Of How I Met A Peruvian Spirit Shaman

This statue is a Waka, made by a Peruvian artisan shaman from the witchcraft market at the city of La Paz. It was given to a friend of mine several years ago, while he was studying and working with the indigenous community (he’s a historian) – the story of how it arrived to me is quite interesting I think.

He was visiting the witchcraft market and saw a French tourist recording a shaman doing his sacred work. The shaman asked him several times to stop recording him, but the tourist acted as if he didn’t understand and kept recording. My friend, who’s a Leo (and Leos can’t deal with injustice, oh no!), confronted the tourist until he left. Then the shaman called my friend by his side and gave him this Waka to protect him as a sign of thankfulness. Originally, it had a band made of llama foetus hair, tinted with the colours of the different indigenous groups of Peru. The band is long lost now.

My friend is a complete atheist, but a very respectful and intelligent person, so he kept the statue carefully and brought it back to Spain along with other memories from that country, that had captivated him completely. He had developed wonderful relationships there and was much loved by the indigenous community for his humility and knowledge, two virtues that hardly go together in any person I have ever met, but that he definitely has.

Years and years went by, and one day he started dating my best friend. Of course we met almost immediately and our connection was complete – despite the religious differences, we are both anarchists, punks and armchair philosophers. He became my compadre in one night of conversation. Hours after meeting, during that same conversation, he told me that he would love to give me the Waka, knowing that I could care for it better than him.

A few weeks later, he brought it to me – and as he was standing at my door, the statue fell off his hands and crashed in the ground. A statue that he had kept for at least ten years (don’t know the exact date, I’ll have to ask him), and that had survived several plane flights and movings, was now crushed on the ground. When I opened the door, he was there picking up pieces and saying a complete sentence full of very dirty words (lol).

I thought he was actually scared (he’s an atheist, but not a stupid!), so I told him that the spirit had to break free from him to enter my house, and he relaxed a little. He was relieved by the fact that I could make a good repair of it. I wrapped the pieces on a piece of fabric and put it in my doll’s closet where it would be safe and quiet, with the intention of letting him choose if he wanted to stay here or not. I knew he would gave me a signal, and a few days later I dreamt my husband and I were in Peru, in an occult shop, looking for things to buy. Through a door at my left, a man appeared and looked at us. He didn’t look exactly like a Peruvian, but he definitely was an Indian by his face figures. He was wearing sandals, brown old pants and a shirt that was almost a rag. He was carrying two big leather sacks, with straps crossing his chest, and from the side of one of the bags a flock of feathers in brilliant colours was pointing out. He wore many leather bracelets, necklaces with charms and some kind of goat leather hat, similar to that cylinder beaded African hats. He was about 40, and with a serious frown he said:

- I’m going to grab Fernando by his balls!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. This is what you get with spirits. Not prophecies, but grabbing my husband by the balls. NO WAY. I got very angry, so angry that I woke up, got up and went directly to the Waka to tell him “If you don’t plan to start behaving, I’m NEVER going to fix you and I’ll throw you in the garbage!!!!”

This is what you get with Witches.

Several months have passed, and for a while I didn’t see him again, but I know spirits – you have to be very patient with spirit matters, and just like us living people, dead people can change their minds and learn from their mistakes. Two days ago I saw him again, he nodded politely at me and told me his name (which I’m not revealing here, but is a very common Spanish name actually) and that he wanted to help my husband in his magickal path, but that he had expressed his wish to help in a very inappropriate way. I told my husband, and he agreed to make a small altar for him while I fixed the figure. Here are the pics of the repairing process, which was done with air-dry ceramic clay and acrylic paints. My husband made the wood stand, which is not finished yet – we’ll wait a while until he tells us what he prefers, as he has started to be very talkative! He already asked for a small wood bench we had in the garden roof as his altar, very near to Eleggua’s place. I had to reconstruct some parts and the painting process was not easy, but I think it looks very good to be the first repairing I make of this kind of pieces.

Indian tribes are an essential part of Santeria, because the black slaves got quickly mixed and married Indian people. In Venezuela’s pantheon, for example, the Indian chief Guaicaipuro is part of the most important trinity of deities. It is very natural that shamans are welcome here! I studied shamanism very deeply for a long time and a big part of my work has been born from it. I love the shaman concept because it is very open and differs greatly from one practitioner to the next, as I think all Witchcraft should be: a personal religion, made in the shape of the practitioner, where rules are set by experiences and not by dogma.

A magickal story, isn’t it?