Shamanic Healing with the legendary Kallawaya Medicine Men of the Andes

Town of Curva, With sacred Akamani peak of the Apolobamba Mountian Range in the back

The Kallawaya (also known as Callahuaya, Kolyawaya, Qolla Huayu) is a culture native from the towns of Curva, Chajaya, Khanlaya, Huata Huata, Inka and Chari, in the surroundings of the town of Charazani, in the Bautista Saavedra province of the La Paz Department, Bolivia.  This natural setting is one of the most spectacular, unexplored and unexploited natural regions that remain on the planet. The Kallawayas are the guardians of a practically undisturbed biological corridor that runs all the way from Titicaca lake, up the glaciated peaks and lakes of the Apolobamba Mountains and down the steep ravines into the most remote mountain and flood plain rainforests of the Madidi National Park.

Kallawaya shaman 

Immemorially, the Kallawaya culture has centered itself in the study and practice of traditional, itinerant medicine, and its healers travel through the Inca roads in search of medicinal plants and taking their healing practices to those who need it in the farthest reaches of the continent. They have been known to travel on foot as far as southern Argentina and as far north as Colombia. It is known that the Inca royalty had Kallawaya healers in Cuzco to attend their health issues, and they became most famous when, in  the 1900’s, were taken to the Panama canal to help treat the Malaria pandemic for which only they were able to treat and successfully heal using only plant remedies. The UNESCO declared the Kallawaya culture as a masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Patrimony of Humanity in 2003.

Theories about the origins of the Kallawaya culture point out to similarities with the Mollo Empire that originated on the steep valleys of the central Andes. Kallawayas speak Quechua, but their cultural traits and practices are more of similarity to the nearby Aymara. Spanish is their second language and some have Aymara as a third. Those that are initiated into the healing and shamanic practices are taught the sacred and secret Kalliwayai language that is only used in prayers and ceremonies. The few linguists that have been able to study this language state that it has a Quechua grammatical base, but that it integrates words of Pukina, a lost language that is thought to have been spoken in Tiwanaku (the most remarkable civilization that flourished in the central Andes according to official anthropology from 1100 B.C. to 900 A.D).

Kallawaya Ritual offering

Kallawaya medicine shares different practices, viewpoints, beliefs and knowledge marked within a sanitary system that includes plants, animals, minerals, amulets, based on ceremonies, spiritual rituals, hand-applied therapies applied in singular fashion and/or a combination of all of these to help the wellbeing of their patients. Their diagnose methods are as varied as the types of therapies they apply, which  can go from physical examination of the patient, to magical and ritual divination techniques used to diagnose not only the ailment, but its source. The Kallawayas drew attention to themselves due to their extensive pharmacopeia, believed to be the most complete of all indigenous nations. But Kallawaya healing goes far beyond from herbal remedies and therapies used to treat the physical body. This is where the badly used term “shaman” can be applied to these medicine men. Not only are they well-formed doctors and physical therapists, but have an extensive use of shamanic ritual, psychological, and ceremonial healing. Their role of healers and shamans is crowned by their social function as “priests” of the Andean world. Different ceremonies that have nothing to do with healing are carried out by the Kallawayas, like weddings, baptisms and funerals.

A Kallawaya shaman can be hired to be the spiritual spokesperson if you desire to communicate with the spiritual realms of the Andean world. Their fluid use of their sacred Kalliwayai language is used in constant prayer along with an elaborate symbolic ritual employment of amulets as a dialog to speak to the sacred power places and spirits, calling their attention to help a patient in need, or a young fellow looking for love. Those skeptics that have studied this extensive shamanic ritual practice have come to the conclusion that independently of the magical and spiritual effect these rituals may have, if any, they have a profound psychological therapeutic use, and this by itself is enough to make this practices effective and recommendable.

Modern Kallawaya doing a coca leaf reading

Modern day Kallawayas continue to exist to this day without mayor changes in their ways and lifestyle from the days of the Incas. Native to Bolivia, it is in this privileged country where you may find a Kallawaya healer permanently stationed in every mayor city. La Paz is a good example, where up to five Kallawayas have their private consulting room to attend people indifferent of their origin. The price of a consultation which can include divination with the use of coca leafs or cards (depending on the day) will cost only around 3 American dollars, a price accessible to even the poorest people. In case a herbal therapy or ritual is needed, then the price will be set according to the amount of items used to carry it out. In the most complex cases, it will be necessary to travel to the Kallawaya’s village where he will have easier access to the items and energies necessary to carry out the healing therapy or ceremony.

