by Nita Byrd

Nita Byrd was a fourth-level Andean priest (paqo) initiated through the lineage of Juan Nunez del Prado, an anthropologist and high priest who is one of the primary transmitters of Qero shamanism to the West. The Qero are the direct descendants of the Inka, living in villages near Cusco at elevations of 15,000 feet, and are considered the keepers of the most intact surviving Andean spiritual traditions.

These two posts were written in July 2003 on alt.religion.shamanism, where Byrd was a regular and respected contributor. Together they form an unusually detailed practitioner account: Inka cosmology, the paqo hierarchy (alto mesayok and pampa mesayok), the mesa and its power stones, the Chumpi stones and energy belt work, the despacho ceremony, and the Hatun Karpay — the great initiation that Byrd herself underwent in Peru. Byrd speaks as someone inside the tradition, not as an outside observer.

What makes these posts valuable is Byrd's care to distinguish authentic Qero teaching from New Age adaptations — a distinction she was positioned to make from direct experience with Juan Nunez del Prado and with Qero priests themselves. The Andean tradition she describes has no shamanic journeying, no medicine wheel, and no healing-as-guarantee — all features commonly attributed to it in popular literature.

On Authentic Andean Practice and New Age Interpretations

I haven't talked about Inka shamanism for some time, so thank you for encouraging me.

Alberto Villodo is very knowledgeable about Andean shamanism. He was a student of my last mentor, Juan Nunez del Prado. However, in his recent book he appears to have blurred Inka shamanism somewhat with East Indian religious philosophy. I feel that his books are entertaining and written to sell. Unless one is a serious student, there isn't a problem in reading his works. But I wouldn't say it is purely Inka either.

I feel that it is responsible and fair to keep the shamanic cultural practices as distinct as possible — not intentionally confusing readers as to what is traditional (what bits and pieces there are that have come down from one paqo to another from among the known lineages), and what is motivated or inspired by one's own interpretation of those traditions.

I'd already found a previous book with mention of the "Inka medicine wheel" to have nothing whatsoever to do with Juan's training during the four years I've known him. When asked, he denied there was anything like it with the Qeros of Peru or the Inkas themselves. Other fourth-level priests I met in Peru agreed with him on this — no medicine wheel. The Inkas had entirely different ancestors than the Native Americans on the Northern continent. One can use the medicine wheel as a symbol, but one can make clear what is symbolism as separate from the exact teachings and practices as passed down from the Inkas.

Note how it seems upon reading anything by Castaneda — at least it was true for me — that I kept feeling I'd heard or read something like it previously, and disguised borrowings from other historic cultures. Yet in my four years of study and practice with Juan Nunez del Prado, there was never a medicine wheel.

Sometimes it is inevitable or better when a teacher from one culture adapts the practice for another culture to make better use of it. What I truly admire about Juan is that whenever he shifts to make it easier for westerners to make better sense out of something, he explains what he is doing and why. So you are aware of the Inka traditions, and at the same time you know what is being adapted for westerners' ease of use.

Inka Cosmology

The Inkas thought of the person being conceived at the moment of conception in the womb as total innocence, unlike Christianity's premise of original sin, and that once the baby is born, like the seed that grows into corn or a flower, it needs the spirit of the wind, the mother earth (Pachamama), spirit of water, and the energy of father sun (Inti). Other gods and goddesses then play a part in interaction and receiving and giving of power during the lifetime. There is a goddess of the moon, for example, who gives women certain aspects of their special power.

Reciprocity, or sharing of power, plays a big part of Inka cosmology. Juan always tells the story of two paqos having a race. The one who wins is obligated to tell or show the other how he used his skill if the other asks to be shown how he won. The main principle of Inka belief is that living energy (kawsay) is all around us, and the Inkas were masters of working with energy in organic and non-organic forms.

Syncretism is evidenced by the fact that the Apu is considered an angel or a star.

The Paqo System and the Mesa

Shamanic journeying was unknown to the Inkas. However, the power stones in the mesa are used to receive answers from higher spirits such as the Apus, or spirits of the mountains. Only the alto masayoks have the power to do this. Some of the very highest of Andean priests can even communicate with the stars.

