This section reproduces a fragment of a conversation between linguist Pilar Valenzuela Bismarck (Metsá Rama) and pottery maker Agustina Valera Rojas (Ranin Ama) published in the book Koshi Shinanya Ainbo. el testimonio de una mujer Shipiba (Koshi Shinanya Ainbo: the Testimony of a Shipiba Woman) [Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 2005]. This dialogue, originally published in Shipibo and Spanish, compiles stories associated with Shipibo traditions, daily life, language, and forms of social organization. Here we first reproduce the Spanish version and its English translation. The Shipibo text appears at the end of the section.

Advice from My Grandmother

I was conceived by my mother and father in Bajo Ucayali. I was born in front of the community of Alfonso Ugarte. Later I grew up. When I was a little girl, my grandmother would give me advice, saying: “A woman should never sit still, she should never be idle.” A woman must know how to make cotton fabric, to make balls of thread, embroider, know how to make pottery; we must also teach those things to our daughters. I practice that advice. My grandmother advised me to observe the things that my mother would do.

The Things My Mother Taught Me

My mother taught me to do the things that correspond to women. First, she taught me to make blouses, to weave bracelets and anklets, to spin cloth, to make pampanillas [traditional embroidered skirts]. She taught me everything. I never thought I would be considered an expert in making the pampanilla. It is really hard to make. Some of my fellow women do not do it very well; there are also some women who simply do it for the sake of doing it. Later, my mother taught me to make pottery: “Daughter, learn to make pottery. You can’t let other women make fun of you, laugh at you, when, despite being older, you do your things badly.” Then, my mother would sit me by her side. She also taught me to use the huingo instrument to polish the ceramics and not just the clay. So, right now I am planning on teaching that to my young ladies.

            My mother raised me giving me advice. I have advice to offer because I listened to what my mother told me. Since my mother knew how to do everything, she taught me. We Shipibo women are not like the mestiza women who only do things for money. We do not do things for money. My mother taught me to go to the mountains, to cut firewood, to bring back plantains and yuca, to prepare masato [ceremonial fermented beverage], and to prepare special chapo [sweet plantain beverage]. By teaching us those things, she raised us so that we would be like her. My mother died and we still have the things that she taught us. Thus, we remember our mother and the things she shared with us. Over time, we also become mothers; we have children and we practice those things that our mother did. We also give that advice to our daughters, doing the same thing that our mother did.

Making Ceramics

Making ceramics is one of our traditional customs. Before, we did not buy things in stores, our grandmothers made mocahuas [flaring bowl used for ceremonial beverages], callanas [flat pan used to cook maize and other things], pots, and jars. There are different types of callanas: those with designs inside and those that don’t have designs on the inside, that are only black. There are also jars with three faces, with one face, with different levels, in the shape of a dove.

        I learned how to make pottery as a girl. It is quite a lot of work to make pottery. First, you have to look for the apacharama [tree whose bark is used in ceramics making]. Then, you get the clay and dissolve it in water. After dissolving the clay, you burn and grind the apacharama. After grinding the burnt apacharama, you mix it with ground pieces of cooked clay jars. Afterward, you knead together the entire mixture. After kneading the mixture, you think about what you are going to make: there are mocahuas, callanas with a flat base, large jars, jars with human faces, clay pots, everything. Since it requires this whole process, making pottery is hard work. Then you decide: “Now I am going to make a jar, a jar with fins, a mocahua, or a jar ‘with women’s pubic hair.’” Then, you make balls with the mixture and assemble the coils. After assembling the coils, you mold them, and polish the piece. But, this process is not described in any book. The way we are going to work the clay only exists in our minds.

                The women who makes pottery must know how to grind, mix with apacharama, assemble, paint the body of the ceramic white, and design. She also has to know how much wood to use to bake the pottery, for how much time, how to make it shine, or how to cover the hot pottery with sealing wax so that it comes out pretty. If you do not know those things, the pottery can crack, which happens when you don’t know how to make the mixture with pieces of ceramics. If you don’t know how to make the designs, it makes the pottery ugly, and the women who know laugh at us. In order for that not to happen, we have to teach our daughters, so that later on that doesn’t happen to them.

                Children should not make any noise while we are making the pots. Sometimes children call us or interrupt our concentration; then, we get up because they have bothered us. Boys cannot touch the clay, lest their penises become soft and flabby, like the clay.

                A Shipibo woman spends a month making a ceramic. It is not the type of thing that can be done in two days. If you practice every day, you can learn. The mother acts as a guide: “Daughter, assemble the coils of clay, watch, I will help you polish.” We watch while the girl assembles the coils of clay. Thus, the girl is going to learn—she will end up being better at it than we are. I have a daughter who knows more than I do, she has a good sense of design; that is how it should be.

