Regis Myrupu is a Pajé (shaman), so it is said in the geral language. It cannot be written that Myrupu does Paje, he simply is. That distinction between doing and being falls, as it is a training that lasted a lifetime.
He is in fact the only heir to the shamanic knowledge transmitted to him by his father Raimundo Kissibi and is completing his training.
The day set for the interview to welcome me at home is Romina Bianconi, who assists and translates throughout the session, in the delicate transition from Portuguese to Italian on topics such as healing, illness, origins of a people .
He immediately explains to me where the place of origin of Regis is, São João do Tupè, 25 km from Manaus. On the territory from which Regis comes there are about 35 natives, including children and adults who have kept alive and pure traditions among music, dance, recipes and crafts .
When Regis entered the room there was a wave of calm, almost the air had turned green, with his calm step, solid shoulders and eloquent hands. He sat in front of me with smiling eyes and in his features and in his ways I recognized that wisdom, that self-aware management seen in many masters of many other traditions - from meditation to martial arts - that I got to know from close.
Even Romina - the bridge of this happy meeting - is a wonderful woman, one of those who move worlds in silence, with strength and a smile. Graduated in Graphic Design and then in Product Design, with specialization in Social Service Design, and now specializing in the Master in Product Design, she is giving all her energy to the project that with the indigenous Regis tribe is developing in the Amazon: Floresta Cultural Herisãrõ .
It is a project that involves the indigenous residents and brings willing patrons between the forest and the Rio for a more authentic experience than those offered by many travel agencies, where the indigenous reality is observed from outside but not immersed.
Herisãrõ will create a contact with these indigenous people: you can learn the history and origin of their culture, how they use rain and torrential water, find out how they relate to the land and the forest, how they take care of housing maintenance, how they cook, they play, they dance, they care.
With them you can listen to the forest and its spirit, regenerate yourself by taking walks in the forest, exploring plants, sounds, smells and silence, tasting fruit and experimenting to get your hands dirty and build or cook with them. You will sleep in the hammock in the trees or in their homes, you will taste the sense of discovery as the eyes and the wonder of a child in different stories, rowing the boat in the lake or sitting in a symbolic anaconda boat.
There is a Cultural Identity and needs network on the web, presenting a first thesis project on their community and group, with analysis of the current situation and photo gallery of the community where they live and of the Regis family created by Romina.
Montura also dedicated a beautiful report to Raimundo Kissibi (Pajé) and his son Regis Myrupu . The book "A space to discover your Herisãrõ: A notebook to stimulate the first journey into the indigenous ancestral knowledge of the Amazon" (Michael Edizioni) has just been released, whose revenues will be used for the implementation of the project.
Regis explains to me that his knowledge has been handed down to him by his father and this has required a long apprenticeship phase full of spiritual trials.
Being well or wanting to heal implies an "I can". What is power?
For a shaman, but also in a broad sense, I would say that power lies in choice. For me in choosing to do good .
Where did the power that was handed down to you originally come from?
Our God in the first world * is called Bore k a and created all this, also foreseeing that there would be the advent of a "white" medicine, which would have provided more rapid treatments and with technological means very different from ours. Our God had prepared cures and answers also for diseases and imbalances that would develop in the future.
Why should a person rely on a shaman?
Going to the shaman means t decorating the roots and relying on spirituality . One does not have to come to Brazil, the possibility of being well there is in all places, if there is inner will and purity.
The shaman is a medium that allows a contact between the spirit and the ground, it is he who is at the service of the good, to heal, purify and protect.
You use a lot of tools with wood materials, bird plumage, teeth of other animals; cigar, sacred ritual stick, necklaces. The call to nature in your healing tools and constant ...
Nature is life (and living) and it revives life itself in us.
What are the responsibilities of a healer?
Take care of others without following the side of negativity, crossing personal dislikes. I cannot deny myself something that is asked of me; even if my worst enemy asked me to make him better, I must serve. This attitude is also a way to develop myself.
" For a shaman the world is small ", he tells me and states that for him it is made of six houses and that the spirit can travel and move through them. " I knew you would come and I had a dream about it tonight ." He describes the dream to me, which also resonates with many things I had experienced the day before I arrived at Romina's house.
He explains to me that it is the task of the shaman to heal, clean, protect, and that the various orifices welcome the genesis of the disease, the vehicles of the imbalance that then affects the various apparatuses.
The mouth, first, from there come out words that can be bad. The nostrils, the eyes (you can get sick for having seen others or having seen yourself perform unworthy actions), hearing (for having heard not benign indications and having followed them). " All things " he tells me " then connect and immediately lead back to a single place that is the mind . Everything settles there and it is the task of the shaman to purify it ".
The really wonderful thing is that this truth for which the source is our mind and imbalances arise from the wrong use we make of it is found in many traditions, which are Christian, Indian (the improper use of the senses is defined in the culture medical ayurvedic as asatmya indriyartha samyog ), Tibetan or related to Native Americans or other types of shamanism. And the mind must not be denied, Regis also confirmed, but kept in touch with the heart, to feel and use that force that makes us capable of transforming life .
* According to this indigenous tradition in the first world we men were invisible, there were no concrete forms of people and animals in the current visible way. There was a flood, a strong flood, the waters subsequently lowered, the earth dried up to then catch fire, and remained only a stone, and the god helped by a small and apparently simple little being took care of collecting the earth and recreate it, spread it, form mountains, create the Rio. At this stage the human being has taken the form of being visible.
Attention: this is not a legend. For the tradition to which the shaman belongs this is not myth, but history, as far as this can escape our understanding.
