Spirit Visions
Colombian Waira/ Chacapa - Shamanic Leaf Rattle
Colombian Waira/ Chacapa - Shamanic Leaf Rattle
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The Waira AKA Chacapa (also known as Shakapa, "the wind of the forest") is a tribal instrument, a leaf rattle. It is used in Amazonian healing rituals to hold space by clearing, moving, and cleaning the energies. These special leaves produce a hypnotic and soothing rattling sound when shaken. These Specific Wairas are harvested, assembled and wrapped with love by my maestro: master healer, curandero, and an Elder shaman of the Kamëntsá tribe, Taita Bernardo Chindoy. These Chacapas is each made from approximately 100 branches (just like Taitas personal waira)! Typically, most curanderos make these with only 20-40 branches. Additionally, these are hand wrapped my Taita Bernardo with his special technique that ensures they will last for years and never come undone!
About the Waira
- Handmade ancient ritual instrument of South America, Used in Most of the traditions.
- Made from the leaves of Pariana stenolemma tutin.
- Used by a shaman for healing and ritual ceremonies
- A tool used to move energy and cleanse ceremonial and personal space
In the Amazon jungle, a Waira / Chacapa is used in ceremonies. The shaman, singing Ikaros, shakes it and moves it with various techniques that work the energy of the ceremony in different ways.
The sound of Chacapa is said to soothe patients during the ceremony and helps to “purify” their energy. There are many shamanic ways of moving Waira, and each one creates a different sound and a different energy wave. According to Amazonian tales, a shaman working with a person can capture their negative energy in a shakapa, which he (or she) then blows through or shakes off the leaves into the forest.
Any “evil spirit” or heavy or dense energies can then be absorbed by and dissipated into Mother Nature’s purifying energy.
Note: These are very rare in the USA and are very difficult to import. We can currently only get these by traveling to the jungle of Colombia, in person. The price reflects both the quality of the tool, and the energy invested in making it available. These are only for sale within the USA. No international shipping.
About the Maker: Taita Bernardo Chindoy
Taita Bernardo is a revered master of the Kamëntsá people of the Sibundoy Valley, Colombia, with decades of experience in traditional healing, medicine making, and spiritual guidance. He is known not only as a curandero and ceremonial leader, but also as a father, grandfather, and teacher who carries his lineage with integrity, humility, and strength.
He creates sacred medicines for many other healers who do not have direct access to the jungle — offering yagé and other plant remedies to Taitas' across Colombia and beyond. This role is reserved for the most trusted and powerful medicine men. The yagé and other remedies he prepares are served to tens of thousands — perhaps even hundreds of thousands — of individuals each year.
He knows the jungle by heart, having studied each plant not just academically, but through direct communion with its spirit. He lives in harmony with the land, healing alongside his family, and walking the medicine path with deep humility, strength, and devotion.
Lineage: The Chindoy Legacy & Entheobotanical History
Taita Bernardo is the grandson of Salvador Chindoy, the legendary Kamëntsá shaman.In the 1940s, Salvador Chindoy played a pivotal role in the preservation and transmission of Amazonian plant knowledge when he took Richard Evans Schultes under his guidance in the Sibundoy valley of Colombia. Schultes would later become known as the father of modern ethnobotany, helping bring the wisdom of sacred plants to the wider world.
In the image above, you see grandfather and grandson standing side by side — two men, two moments in time, separated by nearly 70 years, yet united by lineage and mission. The black-and-white portion shows Salvador Chindoy ~1945, symbolizing the ancestral past and the root of this sacred tradition. The color section captures Taita Bernardo ~2015, representing the continuation of that medicine — still vibrant today
Taita Bernardo caries a living portal. A bridge between timelines. Between the black-and-white of ancestral memory and the full-color presence of living in this moment. He walks between worlds, bringing forward the wisdom of the grandfathers while tending the needs of the now
This lineage is not something preserved in old photographs or sealed away in history books. It is alive. And it lives through the hands, prayers, and breath of those who carry it with integrity.
Since February 2018, I have had the honor of apprenticing under Taita Bernardo Chindoy. At a time when I was deeply broken, he opened his home to me, allowed me to live with him and his family in the jungle, and entrusted me with his teachings. What he offered was not just knowledge, but responsibility—guidance rooted in humility, discipline, and devotion to the plants and the people they serve
This is the lineage of Taita Salvador Chindoy.
This is the lineage of Taita Bernardo Chindoy.
This is the lineage of Spirit Visions.
