What is Kambo

Quinne is certified Kambo Practitioner at The IAKP – International Association of Kambo Practitioners since 2019. The IAKP is a non-profit organization that wants to support and encourage kambo’s safe, responsible and professional use through training, awareness-raising, knowledge development and – sharing, development of personal skills, research and best practice.

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The Kambo Healing

Kambo or Sapo is the secretion from the skin of the large green tree frog (Phylomedusa Bicolor) that lives in the Amazon. They are found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, French Guinea, Suriname and Venezuela. Kambo has been used by indigenous tribes for many years and has become popular in the west since the 1980s after Peter Gorman’s famous book, who recorded and published his experience with Kambo at the Matses tribe in Peru.

Kambo and science

There has also been a lot of interest in the Kambo frog and its secretion from science. Vittorio Erspamer, an Italian researcher nominated for the Nobel Prize, was the first to investigate Kambo in a laboratory. He is world famous for discovering the substance serotonin and he described Kambo as a fantastic ‘chemical cocktail’ with potential medical applications.

The most important substances in this cocktail we call Peptides. Peptides are short chains of amino acids and a chain of 50 or more peptides form a protein and these are again important building substances for our body. Some of the peptides are bio active, i.e. they can bind with receptors in the brain and then cause chemical reactions in the body. So far, 9 bio active peptides have been found that have a powerful effect on the stomach muscles, stomach and pancreatic secretions, circulatory and stimulation of the adrenal cortex and pituitary gland.

Treatment diseases

Many researchers believe that a  Kambo treatment  can open a whole new world to treat diseases such as addictions, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, depression, diabetes, Lyme disease and more. Kambo purifies your liver and blood and gives your immune system a boost.

They say that Kambo detoxifies the body and it is a natural way to strengthen the immune system. It has powerful anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antiviral qualities. It is one of the strongest natural antibiotics and anesthetics found naturally in the world. On a mental level, your mind can become more focused and quiet. It can give increased resistance to stress. Kambo can also show you what you no longer need and may let go on the emotional and spiritual level.

The ORIGIN OF KAMBO

Each tribe has its own legend or story about how they started using Kambo.

The most common legend comes from Brazil.

The Kaxinawá legend explains that the tribe’s Indians were very ill and that their medicine man (called Pajé in Brazil) had done everything possible to cure them. All known medicinal herbs were used, but none helped. Under the influence of sacred vegetable medicine, he went into the woods and he was visited there by a female spirit of the forest. She brought a frog into her hands, from which she took a white secretion, and taught the Pajé how to apply it.

Returning to the tribe, according to the guidelines he had received, he could heal his siblings. From that moment on, he was known as Pajé Kampu or Kampum. After his death, his spirit lived on in the frog, where he continued his mission to protect the health of those who defend the forest.

The secretion became known as Kambo, but in some tribes it is called Sapo, Dow-Kiet, Kampu or Vacina da Floresta.

For thousands of years, Kambo has been used as a medicine by the Kaxinawá people and by many other indigenous groups, including the Amahuaca, Katukina, Kulina, Yawanawá, Matses, Marubo and Mayoruna. It is still widely used by indigenous people throughout the Amazon to this day.

The first observations of Kambo’s use were made by a French priest, Father Constantin Tastevin in 1925, while he stayed at the Kaxinawá tribe in Brazil’s upper Juruá River.

In the 1980s, Katherine Milton, an American anthropologist, described kambo’s use of the Mayoruna tribe in Brazil and in the 1980s Peter Gorman wrote about his experiences taking Kambo with the Matses tribe in Peru.

In the 1990s, rubber tappers learned about the Kambo of the Amazon Indians. They started taking it to the cities of Acre and applying it themselves. Francisco Gomes of Cruzeiro do Sol has lived with the Katukina for several years and was one of the first people to pioneer with the use of Kambo outside the Amazon.

The practice spread and soon used people in Brazil’s larger cities Kambo.

The frogs are found in trees near the waterways of the rainforest where they meet to sing and announce the rain.

Traditionally, they are captured shortly after sunrise by the Indians who imitate the frog’s song.

The frogs are very passive and react quietly when they are carefully picked up, possibly because they do not have natural enemies. The secretion, is taken from the frog in an extremely careful way.

Only the first layer of secretion is taken. So they still have enough secretion to defend themselves against enemies.

The frog is never harmed but treated with the utmost care and respect, because people believe they live closely with all the animal spirits and they want to keep them a friend.

Innerlijke-reis buys the Kambo sticks through the IAKP. (International Association of Kambo Practitioners) The IAKP has contacts with the tribes where they collect the Kambo in an ethical way.

Registration treatment

Kambo is legal and not an entheogenic.

For more information or sign up for a Kambo ceremony,  please send an email to:   info@innerlijke-reis.nl or use the contact form.

Look for possible dates for a Kambo treatment in the agenda on this website. Other dates are possible, please contact us for options.

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