About the Teacher
Why study with them?
The Uwishin are the traditional healers of the Shuar people in the upper-Amazon of Ecuador. ‘Taita Hilario’ is a descendant in a long line of Uwishin shamans. Uwishin is the Shuar spiritual tradition of health, wisdom, art and science that has been passed down from generation to generation, preserving a millenary knowledge that has developed into a very accurate art of healing with sacred plants such as Natem (ayahuasca). Taita Hilario aims to keep the origin and essence of Ayahuasca healing alive, through preservation, practice, transmission and dissemination of the ancestral wisdom. Through intelligent and heartfelt prayers, Hilario shares the knowledge about a path of remembering, helping us to recall our place as relatives and family of our Mother Earth, the Great Spirit and the Universe. He has been invited to international meetings and universities in the fields of ethnoscience, art, traditional medicine and spirituality, and represented his people at a unique gathering in the French Alps in 1997, to discuss global concerns with the Dalai Lama and other high-level representatives of the world’s spiritual and healing traditions. This gathering has been recorded in the documentary Fire on the Mountain: [on youtube]. Hilario Chiriap has been leading ceremonies around the globe since the gathering in the Alps. With the increasing criminalization of Ayahuasca in the last years, he has decided to receive individuals and groups in Ecuador rather than traveling himself. Casa Ayamtai in Tepoztlán, Mexico, organizes traditional medicine retreats and ceremonies in Mexico and Ecuador.