What is Kambo (Sapo)? Risks and what a ceremony is like
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8 min read
Kambo, also called Sapo, is the dried skin secretion of the giant monkey frog, Phyllomedusa bicolor, which lives in the Amazon rainforest. In a Kambo ceremony, a practitioner makes a few small, shallow burns on the skin and puts the secretion on them, and for about 15 minutes the body reacts hard: a racing heart, heat, swelling, nausea and usually vomiting.
Two Birds Church is a small church in Anna, Texas. We have held ayahuasca ceremonies since 2010, and we also hold a small Sapo/Kambo circle about once a month. This post covers what Kambo is, how our circles work, why we use it, and the risks, which are serious.
Kambo and Sapo: one frog, two traditions
Both names refer to the same secretion. Sapo is the practice of the Matsés people of Peru. Matsés hunters traditionally took it before a hunt, and they say it gave them stamina and sharper senses. Kambo is the name used by Indigenous groups in Brazil, such as the Katukina and Kaxinawá. The practice has since spread around the world.
The two traditions do it differently:
- The Matsés activate the dried secretion with saliva. Kambo practitioners use water.
- Sapo goes on a few larger burns made with a heated stick of tamishi vine, usually on the shoulder or upper arm. Kambo uses more, smaller burns made with incense sticks, often placed on chakra and meridian points.
- For Sapo, people come with an empty stomach and drink little or no water. For Kambo, people drink 2 to 3 liters of water right before, and vomiting that water up is the focus.
“Sapo” means toad in Spanish, which leads to a common mix-up. Kambo has nothing to do with Bufo, the secretion of the Sonoran Desert toad (Bufo alvarius), which contains 5-MeO-DMT. Kambo is not a psychedelic either. Most people don’t have visions. What they have is a very strong physical reaction.
What is in the secretion
The secretion is a mix of peptides, short chains of amino acids that act on the body. Scientists have studied them in the lab since the 1980s. Some make the muscles of the gut contract, and they are mostly behind the purge. Some widen blood vessels, which drops blood pressure while the heart speeds up. Two of them, dermorphin and deltorphin, act on the body’s opioid receptors.
None of that research shows that Kambo treats any illness in people, and it is not approved by the FDA to treat anything. You will find websites saying Kambo detoxes the body, boosts the immune system or treats Lyme disease. Research doesn’t back those claims, and we don’t make them. If you have a health condition, keep seeing your doctor and keep taking what they prescribe.
What a Kambo ceremony is like at our church
We call it a circle, and it borrows from both traditions. Circles are usually on the first Sunday of the month, 1 to 2:30pm, before Sunday Service. The group is small. James Elrod, our founder, is a certified Sapo practitioner who trained under Peter Gorman.
Before it starts
You arrive without having eaten for 4 to 6 hours, and without coffee that morning. You can drink up to 8oz of water, no more. That small amount protects your throat if you vomit. Drinking too much water has been behind many Kambo-related incidents, so we skip the liters of water the Kambo tradition uses. Before we begin, we walk everyone through exactly what will happen.
Points and burns
A session is counted in points, the small burns the secretion goes on. First-timers start with 1 point. Most returning members choose 2, and 3 is only for experienced participants. Where a Kambo practitioner might make 5 to 10 small burns, we use 1 to 3 of the larger Sapo-sized ones.
We heat a small stick of tamishi vine until it is red hot, use it to burn just the top layer of skin, and gently scrape that layer away. Then we put the secretion, rehydrated with water, on the burns. For safety we place burns only on the upper arm or the ankle. Some Kambo incidents have happened when burns went in many places, including over the heart.
The 15 minutes
The effects start within about 10 seconds. Warmth spreads out from the burns. You may sweat, shiver and feel dizzy. Your heart can race past 190 beats per minute, and your blood pressure rises and falls. Your face, lips and throat often swell. Strong nausea is common, and you will probably purge by vomiting, by going to the bathroom, or both. You have a bucket next to you, and we help you to the bathroom if you need it. Sweating, tears, shaking and yawning happen too.
It is intense and unpleasant. After about 15 minutes we take the secretion off, and the strongest effects fade quickly. Many people feel very calm right after, and some fall asleep. Music plays through the circle. Afterward we offer hapé, a tobacco snuff, if you want to ground yourself, and we close with a short sharing circle. Plan to rest for the rest of the day. The burns can leave small round scars on some skin.
Why the church uses Kambo
Our sacrament is ayahuasca. We use Sapo to prepare for ayahuasca ceremony, and in our experience it helps get the body and mind ready for it. Members who have already sat in ceremony sometimes come to a circle before or after one, to reconnect with what ceremony showed them.
Like ayahuasca, Kambo is an ordeal. For about 15 minutes your body does something hard that you can’t stop or fight. That makes it a good first teacher for discomfort. The useful part is watching how you react. Do you brace, panic, bargain, try to control it? Or can you breathe and let it happen? Then notice whether that looks like what you do when other things in your life get hard. Seeing it clearly is the start of owning it. Ayahuasca asks the same thing of you, over a much longer night.
That is the whole reason. We offer Sapo as a spiritual practice. It is not medical treatment.
The risks
Kambo carries real risks, even with a trained practitioner. Serious reactions, and some deaths, have been reported around the world, usually after too much water, too many burns, or a health condition that should have ruled the person out. Our rules lower the risk. They don’t remove it.
Our preparation course lists who should not take Kambo at all. Don’t take it if any of these apply to you:
- You have serious heart problems, or you have had heart surgery.
- You have had a stroke, a brain hemorrhage, an aneurysm or blood clots.
- You have low blood pressure, or you take medication that lowers it.
- You have a severe mental health condition, or you can’t make informed decisions for yourself.
- You are having chemotherapy or radiation therapy, or finished it less than six weeks ago.
- You take immunosuppressants for an organ transplant, or you have Addison’s disease.
- You have severe epilepsy.
- You are pregnant or might be, or you are breastfeeding a baby under six months old.
- You are recovering from major surgery.
- You have used Bufo in the last 6 to 8 weeks.
Tell us first if you live with depression, PTSD or anxiety, if you have an active drug or alcohol addiction, or if you take caffeine pills, Adderall, diet pills or any other stimulant, which add stress on the heart. If you take serotonin supplements, sleep aids (melatonin included) or medication for an autoimmune condition, talk to your doctor before you come. The same goes for asthma, diabetes, high or low blood pressure, and liver or kidney problems.
We don’t advise anyone to stop or change a medication. That is between you and the person who prescribed it. If a condition or a medication makes Kambo unsafe for you, we will tell you it isn’t for you.
Is Kambo legal?
Kambo is not a controlled substance in the United States.
How to join a circle
Every participant goes through the same steps. You create an account on our community site, fill out the medical screening form, sign the liability waiver and complete the free Sapo/Kambo Preparation Course, which goes into everything here in more detail. Your place is confirmed only after we approve your screening, and we can say no. Upcoming dates are on the Sapo/Kambo calendar page.
In the days around a circle, skip fasting and cleanses for 3 days before and after, and skip alcohol and recreational drugs from 48 hours before until 3 days after. If you are getting ready for ayahuasca too, our post on the ayahuasca purge and pre-purge covers what tends to come up before ceremony.
If you want to get to know us first, start with the free Welcome course or come to Sunday Service, 3 to 6pm in Anna. Our ceremonies and circles are by invitation.