Although Kallawaya medicine men normally attend mostly indigenous people who believe and respect all aspects of the Kallawaya practice, these medicine men are open to heal and treat people regardless of their origin or spiritual belief. The main reason why travelers to Bolivia and foreigners don’t take advantage of this unique healing opportunity is because they don’t know of its existence, and because of the language and cultural barriers. Having spoken to a Kallawaya medicine man, we have agreed to begin helping build the necessary bridge to be able to offer people from all over the world the opportunity to heal all imaginable ailments with the Kallawaya wisdom. In retribution, the Kallawayas can expand their client list which each day becomes shorter, and thus their existence becomes endangered due to the every expanding and self-imposing western medical practices and pharmaceutical remedies.  In addition, the Kallawaya culture’s magical and medicinal practice is strengthened by taking healing success stories to other countries and thus helping their heritage and cultural recognition gain respect amongst different people and cultures. Native Journey is the intercultural translator and national operator that is beginning to build these cultural bridges, offering you the opportunity to travel to Bolivia and experience and understand Kallawaya healing practices regardless of you speaking Spanish or having previous knowledge of the Andean culture or any type of shamanic exercise. If you’re interested in living this millenary, authentically native healing experience today, visit Native Journey

Links to Kallawaya official Web Sites (only in spanish):

KASFRO Kallawaya Association

SBIDCMEK Kallawaya Association

Other sites with information about Kallawayas:

Wikipedia article on Kallawayas

Grover Quispe Tejerina Site (in frech)

The story of Kallawayas web Article

About shamans, wise men, healers, warriors and wizards.

It is hard to define a person that stands out from "normality" and classify them into these very few names commonly given to them. While two different people may call themselves "shaman", the difference between them can be great. Accepted etymology of the word shaman is that of a Russian background and describes a person that has the capacity to contact spirits and heal people thanks to a special connection. But did anyone know that in the Maya language there is the word "xamen" that means "man of the north"? Cultural groups from around the world -"natives"- seem all to have shamans in their tribes or a tag for a person of similar description and while their culture's beliefs and cosmology  are different, they all share common traits.

 We might easily think that a shaman is related only to tribal lifestyle and that it would be a farce to find a shaman that for example is fluent in English or has knowledge of computers or modern things. When we find a person like this, we can be stepping into the other side of the line that divides the description of "shaman" from "wise man". If we think of a wise man, a sage, we might imagine a person that has great knowledge, but of a philosophical type and might still seem strange if we see that person in an internet cafe or at a disco. Luckily, those are all stereotypes, and stereotypes exist to blur us from reality. There are hundreds of shamans and wise men all around us, in large cities, on the bus, on the plane, dressed like us, of any race, speaking any language, doing anything and everything. Wisdom does not discriminate, and what  apparently might seem  not very wise, like drinking a beer on the street, can have a transcendent purpose in an ignored context.

Wisdom and special perceptive and shamanistic abilities can be profoundly obscured by a complex human trait called ego. The battle against this apparent enemy of the wise and enlightened is carried out by people who for that purpose call themselves warriors. In this context, the relation that the word warrior might have to physical aggression, violence or war is completely nonexistent. The battle here is carried out solely within the self and for purposes of enlightenment. Hence great wisdom is achieved and perceptive abilities that might give this person the traits of a shaman and a wise man.

Then we have wizards. People with special abilities to transform people and objects, time and reality. Not to be confused with magicians, who only create the illusion of doing these feats. Only until the last years has modern occidental science achieved to understand that physics can be "bent" and thus these feats are theoretically possible. Modern anthropology has also proven that people with these abilities exist. For wizards there are infinite traditions and types of wizardry. These types of wizardry are normally labeled by colors: "white magic, black magic, red magic" etc.  When the consciousness reaches a certain degree of wisdom and enlightenment, lineal, two dimensional -good and bad-, -before and after-, -better or worse- perspective is lost, and the consciousness enters a multi-dimensional understanding where different things are simply different and don't have to be defined by a line or by a two dimensional way of thinking. Here the self understands that reality is  beyond -good and bad-.

For thousands even millions of years humanity lived in harmony with nature in a state similar to what the bible describes as "paradise", or the garden of eden. This chapter in genesis actually happened in a less metaphoric way. Ancient shamans, by taking plants that took them into alternate states of perception, where able to contact inorganic beings. These inorganic beings tought them incredible powers of what can be called wizardry. Wizards and shamans then, lost themselves to an enemy of the light warrior called power. They dedicated themselves to have more and more power, and with  it they tricked themselves and cursed humanity into a prolongued dark era from which we are barely coming out of today. Later, the same wizards discovered that there was something beyond power, called freedom, and began to search for this freedom, liberating themselves from the curse of power. Today we might still find many wizards who are caught in the ilussion of power and practice great wizardry feats. But these feats are completely unecessary to accomplish the ultimate purspose of a warrior of light, or a shaman wise man: Freedom.