The two main paqo specialists are the alto mesayoks, who work with the Right Side of the mesa, and are considered more powerful because they speak directly with the Apus; and the pampa mesayoks, mainly women, who work with plants and healing and the Left, or Magic Side. The pampas also manage all the ceremonial work. They know how to make up to two hundred or so despachos, or prayer bundles, which are offered to the Apus or Pachamama.

Very few women are paqos, but of the ones who are, most are pampa mesayoks. Haven't women been the strong healers with the knowledge of herbal medicine surely at the dawn of humankind?

The mesa is a special cloth woven by the Qero women in a unique diamond pattern, many of the threads pink, with red, some blue and green and black. The power stones in the mesa have been given to us by our mentors. They often signify what we've accomplished when we do the Hatun Karpay. Because they are given by the teacher to the student, they carry much power. It is like when you get a BA degree and you're handed a diploma. Other stones are given to you by paqos who are learning as you are. You give these out to other students in the spirit of sharing, which is called AYNI, and is a very basic belief in the cosmology. The ethic for the paqo is work, intellect and love.

Some power stones you are drawn to and you find them on your path where you are walking, but most are given to you by a teacher, who will tell you what power the stone or chulla has. Often a karpay or energy initiation takes place at the time a stone is given to a student.

The mesa works something like a radio receiver tuned into a spirit. A young apprentice paqo had to change master teachers before he was able to hear the voice of his Apu literally come out of his mesa. It took the young paqo four years of efforts to achieve his goal.

The Chumpi Stones and Energy Belt Work

The highest healer is the Chumpi Paqo, who uses the five stones. Very rare any more — a dying healing art. Since I know how to create energy belts and have been initiated in this spiritual art, I brought back a set of these stones to continue the art here in America, as the Qeros wish for the rest of the world to know and learn so that their legacy won't die out.

The Chumpi stones open up energy centers and create belts of energy around a person for their well-being, and to strengthen the energy bubble which the Andeans say is part of you when you're born but which can benefit by a strengthening with the stones. The original stones were a type of sea shells which the Inkas had to obtain from Ecuador. Later they became made through a secret process. They are very distinctive and strange-looking. Each stone has from one to five protuberances on its sides. The point is used to open the nawi, or eye of energy, at various places on the body, and then it is used to move the energy to create a belt around the body, horizontally to the nawi.

Working with the stones is fascinating because they are similar to the system of chakra energy centers in the Eastern way that is so well known in the West. However, the actual opening of the center, or Nawi, and then creating an energy belt around the body, is unique to the Andean shamanic system of energy work.

Juan is careful to explain that strengthening the energy body through a set of steps using the special stones may or may not result in a healing. I find this a remarkable thing, as most New Age thought rests purely on healing as a given for everything. So in the indigenous aim, the distinction is always that one must do the exact steps but with the freedom of the paqo's individuality, moving energy, which may result in a healing but is not the prime objective. The prime objective is to strengthen the "patient's" field of personal energy, thereby increasing his or her power. If increasing the power equates to some kind of healing, all to the good. Subtle yet important difference!

Karpay — Initiation

I've been karpayed to the third and fourth levels of consciousness by two masters, and some teaching I've received from other fourth-level priests. So now I'm a fourth level, which simply means that I've been initiated by others who were empowered themselves with the traditional spiritual knowledge that has been passed down — with some unfortunate omissions, or breakages of complete information. Bits and pieces are missing from lineages that have survived. This can sometimes be confusing, and why no two paqos or masters completely agree on everything.

One of Juan's teachers knew all about the magical side, another about the Chumpi stones, another about the Right Side of the path. Another, considered one of the most powerful of contemporary high priests, was not taught by a human master, but taught by Jesus Christ — there you go with an example of syncretism! Don Manuel Quispe, who is no longer coming to the states to teach, is in his late eighties or early nineties. He teaches simply by pressing his mesa onto the top of your head! Yet Juan says he is no doubt very powerful in the spiritual hierarchy of priests in Peru.

A karpay, or initiation, can be a powerful experience in itself. I went into a deep trance during my karpay to the third level.

Everyone knows the level at which everyone operates in this priesthood of paqos. And the learning and practice and levels constantly beckon one to be a lifetime in training.

