Shipibo's Art and the Plants of Spirits
(Ucayali, Peru)


Shipibo is an indigenous tribe in the upper Amazon. Their language belongs to the Panoan language family. The rule of marital residence is uxorilocal.

(Photo: Carnival in San Francisco: a Shipibo's village near Pucallpa, Peru)

Their subsistence economy is slash-and-burn farming of yuca (cassava, manioc) and banana, and fishing in the river. Basically, farming is women's work, and fishing is men's work.

(Photo: yuca patch)

In addition, making handicrafts has become on important way to get money in recent years. Shipibo's women are very busy, not only farming, but also making handicrafts (photo), cooking, and taking care of their children...

A pot for water or masato. Masato is an alcoholic beverage for some fiestas made from roots of yuca.

This kind of pot has a woman's face and is a symbol of motherhood to keep and protect anything in the womb.

(Photo: A work of Korin Rabi)

(Click here, you can see more pictures of pots.)

A cloth for the skirt for women. We can see the geometric design similar to that on the surface of pots.

These geometric patterns are the description of the visions they see by taking some special plants.

(Photo: A work of Elisa Bargas)

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20-03-2000 Virtual Museum of Anthropology



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