EXPERIENCE and QUALIFICATIONS

Experience and Qualifications

of Yachak Tayta Willka Willak

(Guillermo Santillán)

Tayta Willak now has nearly three decades experience teaching, counseling, and performing thousands of public and private Andean ceremonies. These include all four major annual Raymikuna; shutichiykuna (“baptism” and naming ceremonies); wayrapichaykuna (spiritual personal energy cleansings); wasipichaykuna (“house blessing” ceremonies); sawariykuna (wedding ceremonies), and more. He also has facilitated hundreds of ayahuasca and other indigenous plant medicine ceremonies with small groups and individuals.

Tayta Willak and his family built the first Pakarinka building atop a sacred hill as a ceremonial and cultural education center over twenty years ago. Local, national and international visitors are invited to visit Pakarinka to learn about and experience traditional runakawsay (the living culture of the Andean indigenous people) and runayachay (ancestral knowledge).

The design of the original Pakarinka building first appeared to Tayta Willak in a dream. It was built twenty years ago from organic materials and had to be replaced this year with more durable materials. The building retains its original firepit used for gatherings and ceremonies and maintains its museum display open to the public at no charge.

Tayta Willak was born into a Kichwa Otavalo Indigenous family in Agato, a rural mountain community just above Peguche Falls in Otavalo.

He first began learning runa (Andean indigenous) ancestral wisdom and spirituality from his own parents and grandparents, all acknowledged by their own community as authentic yachakkuna (“the ones who know" in Kichwa, “shamans”).

Tayta Willak spent nine years of his life training to become a yachak (shaman) in the home of yachak Hatun Tayta Alberto Taxo in Cotapaxi, Ecuador. Hatun Tayta Alberto’s teachings emphasized respect, gratitude and reciprocity with healing Nature. and the Native American prophecy of the reunion of the Condor with the Eagle. In this photo from his youth, Tayta Willak holds a young eagle.

KICHWA OTAVALO CULTURAL ECUCATION CENTER BUILT OF EARTH AND WOOD OTAVALO.jpeg

Tayta Willak speaks five languages: Kichwa, English, Castellano (Spanish), Italian and French.

Tayta Willak is a leader of a national network of indigenous yachakkuna from Imbabura, Cotopaxi, Napo, Cañar and other regions of Ecuador. The network’s primary mission is to keep the traditions and practices of indigenous yachakkuna firmly rooted in the knowledge and principles of their own ancestral cultures at a time when "shamanism" and plant medicine ceremonies (especially ayahuasca) are being culturally appropriated by outsiders (neoshamans) for commercial purposes and private financial gain.

At Pakarinka, Tayta Willak and his family host indigenous “shamans” from other nations and cultures who together share ancestral wisdom and ceremonies.

Tayta Willak served four years as a member of his Agato community’s cabildo (governing body), including one year as community president.

Tayta Willak sometimes makes himself available to people who come to him seeking guidance on their personal journey to becoming a “shaman.”

Tayta Willak lives with his wife and two children at beautiful Pakarinka, surrounded by their ayllu (extended family), including a yachak brother and their mother in the photo below.