca through the lens of psychedelic-assisted therapy and dying as a clinical problem to be solved, this research centers the shamanic perspective — positioning the Shipibo Maestra as a healer, philosopher, and theorist of consciousness whose knowledge merits rigorous scholarly attention. The project draws on symmetrical anthropology, medical anthropology, ethnoboiology, and palliative care research to develop an epistemological mapping framework that honors Shipibo knowledge as a legitimate intellectual tradition, not merely an ethnographic curiosity.

A central commitment of this project is reciprocity. In partnership with Shipibo-Konibo communities in the Ucayali region, the team is developing a bilingual Reciprocal Knowledge Archive — a Shipibo/Spanish record of the knowledge shared by Maestra participants, designed with and returned to the communities who generate it. This commitment to reciprocity extends beyond documentation. Through the Coe Lab's ongoing collaboration with Shipibo partners in the Ucayali region, this project directly supports Axeti Nete Koshi Tapon (Strong Root Apprenticeship) — a two-month immersive intergenerational program in which Shipibo-Konibo elders and master healers transmit medicinal plant knowledge, traditional land stewardship practices, ancestral songs, and cultural ways of knowing directly to Shipibo youth from their own communities. Where the Archive helps to ensure that Maestra knowledge is preserved and returned to those who hold it, supporting Koshi Tapon helps to ensure that this knowledge remains alive — actively cultivated, practiced, and carried forward by the next generation of Shipibo cultural guardians and stewarded for those who come after them. Together, these initiatives reflect a model of research reciprocity in which documentation and living cultural transmission are understood as inseparable. The Coe Lab's long-standing relationships with Shipibo-Konibo communities, built over more than a decade of collaborative fieldwork, serve as the foundation and practical gateway for this project. The project is currently in its preliminary phase (2026–2027), encompassing structured literature review, methodological refinement, IRB and ethical governance planning, and early design of the Archive — laying the groundwork for fieldwork that will be conducted in close collaboration with the Shipibo partners whose knowledge and wisdom are at the heart of this inquiry.

Ayahuasca, Knowledge and Mortality

Mahindra Humanities Center · Harvard University · The Coe Lab

Epistemological Mapping Among Shipibo Maestras in the Peruvian Amazon

Maestras

SHIPIBO-KONIBO KNOWLEDGE HOLDERS

Manuela Mahua Ahuanari | Jakon Rate

MAESTRA CURANDERA —TRADITIONAL ONANYA HEALER

Manuela Mahua carries one of the most deeply rooted healing lineages of the Shipibo-Konibo people, spanning both the upper and lower Ucayali regions of the Peruvian Amazon. Born in 1946, she began her apprenticeship under her father Manuel, a legendary Shipibo Onanya Maestro, at the age of thirteen and has practiced her ancestral medicine for more than six decades — a vast body of knowledge that encompasses plant dieta, icaros, and a comprehensive understanding of the natural pharmacy of the Ucayali basin.

As a master healer of the Mahua lineage, steward and transmitter of ancestral knowledge, Manuela works with both Shipibo-Konibo community members and those who come from outside her tradition, extending her teachings to all who demonstrate the commitment to carry them forward with integrity. Her practice reflects the Shipibo understanding of plant medicine as a living epistemological tradition — one that must be actively cultivated, practiced, and passed on to endure.

Manuela is known among her students and community by her Shipibo-Konibo name, Jakon Rate — a name that translates as Life-Giving Good Surprise, and that those who learn with her understand as an expression of who she is.

Robertina Mahua Perez | Bawan Yabi

MAESTRA CURANDERA —TRADITIONAL ONANYA HEALER

Robertina Mahua is the eldest daughter of the late Pascual Mahua, a renowned Shipibo Onanya Maestro of Noyá Ráo — the rare and luminous Master Plant tree at the center of the Mahua healing lineage. As a member of one of the Ucayali region's most established healing lineages spanning across generations, Robertina spent decades as a active participant in the ceremonial and medicinal work of her father, uncles, and cousins before formally beginning her own samá at the age of fifty-two. That she came to this path later in life is not incidental — it reflects a Shipibo understanding of readiness as something cultivated over time, rather than measured by age alone.

Robertina's samá began with two years of dedicated dieta with Noyá Ráo exclusively, an intensive and rigorous initiation into the path of plant intelligence and traditional Shipibo-Konibo healing practices. She subsequently entered samá with Tobí Ráo, through which she developed her practice of therapeutic massage and bone setting — embodied healing modalities that extend her work beyond the ceremonial into the physical care of her community. Her plant relationships developed through extensive samá include Sémein (Bobinsana), Mókapari (Chiric sanango), Chullachaqui Caspi, and Marosa, each representing a distinct dimension of her healing knowledge and intimate relationship with teacher plants.

For the past five years, Robertina has worked in close collaboration with Manuela, weaving her complementary plant expertise into a shared healing practice rooted in their common lineage.

Delia Mahua Perez | Soi Same

SAMÁ CHEF, TRADITIONAL MIDWIFE, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH EXPERT

Delia Mahua is a renowned Shipibo-Konibo partera — a midwife and keeper of the birth traditions of the Shipibo— who began her apprenticeship at seventeen under the guidance of her maternal grandmother. A first cousin of Manuela and younger sister of Robertina, she is the daughter of the late Onanya Maestro Pascual Mahua, and her practice is inseparable from the Mahua healing lineage that defines this family's generational contribution to Shipibo-Konibo medicine.

Delia’s work encompasses the full continuum of life — from the threshold of birth to the nourishment and physical care of those in healing. Alongside her husband José, she prepares traditional foods for guests and students engaged in samá, carefully following dietary restrictions, drawing on an intimate knowledge of the relationship between food, plant medicine, and the body's capacity to heal. This care is not incidental to her practice; within Shipibo cosmovision, the preparation of food and the preparation of medicine are understood as expressions of the same attentiveness to life.

Delia is known within her community by the name tsiri ainbo — a Shipibo-Konibo expression meaning a woman of striking beauty who consistently does what is right — a title that those who have learned alongside her know to be true.