Onanya Baque Raoni

Here, Elena Valera, whose Shipibo-Konibo name is Bawan Jisbe, depicts an onanya curing a child, pictured with its mother. An onanya is a healer who, through chants and the use of medicinal plants, treats patients affected by both physical and spiritual illnesses. Valera began to produce figurative paintings like this at the suggestion of Pablo Macera, as a way of recording in images the customs of her community.
Rather than reproducing western styles, however, Valera reconfigures them in order to address uniquely Shipibo-Konibo themes. In her painting, she uses Amazonian soil and plants as pigments, and kené to decorate the clothing of her subjects.
Kené is a geometric pattern referencing elements of the Shipibo-Konibo worldview. Valera learned the style from her mother in Iparía, where she also worked as a healer.