Kambo - Nature’s Vaccine
What Is Kambo?
Several tribes in the Amazon, such as the Matsés, the Katukina, and the Yawanahua, embark on a journey at the dawn of day and have for countless years in search of medicine.
By listening to its songs while traveling the rainforest waterways, the medicine people find what they’re looking for 100 feet up in the trees — phyllomedusa bicolor.
Phyllomedusa bicolor, also known as the Giant Green Monkey Tree Frog, is carefully and respectfully borrowed for medicine extraction. Medicine people believe the Spirit of the Frog, Kambo, is the one who provides the healing, so they don’t want to cause them any harm.
The frogs don’t mind when they’re picked up, as they lack fear from not having any known natural predators. How is this possible?
It’s because they produce a waxy secretion believed to be poisonous or toxic to many creatures. So, the coating protects them from potential prey.
Believe it or not, this secretion is what the tribes harvest for medicine.
After carefully tying the frogs’ legs with Palia (straw) and spreading them diagonally, a medicine person gently rubs a stick across the frogs’ skin. This collects the secretion on a stick, which gets dried and is later used as the applicator for medicine.
There’s no poking or prodding to encourage the secretion. Rather, a gentle toe massage may occur next to a warm fire.
The frog is then released and won’t get harvested again for at least 3 months. They can tell which frogs they’ve harvested because the Palia leaves a mark on their legs for this long. This factor is essential, as the frogs need to have enough poison left to protect themselves.
It’s important to know what tribe the practitioner gets the Kambo from if you’re receiving healing anywhere outside of the Amazon. That way, you can support people who harvest ethically.
Once the medicine gets harvested and dried, a Kambo ceremony will occur.
Kambo Administration
We should first say that an experienced practitioner should be the only person giving Kambo. The medicine is potent and may be harmful if applied improperly or to a person with certain medical conditions.
Before starting the ceremony, each person should have an intention of why they’re looking towards this medicine. This intention will guide how the medicine works with you and what you’ll gain from the experience.
In a Kambo ceremony, the practitioner creates superficial burns on the subject’s body. These minor burns are called “points” or “gates”. The amount a person receives depends on a variety of factors such as their experience with the medicine, age, and reason for seeking healing.
The 3-5mm points are commonly located on the left arm of men and on the right thigh of women. Once the points are in place, the practitioner can apply the Kambo from the stick used to harvest it.
Please note that Kambo isn’t for everyone. Do research if you have any mental or physical ailment to see if it’s right for you. Your practitioner should also inform you of known contraindications.
Additionally, there’s a protocol for the consumption of food, water, and other substances before, during, and after the ceremony.
This is due to the intense physical response the medicine offers as a part of the healing process.
The Experience of Kambo
After Kambo enters the lymphatic system through the burns, a few physical symptoms begin to present themselves and typically last less than an hour.
The first is often a feeling of heat spreading through the body, followed by an increased heartbeat and decreased blood pressure. Many people feel pressure in their head and in other parts of their body.
The throat may begin to swell. This is normal, as are the other symptoms described, and it won’t completely shut.
After a short period of time, these effects give way unto other healing responses: purging.
Kambo causes the body to release toxins, bacteria, and illness in the form of vomit and diarrhea. This has profound healing effects, as 80% of our immune system is in our gastrointestinal tract.
Many people report feeling like the Giant Monkey Tree Frog itself while undergoing the treatment due to the physical effects of the medicine.
If you’re reading this information for the first time (or even if it’s not new to you), you may wonder why people purposely undergo such an intense process. The answer is that it has profound mental, physical, and spiritual results.
Why People Use Kambo
Traditionally, Kambo’s use in the tribes that harvest it is for immune system health, improved hunting ability, and clearing of negative energy.
The chemical makeup of Kambo includes several peptides that bind to receptors in our body. This creates reactions in our system, seen through the physical process of the ceremony and the long-lasting results.
I’ll sum it up in laymen’s terms for you and further provides a more in depth look at each peptide.
Physical
Each of these peptides works in different ways. They help alleviate pain, destroy pathogenic organisms, and stimulate the endocrine glands, amongst other things.