                I also started teaching pottery making to older women like myself. There are women my age who do not know how to make pottery. There are women my age who do not know how to assemble the clay, who do not know how to polish. They learn more or less how to do it in a month when we teach them. Learning pottery must start at a young age. When the girl is twelve years old, she already knows how to do a little; when she is fifteen or eighteen years old she already knows it well. When we don’t teach her, the young woman doesn’t learn anything.

                Making ceramics, that is our custom. But today, young women do not know how to do it; nor do they know the diverse traditional designs. But, as mothers, we can teach these things to our daughters. We cannot allow them to go through life without knowing how to do anything. If the young women do not know, it is because their mothers did not teach them. Once my mother treated my hands with the nest of the mapó chekere wasp.¹ That treatment is so that we can make light pottery.

                Currently we make ceramics to sell, to obtain money and thus feed our children. Why can’t our women do their work well? Because mestizos cannot tell if the work is done well or not. I think that we should do our work very well, much better than our grandmothers did.

                Some women ask us: “Why do we have to make pottery if there is premade stuff to buy?” We have to make pottery. Instead of making pottery, sometimes we want to be like mestizos; we buy pots, we buy plates. That’s not how it should be. When we see that our dishes become spoiled, then we can make pottery. Making pots with a very black interior allows us to eat well. These things are made with our own hands.

Design

The large clay jar represents us women, it wears the pampanilla of the Shipibo woman. Thus, we decorate the jar like we embroider our pampanilla. To make the designs, first we have to imagine them. Our designs are not found in books, they are only in our minds. Our minds are like books in which we imagine the designs to later reproduce them. The design is what hypnotizes us with its beauty— later it becomes yacumama [mother of water]. That very yacumama is our design.

            We have to learn to design from a very young age. If you don’t know how to design, you’re nobody. If you know how to design, you should never say, “I know how to design,” lest those who know more than us challenge us. That happened to me when I was among experts. There are those who challenge you and if, despite them challenging you, you don’t do it well, they make fun of you.

                There are different types of designs in pottery. There are curvy designs, the herringbone design, the metinko design. Curvy designs are always accompanied by a cross. That is the cross that our grandparents raised in the ground when they celebrated Ani Xheati [ritual celebrations of female puberty]. They would tie a spider monkey or other animal to that cross and shoot it with arrows.

                The curvy design is made because young single men and women go around and around looking for everything. That is the meaning of the curvy design. Similarly, our river does not flow straight, but is serpentine; some curves are big and others smaller. That is why those who perform the mashá sing: “The river goes around and around.” We design those curves. The small designs represent the large number of people who were invited to Ani Xheati. The adornments shaped like eyes represent our communities.

                In the past, our grandmothers transmitted those designs to us. That is why the white mestizos do not know the meaning of our designs. We ourselves, our river, and all of our adornments are the design. Whites and any other powerful people will never be able to take them from us.

Piri piri for Design

Stories tell that in ancient times they would burn the boas, the offspring of the yacumama [the water mother]. Only their ashes would remain. From the ashes, from what was burned of the yacumama, sprouted piri piri, that is where the piri piri originated. That is what our grandmothers call piri piri for design.² That is where piri piri for design emerged from.

    Our grandmothers used to say: “Here is the piri piri for design. Put the piri piri juice in your newborn’s navel.” Now, when little boys are born, we treat them with mitayero piri piri in their navels, with tibe piri piri.³ Similarly, we women have the piri piri to learn how to make designs. When they treat you with piri piri in your navel, it has an effect on you; as you spread out the cloth, different designs come to mind for you to reproduce. That does not happen on its own; it is the piri piri that makes you imagine.

                There are also women who are born with that ability even though they have not applied the piri piri juice to their navel; the designs come to their minds without having been treated. Those women know a lot about design—they make small, laborious, and very pretty adornments. So, we have to do things perfectly. It is my opinion that if we do not learn, we are not going to reach our goal. While some women design very beautifully without the need for piri piri, others cannot match them without being cured.

                There is also a piri piri that is applied to the eyes. It is found in floodplains, and its leaves have similar designs to the ones we make, with little dots that form figures and lines. In learning to design, the piri piri is boiled and the eyes are treated with its steam.

                When we treat our eyes with piri piri, we have dreams. We dream that we are in the middle of elegant and resplendent designs. Sometimes we work with the piri piri spirit; at night we design in our dreams. Other times, we see the yacumamas. That does not just occur on its own, it happens because the piri piri has cured us. What we learn with the piri piri is not something new, we have had the piri piri since ancient times.

                The merayas [shaman] in their vision sessions also put an imaginary crown on us so that we have visions of designs. But evilmerayas can take away women’s ability for design.