Peruvian Shamans (Saturday, December 30th, 2017)

This morning we met with a Shaman named Enrique.  The Shaman is an indigenous healer.  He speaks Spanish and Quechwa, but no English, so we had a translator to help us understand the ceremony he was performing.

The Shaman conducted a ceremony to put together an offering for us to keep us safe and bring us blessings.  The offerings to mother earth are usually made up of sweets and herbs, with cocoa leaves being a main part of the offering.

When the offering was complete, he packaged it up and blessed each of us individually.

The Shaman, like most Peruvians, is a wee little man.  We felt very honored to have our picture taken with him.

Once we were all blessed, he would take the package high into the mountains after dark and burn it to release all of the blessings.

It was fun to go through the ceremony with the Shaman and to try to understand the significance of all the items in the package.  Shamans are becoming very rare, but are still an important part of the Peruvian beliefs.