Kambo may treat:
AIDS
Cancer
Candida overgrowth
Cardiovascular issues
Chronic pain
Circulatory issues
Depression
Fertility problems
Herpes
Hepatitis
Migraines
Skin problems
Some neurological diseases (such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons)
Vision problems
Weakened immune systems
This list isn’t extensive by any means. Again, consult the practitioner before partaking in Kambo in case you have any illnesses that may deem you ineligible.
Research continues to show why these peptides work through chemical study.
Mental and Spiritual
As far as the spiritual effects, you’re relying on the Spirit of the Frog to heal your mind and spirit.
Kambo works with your intention and responds to what you need most. That may be clearing our energy blockages, letting go of negative thoughts, or resetting your system for a fresh start.
People often have intentions of physical healing, as well as getting rid of laziness, sadness, weakness, and disharmony within. As Kambo works with you, it allows you to release these things with the physical release.
Kambo - Sapo
Do you suffer from mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD?
What about physical illness, like migraines, a weakened immune system, or chronic pain?
If the answer is yes, you should learn about the ancient vaccine of the forest — Kambo.
It helps with an array of mental and physical ailments and works on a spiritual level, too. It’s used to clear panema, or a negative cloud of energy, that causes people to feel lost and leads to health issues.
What is Panema?
Traditionally the indigenous peoples have used kambo purify the body of panema, which can be viewed as negative energy or bad luck. In the indigenous worldview, panema is the energy which is behind illness, weaknesses and psychospiritual blocks which inhibit us from advancing in life. By purging the panema, illnesses can be healed and blockages can be removed. Like ayahuasca, the spirit of kambo is conscious and intelligent and guides and helps us in the process of purification and healing.
One of the concepts at stake in this study concerns the definition of “panema.” In the Upper Juruá and throughout Amazonia, panema is seen as a condition of bad luck in hunting (Da Matta 1973). All the urban applicators we spoke with mentioned the use of kambô by the Indians as an anti-panema antidote, providing their own definitions of the term. Thus, an urban applicator, familiar with the use of kambô for ten years, describes panema as a kind of “sadness, negativity, something from the soul, which brings people down… it is really like depression.” Thus, kambô “brings a realignment” to overcome such negative conditions. At the first Brazilian Shamanism Forum, held in São Paulo in March 2005, the previously mentioned female therapist from Santo Daime defined panema as “Indian depression,” a term also used by a doctor who is the leader of a neo-ayahuasquero group in San Paulo. The very idea that kambô is used for hunting contains specific meanings. In the words of a psychologist who organizes sessions for a “doctor of the forest” in Acre, “the prey comes to the hunter, possibly through kambô irradiation, maybe because of the peace it brings, a factor which harmonizes with the forest. You become part it, so the prey approaches you.” Needless to say, this is very far from the native idiom on hunting.
The notion of a ‘second silent pandemic’ is already sweeping the nation as a growing mental health crisis looms large in the aftermath of COVID-19. As a result, underground healing rituals showing strength in psychoactive solutions are steadily on the rise.
One such ceremony is that of Kambo. Containing a plethora of bioactive peptides, the venomous secretion from the Giant Leaf Monkey Frog is being applied via superficial heat-induced blisters to the skin, in a process often referred to as a ‘vaccination’.
In the rich historical context of this integrative medicine, this process is in part employed in order to disperse what indigenous users have been recorded to refer to as ‘panema’ – a negative entity believed to manifest in physical sickness, mental depression and bad luck hunting .
The translation of this view under a holistic Western lens may equate to the dispersal of both physical infections through stimulation of the immune response, and psychological changes produced by the induction of the parasympathetic state alongside symbolic healing involving the core transpersonal principles of ecopsychology .
So, could this controversial cure hold equal transformative potential within the realms of Western approaches to mental health management, through its injection of psychospiritual and ecotherapeutic paradigms?
Peptide powerhouse
While the kambo frog secretion contains many different types of molecules, the most notable are it’s diversity of peptides. These peptides present in a wide variety of forms and analogues within specific peptide families. A peptide is a chain of amino acids linked together. Similar to a protein, a peptide is classified based on the length of the chain of amino acids. You can kind of think of them as very short-chained, teeny proteins that are usually 5-20 amino acids long.
Peptides are important for human physiology and biology in general. Many of our hormones and signalling molecules are peptides, including endorphins, oxytocin, and insulin. Peptides in animals and plants are very common, especially as defense mechanisms in anurans (frogs and toads), reptiles, molluscs, crustaceans, insects and birds. There are several major classes of peptide families found in kambo, as described below.
