Origins of Kambo
There are many legends from many tribes – but one of the most well-known one is that of the Kaxinawá tribe from the Northern Amazon Basin in Brazil. This Kaxinawá legend tells that the members of the tribe were very ill and their medicine man/Pajé had tried everything to cure them. Nothing helped.
On an Ayahuasca journey, he entered the forest and whilst there received a visit from a female spirit of the forest. She brought in her hands a frog, from which she took a white secretion, and taught the Pajé how to apply it. Returning to the tribe and following the guidelines he had received, the Pajé was able to cure his brothers and sisters. From then on, he was known as Pajé Kampu or Kampum.
When he passed on, his spirit lived on in the frog, where it continued its 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.
Usage spread, and for thousands of years, Kambo has been used as medicine by the Kaxinawá people, and by many other indigenous groups including the Amahuaca, Katukina, Kulina, Yawanawá, Matses, Marubo and Mayoruna. It is still used widely amongst indigenous people in the Amazon to this day.
The first observations of Kambo use were made by a French priest, Father Constantin Tastevin in 1925 whilst he was staying with the Kaxinawá tribe in the upper Juruá River in Brazil. In the 1980’s an American Anthropologist, Katherine Milton described Kambo use among the Mayoruna tribe in Brazil and in the 1980's Peter Gorman wrote about his experiences taking Sapo (Kambo) with the Matses tribe in Peru.
During the 1990’s, rubber tappers in Brazil learned about Kambo from the Amazon Indians. They began to take it out into the towns of Acre and apply it themselves. Having spent several years living with the Katukina, Francisco Gomes from Cruzeiro do Sol was one of the first people to pioneer the use of Kambo outside the Amazon. The practice spread and soon people in the larger cities of Brazil were using Kambo.
Kambo is legal almost everywhere in the world with few exceptions.