When Senen Bita, an elderly Shipibo-Konibo médico, started to sing, a hush fell over the assembled family members, and the young man who had come to consult the healer. Senen Bita had drunk a psychoactive plant preparation called ayawaska, or nishi in Shipibo language, about half an hour ago. As people fell silent, the omnipresent nighttime orchestra of rainforest animal sounds provided the acoustical backdrop for Senen Bita’s voice. He sang about plants and animals, calling upon them, and about opening worlds in heavenly light. Soon his voice changed to an impressive falsetto, at exact pitches, reminding me, the European listener, of a well trained opera soprano. In his lyrics, he mentioned the inka people. Inka doctors and inka nurses worked in their hospital on a shining metal apparatus. The inka people were singing and dancing, and later, Senen Bita explained that he had imitated the inkas’ songs, and that they were essentially powerful médicos. They would be able to cure the young man who was dozing in front of the healer. In this article, I embarked on an analysis of how curing songs in the Shipibo lived world are understood, acquired and performed. Therefore, the modalities of learning such songs and an analysis of respective Shipibo terminology were presented. Further on, four excerpts from different curing songs were compared in both their form – which appeared similar – and their fairly different functions.