Dermorphins and Deltorphins
Dermorphins and Deltorphins are opioid-like peptides contained in kambo with Dermorphins having a high binding affinity for Mu opioid receptors, and Deltorphins having a high binding affinity for delta opioid receptors. Both of these classes of peptides have strong analgesic, pain-blocking properties and have a potency of up to 1000 times that of native endorphins and 30-40 times the potency of morphine.
Despite their potent opioid receptor activity, neither dermorphin or deltorphins show evidence of dependence or abuse potential. This may be attributed to the strength of the peptides reducing the necessary dosage . In one human study, dermorphin outperformed morphine as a post-operative pain drug. Dermorphin has been used illegally in horse racing for its ability to block pain in injured horses.
Deltorphin shows evidence of having gastroprotective effects that are mediated by interaction with the vagal nerve implying that this opioid peptide may have neuroregulatory properties
Dermaseptins
The Dermaseptins may be the most fascinating of all the peptides found in kambo. Dermaseptins have incredible antibiotic activity and have been found to be effective against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. Studies have explored dermaseptins ability to destroy on contact pathogens such as E.coli, salmonella, gonorrhea, herpes viruses, HIV, candida albicans, and even malaria-causing protozoans. Dermaseptins have a promising future as medications given their ability to kill pathogens selectively without harming animal cells.
Dermaseptins are also extremely effective at killing cancer cells and inhibiting their growth. Some dermaseptins such as adrenoregulin have also been found to affect adenosine agonist activity and may increase permeability of the blood brain barrier, making it of interest to drug delivery development.
Phllyomedusin
Phyllomedusin is a peptide that interacts with the tachykinin system in mammals. This system is important for regulating the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. Phyllomedusin also causes the rapid contraction of intestinal muscles and is a potent vasodilator, which may also lead to an increase in vascular permeability through the blood-brain barrier.
Phyllokinin
Phyllokinin interacts with the bradykinnin system, which causes relaxation of smooth muscle. It is also a vasodilator and may influence blood-brain permeability. This peptide causes a rapid drop in blood pressure.
Phyllocaerulein
Phyllocaerulein stimulates the adrenal cortex and pituitary gland while causing gall bladder contractions and secretion of gastric and pancreatic juices. Phyllocaerulein and phyllokinnin contribute to hypotensive effects of kambo and why some people’s blood pressure drops, causing temporary fainting.
Adenoregulin aka Dermaseptin B2 - Dermaseptins including Adenoregulin form part of a family of a broad spectrum of antimicrobial peptides involved in the defence of the frogs’ bare skin against microbial invasion. In laboratory settings, it has been proven that Adenoregulin has both the ability to inhibit different forms of cancer and to restore healthily blood vessel growth. Despite the potent anti-cancer and antibacterial action of this peptide, it appears to be non-toxic to healthy human and animal cells.
Litorin, Phyllolitorin, Rohdei-Litorin, “Leu”-phyllolitorin - 4 neuropeptides that stimulate gastric acid and pancreatic secretion and smooth muscle contraction.
Sauvagine
Sauvagine influences cortico-releasing-hormone system and the pituitary-adrenal axis, which is important for modulating stress, mood and impulsive behavior. Sauvagine also causes intense tachycardia, or increase of heart rate.
Synergy between the peptides
While there is some research on how the peptides work individually, there is no research on how they work in combination with one another. Some researchers speculate that the presence of some peptides may alter the biological effects of other peptides. One example of this is the theory that bradykinins, such as phyllomedusin and phyllokinin, may alter the vascular permeability of the blood-brain barrier and may facilitate the entering of other peptides into the brain that normally wouldn’t pass the blood-brain barrier if administered individually.
Antimicrobial and antiviral effects
Many of the peptides found in Kambo have antimicrobial and antiviral effects. Indeed, it is thought that one of the primary roles of the frog’s secretions is to act as a defensive shield for the frog’s skin against the invasion of various parasitic fungi and other microbes that would otherwise have a relatively easy time getting through and infecting the frog.
In more recent studies, many of these same peptides have been examined for use in treating otherwise problematic and drug-resistant bacteria and viruses that can play havoc with patients that have weakened immune systems - either as a result of their general health, or, particularly those with immunodeficiency disorders.