They have to pay a lot to be taken on by a master shaman priest. In older times they would have to lean on their family to help with the payment — it might be a cow, which was an extremely valuable commodity in those times. Now the modern apprentice pays in cash and other goods and studies with a teacher for some years. Sometimes the teacher and student don't click — they don't feel there is any problem if that happens, it is just the way it is, and the student goes to find another teacher.

The Hatun Karpay and the Qero People

The Hatun Karpay is the great initiation — the Inka full knowledge of trainings. When I made the Hatun spiritual journey of initiation in Peru, I had anemia, which had somehow slipped by my doctor. So I became very faint coming back down from a quite strenuous hike on the mountain to the Cave of the Moon and back to the Machu Picchu deserted city. I gained a new appreciation for the coca leaf when a fourth-level priest advised me to chew some of the leaves that he carried around in a pouch for use in our despacho ceremonies in honor of the mountain spirits, the Apus, or mother earth, Pachamama. They worked just fine.

In the magical, my last training with Juan before undertaking the Hatun Karpay, we did an exercise to find a new spirit, to attract it for empowerment for the practice of an Inka magical technique. Juan had us westerners connect with the ancestors of our own land and tie into the spiritual ways of the Magical art, or Left Side as they call it. He didn't think it wise for us to try to contact the Inka ancestors — but he thought it perfectly fine if we used the Inka technique to contact our own related to our own cultural roots.

A group of Qeros have made a tradition of meeting Juan's Hatun Karpay groups of twelve western initiates every year. They come down on foot for two days from their high mountain top to hold a special bazaar of their hand-made items and other special things for sale to benefit their village. We in turn carry on the tradition of bringing as many clothing items as we can stuff into our travel bags to donate to the people — they are materially one of the poorest people on earth, and unfortunately often treated with disdain by citizens of modern Peru. It is amazing to see them appear at the hotel in their daily costumes which look right out of a movie from a four-hundred-year-old Inka civilization that hasn't changed one iota.

On Divination

Of course one practice they used for divinations was the reading of innards — the Romans used that too, but hardly desirable or appreciated by modern sensibility. What comes to mind among the Andean priests of Peru is Inka specialists known as seers, who use sacred divination ceremony by reading coca leaves scattered into tea water. One of the biggest disappointments for me, being a long-time lucid dreamer, was to find that the Qero priests of Peru have little use for dreaming.

As far as I've been able to understand, communication with the Apus can be auditory or intuition. Some priests also have experiences of spirits like ghosts who can make noises. They see energy spirits inside of animals like the puma, or the condor. Each paqo seems to have their own unique insight, depending on who his mentor was.

On Cultural Transmission

You're absolutely right that traditions necessarily change. One wouldn't want to keep it "pure," because it would have no real meaning and usefulness to you in your own country. It is more like a guide to be used to tap into your own natural spirituality and that connection to the world where you live. This is especially useful for all of us who have lost that close connection with the spiritual when Christianity all but drowned out the power of the natural world and its keepers of wisdom.

There's always a tension between serious seekers and practitioners of the sacred and those who are dabbling into its entertainment value. We must be thankful that no one hardly can manage to mess around with the Qeros because they literally reside where most tourists don't want to travel. However, modernity has influenced and changed them just like everyone else is being changed. Once indigenous people get a little taste of Christianity and modern conveniences, there is no turning back completely. Our world still has classic shamans tucked away in various villages all over the earth, and we are just very lucky if we ever get to meet them.

Colophon

Written by Nita Byrd, a fourth-level Andean paqo initiated in the lineage of Juan Nunez del Prado. Posted to alt.religion.shamanism in July 2003 in two messages (Message-IDs: bfat1n$rfn$[email protected] and bfg87j$o5l$[email protected]). Byrd had trained with Juan Nunez del Prado for four years, had undertaken the Hatun Karpay initiation in Peru, and was a recognized practitioner of the Qero paqo tradition.

These posts were written in response to questions from a fellow newsgroup member and represent among the most detailed first-person practitioner accounts of Inka shamanism available in public digital archives. Byrd's careful distinction between authentic Qero practice and New Age adaptation makes this account particularly valuable.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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