Kambo is a traditional Medicine used by many indigenous tribes in the Amazon basin for the last several hundred years, and more than likely much longer. Kambo is the venomous secretion of Phyllomedusa bicolor (the giant leaf or monkey frog) – a bright green tree frog, and is a medicine that is traditionally used to detoxify the body, cleanse the mind, open and connect one together with nature, improve hunting abilities, vaccinate against and treat various diseases, and ultimately and most importantly, to connect directly with the great Spirit.
Today, Kambo is being used for many of these same reasons in the modern world, and a variety of protocols are being developed to help people treat a wide variety of debilitating mental and physiological conditions and diseases, including depression, lyme disease, HIV, and even certain forms of cancer. Finally, while Kambo often elicits a physically oriented experience initially, as one works with the medicine more, the experience also changes and deepens, often becoming much more subtle and energetically/spiritually oriented.
Kambo is applied to the body via small burn marks made to the skin, often called Kambo dots or gates. The medicine initially elicits a wide variety of “cleansing and detoxing” symptoms, which often include some amount of purging (vomiting), as well as sweating, crying, or physical tremoring. These release valves, it is said, are the process by which Kambo elicits its mind/body healing effects through a massive discharge of accumulated tension, stress, and toxins from the physical body. Scientifically, you could say that Kambo is very much a nervous system oriented medicine, effectively down-regulating the body and putting one into a more parasympathetic state of being, helping the individual to recalibrate and find homeostasis again. Metaphysically, the indigenous believe that Kambo opens up ones energy field by removing Panema, or bad luck, from a persons field, thereby realigning their spirit with the positive energy of nature and the cosmos more and more overtime.
