From the Four Winds web site archives:
Don Manuel, The Oldest of the Inka Shamans,
by Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D.
I first read about Don Manuel in a 1962 National Geographic special on Peru, where he was described, at the age of fifty-two, as one of the oldest of the Inka shamans, and the only one who still remembered how to count with the quipu, the ring of colored knotted strings on which the accounting of the Inka Empire was kept. By the time I met him 1989 all that he could use the quipu for was telling stories. He had forgotten the math of the Inkas. All that remained in his head were the legends.
Don Manuel was born in the community of Q’ero, the son of a farmer. At the age of fifteen he became very ill. His father took him to the healer of his village, and no one was able to help, not even the doctors at the medical post in the city of Cusco. While bringing his emaciated son back to Q’ero, he stopped at the sanctuary of Huanca, a holy place where the power of nature congregates. The sanctuary of Huanca was so revered by the Inka that the Catholic priests had built a church above it to convert the Indians. A miracle occurred, and Don Manuel began to eat and regain his strength. Huanca is located halfway up the southern face of Mt. Pachatusan, whose name means “axis of the world”. The mountain spirits instructed Manuel to travel to another apu, or sacred mountain, named Ururu, directly across the valley. Young Manuel spent the next few months living in a cave like a hermit, drinking the water that filtered through the walls of the cavern, going for long walks alone in the mountains. Here is where he first began speaking to the apu. The mountain itself became his teacher. He had been on the brink of death, had experienced the continuity of life on the other side, and come back. On his return to Q’ero he completed his apprenticeship, formally undergoing the rites of passage under one of the legendary shamans of Q’ero.
When I first me him he had already lost all of his front teeth. He knew my mentor Antonio and agreed to teach me. All he wanted from me was a new set of teeth. The ordeal was more complicated than I ever thought possible. The dentist had to extract the remaining teeth a few at a time, and he would be in pain for days after each surgery. Twice he nearly died under the anesthetic. And he held me responsible for each painful extraction. Finally he got his new dentures, looked at himself in the mirror, and smiled. The next week he began to teach me everything he knew. We went to Mt. Ausangate and he gave me his hatun karpay, or great transmission. And then he told me to go jump into Otorongo Warmi Cocha, the female-jaguar lagoon.
I looked at him, incredulous. “Do what?”, I said.
“Go jump into the lagoon,” he replied. “That’s for all the pain from having my teeth taken out.”
We were at fourteen thousand feet, it was the middle of winter, and a light snow was falling around us. The thermometer on my backpack read ten degrees below zero. The water in the lagoon came from a blue-ice glacier in the middle of the pool. At that temperature and altitude, I was convinced, I would have a heart attack.
“It’s not my fault that your dentist didn’t give you enough anesthetic,” I said, trying to persuade him to find another test for me.
“I nearly died at the foot of the mountain before the apu gave me back my life,” he said, a thin smile revealing his shiny new teeth. “I’ve brought you to the holy mountain. I’m giving you my karpay. Let’s see if the apu gives you your life.” And then he explained that I would have to touch my lips to the ice at the bottom of the pool. Although the blue ice was only six or seven feet under the water, I doubted I could hold my breath long enough to touch bottom.
Don’t stay in long,” he said.
I’m too old for this, I thought. But something inside me had taken over, and I found myself stripping down: mountain jacket, fleece, pant, thermal underwear. The cold was biting through my skin. I hovered on a boulder above the icy water, clasping my arms tightly over my chest, my skin all goose bumps. Thinking about it wasn’t helping. I dove into the pool and had the breath knocked out of me by the frigid water. I managed to swim to the center of the pool but couldn’t hold my breath long enough to dive. Then I went under, as if in a dream, and kissed the glacier.
Afterward Don Manuel explained to me the initiation of the Andean shaman. There are seven levels or major rites of initiation. The healer needed only the first four levels; the master shaman needed the first six. Very few people completed all seven levels.
“There was really no need to go into the lagoon,” Don Manuel said as I sat shivering, trying to put my clothing back on. “I was only testing your determination.”
That night while Don Manuel slept, I stole into his tent and hid his teeth. It took him two days to find them.
For nearly seven years, until he became too frail to travel, Don Manuel and I taught the ways of the shaman to my students in North America. The high point of our travels came when I arranged for us to perform a ceremony for healing the earth at the main altar at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Hundreds of people attended. Don Manuel grinned the entire evening. He had never imagined he would be holding ceremony at a Christian altar.
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